“I’m so pleased to meet you,” she says. “I hope you’re both very happy together. Konstantin is a wonderful man.” Lies. “I must go, my boyfriend is waiting for me.”
Five pings in a row. Wow, not one word of truth.
I don’t squeeze Konstantin’s hand though. Fuck him and his ego. If he wants to know if his ex still has feelings for him, he can go stalk her Instagram account like a normal person.
She leaves in a cloud of expensive perfume and he turns to me expectantly. I widen my eyes in mock pity and try not to laugh at the look on his face.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out between you both,” I say. “For what’s it’s worth, she’d still be happy to plié on your face.”
He frowns, watching the ballerina glide across the room.
“You are insufferable,” he says, without looking at me. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
“The list of people who have called me that is under lock and key in my therapist's office.”
“Insufferable,” he repeats. “Yet enchanting.”
Again, there are no pings, just the touch of his hand against the small of my back as he leads us through gilded pink hallways and towards the box. I take a deep breath as Konstantin’s finger strokes my waist, his face watching mine expectantly.
When we enter the box, I gasp. It’s like I’m standing inside a giant Fabergé egg. I’ve never seen so much gold and red velvet in one place, and I’ve definitely never been in a private box. There are four seats awaiting us, but the box is all ours. Konstantin doesn’t strike me as the sharing type.
“The show is about to start,” he whispers, pulling me down onto the chair beside him.
I gaze out at the theatre tiered with golden rows and endless red velvet. The ceiling is adorned with paintings of Apollo and his muses, and presiding over us is the largest chandelier I've ever seen, weighed heavily at its center with giant glass jewels.
The orchestra swells, the theatre goes dark, and I sit forward in my seat as the red and gold curtain parts.
For the next half an hour I forget who I am and what I’m doing in Russia as I get lost in the music and the story of Swan Lake. I watch the swans launch gracefully into the air, like a flurry of snowflakes floating across the stage to music I’ve heard all my life but never known how to place. Curved elegant arms, dipped heads, pointed toes - all perfectly in time as if the cast is just one person. I can’t tear my eyes away.
After a while, I feel Konstantin’s hot breath close to my ear.
“Are you following the story?” he asks, without making it sound condescending.
“No,” I say. “But it’s beautiful.”
My stomach gives a traitorous flip as his gaze locks on mine. I turn my attention back to the stage as dozens of dancers leap up in the air, their white tutus jutting out like petals around their waists. I always wanted to take ballet classes as a child but my mother wouldn’t let me. She said ballet wasn’t for Witches, that there were plenty of other things I needed to practice before I wasted time standing on tiptoes.
“Ballet,” he ventures quietly, his hand landing gently on my thigh. “Is all about control.”
I’m thankful we’re sitting in the dark and he can’t see my cheeks flush. I’m thinking about the dream I had about him, far too conscious of his hand on my skin to focus on his words.
I glance sideways at the dark silhouette of Konstantin’s face. He’s watching the swans pirouette on stage, their arms perfectly arched above their heads.
Just when I think he won’t move again his finger edges further along the silk of my dress.
“The swans can only return to human form at night,” he explains. “By the lake made from the tears of Odette’s mother.”
He’s very chatty for the ballet but I don’t mind. I nod and watch, conscious of his hand heavy on my thigh, his fingers performing a lazy sort of dance across the fabric. As the music rises his hold on me tightens, then he releases me altogether.
“That move there,” he points as the male lead spins into the air. I lean forward to watch the drama unfold when I feel Konstantin’s hand return, his fingers brushing against my dress where it splits at the thigh. Slowly he hooks and pulls the fabric up, parting the dress as he strokes across the creamy flesh of my thigh.
He’s still not looking at me.
“That move takes years to perfect,” he continues. “Dancers will try it again, and again...” His fingers take a stride with each word, each time climbing higher up my leg. “...and again,” he whispers, reaching my underwear and tugging it gently to the side.
