“Come with me.” Kole pulled at my hand then. I hesitated. While a quick tryst in the shadowed corners sounded tempting, I didn’t want to miss the dancer herself if she appeared. “Trust me.” Kole nipped at my ear. His pierced tongue slid over the tender skin beneath my earlobe, and I shuddered at his honed attention. He pulled me after him. Every so often, he’d glance back with mischievous eyes.
Once we dipped behind a curtain, I tugged his collar and pressed our lips together. He tasted like he’d been smoking again. I flicked my tongue against his and circled his piercing. He squeezed my breast. I was hungry for intimacy and wanted to take advantage of this moment—when his wandering eyes only wanted me.
A throat cleared from somewhere behind us.
I pulled away to find a beautiful, snake-masked blonde lounged along a velvet chaise. Her white gown clung to her slim, bony frame with a slit at her crossed thighs. A glass of dark crimson liquid was cupped between a similar shade of sharp nails. She couldn’t have been much older than me, yet a heaviness to her painted features aged her.
“Oh,” I mused. “Would you like to join?—”
“Do us both a favor and don’t finish that sentence,” Kole said wryly. He turned to adjust himself.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I murmured.
“So. This her?” the woman prompted Kole.
I frowned in return. “Her who?”
“Roselyn,” Kole said carefully, his hands resting atop my shoulders. “This is the matron. The showrunner of Serpentine.”
He knew this woman. He knew this place. He’d been here before. All the times we’d talked about coming here as if it wouldnever be anything more than a pointless dream now stung like a slap to the face, breaking past my alcohol-induced haze.
“I go by Rahzlyn, actually,” I clarified. “And you are…?”
The attractive woman rose to her feet and proceeded to circle me like a vulture, a chamberstick in hand. The pounding music from the other rooms faded as I struggled to keep my head from spinning.
“I saw you dancing out there,” she crooned. Her fingers tousled my curls in one hand, her other bringing the candlelight closer. “Is this your natural hair color?”
“That’s… an odd question.”
“It is,” Kole answered for me. “A deep brown, nearly black in certain lighting. Until the sun or even the moon touches it. Then?—”
“It takes a reddish hue, like a rose,” the woman murmured, continuing to study my hair. “You’ve caused quite the stir out there with your dancing. Where have you trained?”
“Trained?”
“To dance.”
“I haven’t,” I said. “Though apparently I could dance before I could walk.”
“No untrained dancer in Gemini can move the way you do. That is not the way someone born to an air sign dances.”
“Well, I guess that makes me special then.”
The woman’s gaze roamed over me before shifting to Kole. “She must be a quick study. And I suppose the similarities are sufficient.”
“Sheis standing right here.”
Kole asked me, “How would you like a job here?”
“A what?” I wasn’t qualified for anything of importance here. Though there was one occupation I surmised on our way in that merely required a pretty face and naked body. It wasn’t the first time I’d been approached for such employment.
“To dance,” Kole clarified after an apparently long silence. “Just dance.”
My heart unclenched in disbelief as the words sunk in. I was being offered a job not as a whore—but as a dancer. Hot excitement coursed through me. I couldn’t refuse an opportunity to financially support myself while doing something I loved, proving I didn’t need a husband to find my way in this world. The baroness would never tolerate a dancer for a daughter-in-law. At the very least, I would have a means to save for a travel stone and support my escape to another territory if it came to that.
Basil said I jumped into things too quickly withouttrulyunderstanding the consequences. Right now, there were far too many benefits outweighing whatever drawbacks existed with this agreement.
My hand twitched. It hovered at my side as I pondered how reckless this was. I would be stupidnotto seize this opportunity. I thrust my hand out. “I accept.”
