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“I’m not the only one Evan’s pissed at today—Tristan isn’t
miming enough for Evan’s tastes. Colette’s Tart Adagio saved us all from being in there another four hours. She was perfect, her and Garrett could walk on stage tonight and perform, Aleksi too. Tristan needs a little work, and I’m…” she sighed.

“You’ll get it.”

“I have no choice,
” she grumbled pushing around a tomato with her fork. “You need to talk to him about this. But it’s really simple, either you love him, or you don’t.”

“I’m not sure anymore…and I d-don’t want to hurt him.”

“But you want to keep fucking him?”

I tossed my head back and stared at the white drop ceiling tiles.

“Okay, close your eyes, and imagine never seeing him again, never hearing his voice, his laugh… never seeing him dance. Imagine that, but you’re still getting your brains fucked out of your skull every day by some random hot guy. How do you feel without Aleksi in your life?” She offered before biting into a tomato. I continued to stare at the ceiling as I considered just that. I loved him, or at least I cared for him deeply and the thought of never seeing him again made me sad.
You should probably try to talk to him.

“…I think I love him. Or…at…at least I w-want him in m-my life.”

“Good. I’ll sneak you backstage, my understudy sucks worse than I do so they won’t fire me
,” she snickered.

“You’re also… with Tristan and doesn’t he make the rules?”

“Yes and no. This is very much Evan’s production, and Evan has two modes; Ballet Evan and Friend Evan. Ballet Evan is a slave-master.” Her phone’s alarm went off and she groaned. “
Well, I have twenty minutes. Come back to the theater with me I’ll sneak you in so you can see Aleksi.”

We walked to the theater together and we slipped backstage where Leslie showed me her dressing room and Aleksi’s beside it. She slipped away without a word and I nervously ran my fingers through my hair and tried Aleksi’s door. It was locked. I reached to knock,
but the door opened. Aleksi stood on the other side of the door, and again I found myself very aware of his imposing height. I nervously fidgeted, fingering the pearls at my throat as he just stood in silence watching me. Almost a minute passed before he stepped aside and waved me inside.

“I don’t have long. We have to be on stage in fifteen—I’m in the first act
,” he broke the silence locking the door and taking off his shirt. I couldn’t stop myself from staring as he pulled on black and red striped leg warmers and bright red ballet slippers. I decided to start with benign conversation.

“I wanted to come see how you were doing. L-Leslie…Leslie says you’re ready to go on stage. That’s great.”

“Yes. But there’s no excuse for any of us from du Nuit not being stage ready at this point. Tristan is making a fool of himself, and well… Leslie will have it in a few days. She has some minor bad habits, but it’s expected.”

“You don’t think Tristan will be ready?”

“I think he’ll be ready.
But I think he should have let myself dance the White Rabbit, and taken the role of Knave himself. Or let me be a repetiteur and have any sort of arrangement between himself and Evan that made sense.”

“You really don’t want to dance this part, do you?”

“
No, I’m sick of it already.” He sighed and pulled on a t-shirt and stretched tall, his long fingers inches from the ceiling. “Tristan promised me we’re retiring it from our repertoire after this, but we’ll see.”

“I’m sorry you’re forced to dance it, but it could be worse.”

“Oh, I know.” He kicked his leg up against the wall and smiled with a soft little chuckle. “This is the most we’ve said to each other in a while.”

“I know.” My mouth was suddenly dry. I turned away from him and let out a
slow, shaky breath.

“I missed it.” He closed his eyes and doubled over his leg, resting his cheek against his knee. I wet my lips and turned around to face him.

“I can’t lie to you”—
Don’t
!—“I…”

His leg dropped off the wall and his head lulled to the side.

“Autumn,” My name left his lips with a shaky breath. He walked towards me and then stopped, leaving a foot between us. Being witness to that moment, I knew why Tristan had him play the Knave. He was the very image of a masculine lover. He had a romantic profile, a romantic gait—even if he probably would protest that
fact to the end. He looked and moved like a Disney Prince in his tights. His Romeo probably brought tears to people’s eyes.