OK. We’re really doing this. At the Bolshoi.
Jackson’s reminder of the word decorum flashes before me, but it’s not like I haven't done things in public before. I mean, red velvet and Tchaikovsky sure beats the back row of a movie theatre.
I wait. He doesn’t move his hand.
Konstantin continues watching the dancers while I watch him. Slowly, a ghost of a smile plays at his lips and I part my legs. An invitation.
“They will practice the leap endlessly,” he says quietly. “Until one day they get it just right.” As he says the word right his thumb tightly traces over the lace of my underwear, proving he knows exactly where to find my clit.
I bite back a moan. He waits.
“Yeah?” I whisper, encouraging him further. It’s all I can say. I have no more words left.
“Ballet is a masterclass in control. Every move is calculated, repeated, practiced, until the dancer can’t take it anymore…” With each wicked verb his thumb does another entitled stroke across the lacy fabric.
A searing heat is building between my legs, like a coil being wound tighter and tighter. I part my legs further and watch his chest rise and fall, his gaze still trained on the stage.
“Focus,” he whispers. I obey and watch the ballerinas, arms crisscrossed and feet pointed, tip-toe along the stage and I wonder how many of them he’s fucked. I’ve lost all sense of the story. He doesn’t take his eyes off them, his face solemn and still.
“Ballet is about knowing the limits of your body and always stopping before you’ve gone too far…”
The music starts building as he gently pulls my lacy underwear aside and places his thumb directly on my clit. I want to keep talking but I can’t. All I can do is stare at the dancers, their white costumes blurring like snowflakes. A male ballerina has just leapt onto the stage dressed in black feathers. He’s the bad guy, Von Rothbart, tricking the princess. He’s dark and evil, we’re meant to hate him. But as he glides across the stage, his muscles flex and all I can think about is the way Konstantin looked in the dance studio. So much controlled strength.
I feel his breath against my neck. “Did I do this to you in your dream?” he whispers, sliding two fingers inside me.
How does he know about my dream? Of course, he knew the effect his blood would have on me. Dick!
I don’t have the strength to express my indignation as his fingers move deeper inside me.
“When you were dreaming of me, is this how I touched you?”
I close my eyes, remembering the visions I’d had of us together in his bed. The music swells and Konstantin moves faster inside me. All I can hear is the sound of violins and piano and a deep oboe, and above it all, Konstantin’s breathing getting deeper.
My dress has risen around my waist and when I open my eyes again the sight of his hand buried between my legs, moving up and down, has me building higher. With every stroke my vision blurs and the sensation mounts.
Konstantin leans closer to me, his lips grazing my collarbone.
“Did I make you come in your dream?” He drawls. “Or did I stop just shy…”
He lingers there. Letting me float on the edge. I move my hips forward, unable to resist sliding onto his hand.
“Control yourself, Saskia,” he reprimands. “Hold back.”
I try and do as I’m told, but it’s getting harder to control myself with each whispered care
ss. I bite down a scream.
His mouth is in my ear and he licks the side of it, but his hand doesn’t stop what it’s doing. His furiously calculated movements turn from teasing to greedy, from gentle to hungry, with every stroke. God, he’s good.
“Now,” he whispers.
I don’t want to obey him. I want to be a brat about it and make it last.
But I can’t.
I let go and my entire body convulses, my thighs holding his hand in place as wave after wave crashes over me. Everything goes bright and I snap open my eyes as the lights switch on for the second interval.
Konstantin is looking at me intently, his smile smug and erect fangs glinting in the golden light. The intermission is announced.
“Let’s go get some champagne,” he says.
“You’re very lucky to get access,” Konstantin says, holding the door open for me. Swan Lake is long over and Konstantin had offered me a tour of the Bolshoi backstage.
“I’m looking forward to meeting the cast,” I reply, my chest tight and thighs still throbbing. I place the back of my hand against the heat of my flushed cheeks. Oh my god, I really need to gather myself before meeting these prima ballerinas.
