The God (Bratva Blood #3)- S.R. Jones Page 0,22
seats in front of the stage.
“Yes and, Bohdan.”
“Yeah?”
“Read a book or play a game, okay? This will be boring.”
She’s not wrong. She starts and stops the music over and over again, making tiny adjustments to her movement, or to where she’s standing. I’m not sure if this is normal ballet stuff, or Dasha stuff. I get the feeling she’s super controlled and somewhat obsessive.
Where did the Dasha who ran through the woods screaming with glee go?
Then again, did I ever really know her anyway?
I finger the scars on my upper thigh. The ones put there because of what she did to me, and I swallow down the intense emotions. I want to save her, but I also want to make her pay. Do I only want to make her mine so I can tear her down?
When I think of her as a child, and when I saw her laid in that pile of garbage, I’m sure I only want to help her. As I watch her intense perfectionism, however, and her perfect body, I get those other feelings back. The darker ones.
She’s perfect. I’m marked.
She went away, but I had to run away.
Betrayal. It’s the worst thing someone can do to us. Especially those we least expect it from.
I need to stop these dark thoughts, so I take out my phone.
I’m scrolling on my phone, mostly reading the headlines of a world going to shit, when I realize the music is no longer stopping and starting. It’s been playing continuously for some time. I glance up and lose all interest in my phone.
Dasha is moving to the music, and it’s spellbinding. Her body flows, bends, turns, and twists, and she’s sublime.
The way she moves. My God. It’s not human; it’s above human, like an angel in human form. She raises her arms, goes onto her toes, and pirouettes. Then she leaps and turns, and leaps again, then more of the on-the-toes stuff, and that looks like it must hurt. Her arms are so elegant, as she swoops down arms bent, her body bowing like a sapling in the breeze.
The music builds, and her movements become more energetic. I can’t look away. I feel as if I’m on that stage moving with her. Looking at her face, I’m close enough to see emotion there. She’s feeling this as well as dancing it. Then the music ends, and she stops.
She’s covered in a sheen of sweat, and her chest rises and falls as she breathes rapidly.
Slowly, I raise my hands, and I clap.
The sound is loud in the empty auditorium and she looks at me, her eyes wide, as she tries to regain control of her breathing. A door opens at the far end of the auditorium and a figure saunters in.
Jasper.
He strolls over to me. He’s holding a newspaper, and is that a pipe? Who smokes a pipe these days?
It isn’t lit as I can’t smell any smoke coming from it.
With a sigh, he sits by me and smiles up at the stage, where Dasha is now gathering her things, using a towel to wipe herself down.
“Isn’t she spectacular?” he asks me conversationally. “I first noticed her in London when she was part of the chorus, and something about her stood out. Do you know what it was?”
I shake my head, not wanting to talk to this fucker.
“Emotion. Dasha feels everything. She feels the story, the music, the tragedy. It flows through her like a live current, and it transforms the way she dances. Now, most dancers do feel it. Of course,” he says with a dip of his head. “But Dasha feels it in an extraordinary way. It’s about the only time she feels anything you see.”
I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to say to that, so I say nothing.
“Well, that and when she’s fucking.”
His words jar me. What game is he playing here? They don’t fuck. Not so far as I’ve seen. He has no interest in her and spends his time with other women. From the digging Damen has done into his past, this thing with the blondes has been going on for a long time. Why would he tell me this? Does he sense something between us?
I need to be careful. If Jasper thinks there’s feelings between myself and Dasha, I have no doubt he’ll get rid of me, and that just won’t do.
I might not know if I love her or hate her. I might not understand what I’m doing here, or what I