Page 67 of Dance of Thorns

We’re just vessels for our passion and the mastery of our art.

It sounds flowery and overblown, but it's true. It’s why I fuckingloveballet, which has brought me back from the edge—figuratively and literally—so many times.

“Good morning,Giselle,” Evie beams at me as I walk up to where she’s already chatting with Lyra, Naomi, and Val.

I roll my eyes, feeling my cheeks burn. “I don’t know. I think Madame is just testing it out?—”

“Dude…” Naomi sighs, grinning. “I used to think this whole clueless thing was a bit.” She shakes her head. “But now I think it might actually be the realyou.”

My brows pinch. “Huh?”

Lyra giggles. “She means you’re fuckingamazing, lady. You do understand that, right?”

I groan, feeling my face burn even hotter. “We’re all?—”

“Oh, for fucks sake,” Val snickers, exhaling heavily and taking a sip from the enormous coffee in his tattooed hand. Ever since he quit cigarettes, his caffeine intake has gone through the fucking roof.

Amusingly, I think it was the same for me for a while, after I leftIl Refugioand decided I didn’t want my rehab smoking habit to follow me.

I force myself to smile at them.

To be normal.

To be someone without baggage andwithmemories of the past, unlike me.

“Thank you,” I finally say to Naomi, because I know that’s what they want to hear, what a person is expected to say to a compliment. Then I grin at her. “Buthello, lady who’s going to be rocking Carmen herself in the Habanera?”

Naomi thanks everyone when they congratulate her. Madame Kuzmina hasn’t announced all the casting for the gala performance yet. But Naomi excitedly texted us on our “ballet bitches” group chat after we all left last night to tell us that Madame had kept her late to offer her the coveted variation fromCarmen.

It’s funny. When I first got back to New York and joined the Zakharova, Naomi was a whole different person from the confident young woman standing in front of me now. She was shy and wholly unsure of herself. She also wouldn’t in a million years have been given, even with her insane talent, the Habanera solo, which is unapologetically sexy and sensual. That just wasn’t her.

Now, there’s zero doubt in my mind that she’s going to kill it, and leave that stage on fire when she's done.

…I think it’s probably safe to say that Naomi’s newfound confidence in herself, her body, and her femininity is all due to Nico Barone, her boyfriend-who-I’m-guessing-will-be-her-fiancé-soon.

Nico, whoalsohappens to be buddies with a certain dark shadow I keep seeing in my peripheral vision.

The shadow that haunts my dreams and thenwakes me from themwith his rough touch and vicious brand of pleasure and pain.

He spanked me last night.

I was leaving a puddle on his jeans lol.

God, I fucking love him.

My chest constricts, that sick feeling tightening in my stomach again.

“Hey, where are Brooklyn and Milena?” Evie chirps, glancing at the dainty silver watch on her wrist.

Shit. I forgot.

“Fuck, sorry,” I mumble. “Brooklyn messaged me earlier that she was running late this morning.”

“Right,” Val says wickedly, shoving tattooed fingers through his shaggy dark hair. “That’s one way to say ‘getting fucked bowlegged by BDE while he reads theWall Street Journal.”

The rest of us crack up as Evie turns bright red and looks like she wants to melt into the ground. At least she also laughs.

“BDE” is Val’s nickname for Kir, Brooklyn’s boyfriend. As in “big dick energy.”