Between the swan princess realizing she’d lost her prince, and stars of the show drowning in the lake at the end, I don’t even remember who played who. Konstantin is acting like nothing happened between us and I’m trying not to think about the fact that I live under the same roof as this Russian mafia Vampire and I just crossed the world’s biggest line. A very dangerous but delicious line.
I also have no idea why he’s bringing me backstage. Although the more time I have to cool off before we head back to his house, the better. The idea of Lukka picking up the scent of tonight’s arousal is mortifying.
We enter a room lined with mirrors full of bone-thin people in different stages of undress. It’s a lot fancier in here than the changing room at the club.
Konstantin takes my hand and squeezes it. Here we go again.
A cheer goes up as soon as we enter the room and Konstantin gives the cast the most genuine smile I’ve seen all night. He hugs each person one by one and congratulates them, and something aches in the pit of my stomach. This was his life before he was turned. This is who he was before he became a powerful monster feared by everyone.
“Ah, the leading man of all leading men has come backstage to tell us what we did wrong,” shouts out a guy who I recognize as the jester in the show. He claps Konstantin on the back and grins. “Although at least you weren’t showing us up out there tonight. We all look better when you stay in the audience.”
The cast laugh and a light blush tints Konstantin’s cheek.
“You were all stupendous,” he says. “Flowers and champagne are on their way.”
Another cheer. I’m relieved to see his ex and her tight white dress aren’t in the crowd.
“Will you be coming back?” a young woman shouts out.
“Maybe. One day. I don’t know,” Konstantin replies. “But I doubt you’ve missed me.”
They all shout out that they have, and that they want him back, and he looks at me. He’s waiting for me to squeeze his hand, but I don’t need to. They’re telling the truth.
I wink and he grins.
That’s all he wanted, to come back to the ballet and feel loved. To return to the one place where he would be missed the most.
I swallow down the lump in my throat.
Chapter Eighteen
There’s a resounding silence in the back of the shiny tinted Mercedes. The hat-clad driver at the front is silent too. Konstantin stares out of the window, the lights of Moscow flashing across his face. I bought a little nutcracker at the gift shop for Mikayla. I do that sometimes, buy travel souvenirs for my sister as if to convince myself she will come back from wherever she went. Lucky for her they were all out of ‘My sister got finger-banged at the Bolshoi and all I got was this lousy t-shirt’ options.
Tonight was an assault on the senses. I can still feel Konstantin’s touch on my thigh and my stomach aches with a strange hollow sadness after having witnessed the intimacy between him and his friends. I suddenly realize I don’t know how it feels to kiss Konstantin. I want to know. Oh god, now I’m thinking of the taste of his blood again and my heart starts beating loudly. Can he hear it?
I can’t believe I’m wearing a couture dress, earlobes throbbing from the weight of heavy rubies, still reeling from the beauty of Swan Lake. I’m buzzing on bubbles. I can’t sit still, and I keep fidgeting in my seat. Konstantin reaches out and stills my hand.
“Your life is really glamourous,” I say lamely.
But it’s the truth. The whole evening, even now sitting in the back of this car, imposter syndrome is making my hands clench. I know I’m a reporter playing a role, so I am quite literally an imposter, but it’s not that. I can’t shake the feeling that a girl like me shouldn’t wear dresses like this. She shouldn’t be in Bolshoi boxes. I can hear the sneer in my mother’s voice, saying luxury like that is wasted on me. I can imagine my sister Mikayla wearing this dress instead. She’d look prettier than me, more sophisticated than me, and certainly better behaved.
“What’s your life like?” Konstantin asks.
It snaps me out of my pity trip. It’s the first time he’s ever wanted to know anything about me.
“There’s a lot less velvet,” I reply. “More grime. My bedsheets are not as luxurious as you’re used to. You wouldn’t last a day in my apartment.”
