Dance through the Dark

By Tessa Stockton

Elyse Magellan auditions at a dance conservatory for the elite. Privileged she is not, and so presses on by sheer determination, talent—and hopefully a great deal of luck—to get into the prestigious school and resident company. But nothing overwhelms her more than the aristocratic Gabriel Krist – the school's accompanist and concert pianist. Not only does he possess a compelling demeanor, he looks like a god, an angel pale and beautiful. He'd like to possess her, but is it for love or something else? What others in the wings say about him is a shrouded story. His promiscuous reputation has Elyse, the innocent, on edge. That's not the only thing that troubles her. Gabriel is… different. Something dark resides in him. She doesn't know what it is, this thing that urges her to run, yet she can't seem to pull away. At the same time, Gabriel is desperate for someone to find even a flicker of goodness in his cursed and heartless soul. Dare he lead this young fawn in his irreparable dance through the dark? Or does she possess the wherewithal to lead him out of the shadows and into light?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Creative Purpose Publications
• Release date: Mar 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781393683759

Tessa Stockton

Tessa Stockton is a speculative fiction novelist, freelancer, and editor living in the United States. She is a former professional dancer.

Book preview

Chapter 1

THE CORRIDOR BUZZED with nervous energy. Dancers lined the hall stretching in every position. Elyse tried to breathe as she squeezed past the others donned in classic pink tights and black leotards. She hadn’t warmed her muscles enough in the moments prior when she straddled the floor alongside those with whom she competed. Now, outside a large studio belonging to the North Bay Dance Conservatory, she paused to flex her feet one last time and shake out her tightly balled fists. When did her palms turn to sweat? She rubbed them against black cotton, a part of her bodice not covered by the large number safety-pinned in place.

Elyse Magellan, like a lost lamb, took a deep breath and entered the studio following a train of dancers. She lined up behind them against a wall and waited, yet again.

She couldn’t get over the intimidating vastness of the room. Deceiving from the outside, the space could easily hold an entire company in rehearsal. Every wall was mirrored except one. That standalone had floor to ceiling windows that revealed the dark of night against the backdrop of a wooded park. She remembered storming past the park earlier, while on her way to the conservatory from the bus stop. Beyond the park, the lights of the city gave Elyse the sense that the world could see in, watching everything that went on in that bright studio, but she could not see out.

The intensity of what seemed like hundreds of ceiling lights flooded the dancers. Flushed with white, one could not hide in a place without shadows – even if it was nighttime. The judges would see her every flaw.

Elyse slid further back against another, slightly taller, dancer. Peeking from behind the girl, she spotted the panel of four exhausted looking sour-faced judges. Hard to miss. She wondered if those nearby had heard her swallow, because the gulp thundered in her ears. As did her heartbeat, racing, thrumming in her bosom. Elyse worried she’d have a heart attack. She could see it in the headlines now, a struggling young dancer dying at the tragic age of eighteen.

Ballet Master, Mr. Davies, divided the auditioning dancers. The first grouping, after having been taken through a simple warm up, executed a rather difficult series of turns across the floor, followed by a floor pattern led by Ballet Mistress, Madame Galina, the primary dance instructor. Elyse watched with the hope to get an edge on the repertoire, though she knew her turn, the time for action, would storm in much too fast.

In her periphery, she spied the instructor motioning for music while staying focused on the girls who stood in position awaiting their start. Breathe, she told herself. In. Out.

Elyse jumped from the sideline at the sudden strike of ivories. She turned there—at what demanded her attention—to the beautiful grand piano. No. To the man behind it, the accompanist who attacked the instrument with instant precision, like a gorgeous work of slightly swaying art.

As his fingers struck the keys with finesse he never glanced at the board or music. Did not seem the least bit interested in his surroundings. He mesmerized Elyse, though. Pale skin, long waves of blond hair, he possessed an angelic appearance. He looked timeless as he stared out the window into the ink of night.

Elyse couldn’t help but gape at him.

Suddenly, he stopped looking at nothing and inclined his head toward her. His eyes an unusual blue, almost phosphorescent, pierced hers from across the room. She trembled a little. Something unsettling lurked from within the bluish wells of his peculiar gaze.

A corner of his mouth lifted slightly.

Four-five-eight. A judge called her number. Elyse mindlessly glanced at the bold black digits pinned to her torso.

She had felt the blood drain from her face when the pianist took note of her. Now she nearly hyperventilated that she’d make a spectacle of her herself in the actual tryout. Elyse swallowed against a dry throat. The clapping of several sets of pointe shoes shuffled across the wood floor. Elyse moved into place. She waited for the cue, her eyes peeling from the mirror to the accompanist. She fought to concentrate, to focus on the routine that would give her the break she desperately needed in the ultracompetitive dance world.

