Page 55 of Dance of Devils

I feel my cock swell as my mind replays her lips searing to mine. Remembers the softness of them, her tongue swirling against mine.

With a flinch, I try for the millionth time since it happened to shove those thoughts away.

No. She’s too young. She’s toopure.

And I’m a fucking plague.

I take a slow, deep breath.

I’ll keep coaching Brooklyn. Even if that spot in Moscow she covets so much is off the table, I’ll continue what we started. Talent that rare deserves to be nurtured, and supported, and stoked like a fire.

But everything else?

I blow out a breath as I watch her spin across the stage.

It has to stop.

I waitfor her to leave so that I can talk to her without any of the other dancers around. They’re an insanely gossipy bunch.

Eventually, even Magda has gone home for the night, but I still haven’t seen Brooklyn leave.

I make a quick tour of the theater. The rehearsal studios are empty. So is the gym downstairs where Evelina Nikitin, unfortunately, saw me lifting weights without a shirt on earlier. Poor girl ran out red as a beet.

Finally, there’s only one place I haven’t checked.

Brooklyn shrieks, whirling and yanking the towel around her wet body as I step into the women’s changing room. Her eyes bulge, staring at me as I stand impassively by the door, staring right back at her.

“You—!” She sucks in a gasping breath. “You can’t be in here!”

“I own the building, Ms. Ellis.” I pause, then clear my throat. “I’d like to address what happened yesterday.”

She starts to open her mouth, but I shake my head. “Let me finish. I’d like to continue to…coach you. I cannot and will not promise you theImperiya Koronaapprenticeship.But Icanpromise to remove whatever obstacle it is that’s stopping you from?—”

One second, I’m trotting out the little speech I’ve rehearsed seven times. The next, she’s turning slightly, and the overhead lights catch what I thought was a shadow around her eye.

It’s…not a shadow.

Brooklyn gasps sharply as I surge across the room, right into her personal space. She whimpers when I grab her jaw, twisting her head to the side and angling her face better into the light.

Pure rage ignites like napalm inside me, venom spreading through my soul.

“Whothe fuckhit you.”

The words erupt more viciously than I meant. But there’s no reeling them back in. No taming my rage. No tamping down my fury.

Brooklyn shakes under my grip, her lip trembling as her eyes slide to mine.

“It’s...nothing. Really.”

I shake my head. “Extinguish your ideas of theImperiya Koronagiving a fuck aboutpedigreefor one goddamn second.”

She swallows heavily, her breath coming in short, quick bursts as I keep her jaw between my fingers.

“I’m not asking again, Ms. Ellis.”

She pulls back slightly, my hand sliding from her skin when she tugs the towel a little tighter around her body.

“I fell. It’s nothing.” She forces a tight laugh. “It’s funny, really. I was?—”