Something indecipherable crosses his features. “You think you know me. Most people do.”
I think of his businesses, his mansion, the ballet, the sports cars lined up outside his home. I know exactly what he is.
“I want to show you something,” he says.
Konstantin barks an address to the driver, and we change course.
We drive for over an hour down a giant freeway dotted with massive banners, twenty-four-hour supermarkets, and gas stations that boast having fresh ponchiki. My stomach rumbles at the thought of the little sugar-dusted donuts. The canapes at the fancy Bolshoi did little to tie me over, and orgasms make me hungrier than long-distance hiking.
We keep driving until there’s nothing but mega markets and sparse birch wood forest. It’s past midnight and the moon is high in the sky. With a jerk, we turn down an unlit road lined with wooden houses shining silver and frosted with lights now.
“These are dachas,” Konstantin explains. “In the Soviet Union, many people had these weekend houses in the countryside. The tradition has continued.”
Are we heading to his country house?
I start to imagine how grand Konstantin’s second home must be. My mind briefly wanders to the thread count potential, quickly gravitating to images of sweaty limbs and his mouth on my neck.
The Mercedes rocks up and down over the bumpy road and I shake away the graphic fantasy. The houses we’re passing are far from luxurious. They’re dilapidated. Some of them have patchy makeshift roofs with rusty gates, covered in scraggly vines.
Where the fuck is he taking me?
“You have a country house here?”
The car stops by one of the most neglected wooden houses on the block.
Konstantin stares up at it as he answers me. “In a manner of speaking.”
He steps out of the car and walks to the gate and the driver lets me out then returns immediately to the car to wait. I follow Konstantin, taking care not to let my dress drag on the tire-indented mud. Our outfits look so out of place here.
Konstantin unlocks the gate and we follow the path to the house. The property is overgrown and splashed in shades of orange and green from the rotting lichen. Even the trees surrounding the house are broken and decaying. A green mossy hole that may have once been a pond reflects a distorted version of us as we walk past.
My skin starts to creep. No one has lived here in ages, so why the hell are we here? Then it dawns on me. This is where I’m going to die! Us reporters
think this at least five times a day, every time we find ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which is basically our job description.
“If you were going to drain me of my blood and dump me, you could have done me the courtesy of doing it back at the mansion. Or better yet at the Bolshoi. Now that’s a classy way to die.”
I’m talking fast because I’m nervous. But also, because I don’t want to die. What if the theatre was just a big cover-up to put me at ease and in reality, he’s discovered who I am and luring me to my death? If he were to kill me, a place like this would be perfect. A place where no one goes, where you can’t tell the blood from the dirt.
“Quiet,” he says, although his voice is laced with kindness.
I fidget again and he reaches for me, his cold hand closing around mine. He’s looking up at the house with a type of fascination, like all he had to do was blink and it would be gone.
“This is where I grew up,” he says. “This is what I came from.”
“What? Here?”
Mouth agape I glance around as if I missed something. This isn’t a home - this is a long-abandoned hole.
He’s not surprised by my reaction. “Lukka and I were raised in this very house by our mother.”
The dead mother I remember him saying he doesn’t miss.
“And your father?”
He takes his time answering, staring at the building like it’s a riddle he hasn’t cracked yet. Then he pushes open the old door and walks in.
I follow eagerly, I need to know more, even though the house looks like it could collapse at any point. It’s also…burned from the inside? Scorch marks cover the curling wallpaper. There’s a modest living room that leads into a tiny kitchen with an archaic stove.
Some things are scorched, other parts are left intact. It’s as if someone wanted to incinerate the house but gave up and left it half destroyed.
I once saw pictures of Chernobyl after it was abandoned, and this is what Konstantin’s childhood home reminds of. There are ballet awards on the shelves collecting dust, a teddy bear in the corner, a cup of blossoming mold on the table.
Vampires of Moscow (Blood Web Chronicles Book 1) Page 13