He reached for me, but that hand fell away before touching me, stroking the air as those fingers curled back into themselves. The gesture was everything you’d expect it to be, elegant, graceful, and full of superior poise.

“Don’
t make me beg you not to say it,” he whispered, his voice almost lost to the whirr of the air conditioner. I had somehow cut through all of that thick armor and made him feel, and I loathed myself for it.

“Aleksi, I… I don’t know if I love you.” The second those words left my lips I wished I could take them all back. His face broke, that thin veil of control shattered and he turned from me. I could still see him in the mirror. I had turned what was essentially a sex panther into a lost little boy with seven tiny words. Seven words that cut me too. Oddly enough, the hurt that came from saying those words made me realize that I did really love him.
You’re a piece of work aren’t you?

There was a knock on the door and both of us jumped.

“
Five-minute warning,” Evan’s voice muffled in. Aleksi shook his head and kicked his other foot up on the wall and stretched, pressing his face in earnest into his leg—hiding his expression from me.

“I’m not sure about
an-anything right now… since the explosion, the clairvoyancy….” I wet my lips. “I feel like I’m living someone else’s life. Before you I… I was a doctoral candidate who liked Ballet and now I’m…” I lowered my eyes. He took a slow breath and dropped his leg. “I don’t know who or what I am anymore. I used to know who I was, I was… I was a shy, bookworm, who hung out with Ballet Dancers and dated her friend’s cast offs. Now I’m…a vampire’s servant, a clairvoyant… a submissive. I’ve lost my life’s work...” The tears I didn’t know I was crying were wet on my cheeks. I could feel the tension of them as they beaded before falling like insignificant crystalline specs to the floor.

The embrace was abrupt and violent; his lithe, muscular form practically crashed into mine as he wrapped those long arms around me, clutching me possessively to him. He kissed the top of my hair and held me as I bathed in his scent: saline sweat, coppery blood, spicy cologne and that little something that was uniquely Aleksi. Those strong limbs were almost too cold for the embrace to be enjoyable. I shivered from that leeching icy flesh but still pressed my face to him.

“You’re mine,
” he purred in a whisper. “And you’re all of those things still,” h
e murmured rocking me. But even as he held me, I could still hear the faint creak of the leather of those slippers as he stretched his feet. His lips found my forehead, and he placed a lingering kiss in the center of my brow. “I have to get out there… I’ll meet you at your place after?” He slowly peeled himself from me.

“S-sure.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been…blind. I should have realized you were bothered by what happened.” He chuckled ruefully. “Well not only have I been a shitty boyfriend, I’ve been a shitty master… though not in the vampiric sense.”

“It’s okay. I’ve been a shitty servant,
sub, and girlfriend. I should h-have opened m-my mouth.”

Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Aleksi!” Evan bellowed.

“I’m coming,
” Aleksi growled at the door before turning back to me. “Tonight, okay?”

“Yeah.” I nodded slowly, he kissed me chastely on the lips and left. As the door hung
open, I was greeted to a very unhappy looking Evan on the other side. When he saw me, though, he forced a small smile and waved.

After Aleksi left and Evan retreated, I should have gone home; but I didn’t. I snuck into the auditorium and watched from one of the boxes as they rehearsed on stage. Even out of costume they seemed to fit their roles as they danced their way through the story. I was expecting a rougher production, but what I found was a hairs breadth from perfection. The longer I watched, the more I realized that I was Alice. The world of the vampires was a much more violent and sinister version of Wonderland, but the similarities almost made it painful to see the production. It was almost hard to watch Aleksi in the little defendants stand made of playing cards during the trial and then during the big Pas de Deux, with the near kiss. Oh, they danced sublimely, but in the mood I was in I couldn’t enjoy it.

I had just done the emotional equivalent of re-breaking a limb that healed wrong and was still in the process of resetting the mangled bones. I almost felt like I was having an out of body experience as I crossed the street and took the elevator up to my apartment. Once in the living room I took in all of the shiny new-ness and realized there was nothing that said Autumn in the apartment.

