Page 38 of Juliet & Her Romeos

“Nesting rights extended again. I need my Beta to nuzzle. Get back here.” I hold out my arms to Swan.

Swan grins, enthusiastically throwing himself across the bed toward me to save himself.

He bounces, settling onto my side of the mattress again.

He wraps his arms around me. “I’ll have to remember not to piss off my Omega. They’re more fierce about their nests than I’d realized.”

“Of course, they’re also possessive of the people who they let into them.”

“I love you.” Swan’s eyes flash, before he twists to me.

He kisses me, hard and claiming.

Whatever happens during this intense week of rehearsals, at the end of it in the R & J Contest, and after it, if the tradition of the Ballet Bonding Night truly occurs, it’ll happen to both of us.

Together.

Because I won’t be parted from this man.

Yet we only have minutes left, before we need to leave for breakfast.

Then like every day for the last four years, we’ll be separated for our classes.

Swan will face Dimitri.

And I’ll face the terrifying Alpha, the Dance Master.

CHAPTER SIX

Romeo Ballet Academy, Sanctum

Isit on the cold floor of the dance studio, before class begins.

My stomach is tied in knots.

It’s Monday morning in the last week before the R & J Contest. I can’t waste this final opportunity to prepare. Yet the competition is going to be more ruthless than ever.

There’s only one principal spot for a female dancer. And it’s never been taken by an Omega before.

What chance do I truly have for both an Omega and aCindersto win it?

I roll my shoulders to warm them up, before glancing around nervously at the door. The Dance Master hasn’t arrived yet.

I’d better hurry up.

Katerina doesn’t accept mistakes.

The dance studio is cool and meticulously neat.

The air is continuously recycled, which pulls the scents and pheromones out of the air, so that we’re not distracted. I scrunch up my nose at the weirdly sterile scent that remains.

It’s strange not to be able to smell the other people around me.

It makes me antsy.

All four walls are covered in floor to ceiling mirrors. When I was young, I found it disorientating to see so many versions of myself at the same time.

It didn’t feel real.

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