The music started. Elyse struggled. She couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t keep up. The pianist’s eyes stayed on her, examining every move. She felt it.

Timing, ladies, timing, the teacher said in her accented voice as she clapped her hands. You are lagging behind number four-five-eight. Dance it as if you own it! If you do not, then I assume you do not desire, badly enough, inclusion into our school’s Summer Intensive Program, she reprimanded, although her scowl said it all.

Yes, I want this. I want this more than anything! I need this, Elyse thought. I have nothing else...

Still, her mind flittered all over the place. So did her feet. She bumped into another dancer, crowding the girl, not paying attention to spacing when Madame Galina stopped them mid-exercise. Elyse’s golden opportunity slipped through her grasp.

"Will this group please stand to the side while some of our principals show you the correct manner in how it should be done," Madame Galina said, excessively trilling her Rs. She exhibited both pride for her company’s prima donna ballerinas, and impatience for the rest of the girls, including Elyse, who could only hope to make the cut.

The favored ballerina, at the top of the class, snorted while she strutted by Elyse. Please, indeed, the blonde, tall for a classical dancer, had said.

Elyse, void of a retort, seized a sigh, held her breath. Her confidence, what little she had, shattered.

Madame Galina poured accolades on her special group of assistants, especially the blonde girl, who already enjoyed status in the school’s resident company.

Elyse wrestled with the urge to run or hide. Somehow, somewhere, she knew she had the talent and the ability, but her unraveling nerves threatened to ruin her chance. Maybe they already had. She stared at the floor, at her turned out feet. At the shoes that hadn’t even begun to get scuffed – shoes still too stiff from an insufficiently broken-in shank. Feeling too propped up she rolled her feet again in a frantic attempt to make the hardness more pliable. Then she remembered she needed to watch the routines. That’s when the elect group finished in a final tableau. She exhaled with dread. Yes, her chance, ruined.

The accompanist caught her gaze, almost as if by will. For a second she studied him.

He smiled.

Elyse closed her eyes, trying to block him out. Said a prayer, and then stepped to the middle of the floor. The span of a few minutes loitered like a frozen year.

Maybe she didn’t come across as a diva. Far from it, but she accomplished what the teachers required. She just hoped the judges found it adequate enough, that the panel would spot something, something in her to want her. To allow her to stay.

When Elyse searched for the pianist’s smile her anticipation met disappointment. He stared elsewhere, his face drawn into a frown. Then something snapped his attention back to Elyse. He looked at her, but this time it was different. Shadows probed from beneath his lashes. She wrapped her arms around her torso, suddenly chilled, and shifted her attention to the window, into the gloomy night, barely discerning the slight sway of treetops.

GABRIEL WATCHED THE girl. He may have played the instrument as he always had, seizing yet caressing the keys. Nevertheless, before she even crossed the threshold of the studio for auditions and tiptoed to the corner, shyly hiding behind another girl, he caught her unique scent. Yes...unique, and virtuous – something rare in these modern days, especially in the performing arts world he chose to make his current domain. She was pure, untouched by a man, a double delight for one like him—both for his unquenchable thirst and insatiable lust. The tantalizing sweetness of a virgin teased his senses. He felt seduction instantly pump his cold veins, every part of him. And when he saw her, he thought she was an exquisite creature—in the world of mortals, that is—and purely beautiful.

Having taken many to his lair who acclaimed fine looks, this one...

Gabriel swallowed hard.

Every nuance of her appealed to him, the shape of her, the grace with which she moved, her delicate face, her shyness which provoked that mounting beast within him to capture and subdue. And her blood...the girl’s innocent blood singing to him, enchanting him to come. Take.

A wisp of her downy black hair tumbled out of her loosely spun bun and caressed a face glowing with a velvety, exotic light-olive complexion. She had perfect features, a petite, lithe body—a dancer’s dancer—something he’d come to admire. Aware of her immense nervousness, Gabriel could feel her heart pumping strong and fast, tormenting, inch-by-inch, his cursed fiber. And though tension threatened to wreck her, every part of the sweet girl moved with sublime grace—all the way down to her fingertips.

He could watch her and esteem the girl’s body, her blood, her lovely soul—and did so. But it was her eyes that captured him the most. Young, yet sad, she had the eyes of a fawn.

