How are you feeling?
Evangeline
Weird.
I feel like someone is watching me.
Mia
Babe…
There’s an entire audience watching you.
Evangeline
No. This feels different…
Am I being paranoid?
I feel like someone is here. Someone important.
Mia
Me, duh.
Anyway, that’s odd. I dunno. Better get to the stage soon!
Evangeline
Yeah… odd…
She was beautiful.She was so fucking beautiful it made my eyes hurt, and my heart pound, and my icy heart feel like it was on fire. I leaned forward without thinking of it, my body like a puppet whose strings were controlled by Eva. Every demon inside of me silenced itself so it could listen to the music as she moved.
“Wow,” I whispered. “She’s amazing.”
My fixed attention on the dancing wasn't respect for technique or appreciation for choreography, or whatever other words Nikolai kept using to compliment them. No, it was sharper. Hungrier. Because I had found my snowflake in a storm, and part of me was worried that if I looked away, she would disappear.
And I would never let that happen again.
Unlike Nikolai, who considered himself a patron of the arts, I couldn’t care less about paintings and dancing and shit. Therewas probably a wing with my cousin’s name on it at every museum in the city. Our family was certainly wealthy enough to do it, though most of my charitable donations were made to the city police in return for their...disinterestin my family's activities. Never something as silly as a ballet.
Yet watching Eva dancing, a white and silver skirt flowing around her rapidly moving legs, leaping and turning like it was second nature, I found myself unable to look away. She was a natural, her feet moving at angles that were surely painful. There was discipline in her body—years of it, etched into muscle and bone. Suffering, sacrifice, and obedience. And I realized, then, that maybe the arts could be beautiful. I only needed a muse.
"Does it hurt her?" I asked Nikolai as she elevated to her toes once more.
"Certainly," he said, his expression unbearably smug, knowing that he pleased me. "That sort of thing can't feel pleasant. Their feet certainly reflect the toll. The redhead I fucked—she's the one on the far left—had disgusting feet, but it was kind of a turn on. Sort of a reminder that she's trained her body to be able to handle it."
I didn't like that. I didn't like the idea of Eva hurting herself for a show, of making herself bleed and bruise in the name of beauty. Yet I couldn't judge her for such a thing, because I could tell now, watching her on the stage, that this was her home.
But I wanted to be her home. I wanted every ache, every turn, every breath she drew to belong to me. If anyone dared to step between us, I would end them without mercy.
"And anyway, Eva can definitely stand these movements. I mean, look at her legs. They're fantastic. I bet?—"
But he was cut off by my hand wrapping around his throat and squeezing until his lips turned a pale shade of blue.
Nikolai's eyes widened as I aimed a dark glare at him. "Don't youevertalk about my future wife's legs—or any other part ofher fucking body—that way again. Or you’ll find out firsthand why they call me the Reaper."
He nodded quickly. "Got it, got it. What body? I'm so blind I can't see it."
