Page 21 of Dance of Deception

Keep. Fucking. Dancing.

The voice in my ear crackles to life again.

“Well done. Sadly, tonight’s show is shortened, but you will all be paid the agreed-upon amount. In a moment, you will be escorted back to your dressing room.”

The masked men stand from the dais and melt into the shadows. The guests knock back their last gulps of wine or get in one last kiss or grope before they get up from the various couches, chairs, beds, and floor mats, turning to file out through shadowy side doorways.

The masked women open our cages. The woman that steps into mine touches my arm, not wanting to startle me, before she takes it in her grip and leads me beyond the golden bars.

Suddenly, a presence materializes right in front of me.

Him.

The Hound.

The masked woman leading me stops, lifting her chin to look up at the man towering over us. He simply shakes his head side to side, not saying a word.

Instantly, she drops my arm, turns, and walks away.

The rest of the guests leave. The other dancers are gone. Suddenly, I’m alone with him in the thunderous silence of the underground cathedral, the coppery scent of blood still lingering in the air.

“You shouldn’t have seen that.”

His voice is dark. Dangerous.

I'd back away from him, but there’s nowhere to go.

He takes another step, a predator closing in on his prey. Suddenly, his arm shoots out and his powerful hand wraps like iron around my throat. I choke against his fingers as he pulls me close, my feet stumbling as he drags me almost right against his muscled body, the black eyeholes of his mask staring into my very soul.

“Tell me, little dancer,” he growls quietly. “Whatshould I do with you?”

4

LYRA

The underground cathedralspace is silent.

The body might be gone but the blood remains, staining the stone, pooling in the cracks, glistening under the flickering chandeliers that sway slightly above us. The air is thick with the scent of death and copper.

The Hound’s hand is still wrapped around my throat, not squeezing, not choking, butguiding. Controlling. Claiming.

He pulls me closer, turning my breath ragged, making my limbs tremble. I don’t fight. I don’t resist. I just cling to his hard-as-iron forearms as he half-drags me across the stone floor to the center of the huge room.

Right on top of the pool of blood from Andrei Mushkin, whoever he was.

The blood is still warm.

A sick shudder rushes through me and my pulse slams against my ribs.

The Hound finally lets me go. But I don’t move. I don’t make a run for it. Even though I’m not restrained anymore, I still feel trapped. Frozen. Immobilized.

The Hound steps closer.

The sheerintensityof him—towering, overpowering, unshakable—makes my lungs seize. He yanks the earbuds from my ears and tosses them aside.

I try to speak, but my voice catches in my throat. When I finally manage to get the words out, they’re small, shaky, pathetic.

“I… I didn’t see anything. I can't.”

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