“Today we shall perfect the Viennese waltz.”
We simultaneously took one step apart, and at the look of horror on my friend’s face, I had to choke back a laugh, which unfortunately ended up sounding more like a snort.
“Viennese waltz?” I glanced up at Yasuo. He was so tall, and I was so not. “How, exactly, is that supposed to work? You’re too big.”
He put a hand to his heart. “I never knew you cared.”
I gave him a piercing look. “Shut up. It wasn’t supposed to be a compliment.”
“Get into position.” Dagursson’s voice bounded off the walls.
Yas and I obediently faced each other. He shook his head regretfully, taking my right hand in his left. “D., you slay me.”
“I think I know who slays you, and it ain’t me.” I’d seen how close he and Emma had gotten by the end of last semester, leaning closer than necessary to talk and catching each other’s eyes in little private jokes.
His right hand gripped my waist hard. “Stop right there, baby girl.”
The music cut out, and we shut up in the sudden silence, waiting as Dagursson fiddled with his iPod. The sight was so weird, my mouth smiled, but my brows frowned. Apparently vamps liked cool tech toys, too—though, for all I knew, it was the iPod that’d been confiscated from me last semester. They’d never consider letting us have any gadgets, and they kept the computer lab under lock and key.
The music started, and some standard-issue Strauss piped into the room.
Ugh. Not on my iPod.
“Listen carefully.” Dagursson began to clap those freaky hands again, beating in time. “One-two-three, one-two-three. Do you hear the triple beat? Gentlemen, you’ll step with your left foot on the first beat. Ready?” He zipped back to the beginning of the song, shouting, “Four, five, six…”
Yas stumbled on the very first step, and it took a moment for us to find our rhythm. “I feel like the freaking sugarplum fairy,” he grumbled.
“That’s ballet, not ballroom.” Yas took too big a side step and earned a snarly look from me when I tripped on his foot. “That you’re almost a foot taller than me doesn’t help.”
Yas waggled his eyebrows. “Not my fault I’m such a fabulous specimen.”
“Spare me.” I really was losing patience, and it wasn’t just because of Yasuo. I wondered whether I’d be able to dance with any partner, or if I was just that lame. Was that why Alcántara insisted I take this class? Not because of our mission, but because he’d somehow found out I sucked so royally?
But then I remembered that last weird exchange of ours. He’d told me to believe I was beautiful. That the key to dancing well was believing my own elegance, my own grace.
I concentrated hard, and we danced in silence for a time, Yas mouthing the words One-two-three, one-two-three as he did a fairly clumsy job of a box step. “So why do we need to know how to dance, anyway?” he finally asked. But talking messed up his rhythm, and we both had to do a quickstep back into time with the music.
I shrugged in answer, which seemed to throw Yasuo off again, and so I snickered. “Maybe we’ll have vampire prom.”
He shot me an appalled look. “What is this, Twilight?”
“How should I know? I’m still getting over supposedly needing this for my mission.”
“Maybe you’ll have to dance with Alcántara,” he teased.
The prospect gave me the chills. “Don’t even say it. Seriously, Yas. Literally, don’t say it. Last time Emma mentioned his name, he appeared.”
“One-two-three,” he whispered, then added distractedly, “Hey, the guy saved you from gym class.”
I guessed he had a point. “Yeah, and that creepy Herr Otto.”
“Tell me about it,” Yas said. “He’s the dude who brought me in, you know.”
My brows shot up. “Seriously?”
Yasuo had lost his mind when he saw his Yakuza father kill his mother. And then he’d lost his options when he turned around and killed his father. But I hadn’t realized Tracer Otto was the one who’d found and retrieved him, and somehow I had a hard time picturing Otto trawling Hollywood Boulevard for prospective students.
I was about to comment, when I noticed Yas was doing strange things with his mouth as he concentrated. I shoved a little space between us. “What are you doing?”