the music dragged me back in and the oxygen drained out of the room as she moved like she could actually walk on the air. The tension in every muscle was visible, but the cast of the lights hid the bruises marring her flesh.
Bruises that covered way too much of her and drained the lust out of me as I narrowed my focus on her ankle. She’d been limping on her way in earlier. There’d been a fresh bruise on her arm too. The reminder just incensed me all over again as she seemed to be shadow boxing in the air, fighting against the silks keeping her in the air, like they were keeping her trapped, not gravity.
The snap of her motion thrummed in perfect time to the beat, and then she pivoted and spun like she was going to climb again, but instead, she tumbled. A gasp ripped through the audience, and it took a solid three seconds for my brain to process what I was seeing, even as I pushed off the wall.
One of the silks floated down like a severed wing, and fuck me… The dark angel dangled by one leg, and that silk was sliding. It wasn’t hooked around her like the others had been. More people leapt to their feet, and with my heart in my throat, I shoved past two guys on my way to the side door that would get me up there the fastest. I needed to be in place to pull her up.
I’d barely touched the door when the audience’s gasps changed, and I whirled. She had hold of the silk with one hand, and then with deliberate precision like she’d practiced this for days—and who the fuck knew, maybe she had—she pulled herself up and climbed the silk like she was fucking Spider-Woman. She wrapped it around herself as she pivoted and rolled. Pure strength carried her upward. Her strength. Her control.
It was a thing of absolute wonder.
I’d never seen a thing like it.
Ever.
The entire audience was on their feet, and then she stood, one foot in the strap she’d made out of the silk, her bad ankle out as her leg pointed like she posed, then she had one hand on her hip, the other gripping the silk above her.
The audience lost their mind, but I focused on her eyes.
Her lips were smiling, but her eyes were darker, especially with the way the light reflected off the glitter on her face. More…there was fear there.
That hadn’t been part of the planned routine.
I found the dance partner fucker standing in the wings of the stage, glaring up at her.
Without looking at my phone, I pressed a single button and put it to my ear. I tracked Emersyn until she vanished above the stage as the lights went out.
“Don’t let him out of your sight,” I barked into the phone as I pushed into the hallway.
The show wasn’t the only thing that was done.
I made it to the dressing room hall in record time. There were dancers everywhere, and while I usually didn’t mind so much skin on display, I had one goal. Her dressing room door was locked. I knocked once. Then pulled out the key and opened it when nothing moved behind it.
Not one single person questioned me. The black overalls relegated us all as stagehands and techs. The performers didn’t notice us. Suited me fine. The interior of her dressing room was dark. There was a bloodied cloth sitting on her dressing table and a melted ice pack sloshing on the floor.
The duffle bag she normally carried in and out was still there. As were the street clothes she’d been wearing when she arrived earlier. There was blood on the pant leg. I hadn’t noticed her bleeding, but she had been limping.
Someone was going to answer my damn questions.
My phone buzzed, and I answered it without looking at the screen. “What?”
“She’s outside with the asshole. Side alley.”
Fuck.
“Willingly?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t let him take her anywhere.”
“Not planning on it.”
I did a quick scan around the dressing room and grabbed the hotel room key, wallet, and make-up bag off the dressing table and dropped them all in her duffle along with the street clothes, and then I was out and on my way up the hall. The dour bitch who lorded it over the dancers and constantly seemed to be giving Emersyn hell glared at me as I strode past her.
“You’re not supposed to be back here.”
I ignored her.
“Where is