Page 44 of The Drama King (The University Players Duet #1)

thirty-one

Vespera

I walked into my dorm room to find Stephanie surrounded by boxes.

She moved with mechanical precision, folding clothes into neat stacks, wrapping her desk lamp in a towel, building walls of textbooks between us. Half her side of the room had been stripped bare, pale rectangles marking where her photos used to hang.

I froze in the doorway, too shocked to process what I was seeing.

"Stephanie?"

She glanced up from the box she was packing, her expression carefully neutral in the way that meant she'd been dreading this conversation.

"I hoped I'd finish before you got back," she said quietly.

"Finish what? What's happening?"

"Room transfer went through." She gestured at the chaos surrounding her. "My parents made some calls. There's an opening in Whitmore Hall with a Beta from my art class. Someone more... academically aligned."

The euphemism hit like a physical blow. I dropped my rehearsal bag, staring at her in disbelief.

"You're leaving tonight."

"The paperwork came through this afternoon. Residence life wants the transition done immediately." She wouldn't meet my eyes, focusing instead on wrapping a framed photo of her family with excessive care. "It's better this way."

"Better for who?"

She flinched but kept packing. "For both of us."

"This is about Robbie," I said, sinking onto my bed. "About the rumors."

Stephanie paused, a sweater half-folded in her hands. For a moment, her careful composure cracked, and I glimpsed the girl who'd spent hours helping me with homework, who'd brought me soup when I was sick, who'd offered to stand between me and whatever was hunting me.

"It's about survival," she said finally. "Mine and yours."

"Explain that."

"People are watching, Vespera. They're connecting dots: Robbie's disappearance, your situation with Dorian's pack, the way you've been struggling lately.

" She resumed folding with renewed precision.

"My parents got calls. Questions about my associations, my judgment, whether I understand the implications of my friendship choices. "

Ice flooded my veins. "What kind of calls?"

"The kind that matter. Donors, alumni, people with influence.

Someone's making sure that anyone connected to this mess faces consequences.

" She finally looked at me, and I saw genuine fear in her eyes.

"If I stay, if I keep defending you, they'll destroy me too.

And then neither of us will have any power to fight back. "

"And if you abandon me?"

"If I distance myself now, at least one of us survives this with our future intact."

The logic was sound, ruthless, and completely devastating. I wanted to argue, to point out that friendship meant something, that loyalty couldn't be calculated in terms of social capital. But studying Stephanie's face—scared, guilty, but resolute—I realized she'd made her choice weeks ago.

"How long have you known?" I asked quietly.

"Two weeks. Since the transfer request was approved." She turned back to her packing. "I kept hoping something would change, that maybe the pressure would ease off. But it's only getting worse."

Two weeks. She'd been planning her escape for two weeks while I'd been struggling through rehearsals, thinking I still had one person in my corner.

"I should pack faster," she said, glancing at the clock. "The RA is supposed to help me move everything tonight."

Tonight. She was leaving tonight, and I was finding out by accident.

"For what it's worth," Stephanie said as she sealed another box with tape, "I'm sorry. You deserve better than this."

"But not from you."

She flinched again but didn't deny it.

I grabbed my rehearsal bag and headed for the door. There was nothing left to say, no point in making this harder for either of us. She'd made her calculation, chosen her survival over our friendship.

"Vespera..."

I paused in the doorway.

"Be careful," she said quietly. "Whatever's coming, be careful."

The door closed behind me with a soft click, and I stood in the hallway trying to process what had occurred. My last ally had negotiated her surrender, leaving me completely alone against whatever was coming.

And I still had rehearsal to get through.

The theater building felt like walking into a predator's den.

I'd grown to dread the familiar smell of old wood and stage makeup, the way the overhead lights cast everything in harsh relief, the intimate space of the rehearsal room where there was nowhere to hide. But today, with Stephanie's betrayal still raw in my chest, even the hallway felt hostile.

