Chapter 27 Refuse
I glanced over his shoulder.
The court had formed a circle around us. Hundreds of red eyes watched our every move. They weren't smiling. They looked like sharks circling a wounded whale. They were waiting for a trip. A stumble. A sign of weakness.
"They want the blood," Klaus said. "If I show weakness, they will rush the dais. They will tear the prisoners apart, and then they will come for us."
"Us?"
"You are the prize, Nerissa," he said darkly. "But to them... you are just the dessert."
Fear, cold and sharp, pierced through the adrenaline of the dance.
"So we dance," I whispered.
"We dance," he agreed. "Like it is a war."
And we did.
We moved across the floor with a violence that masqueraded as elegance. He swung me, dipped me, lifted me. My feet barely touched the marble. I was weightless in his arms, suspended in the eye of the storm.
I stopped seeing the monsters. I stopped smelling the blood.
There was only him. The scent of ozone and rain. The sapphire fire in his eyes. The way his hand tightened on mine when the tempo increased.
For a moment, I forgot he was my jailer. I forgot I was his victim.
We were just two creatures bound by a curse, moving in perfect, desperate synchronization.
Then, a flash of pink cut through the darkness.
Lady Vespera.
She had returned. She stood on the edge of the circle, her face twisted in a mask of humiliation and rage. She watched us spin, watched the way Klaus held me, and she snapped.
She stepped onto the dance floor.
It was a breach of protocol so severe the music faltered for a split second. You did not interrupt a High Lord. You certainly did not interrupt the Grand Admiral.
But Vespera didn't care. She moved to intercept us.
"Lord Falkenstein," she called out, her voice shrill and trembling. She reached out a hand, aiming to tap his shoulder. "Surely you are tired. The creature... she must be heavy."
She was trying to cut in. She wanted to separate us. She wanted to reclaim her place at his side and reduce me back to the livestock she believed I was.
Klaus saw her coming.
He didn't slow down. He didn't acknowledge her.
"Klaus," I warned, seeing her hand reach for him.
"I see her," he said. His voice was ice.
Vespera lunged. "Peri, really, you must—"
Klaus moved.
He didn't stop dancing. He simply adjusted the angle.
He spun.
He used the momentum of our turn, swinging my body around like a weapon. The heavy train of my abyss-silk dress whipped through the air.
The fabric hit Vespera across the legs with the force of a whip.
She gasped, losing her balance. She stumbled backward, her heels skidding on the polished floor. She flailed, grabbing at the air, and crashed into a waiter holding a tray of crystal flutes.
Glass shattered. Champagne sprayed everywhere. Vespera landed in a heap of pink silk and broken crystal, soaked and humiliated.
The music didn't stop.
Klaus didn't even look at her.
He pulled me tighter, spinning us away from the wreckage, moving us to the far side of the room as if Vespera were nothing more than a piece of furniture he had navigated around.
"You hit her," I breathed, staring up at him.
"I danced," Klaus corrected. "She was in the way."
"She’s going to kill me."
"She can try," Klaus said. The sapphire light in his eyes flared, predatory and satisfied. "But she just learned a valuable lesson."
"Which is?"
"Don't reach for things that don't belong to you."
The court was silent, watching Vespera struggle to stand, slipping on the wet floor. Some of them were covering their mouths to hide smiles. Vespera was powerful, but she was not loved.
Klaus forced my chin up, making me look away from her.
"Focus on me, Little Fish," he commanded.
His voice was rough, dropping to a register that vibrated in my chest.
"Don't look at the trash on the floor. Don't look at the Emperor. Look at me."
I looked at him.
I saw the sweat on his temples. I saw the strain in his neck. I saw the black veins pulsing, eating away at his life with every second he spent exerting himself to protect me.
He was dying. He was dancing on his own grave.
And he was doing it with a ferocity that made my knees weak.
"Why?" I asked, the question tearing out of me. "Why humiliate her? You could have just stopped."
"Because," he whispered, leaning down until our foreheads touched. "I wanted them to see."
"See what?"
"That I would burn this entire palace down before I let anyone else touch you."
The music reached its crescendo. The cello screamed a final, high note.
Klaus spun me one last time. He dipped me low, holding me suspended above the floor. My hair swept the marble.
The room held its breath.
He didn't pull me up immediately. He held me there, trapped in his arms, staring down at me with a hunger that had nothing to do with blood.
For a second, I thought he was going to kiss me.
I wanted him to.
The thought terrified me more than the bone garden. I wanted the monster to kiss me. I wanted to taste the cold and the ozone. I wanted to know if his mouth was as hard as his eyes.
He lowered his head. His breath ghosted over my lips.
Then, the song ended.
The silence returned.
Klaus pulled me upright in a single, jerky motion. He released my waist, stepping back to a respectful distance, though his hand kept a grip on my fingers that was bruisingly tight.
He bowed to me. It was stiff, formal.
"Princess," he said, his voice flat, the mask slamming back into place.
I curtsied, my legs shaking violently. "Lord Falkenstein."
The court erupted into applause. It was polite, terrified applause. They clapped because they were afraid not to.
I looked over at the pile of pink silk and broken glass. Vespera was gone. She had fled the room.
But as I looked back at Klaus, watching him wipe a bead of sweat from his upper lip, I knew the dance wasn't over.