The Dark Duet by Kasonndra Leigh Page A

in the trees has visited me? I’ll find out, because I’m pretty sure it was a guy. He’ll be back. And I’ll be waiting for his return.

CHAPTER 9
    ~ Nikolai~
    The opening act for Maleficent, the production I’ve chosen as Inamorata’s debut run, should go over well with the audience. The show will be sexy, colorful, and feature an evil female villain, a role sure to appease the attendees’ insatiable need for the wicked.
    Paolo leads the dancers through the first act—performing routines that defy standard notions of what the human body can do—while I teach them how to put the work together, a group of several bodies working together to perform and create the illusion of a single body.
    Our new musical director, a man called Crow, one of the other twelve boys who escaped Vladimir’s ring, has decided to join me. His real name is Yuri Romanov, but he has earned the nickname of Crow because, like myself, he targets specific nerve points on the human body when disarming his opponent. An orphan like the majority of the other boys that were in our group, Yuri had dreamed of becoming a professional dancer like our idol, Mikhail Barishnykov.
    On nights when neither of us could take the despair and fear of not knowing what cruel or degrading assignment we’d be shuffled off to next, we spoke of our dreams and the crowds we would win over once we managed to break free from Vladimir and our house leader, a man we called the Master Phoenix. Shortly after Alek and Katerina broke up the Phoenix’s ring of youth assassins, Yuri was able to return to his homeland of Romania and began a new life studying arts and music at University. Meanwhile, he continued to develop the one skill he was most utilized for during our time in the order ... his natural ability to either hack into or decode any operating system using a unique string of binary codes.
    The position here in Inamorata serves as an alias for him since he’s nowhere close to Alek’s level of skill at being a conductor, but I will need my allies when the time comes to break free of Burkenstein and his hold on the theater.
    Luckily, today’s rehearsal isn’t nearly as frustrating as the first few times we practiced to the score Crow chose. Demonstrating the moves for the lead in to the third act turns into something of a side show. The symphony has gathered in the pit one level below the stage, which means I have to deal with a curious Alese Ballentine sitting in the third row from the front while I attempt to concentrate on what I’m doing. Who am I kidding? I can’t think at all. I’m completely distracted. When she takes center stage to rehearse the harp solo she’ll be performing in Act Two, I all but stumble my way through my part.
    Before I ruin the show for everyone else, I snap, “Take a break. We’ll begin again in five minutes.” I leave the stage and head over to the sound room, a small box of a thing situated in the far right hand corner of the auditorium. I pull my BlackBerry out of my pocket, firing it to life.
    Me: Do you like to watch?
    Alese: What????
    Me: You have been staring at my ass throughout practice. I cannot concentrate.
    Alese: I have not!!!! Wow, what an ego.
    I turn in her direction and smile. She’s shaking her head and pretending to be focused on her harp, yet she keeps stealing little glances at me. The text message alert goes off on my phone.
    Alese: Now who’s staring at who, Sir Belikov????
    For some reason, the texting makes me think of Adriana and the times we would flirt in this same manner, and a pang winds through my chest the same way it always does when I think of her. Stop this, Kolya. She is the means to an end. That is it. Remember what happened the last time you allowed yourself to focus on a woman this way.
    Adriana once called me a selfish bastard. She said I did not want her, but I wanted to make sure no one else could have her, either. She was right. I am always reaching out for something I do not deserve.