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PROLOGUE

ISLA

I 'm late.

The word pounds through my head with each slap of my shoes against the pavement. Twenty-three minutes until curtain. My first major solo at the Grand Vegas Theatre, and I'm racing through the streets in nothing but a rhinestone covered tutu and tights.

I should have grabbed my coat. The thought stings almost as much as the October wind cutting through the thin fabric. But Madame Durant's voice echoes in my mind: Punctuality is the courtesy of kings and the discipline of dancers. I'd lost track of time warming up in my apartment, too nervous to eat, too anxious to sit still.

Now I'm paying for it. The rhinestones on my costume catch the neon lights of the strip, making me shimmer like a beacon. Look at me, they seem to scream. Young woman, alone, practically naked.

I quicken my pace, my dance bag bouncing against my hip. The theatre glows just ahead, its art deco marquee promising safety. Fifteen minutes now. I can make it.

"Hey, baby."

The voice slithers from the shadows of an alley, stopping me cold. "You a dancer or something? Bring that pretty body of yours over here and you can dance for me ."

I keep walking, practically breaking into a run. But footsteps follow—heavy, persistent.

" Hey , slow down, princess." A second voice joins the first. "You got time for a private dance with us, don't you?"

"No, I'm late and people are expecting me and I—" The words tumble out as I try to outpace them. The theatre doors gleam ahead. Just another hundred feet. Fifty. Twenty?—

A hand clamps onto my shoulder, spinning me around. The world tilts. My knees hit the concrete hard, tearing through my tights. My dance bag skitters across the pavement, spilling ribbons and rosin.

"Come on now, sweetheart." The first man looms over me, his friend closing in from the side. His backhand catches me across the mouth before I can scream. I taste copper. "We just wanna have a little fun, then you can go, okay?"

He grabs my wrist, pulling me up towards him. I wrench against him with everything I have, but he's too strong. This can't be happening. Not tonight. Not when everything I've worked for is just minutes away?—

"I suggest you lowlifes crawl back under the rock you came from before I make you regret it."

The voice cuts through the night with surgical precision. Madame Durant stands ten feet away, streetlights turning her gray hair silver, her cane gripped in one weathered hand. She looks like what she is—a ballet instructor in her late fifties, maybe five-foot-four in heels.

She looks like nothing.

She looks like prey .

But both men freeze. The one holding me actually takes a step back.

"Sorry, ma'am." The words tumble out like a child caught stealing. They let me go so fast I stumble. "We didn't mean?—"

"Leave." One word. Quiet. Final.

They melt back into the shadows without another word, heads lowered, shoulders hunched. As if they know something I don't.

"Come along, Isla." Madame Durant retrieves my scattered belongings with surprising grace. "You're late, and now we need to get you cleaned up."

Inside the theatre, she guides me to my dressing room with brisk efficiency. "Let me see." Cool fingers tilt my chin, examining my split lip. "Not too bad. The stage makeup will cover it."

"Madame, how did you?—"

"I heard you call out." She dabs at the blood with a tissue. "Though I don't recall you screaming."

She's right. I hadn't screamed. The realization sends a chill down my spine.

"You should be more careful, child." Something flickers in her eyes—knowledge, perhaps. Or a warning. "This city, this life we've chosen... There is always danger lurking. Some perceive it more readily than others."

"Five minutes to curtain, Isla!" The stage manager's voice echoes down the hall.

Madame smooths the bodice of my tutu with practiced hands and hands me another pair of tights. "You deserve this moment. You've worked hard, sacrificed much. Now go out there and show them what you're made of. Make it all look effortless ."

I nod, pushing down the tremor in my hands, the ache in my knees. The show must go on. It always does.

The stage swallows me in darkness. I find my mark by muscle memory alone, arms in preparatory position, chin lifted. Waiting.

The music begins—Tchaikovsky's violin crying out my entrance. The curtain rises. Light floods my world.

And I dance.

The audience disappears. The fear evaporates. There is only movement and music, the perfect marriage of athletic precision and artistic expression. Every leap defies gravity. Every turn defies time. This is what I was born for. This is why I endure.

My variation builds to its climax—a series of fouettés into a sequence of pirouettes. Ten rotations from a single preparation. I've done it a thousand times in rehearsal, but never when it mattered. Never with scouts from the major companies watching. Never with my entire future balanced on the knife's edge of a single turn.

I need a focal point. Something steady in my spinning world.

My eyes sweep the balcony, searching. There—a figure against the far wall. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Perfectly still in a sea of shifting bodies. Even in the shadows, he commands attention. Angular features carved from marble. A darkness that has nothing to do with the lighting.

I prepare. I spot. I turn.

One. The figure doesn't move.

Two. Three. Four. Absolute stillness.

Five. Six. Seven. My axis holds true.

Eight. Nine. He might be a statue.

Ten.

I land in the fourth position as the music swells to its conclusion. The applause erupts like thunder, washing over me in waves. Roses rain onto the stage—red as blood, red as victory. My cheeks ache from smiling. Everything I've dreamed of, everything I've bled for, it's here. It's mine.

" Stunning performance, my dear!" Backstage, Madame Durant sweeps me into a whirlwind of congratulations. "And those pirouettes—your strongest yet!"

She guides me through the crowd with strategic precision. "Come now, there are important figures who want to meet you. People who can make your dance dreams come true."

I shake hands, accept compliments, and make the right sounds at the right times. But my mind keeps drifting to that still figure on the balcony. My anchor. My focal point.

By the time the reception ends, exhaustion weighs on me like a lead blanket. I gather my things from the dressing room—street clothes pulled over my tights, pointe shoes tucked in my bag. The adrenaline fades, leaving only the ache in my feet and the lingering taste of copper in my mouth.

The backstage area is nearly empty now. A few stagehands moving set pieces. The ghost light standing sentinel on the empty stage. I head for the stage door, eager for home and a hot bath.

A sound stops me. Rustling from the wings.

Madame's training kicks in automatically. Always congratulate your fellow performers. Manners are what separate us from the beasts.

I change direction, stepping into the dimly lit wing space. "Beautiful show tonight?—"

The words die in my throat.

A man stands in the shadows, his back to me. Broad shoulders. Tall frame. The same silhouette I'd used as my focal point. But it's what's at his feet that steals my breath.

A body. One of our male dancers—Kyle? Kevin? He'd only joined the company last month. Blond hair now dark with blood. Throat opened in a second smile. So much red spreading across the black floor.

The man turns.

Steel blue eyes meet mine. Angular face, sharp as a blade. Beautiful in the way dangerous things are beautiful. A knife drips in his hand, catching the ghost light like a ruby pendant.

We stare at each other. Predator and witness. Devil and dancer.

I should scream. I should run. I should do something, anything, but I'm frozen like a butterfly pinned to velvet. Those eyes hold me more surely than any hands could.

He takes a step toward me.

The spell breaks.

I run. My dance bag hits the floor as I sprint for the stage door, shoes slapping against wood, then concrete, then asphalt. Behind me, footsteps—calm, measured, inevitable. He's not running. He doesn't need to.

The night swallows me whole. I don't know where I'm going, only away from here. My lungs burn. My legs scream. A lifetime of training means nothing now. Grace is useless. Beauty is irrelevant. There is only prey and predator, and I am so very clearly prey.

Footsteps echo closer. How is he gaining on me when he's only walking?

An arm snakes around my waist, yanking me backward. I open my mouth to scream, but a cloth covers my face. Something sweet fills my lungs.

The world tilts. My knees buckle.

As darkness creeps in from the edges, dragging me down, I have one last absurd thought:

Blood has no place in ballet.