Taking the Stage: Soulgirls, Book 2 (12 page)

“No. I treasure it.” He stroked his finger down her cheek to her throat and then traced the hidden collar. Whatever magic kept it fastened into place also disguised it. “But I can’t allow you to do that.”

“Why? Because I’m a woman?” The bite in her words barely brushed him and he chuckled, kissing her angry mouth until her lips softened and a sigh escaped.

“No,” he whispered. “Because you’re mine and I protect what’s mine.”

It took great force of effort to let her go, but he did. If she would not tell him the truth—then perhaps her stage manager would.

“You have to make him stop.” Roseâtre planted her palms against Heidi’s desk. Minion bounced from chair to chair until she landed on Roseâtre’s shoulder and wrapped her arms around her neck. The little imp was equal parts annoying and sweet.

“You need a hug,” Minion announced confidently and snuggled closer. She lifted a hand to stroke the little one’s hair, but didn’t take her gaze away from the stage manager writing in the giant monster of a book covering most of her desk space.

“What Mr. diNapoli chooses to do is not up to me, Roseâtre.”

“Of course it is. You manage everything.”

Heidi glanced up from the book and a fraction of a smile eased her expression. Setting the pen aside, she leaned back in the chair and interlaced her fingers over her belly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Get the key back, for one, and convince him that he doesn’t have to free me.” The words left her in a rush, but she managed to clamp down on the request to protect him. Heidi’s impassive expression revealed nothing of her thoughts.

“He has the key because you couldn’t get along with him safely. That was your decision, not mine.” Heidi studied her. “As for whether or not he will
free
you, that’s his decision—to a point.”

She wanted to bang her fists against the desk, but she curled them into fists, nails biting into her palms. Temper never persuaded Heidi. “If he frees me, you lose two lead dancers in as many months.”

“True and I have an entire chorus line to choose from. Sit down, Roseâtre.” Heidi waved to the chair opposite her and picked up her pen. “You need to think this all the way through.”

To her amazement, Heidi went back to writing in her book. Still holding the snuggling Minion, she obeyed the stage manager and sat. “Think what through?”

“All of it. You’re reacting—a bad habit of yours I must admit. I would think you learned that lesson when you joined the show, but apparently not.” Heidi’s pen scratched along the paper.

“I’m not reacting. I’m trying to protect—” She broke off on that sentence. Anthony said she was trying to protect him as she did her shield-sister. She wasn’t allowing him a choice in the matter.

Nor had she really allowed Cerveau.

But an oath is an oath. I made my choice when I made that oath…

“And now she thinks.” Heidi didn’t look up. She simply turned the page, dipped her pen in the inkwell and returned to her notes.

Minion patted her hair. “You don’t have to think. It’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth.” The little one giggled and bounced off her shoulder to land on the desk—perching carefully lest she disturb the page Heidi worked on. She picked up a puzzle box and began to work the shifting pattern on the top.

“Why is Anthony here?”

“Because I needed an act to help bring more customers inside. We’ve had too sharp a decline since Pandora left.”

“I get that.” Roseâtre tread carefully. “But why Anthony? Why a weretiger when you know my Tribe and his Pride have been mortal enemies for centuries?”

“Have they now? How very Bronze Age of them.” Heidi sighed and set aside her pen again. Roseâtre refused to take the bait of the deflection and stared at the stage manager. “Let me ask you a question. Why are you here?”

“You know why.”

“No, here in my office. Why are you here?”

“Because Anthony won’t let it go.” At Heidi’s arched eyebrow, she fumbled and clamped her mouth shut. Why was she asking for Heidi’s help? Just the thought of Anthony made her pulse race. She loved his scent. Adored how he wrapped his arms around her and insisted that she stay in his suite even when the sun claimed her soul.

The pain and torture in his eyes that turned to light when she awoke each of the past four evenings welcomed her, embraced her—seduced her. Working together the last three nights, even as grueling as rehearsal became, were some of the best in recent memory.

In my whole life. To be honest.
She didn’t shy away from the truth or the pain.
I’ve never felt like this and I don’t want to lose it—or him. So why am I asking Heidi to stop him?

Her heart squeezed in her chest.

“Do you still wish me to intervene?” Heidi and Minion both stared at her, twin expressions of patience and amusement on their faces.

“No.” Roseâtre shook her head slowly and then more firmly. “No, thank you.”

“Excellent. You have rehearsal and I have work.”

Dismissed, Roseâtre stood and gave Minion another pat before walking out of the stage manager’s office and into Anthony leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest. His body said relaxed, but the sharp, assessing look in his eyes told her he heard everything.

“I’m sorry.” She thought it would be hard, but the words came out easily.

He tilted his head, brows lifted in mild question.

“I need more time.” It was an evasion, but it smacked of the truth. She wanted Anthony to stop asking her because she wanted to say yes.

But how did she reconcile the desire to be with him and break her oath with the need and in all honesty, the desire, to honor her oath?

“Okay.” He cupped the back of her neck and drew her to him for a kiss as soft as a spring rain, the touch of his lips searing her to her soul. “Cats are very patient.”

She chuckled. “Since when?”

“Since you need me to be.”

Damn.
Her heart trembled, another brick shattering from the wall between who she wanted and who she was supposed to be.

“Cat.” Cerveau stared down at him. He’d shifted to get ready for their dress rehearsal, but the Amazon waited just off the stage in the wings where they would be hidden in the shadows.

He studied her face as she knelt down and brought herself level with him. It was a risky position for a warrior to adopt—particularly when he could take her throat out or rake her from breast to belly in one strike. He canted his head, nose twitching. Hints of a familiar scent clung to her—no—came from her. The touch of exotic spice accented the bite of bronze.

