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The next morning I woke up to birds chirping outside of my window like a fucking Disney movie. I was in no mood for it. Oh, I was ecstatic about the body at my back that seemed practically carved of marble with its possessive grip on my hip. I actually felt safe for a change, even with my aching body. I pulled that hand over my stomach and cuddled back against his cooling form and he moaned in his sleep. Well, it was more like half of a moan, the noise that usually marks a particularly vivid nightmare. I twisted around to face him, he was still asleep, with his mouth slack and those thick black lashes still netted together.

I couldn’t get over how beautiful he looked, I felt like Selene looking down at Adonis for the first time. I wanted to keep him laying like that forever. I had nothing but him, and I was almost okay with it for a moment. And then…
he SHARED you with another vampire last night! So apparently you don’t have him.
My hand snapped to my neck and those two teeny tiny little punctures. How did I feel about that? He said he would never share me and then he did, after revealing that he would have to now. Had so much really changed just with Elizabeta leaving?
The fact that your apartment went up in a fireball should answer that one for you genius.
I sighed heavily and Aleksi woke with a start. The gasp that broke from his throat was so abrupt that I jumped a little. His chest was rising and falling rapidly as he took little gaspy panicked breaths. I slid my hand over his heart and raised my gaze to his. We gazed into each other’s eyes in silence for a while as his breathing slowed.

“You know, they told us vampires didn’t need to breathe when they warned us in class about you guys. They said a vampire was just a walking talking corpse that died every morning with
sunrise.” I purred to him as I rested my head against his chest and listened to the slow crawl of his heartbeat.

“They weren’t wrong. If we don’t feed we don’t need to breath. And the less often we
feed, the less humanlike we become. After months of abstaining from blood we do experience our deaths with every dawn. But”—His hand started stroking my hair—“Ballet is very intensive, it still takes a lot of strength—even for us. I’ve done shows bloodless before, and blood-starved. La Belle Morte: Danse du Nuit, requires the male lead to be a blood-starved vampire. It’s hard to dance, but I like the challenge. I mostly need to breathe to keep the blood flowing so that my movements are graceful, without the breathing and the blood we move…it almost looks like stop motion. It’s disturbing.” He sat up more. “Speaking of blood and feeding. Sit in my lap.” Those words made me shiver even though I was still warm from the comforter and our sleep.

This was the moment that made everything inside of me do backflips of joy. I crawled over to him and started to sit down facing away from him.

“No. Like this
,” he purred as he turned me around and guided me into his lap so that our hips were even, and our sexes were pushed together through the thin fabric of those tights. I chewed on my bottom lip as my heartbeat sped up. This was a sex position. Were we going to have sex? A smile slipped over my lips even as I still continued to chew at the bottom one. I slid my hands to his shoulders and then up that powerful, long and graceful neck. He groaned under my touch, a deep and sexy noise that seemed to pull all of the right strings in my body, making things deep inside of me clench and ache for him. My hands slid into that thick, oh so soft mane of sable waves as he leaned forward placing kisses on my shoulder and collarbone. He didn’t do anything he told Evan to do the night before. He, however, did guide my chin to the side, but he didn’t pull my neck taut.
You’re supposed to move it on your own. It’s an act of submission, duh.
And I suddenly felt like a moron as I stretched my neck to the side as far as I could. “Good girl,” he purred to my throat and I felt that thick flesh stir against me.

His slow kisses up my neck drove me insane, he even kissed each of Evan’s little bite marks before he reached his own. I was writhing in his lap by the time he started licking at the old wound. Those strong hands of his were quick to still me, seizing my hips and holding them hostage as he finally broke the skin and I gasped. My body attempted to twist from the initial pain in vain, those hands on my hips held me fast. My fingers curled in his hair as he fed and I felt him grow harder, and thicker and longer against me. Every attempt to move my hips against the friction that could be provided by that throbbing masterpiece was thwarted by his hands which held me still.