Gabriel imagined claiming her wholly to him, in every way without remorse, but what lingered in the windows to her sweet soul had stirred unease within his chest. He questioned it. He knew he was incapable of love. He could converse about music, art, dance, politics in the company of various minds, with appreciation, but underneath it all, the basis for what he felt for women remained the need to be sated, dependence to subsist.

He watched her stumble. Even in her falter, she shined with radiance, although she seemed completely unaware of her charm. It was another enticing characteristic for one such as he, whose primal nature took pleasure in overpowering his quarry. Ah, yes, beautiful yet timid, this one. Fresh as the early morning dew which he rarely had the chance to see during the centuries of his blasted existence. Gabriel cast his eyes away from the girl and swallowed hard, again, against a burning throat, the horrible thirst, his hunger for blood—her blood—rising with insurmountable measure.

In a strange way, the girl reminded Gabriel of Vaarika, his first lover, and the one who had made him into the monster he is. He frowned. Vaarika who ruined him and left him to realize what he’d become on his own, thrashing countless victims along the Baltic coast before he could gain control. Before he could find a way to exist, yet not kill. Although he had mastered the restraint, Gabriel was all too aware how close he came to the brink at any given moment. Even now after so many years.

A tantrum of emotions scourged, blazing through him. Most of all, anger. He wanted this girl, this young fawn who had entered the room moments ago. His desire, his every craving proved great over her. For this, Gabriel knew he could not have her. Ah, the endless turmoil of a vampire! Gabriel snickered. And then he cursed.

AFTER A BRIEF REPRIEVE, Elyse tensed, awaiting the panel of judges to choose the six who would stay to dance for their lives again, before they decided on the three who’d continue in the auditioning process. The rest were asked to leave the studio quietly, although a few had burst into tears before they made it out the door.

Except for the flipping and shifting of papers and photographs, and the restrained, hushed voices of the judges, the large studio once more retreated to silence. Very few shuffled, only stood at attention, frozen. Elyse tried to steady her breathing, but it was difficult to control. That and her beating heart that hammered in her ears.

At the piano the man sat still, better than anybody, as if sitting dead. Again he looked at nothing, until his eyelids slowly closed. Elyse studied him without reservation then. She had never seen a man so breathtaking. One could call him handsome, yes, but he owned a certain splendor she thought hard to describe.

When a judge called her number, she barely heard it. The accompanist turned his head in a very measured way, opening his eyes, and gave her the gift of a single nod. Elyse began to fidget with nervousness anew, letting loose a sigh of relief that she’d made it through to the next round. She also seemed to have regained the undivided attention of the man at the piano.

More toe shoes clapped across the floor as the train of dancers, those whose time had ended, left the studio. Elyse crossed her arms, feeling both lucky and vulnerable, and waited in the pared down room. She’d always focused on her training and never let the attention of a boy steal her interest. Then again, no one looked like this boy, either. Boy. Elyse shook her head. He was a man, a sort of timeless man.

Directed into a new formation on the floor, Elyse took her place and did exactly as told—no more, no less. Her heart began to ease when she heard the piano strings hammering softly, vigilantly, beneath its propped lid. She concentrated on it, the music, the way it sounded, how it moved, instead of the choreography. It calmed her nerves, to dance embracing this music. Wrap her body around it, meld into the degrees of the rising and falling of notes.

In the final tableau, the six dancers actually received applause. It gave Elyse a better outlook.

Back to the side of the studio, the dancers erupted in a giddy, nervous energy, mentioning in spurts how badly they’d traveled while executing the stationary whipped turns, fouettés en tournant, or stumbled out of an assemblé, just missing the perfect close in fifth position from a jump joining two legs in the air, or crowded during the series of steps and turns en manège, in a circle, around the dance area. And then there was always one, or two, who bragged about how she or he performed without a single flaw.

Chatter grew. The judges quieted the dancers, tamping their excitement down, reminding them that an audition was still in session and to act accordingly. Elyse kept to herself, listening to the verbal exchanges. She moved away from the noisy group and stood closer to the door. Not ready to take her pointe shoes off yet, she wanted to be ready in case experts called upon her for anything else. For the hundredth time, she glanced toward the piano. The player was gone.

Disappointment clouded her thoughts. Elyse considered it ridiculous how mesmerized she seemed over somebody she’d never met. In a matter of minutes, too. Drawn to the man’s looks at first sight, his persona, the accompanist’s demeanor almost commanded her attention. She wondered where he had gone.

A peculiar scent teased her nostrils. It reminded her of sandalwood incense, but she couldn’t put her finger on the exact likeness of it. The scent appealed to her. It tantalized her nostrils like a bouquet of patchouli, sandalwood, and lavender kindling sticks. She inhaled deeply, intoxicated by the aroma. Suddenly, her hairs stood on end. A strange sensation, as if she were scanned, came over her. If one could actually feel getting x-rayed...