Wells was already setting up when I arrived, arranging chairs and reviewing his notes with the kind of focused intensity that meant we were diving into serious character work.

The other actors trickled in gradually: ensemble members chatting among themselves, supporting players running lines, everyone maintaining the careful social dynamics that kept the theater department functioning.

Dorian arrived exactly on time, as he always did, carrying himself with the confidence of someone who owned every space he entered.

His eyes found me immediately, and I saw his nostrils flare slightly as he registered my scent.

Whatever emotional turmoil I was experiencing, he could smell it like blood in the water.

"Places, everyone," Wells called. "We're working Act Four, Scene One today. The church scene where Beatrice and Benedick finally admit their feelings."

My stomach dropped. Of all the scenes to work today, it had to be the most emotionally vulnerable one in the entire play. The moment where Beatrice drops her defenses, reveals her heart, and asks Benedick to kill Claudio for slandering Hero.

"This scene is about truth," Wells continued, moving to the center of the room. "Everything that's been hidden, everything that's been protected by wit and cruelty, finally comes to the surface. I need you both to access real vulnerability here."

Real vulnerability. With Dorian. While my life crumbled around me and I had no defenses left.

"Let's start with the transition from the wedding chaos. Vespera, you're devastated by what's happened to Hero, furious at the injustice, barely holding yourself intact. Dorian, you're seeing her pain and feeling protective in a way that surprises you."

We took our positions. The scene began with Beatrice weeping over Hero's public humiliation, and I found I didn't have to reach far to access those emotions.

The raw betrayal, the sense of being abandoned by everyone who should have protected her, the desperate fury at a system designed to destroy women like us.

"Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?" Dorian's voice was gentle, concerned, nothing like his usual predatory tone.

The contrast was jarring. This was Benedick speaking, not Dorian, and for a moment I almost forgot who I was really talking to. Almost let myself believe the tenderness was real.

"Yea, and I will weep a while longer," I replied, the words coming out raw with genuine emotion.

"I will not desire that."

"You have no reason. I do freely tell you, I was about to protest I loved you."

The line hung in the air between us, and I saw something flicker in Dorian's eyes: not calculation, not predatory satisfaction, but something that looked almost like hunger. As if the words had affected him more than he'd expected, stirred something deeper than professional interest.

"And do it with all thy heart," he said, his voice dropping to something intimate, almost possessive.

"I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest."

Wells watched us work through the scene, occasionally calling for adjustments, pushing us to go deeper, to find more authentic emotion. And despite everything—despite knowing exactly who Dorian was and what he wanted—I found myself getting lost in the material.

More dangerously, I was getting lost in him.

The way he moved closer as the scene progressed, invading my space with calculated intimacy that made my pulse stutter.

How his scent seemed to wrap around me, something warm and spiced that my hindbrain recognized as Alpha even as my conscious mind recoiled.

The heat in his eyes when he looked at me, like he was seeing through Beatrice's words straight to something vulnerable in me.

"Stop," Wells called. "Dorian, you're holding back. This is the moment Benedick stops fighting his attraction. I need you to let yourself want her."

Want her. The words made something clench low in my belly, a response I couldn't control and didn't want to examine.

"From the top of 'I do freely tell you,'" Wells directed. "And Dorian: physical blocking this time. You're drawn to her pain, her vulnerability. Show me that."

We reset our positions, but this time when I delivered Beatrice's confession of love, Dorian moved. Stepped closer, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body, close enough that his scent made my head spin.

"And do it with all thy heart," he said again, but this time his hand came up to cup my face, thumb brushing across my cheekbone with devastating gentleness.

The touch sent electricity through my nervous system, made my traitorous body lean into his palm before I could stop myself. His pupils dilated as he caught my involuntary response, nostrils flaring as he scented my body's betrayal.

"I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest," I whispered, and the words felt dangerous, too real, like I was confessing something that had nothing to do with Shakespeare.