When he finished, I was desperate and I knew he knew it because those tights were now damp with my wetness. He placed a quick kiss on my ear before he pulled away from me completely and stood to stretch. I gaped at him from the bed and he flashed me an amazing, devious smile before walking into the bathroom and turning on the shower. My mind was nothing but a pile of sex as I followed him eagerly, only vaguely aware of the bruises on my wrists from the night before.

However, as preoccupied with sex as I was, there was no shower sex. There was no getting ready sex. He knew he had taken me to that place where the mind wants to shut off and give into the body. He knew it and he delighted in the fact that he knew I would suffer all day like that for him… and I did.

The day was spent doing mundane tasks, ever shadowed by two of the vampire guards with their little ear pieces. He took me shopping and bought me half of a new wardrobe, new jewelry and shoes. We looked at a few apartments downtown. Every apartment had a doorman that wore a black and red pin on their jacket. One building we entered and left while the doors were still closing, I figured Aleksi noticed the doorman was wearing a garnet colored pin. Wasn’t Garnet Tristan’s color? I didn’t ask him about it, I actually half forgot about it.

The day after was also a repeat of the one before. We went shopping and looked at apartments. I settled that day on a nice place downtown in a high-rise that overlooked the theater. They brought the papers up for me to sign that day, and that night I was staring out of the huge glass window of my new living room with Aleksi beside me.

“Elizabeta offered to put me on the payroll
if I write her about my visions,” I confided in him as we stared out at the glittering metropolis that seemed to spring out of nowhere. Florence had no suburbs, it was just a bunch of trees and then boom, city. My fingers toyed with my new pearls, I wasn’t used to the space between them yet, and my fingernail kept nudging against it.

“You should take it. She’s one person who can keep you safe…tomorrow we’ll get you some furniture so you can officially move in.”
Yup, move in here. And not with him.

“I…I guess you’re right.” I forced myself to smile and he sighed.

“Out with it.”

“Wh-what?” I furrowed my brows and smoothed the charcoal gray A-line skirt I wore. I loved my new clothes. Everything was
designer, it was a step up from my mock elegant thrift store wardrobe that became kindling.

“Autumn, something’s bothering you—I can almost feel it.”

“Is it the mark?” I tilted my head to the side as I inquired, he nodded and I covered my face in shame for a few moments. “I’m just wondering why you didn’t ask me to move in, or offer to let me stay with you.”

“Because I care about your safety. It’s not that I don’t love you. That building just isn’t safe until we figure out exactly what happened. Also, when I go to Europe in a few months I don’t want you in a building full of vampires.”

“And this building’s safe?”

“Elizabeta owns this building, and everyone we went to…well except for the Arms which she apparently gave to Tristan. Right now, no one wants to fuck with Elizabeta directly. Maybe when I get back from
Europe, we can move in here together.”

“There’s no dance room.”

“I can dance everything in our repertoire right now in my sleep. I only use the dance room when we have new work, or I’m stressed.”

“Why did you let Evan
feed from me?”

“That was abrupt.” He snickered. “Watching the way Colette treats Evan is like watching a mirror into the past for me. It brings back uncomfortable memories.”

And then I got it, I suddenly understood him better than I had before. He couldn’t see passed his own experience to empathize with others. It didn’t mean he was unfeeling, it just meant that he thought that he had survived the worst of things and everything else seemed like nothing to him. My response to him was to just nod. I didn’t see this impending transformation, but after everything I saw I could see why someone would have pity for someone stuck in the clutches of Elizabeta. I started laughing as I turned from the window and headed for the door. I realized another
thing in that moment. I wasn’t expendable anymore.

“I’m going to call her, and let her know.”

“She probably already has everything in order already. It was never a choice, Autumn. Elizabeta doesn’t give real choices.” His voice was bitter as he approached me, stepped passed me and out of the door.

The weeks passed and I felt utterly isolated in my new apartment. Gone were the random movies nights, the spontaneous visits and morning coffee runs. I was on the other side of the city from my best friend. Tristan and Leslie spent their weekends at Crimson Hill and weekdays in the city at that huge black glass monstrosity that everyone in du Nuit lived in.