Elyse turned and found the pianist directly behind her, standing close. Too close. Not close enough. He towered her with his height. Stature erect, head dipped down, he drank her in with a mere gaze over his aristocratic nose. He wore a faint smile, his otherworldly eyes almost aglow.

Elyse opened her mouth to greet him but words stifled on a choke. What made her so uncomfortable? That she was drawn to him, at the same time something in her spirit told her to stay away? She could almost hear words in her mind: Do not come near me, my fawn. You must stay away... must... stay... away...

Dancers! Your attention, please, Madame Galina commanded.

Elyse whipped her head toward the dance mistress with a jerk, but then quickly turned back toward the pianist. He had already left. Too fast. Not fast enough. Elyse breathed a sigh of relief she didn’t understand, yet her heart filled with regret she couldn’t grasp either. They hadn’t even exchanged names.

After noting Madame Galina’s instructions for tomorrow evening’s partnering tryouts, Elyse sat on the ground to untie the wide ribbons of her pointe shoes. She pulled them off, slipped the lamb’s wool from her toes, cupped her feet and rubbed them, arching and flexing them back and forth. It took a few minutes to work the kinks out, caused by her feet squished in those blessed-cursed frames of her toe shoes. After all the years of the discipline, she thought she shouldn’t get foot cricks. She did. Just about every serious dancer did. Along with demolished toenails. Feet grew worse, not better, with time.

Where had the accompanist gone off to, she wondered, again. Her eyes ventured to the piano and lingered.

Oh, I wouldn’t go there if I were you.

Elyse focused on the tall blonde; the favored ballerina of Madame Galina’s who’d made the snippy remark earlier. The girl glared down at Elyse.

What? Elyse responded, caught off-guard.

Gabriel. That’s what.

Who’s Gabriel?

Gabriel Krist. The guy you haven’t been able to take your eyes off since you stumbled into this studio.

Brandy, cool it. Her friend tried to calm the ire oozing from the lofty prima donna.

Shut up, Trix. The fair-haired girl, whose name Elyse now learned, sent another glower her way. Stay away from him, I mean it. She strutted off, her long legs coursing the floor with bitter arrogance.

Was that a threat? Elyse, blinking rapidly, asked Trix who lingered.

Don’t mind her. She swept a hand in the air. Brandy gets jealous because she wants to be more to Gabriel than a piece of meat, but he just uses her for sex. A booty call is all she is to him – her and every other female at this school. Trix nonchalantly picked at a stray cuticle framing one of her fingernails.

Elyse’s heart sunk. He’s like that?

Yep. Oh, everybody’s in love with him, she rolled her eyes, but he doesn’t want to commit. Well...except for with Donia. But, she’s old news. Trix went back to picking her nail.

Who’s Donia?

Trix shrugged. She died. It’s a weird story, what little I know of it.

What—

Don’t ask. I’m really not that sure, just that they were together when it happened. Trix said.

They? Elyse asked, dithering between wanting to know and not wanting to know.

Donia and Gabriel.

Oh. Elyse thought of the gorgeous man who earlier sat at the piano playing with skill and flair. She was drawn to him. What Trix said about Gabriel didn’t sound all that unlikely, though. The man stood god-like, a notable artist’s version of the perfect male chiseled from marble, expressing the finest features by sculpting. Who wouldn’t fall in love with him at first sight? He proved a vision to behold.

Elyse sighed. Have you... you know... She shrugged. 

What? Trix asked, blank-faced.

You and Gabriel, she suggested slowly.

Oh! Slept together? No. He’s...not my type. Trix wore a wry grin. I hear he’s amazing in the sack though. Trix tossed another hand in the air, dismissing the notion of her and Gabriel.

Elyse felt heat fill her cheeks. She grew up in a home condoning modesty. Things of an intimate nature were never discussed. She hid her face in her tote, searching for her black fleece cover-up pants and wrap-sweater.

"Geeze, are you blushing? No, man, I didn’t know chicks still did that," Trix laughed.

Elyse stood and drew her garments over her tights and leotard. She pulled out her canvas shoes and stepped into them, grabbed her tote and hurried toward the door.

You’re such a prude, gosh, what century are you from? Trix touched Elyse’s arm, stopping her before she exited.

This one, Elyse said with reserve.

Uh, you have to lighten up or you’ll never survive here. You wouldn’t believe what goes on at this place...this person slept with that person, that guy went out on this guy, laughter gushed out of Trix again. She gave Elyse, who had cringed, a little pinch. Come on, the night is young. I have just the thing to break you in.