Even her eyes were different—warm like the Mediterranean—melting the ice he’d seen there before.

“Don’t let her stay here because of me.” Of all he expected her to say, that was not it. “I don’t understand it most of the time,” she continued, darting a look around to make sure they were still alone. He flicked his ears. No one was close enough to hear her hushed whispers. “But I know she stays because of me. If you can persuade her to go—do it. Don’t let her say no.”

He would love to deny her a choice in the matter. She wore slave bands. He could strip them off tonight when they were done and free her. But that would only infuriate her and if she went into them once, what would it do to him to have his mate submit to it again?

He sneezed and shook his head. He couldn’t force this decision. No matter how much he wished otherwise. He’d tried to corner the stage manager, but she ignored him. Roseâtre asked him for time.

He would give it.

“Please just—” If he hadn’t been watching her, he might never have seen it but the deep blue of her eyes retreated behind walls of frost. The guard returned to her expression and the soft pleading in her mouth firmed to a hard line. “Do as you will, cat, but she made her choice and you won’t change her mind.”

She rose in one fluid motion, pivoted and marched back out on the stage. Anthony sat back on his haunches.

Another clue.

The woman who encouraged him to get Roseâtre out of here was trapped behind another far colder and indifferent one. The flattened scent she left in her wake confirmed his suspicion.

Roseâtre strolled toward him, her hips swaying, and he tipped his head back to catch the flavor of her against his tongue. She brushed a hand across his head and stroked his ear. “Ready to go to work?”

He rubbed his cheek to her leg, marking her with his scent and purred. Yes, he was definitely ready to work for his answers.

Chapter Twelve

“So how does one get an audience with the Overseers?” Anthony stopped her heart with that question. She stared at him, scrambling mentally. “And don’t try to placate me. The sun rises in two hours. You will leave me for that gray, lifeless hell.” The growl in the last words betrayed his lack of patience.

But could she blame him? For the last week, they’d fallen into a pattern. Rehearsals for hours, returning to his suite sometimes with just a few precious minutes before the sun rose and the world would fade away from her. He waited for her to wake at sunset, making love to her as soon as the blood coursed through her veins again. They’d been fortunate this evening that the show seemed nearly complete and Heidi released them all early. Most of the girls escaped into the casino proper to play, but she and Anthony took his cats back to the suite. She lay with her chin tucked against his chest, wrapped around his sleek body, soaking up his heat.

He’d waited. He’d been patient. But her cat was done.

Dammit, he’s not my cat.
But no matter how much her mind resisted, it didn’t change what her heart and her soul already embraced—Anthony was hers. She went to Heidi because she worried about this moment—the moment he would push to see the Overseers. When he would interfere in the only bargaining chip she had to protect her sister.

Because if forced to choose—how could she not choose him? “If I asked you to leave it alone, would you?”

“I have left it alone. I’ve left it alone for a week. I share your body and your heart, but not your mind and not your burdens. You keep holding yourself back and…” A growl interrupted the purr vibrating through him and his hands flexed against her. “I
want
you. All of you. Not just the pieces.”

“It’s my burden, Anthony.” Gods, why couldn’t he understand that? She didn’t want to trap him in this interminable hell with her—even this brief respite—it would end. He would have to leave unless he wanted to negotiate with the—

She refused that thought any more purchase in her mind. She didn’t want the Overseers to get their hands on him. She would kill them all.

The violence burst free of the cocoon of servitude she’d forced herself into. If she could have fought her sister free all those years ago, she would have. She’d adopted the wait and see—the game of service—to stay close to her so that when Cerveau was Jamiela again, they could be free.

But as long as Cerveau existed, her shield-sister would not be free. A warm, callused hand tugged her chin, lifting her from his chest until she was forced to meet his gaze. “Then share the burden of that oath with me. You’re my mate. Your oaths are mine.”

“An oath I made when you were a boy can’t be yours.” She pulled her chin from his hand and pushed up. She could barely think when she touched him.

“Mates, Roseâtre.” He pulled her around, refusing to let her retreat and their gazes clashed. “Mates in everything, not just bed, not just a show. Your burdens are my burdens. Would you let me face down my uncle alone?”

“Of course not.” The answer swift and immediate sent a look of satisfaction across his face.

“Then why do you demand that I let you shoulder this alone? I lost my bid to lead when I was not much more than a boy. Arrogance and pride made me walk away from my Pride rather than bend a knee to him that bested me.”

“We’re all subject to the mistakes of our youth…”

“Then you can tell me the truth of why it is you’re here. Why you refuse to remove the slave bands—why you’ve submitted to the control of another, or I’ll get my answers from those you submit to when I challenge them for the life and safety of my mate. I won’t leave you in servitude.”

Challenge.

With that one word, he bashed down the great wall of Troy holding her soul captive. If he challenged the Overseers, he risked his freedom. Worse, he would risk his life.

“Cerveau is the librarian of the tribe. She is bound by debt to serve the Arcana Royale until she surrenders the knowledge she took from their Sphinx.”

Surprise rippled across his features. “How did she…?”

“I don’t know.” Roseâtre sighed. Relief at letting it out relaxed her and she settled her body against the long length of him, a masculine cushion to the harsh reality of her condition. She indulged in the way her curves seemed to fit to him, the lazy possessiveness of his leg thrust between hers, the heat of his thigh nestled against her sex.

A week ago, she would have snorted. This moment, she could imagine no other way. Her mother would kill her. But she banished the queen from her thoughts.

“Tell me,” he murmured, stroking his hand through her hair. He was petting her like she was one of his cats and, odder still, she enjoyed the soothing display of ownership.