A Dance in Blood Velvet by Freda Warrington

ballerina equally fascinating. Unless he hid it well, she was sure he hadn’t. His appreciation was sincere but detached.
    “I’d like to see this again,” she said.
    “I got connections. I can get all the tickets you -” the American began, but Karl turned to Charlotte, cutting him off.
    “If you wish,” Karl said softly. “Now, shall we go?”
    Charlotte and Karl walked slowly from the theatre, through the cool starry darkness outside; past posters announcing the ballet, away from the knot of hopeful worshippers waiting at the stage door.
    The streets grew quiet and narrow. Charlotte couldn’t banish the dancer’s face from her thoughts.
    Karl drew her hand through his arm and said, “When we saw the Ballets Russes, you were on air afterwards. We talked for hours, don’t you remember?”
    “I feel like being quiet now.” She leaned her head on his shoulder.
    “You needn’t keep your thoughts from me. I have told you many times that there is nothing you can say that could shock me.”
    She looked sideways at him, startled. “Why would I be thinking anything that might shock you?”
    “Liebchen, I saw the way you watched Violette Lenoir.”
    Charlotte stopped abruptly. She glared at him, defensive. “How can you always know -” Her lips softened and she looked away. “You always do this to me. I don’t know why I fight you.”
    “You don’t have to fight me.”
    She had to explain, not leave him with the wrong idea. “Anna Pavlova was magical but she seemed a universe away from us. She’s part of a vibrant, energetic, real world that never touches the dusk we live in.”
    “And Violette?”
    “Different. She projected anguish, pure shimmering pain. I’d like to ask her, ‘What is it? Where does it come from, how do you turn agony into such magic?’”
    “She may not have an answer.”
    Charlotte tried to sound off-hand. “You mean that what I see isn’t who she really is. I know. I should like to ask her, that’s all.”
    “If you want to meet Violette, do so,” Karl said reasonably. “What’s to stop you? In the Crystal Ring you can walk through walls, straight into her dressing room. Then what?”
    “I wouldn’t do that. It would be unfair and I’d hate to frighten her.”
    “Then, if the American gentleman is to be believed, you are unlikely to meet her.” Charlotte was silent. He continued, “Any immortal might have the power to step into the room of Pavlova or Lenoir and destroy a great and shining talent, but none do; not even those who claim to have no conscience, like Ilona or Pierre. There’s an unspoken law, an instinct. We still respect the human world. Why destroy the culture that gives us so much pleasure? Or ravage a world without which we could not exist?”
    “I agree completely. I never said I wanted -”
    “But understand, Charlotte! That is the very root of your fascination: your desire for her blood! So very like sexual attraction; the more enticing the human, the more you long to satisfy your thirst. Only for her it would be fatal. Do you wish to fulfil that need and stop her dancing?”
    “Of course not!” Charlotte raised her chin in anger. “Was I merely a source of blood to you?”
    “As I said, it is so like sex.” Karl held her gaze. “You don’t have to ask that, beloved. The more captivating the human, the more their blood means. That’s the danger.”
    She looked away. “I couldn’t bear to harm her. I’d simply like to reassure myself that she’s real... to discover how a mortal can seem supernatural. But I never shall; it would destroy the magic. Karl, I wish I you couldn’t see straight through me like glass!”
    “I can’t. I never could.”
    He bent to kiss her. She stretched her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his; eager, loving. A ruby-red flare of desire and thirst reminded Charlotte where she belonged now. Nothing mattered except being with Karl, and the taste of blood was a bitter-sweet ecstasy above all