What if I don’t want to get broken in? Elyse swallowed the lump forming in her throat.

Relax. I’m only talking about social dancing.

I-I’m not in the mood, thank you.

Trix shrugged. Suit yourself. Maybe tomorrow night, she suggested. I’ll get a group of us together and we’ll all go out to the club. Do a little salsa... Trix began moving her hips seductively. After getting lost in the moment, she snapped-to. What do you say, huh? She gestured with her hands as if stating, how could you resist?

Elyse exhaled a tiny nervous laugh. Well... maybe.

"I’ll take that! Maybe means yes. See ya!" Trix waved and skirted by before Elyse could respond.

Outside the studio, Elyse stopped to browse at the bulletin board. So many notices to look at, she lost track of time. The corridor had long emptied. She needed to make the long trek down the maze of halls to her assigned room.

The only sound came from the moderate squeak of her canvas shoes against linoleum. At some point that alluring, aromatic scent of patchouli, sandalwood, and lavender, smothered her again—like she walked into a thick cloud of the fragrance. Perhaps it had stayed with her since inside the studio and she had just forgotten about the smell or had gotten used to it? Whatever the case, it was strong now. She thought of him, Gabriel Krist, and sighed. Elyse could only think of Gabriel, and how he was absolutely the wrong kind of guy for her. She had never been with a boy before and she wanted it to be special, sacred, and as a wife with her husband on an enchanted honeymoon—just how she’d always imagined. The angelic man sitting at the piano earlier didn’t sound like an angel at all, or someone who would even remotely appreciate the value of her virginity enough to wait.

She released a long stream of air from her lungs. It seemed ridiculous that she could feel discontent over somebody she hadn’t even spoken to. Just that...well, she did...feel discontent. And she had never been caught up in the likes of a boy before. Boy, again? Who was she kidding? Gabriel was a man. Every inch of him exuded prime maleness, the entire length of his lofty frame seeped sex appeal.

Elyse glanced behind her. She turned. She thought she heard something. It sounded like a purr or a wheeze. She couldn’t tell exactly. Her hairs stood on end as tingling sensations rippled down the back of her neck.

Hello? The echo of her small voice bounced off the enclosing walls. S-somebody there?"

She couldn’t shake it, the sensation that she was being watched.

Elyse bowed her head, dismissing the notion, counting it as stress overload from the auditions. She continued to course the halls—but at a quickened pace.

GABRIEL WATCHED HER. He could have taken her so easily. Lurking in his transfigured state he stirred right behind her. Close enough that he smelled her hair that carried a hint of almonds and cherries. He breathed in against her neck, and out, slowly, the overwhelmingly sweet scent of her blood tempting his heartless soul. A scent so unique, so enticing that he almost drained her right there; too ready to toss her body aside. Except...except for she had turned. And when he saw fear in her sad chestnut eyes he withdrew. Once, in his early years as a vampire, he had taken victims. Before he found an alternative method to quench his undying thirst, he’d relished in the fear of mortals, gloried in it. It made him feel powerful, even as it sickened him of what he’d become. It proved a vicious and cruel cycle to bear minute after minute, day after day, century after century. He was damned for all time. He loved and hated himself all the same.

Materializing, Gabriel pressed his head against the wall, as if the flat surface could cool his burning fire. Nothing could be colder than his own skin. He huffed. Ice cold yet scorching with the heat of hunger!

For some reason, the lovely girl’s adoration of him breached his miserable state, as if her aroma and the beauty of her features didn’t taunt him enough! The curvature of her mouth, like the beam of a sun he hadn’t seen in full in four-hundred and seventy-two-years. She gazed at him earlier so innocently, trusting. Elyse. It actually pained him when he eavesdropped on Trix telling this one how fixated he was on his depraved ways. He wasn’t proud of it, but why should he care? He was cursed. Cursed creatures did cursed things. How and why would he do any different?

The same reason he drank from blood banks instead of depleting the life source of humans, as if they were worthless, like he had done in the past. So many of them...

The point was he tried. But this one was different. Elyse. He whispered into the poorly lit hall. It mattered what she thought of him. Gabriel saw the disappointment cross her face when Trix rattled about his escapades. He wanted to prove her—and everybody—wrong. He enjoyed a good challenge, and grinned at the potential amusement he’d get out of hazard. However, although he didn’t want to admit it, he needed someone to see him as something good. Gabriel was desperate for that. After tonight, he doubted Elyse would have anything to do with him,