Page 62 of Dance of Thorns

Well, no. That’s not actually true. Thefirstthing that flickers through my mind is the delicious soreness between my legs.

The ache in my ankles and wrists.

The realization that my hair is still slightly damp, because I took a shower at two-thirty in the morning to wash the arousal from between my thighs and Bane’s cum from my skin.

Part of me wants to pretend the whole thing was a viciously dark fantasy, straddling that dark gray area between dream and nightmare.

But that gray area is where Ithrive.

Maybe someone whose head was less fucked up and whose libido was less black and broken might view what happened last night as a violation.

Assault, even.

But even when I lie to myself and try to cast him as the villain, I can’t.

Because…if a villain ties you up and makes you moan and writhe and come while he uses you exactly like in your darkest fantasies…ishe still the villain?

Mercifully, I’m almost positive Evie didn’t hear a thing last night. This morning, she told me she slept like a baby in my “adorable” carriage house, thanked me again for trusting her with my secrets, and gave me a big hug.

Not a single hint of “also I heard you getting face-fucked by your venomously dark and villainous fiancé last night until you came like a hurricane”.

I mean, this isEviewe’re talking about.

If she’d heard anything, it’d be all over her face in lurid, living color.

After that, her brother’s men, who I think might actually have spent the night in their SUV parked across the street from my dad’s house, drove her home.

And now I’m alone with my thoughts.

Rehearsal whooshes by in a blur. It actually bothers me when I realize it’s over, because ballet is my therapy. It’s been the one constant in my life, through pain, torture, loss, the downward spiral into the darkness of addiction, and the clawing, nail-splitting climb back out of it.

The one saving grace of the rehearsal I’m barely mentally present for is that at the end, Madame Kuzmina, our ice-cold sadist of an artistic director, announces in front of the whole company that she’s chosen me to dance the role of Giselle in ourupcoming gala performance of excerpts fromGiselle, Carmen,andDon Quixote.

That feels good. Especially when Milena, who Iknowwas angling for the part, gives me a huge hug and earnestly tells me she’s happy Kuzmina picked me.

But as I shower off in the changing rooms later, something that Evelina said last night is still percolating in my head:“There’s more to it than that? What do you remember about them dating?”

Honestly, Idon’tremember anything about them dating. I know from pictures and what I’ve been told that they were together for almost three years. Bane was a junior when Lark and I arrived at Thornfield Prep as freshmen, and I guess they hit it off pretty quickly.

I’ve seen the photos of Scott and me before heading out to junior prom—me looking absolutely fucking ridiculous in my shimmery pop-star dress and Sex and the City blue Manolos. In one picture, you can see Lark and Bane, both all in black, lurking in the background.

Obviouslytheyweren’t going to prom, because they were Mr. and Mrs. Anti-establishment.

I know—again, from what I’ve been told—that Bane proposed to Lark, two months before I got her killed.

But everything else is a blank.

No memories. No anecdotes. Just…nothing.

I'm still mulling that over when I decide to go to the garden behind the main house later that evening when I get home.

“Good evening, Dove.”

Melinda, my father’s housekeeper, is, predictably, her usual quiet, even-tempered self. It’s almost a zen-like thing, except she’s not at all a yoga type. It’s almost more like she’sconstantlyplaying a background part on Downton Abbey as one of the staff. I mean, she tried calling me “Ms. Marchetti” when she first started, and it was endlessly amusing to Lark and me that she pointedly wouldnotcall her “Ms. Peltier”, since Lark was also “the help” in Melinda’s eyes.

Agatha, Lark's grandmother and our previous housekeeper, started showing signs of her emerging Alzheimer’s pretty early. It’s not like my dad kept her on out of the goodness of his heart: I think it was more a form of laziness, keeping her employed while Melinda slowly learned the position she wouldn’t assume for another six years.

When Agatha died in her sleep a week after Lark was buried, Melinda took over full-time as the Marchetti family housekeeper.