I was grateful for everything that Aleksi did for me. He bought my furniture and my clothes, but it all felt like an apology. He felt guilty about what happened and that guilt made him seem so much more vulnerable than before. He clung to me fiercely in the mornings and took me gently more often than not. His kindness towards Evan continued and they became fast friends as Aleksi attempted to pry him from Colette’s grasp.

Elizabeta paid off my student loans as a thank you for my agreeing to tell her about my visions. I never really felt like I was doing enough for the salary. The day I got my first eleven thousand dollar paycheck I almost didn’t want to cash it.

Staring down at the little blue and white check I couldn’t help but to think about all of those people who did actual work and got paid less.
It’s hazard pay.
I swallowed, Miss Manners made sense. Just being a Seer was a hazard, and if anyone figured out what I knew about what draining a Seer did I would find myself in a worse situation. Luckily, that fact was locked within Vlad.

      
Still the check felt heavy, even when I went about my day like everything was normal. I joined the Ballet Class with du Nuit that morning and sat in on rehearsals with Aleksi and Leslie. I saw pieces of Alice and Sleeping Beauty. Between
masterclasses, I found Leslie in the hall crying. I had never seen her really sob before.

“Are you okay?” I asked softly as I approached hesitantly. She dried her eyes and wiped at the mascara that had run down her cheek.

“It’s just so hard. I… I don’t think I can do this.” She sobbed out.

“When’s your next rehearsal? Aleksi is in with Tristan for Sleeping Beauty.”

“I have an hour I think.” She dried her eyes on her sleeves. “Evan’s running Colette through her
tart adagio. He’s such a bastard.” She hissed the last part.

“What happened?”

“I…” She shook her head. We had switched roles, it was like having a reverse flashback of me telling her about Garrett. As always like he could feel me just thinking about him he walked down the hall.

“Autumn!” He called from the end of the corridor as he literally tap danced his way down the hall.

“Isn’t that bad for the shoes?”

“Nope.” He
snickered as he danced around me with the cadence from the Mad Tapper’s scene. “I’m stage ready according to Evan. Which means I can mentally check out for a week. Then I have to start preparing for Mayerling, Nutcracker, and… fuck what’s the third.” He gasped out leaning against the wall, his face flush from over exerting himself.
He still likes you, it’s like watching a thirteen-year-old boy trying to get their crush’s attention.

“Project O, it’s Tristan’s retirement show. He took Belle out of our rotation for it.” Leslie said between sobs. Garrett froze and turned to face her. I think he actually didn’t notice she was there before.

“Fuck, you’re crying. What’s wrong, Les?” He scooted closer to her and draped his arm over her shoulder.

“Evan’s an asshole
,” she sniffled and I sighed.

“Well he has been spending a lot of time with our most esteemed Aleksi.” Garrett snickered giving her a squeeze.

“He called me shit, and Tristan… he didn’t even stand up for me. Maybe Kendra was right to hold me back.”

“Leslie, don’t say that. I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.” I chimed in with a reassuring smile, she just shook her head.

“Criticism is tough to take sometimes, especially from people you love.” Garrett wet his lips.

“We’re on stage next week, I have three days to get this and work on Sleeping Beauty.”

“You have our part down—if it makes you feel any better. Being a Principal isn’t easy, it’s hard and sometimes it’s hell.” Garrett laughed. “If you want, I’ll stay late and help you.”

“I can’t,” She sniffled out.

“You can come stay with me,” I piped up, they both turned and looked at me.

“Are you sure?” Leslie wiped her eyes again.

“Yeah, it’s honestly a little lonely up there. And we can watch horrible movies and stay up way later than we should, and you can…
well, you won’t be late.”

“You moved?” Garrett eyed me suspiciously.

“That building
that… had the gas leak was ours,” Leslie spluttered out again.