Page 43 of Juliet & Her Romeos

I stare at her in shock. She’s never spoken about her past like this before.

She looks haunted.

She jabs the cane at me, viciously. “Who told you to stop?”

Shit.

Hurriedly, I try to catch up with the routine again.

“You need to understand that this isn’t a game.” Katerina’s knuckles whiten around the cane. “If you want to become the principal on Friday, then you fight for it.”

Wait, is she talking to me?

She doesn’t do encouraging speeches but this sounds close it.

Dimitri has always been bitter about the opportunities that his mom has granted me, despite me being an Omega.

She’s not been prejudiced against me.

She’s treated me just as harshly as everyone else, which in her world, is a compliment.

Am I her favorite? Is she hoping that I’ll win?

Yet it doesn’t change the cruel way that she rules this academy.

I wish that I understood why she’s not harder on me, when I’m one of the few who don’t fawn over her.

Is it because I’m an Omega? Or because she truly does respect me as a dancer?

“I’m fighting for it,” Ariana boldly asserts, trying to gain Katerina’s attention. “I’ve heard that Mr. Romeo is back in America. There’s no doubt that he’ll want to hand me the rose, selecting me as part of the Ballet Bonding Night tradition.”

Katerina’s icy eyes flash. “So you have less brains in your head than dancing ability in your legs.”

Ariana’s lip trembles like she’s about to cry. “I don’t understand.”

Katerina marches to the table, snatching one of the manuals out of the piles that lie on top of it.

She waves it furiously at us. “Haven’t you memorized yourRomeo Ballet Company Handbook for Betas?”

When she throws her cane clattering to the floor, I jump.

Behind me, Mary whimpers.

I try to put out soothing pheromones, but they’re sucked out by the air purification system.

Plus, there’s only so much an Omega can do to soothe a Beta. It’s Alphas who are truly calmed, enraged, or dragged into rut by our pheromones.

It’s why Alphas and Omegas have such an incredible symbiosis…why we should be together.

Also, why Omegas have an incredible power, which Alphas underestimate.

Katerina rips open the manual. “Here, page eighty-two. Let me read it to you, in case you’ve forgotten the dangers of such a bonding:Each Alpha CEO of the Romeo pack, however, may once in a generation invoke Ballet Bonding Night. They will claim the principals as their own. Remember, if you want a rose, you must respect the thorns. Any Beta who attempts to refuse the bond will be stripped of their status as a dancer and sent into exile.”

“Worth it,” Ariana mutters. “Anyway, who would reject the offer of a bond with the company’s owner?”

My eyes widen.

No one talks back to the Dance Master.

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