It looked like Aleksi’s had the first time I visited, like a tastefully decorated hotel room.
You’re still not fully here yet.
But I knew the reality was I wasn’t going to be fully there for a while. I needed to feel safe first, and that wasn’t going to happen with Gregory out there. I couldn’t do anything physically about the threat, I was just human after all. But there was something I could do. I could listen to Vlad, and in my emotional state I was willing to do anything that would distract me enough to stop me from crying about the complete and utter idiot I had become.

      
So I took to Google with the task Vlad had given me in mind. Within an hour, I had discovered how to induce a vision, which was actually simpler than I had expected.
Why did you expect it to be complicated? You can get visions from accidentally brushing your fingertips against something.
Ignoring Miss Manners, I went into the bathroom and closed the door. Grabbing one of the scented candles around the tub, I filled the sink with a quarter inch of water, and put the candle in the center of the white porcelain basin. Taking matches out of the medicine cabinet, I lit the candle and turned off the artic white light.

Staring at my face lit by the solitary candle, and the reflection of the light from the water casting opposite shadows on the ceiling made the large bathroom feel cramped and ominous.
Maybe you should wait for Aleksi before you try this?
Closing my eyes, I ignored Miss Manners and slid my hands over the cool porcelain. Recalling the articles I read, I took a slow breath and released it as I opened my eyes and stared into the mirror.

“Gregory,
” I whispered the name and tried to stare through the mirror as I focused on him in my mind and that image I had of the occupied cell suddenly empty. My vision started to blur and the reflection in the mirror twisted after only a few seconds. Forcing a vision felt like I was being thrown forward while standing still, my stomach felt like I was on a roller coaster that had started the descent down a massive hill. I couldn’t control where my eyes were focused, and I could feel my pupils wildly contracting and dilating.

The first thing I saw was a pair of flats, maroon in color, walking down a busy city street. Clearly they were not Gregory’s feet, the vision jumped back, and more of the walking figure came into view. Their stomach, round with pregnancy, and their skin was white pale with a bright blood glutted pink blush to it that made their lips almost blood red in color. Their hair was bronze and elegantly curled, their lipstick expertly done. Kendra. When I realized it was her, my anger was almost uncontrollable. It was like she could feel it, she actually turned and looked around, her brows knit with worry. I recognized the intersection, and the massive, black glass, monolith of a building she disappeared into—it wasn’t far from my bank. The vision warped like a ripple in a pond and I was greeted by Gregory scowling in a random board room with a large glass table. He wasn’t running the meeting, he was attending, the faces of the other vampires gathered were somewhat blurry, but they all delivered news which made Gregory’s scowl twitch with rage. His lip curled and revealed the gaping hole where one of his fangs used to be. I couldn’t direct the vision, I couldn’t see what was outside or where he was. The vision released me and the candle snuffed itself, leaving me panting in the dark bathroom like I had just run a 5k.

Stepping out into the bright light of my apartment was like stepping into the sun. I shrieked and covered my eyes. Even with my eyes shut tight, and my hand in front of them I could still see the light. I staggered for a moment and was met with cold hands covering my eyes and a hand at the small of my back.

“Shhh, don’t try to look.” The voice was Aleksi’s. We walked back to what I assume was the bedroom, and I heard him closing the blinds and curtains with his free hand as we walked around the room. “Okay, open your eyes slowly.”

I obeyed as he lowered his hand, the light that snuck in the corners of the drapery in thin, razor-like, stripes was scorchingly bright, but I could see without wanting to gouge out my eyes. I sat on the bed and rubbed my temples.

“Congratulations, you’re one of the few mortals who knows what it’s like to
see like a vampire,” Aleksi chuckled out as he sat down on the bed. “The light sensitivity will pass in a few minutes.”

“Are you sure?”

“As sure as I am about anything
I read on the internet,” he snickered and held his arms out. “Come here.” I, as always, accommodated him and sat in his lap. He leaned his freezing forehead against my cheek and wrapped his arms around me.
You should ask him how rehearsal went.