Page 131 of Dance of Ruin

Knowing him. Needing him.

Being so fucking familiar with him that it craves him as he pulls nearer.

Unraveling me from the inside out.

Except just as that feeling ignites inside of me, something darker, somethingangry, roars up to snuff it out with a black cloud.

“Don’t you fucking touch me.”

The words hiss through my clenched teeth as I tense against him. I shove back, as if trying to dislodge his weight as it pins me to the wall. But he doesn’t move or even budge one inch. His hand stays tight on my throat, the other slamming into the wall beside my head.

“Isaid,” I choke, writhing under his grip. “Donotput your hands on me!”

There’s a pause. A throbbing, vibrating silence.

“Excuse me?—”

“You got dressed up tonight,” I snap, still facing the wall with his hand around my throat and the achingly familiar heat of his body pressing into me. “You smelled likecologne.”

“Itold you,” he snarls. “I had a work thing?—”

“Or was it aMelissathing?” I blurt furiously. “Or maybe some other side girl?!”

Nico goes still. But then, the short, dark laugh that rips out of him almost makes me scream in rage.

“You think I got dressed up to gofucksomeone else?”

I push back against him, shoving off the wall, but his hand slams against the stone beside my head, caging me in.

“I fuckingsawyour phone,” I snap. “Don’t act like I’m making shit?—”

“This,” he snarls, and I flinch as his muscles coil tightly and furiously against me. “Thisis what I was talking to Melissa about,” he snaps angrily, yanking his phone out of his pocket with his free hand and shoving it in my face.

The screen glows brightly in the dim, low light of the stone hallway he’s got me pinned to the wall of. But as my eyes adjust to the glow, the image I’m looking at clears.

Worn, ancient-looking pale satin pointe shoes encased in a velvet-lined display box, with a title above it almost like an eBay listing that reads:

Pierina Legnani’s Odette/Odile slippers – 1895 Imperial Ballet – Petipa/Ivanov

My brain stutters.

Pierina Legnani was an Italian ballerina who isstillthought of as one of the greatest of all time. She played the dual Odette-Odile role in the infamous Imperial Ballet production of the newly revisedSwan Lakein 1895, choreographed by two of the greatest choreographers ever, Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov.

“I—what?” I stammer.

“Melissa is a retired dance teacher, and now works as a broker for rare ballet antiquities,” he growls. “She taught Bianca when she was five. She’s almosteighty,for what that’s worth.”

My pulse roars in my ears. I don’t say anything. It’s like Ican’tsay anything.

“Since you were snooping,” Nico rasps in my ear. “You probably already know that I went to see her. That she thinks I’m thesweetest. That shelovesthe gift…”

I shiver as his snarled breath traces like a blade over my jugular.

“The ballet slippers,” he growls tightly. “That I boughtfor you, by the way.”

I go still. Time seems to stutter for a moment.

“Surprise,” he mutters dryly.

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