
Dancing With Danger
Amelie Bergen · Ongoing · 94.3k Words
Introduction
Jack brushed his lips over the soft skin of my neck. “Me too. You have no idea.”
I let myself go in that moment, needing to just feel as Jack and I moved against one another as one. My heart was slamming against my ribcage as I felt him press against me, his knee gently parting my thighs.
Ballet dancer Mia rushes home to tell her roommate and best friend, Abbie, only to find the girl facedown in a pool of blood.
Mia is thrust into a world of mystery and organized crime as she seeks justice for her late best friend. Things become even more complicated when she develops intense feelings for Jack Drake, the insanely hot detective assigned to the murder case.
As the two work together to solve this mystery, they must work even harder to quell the undeniable desire between them.
Neither is successful.
Dancing with Danger is created by Amelie Bergen, an eGlobal Creative Publishing signed author.
Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Facedown
Mia POV
Heart still slamming repeatedly into my ribcage, I blew out a breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I leaned against the cream-colored wall of the dance studio hallway, trying to appear casual, but really needing the support as my head spun.
That had to be the best audition I had ever had, and it was for the lead role in Swan Lake of all the possible shows! It was hard to beat down the smugness that was threatening to erupt from within me as I replayed the last few hours in my mind.
I had known to expect a rigorous last day of auditions but I didn’t expect to nail it like I had. The roles would likely be announced within a day or two. The thought made my heart start to do double time once again.
This was the first time I felt overwhelmingly confident after an audition. I had little doubt that I would secure my dream role, the coveted leading part of Odette.
The competition was fierce, but I was prepared to be even more fierce as I strode into the studio earlier that morning with my head held high. I breezed through the warm-up routine, feeling as if I were floating with the familiar and grounding sensation of polished wood beneath my slippers.
It wasn’t until the audition reached its climax with the iconic “White Swan” solo that I began to feel the other eyes watching me in the vast, mirrored room. I felt the eyes of my fellow dancers, reflected in the shining wall opposite us, but I also felt the intense gaze of the panel of ballet masters, carefully judging each move we made.
As the gentle music washed over me, It was easy to forget the fact that they were heavily scrutinizing every graceful leap and step, watching for the tiniest misstep or lack of technique that might take place.
As my fellow dancers and I were thanked and dismissed, I couldn’t help the tiny smile that toyed at the corner of my lips. I had no doubt that I had performed the routine perfectly.
I waited for a couple of girls to disappear around the corner of the hallway before I let the smile spread out across my face. I made my way to the dressing room to gather my things, relieved to find the large room empty.
Everyone else must have already been there and left while I was trying to compose myself in the hallway. As I approached the line of white lockers to grab my stuff, the initial high from the near-flawless audition waned, making way for something else entirely.
My best friend hadn’t made it there.
It wasn’t unheard of for Abigail to oversleep, or to be late. When we were at Julliard together, I had to literally pull her out of bed at times to make sure she made it to classes and other events on time.
She took auditions seriously though. She was always on time for them, although admittedly, she cut it way too close a number of times. I grinned slightly as I pictured the way she would burst through the dressing room doors, just minutes before we were scheduled to meet with the judges, out of breath with wavy hair flying in every direction.
But this was the first time she hadn’t made it at all.
Concern twisted my stomach. I roughly pulled the pins from the bun on top of my head, letting my flaming red hair tumble down my back.
I threw the metal white door of my locker open, fishing around for my phone. I frowned at the screen when I saw that I had no missed calls or texts. This wasn’t like Abbie at all.
I pressed the phone to my ear, biting my lower lip nervously as it continued to ring before going to voicemail.
“Abbie,” I said into the phone. I chuckled lightly. “You better have a damn good excuse this time. I’m on my way home, and you’re going to make this up to me when I get there!”
“I doubt your little friend has a good excuse.”
I nearly dropped my phone as I whirled around to face the nasty voice. I narrowed my eyes at Natalia.
“Fellow dancer” would be too kind a term to describe that witch. She decided on day one that she hated Abbie and me, throwing us dirty looks and trying to make us look bad in front of our dance instructors.
She learned quickly that Abbie and I were too skilled to fall for her little tricks as she tried to trip us during practices.
I openly glared at her, frustrated that I had to tilt my head up to do so as she sneered down at me. She might be a witch, but she was a beautiful one.
I hated to admit it, but her tall, lean figure and smooth auburn-colored hair spoke for themselves. She was one of those girls that never had a hair out of place and made sure to act like it.
My hands twitched, the sudden urge to slap her across her pretty face overwhelming, but I forced a passive expression. “Abbie wouldn’t have missed today if she didn’t have a good reason.”
Natalia just rolled her eyes, one hand resting on her hip, her black leotard accentuating her limber body. “I’d hardly call nursing a hangover a good reason.”
I gritted my teeth, taking a deep breath to calm myself. Natalia had run into us on an unfortunate night months before. Abbie had just been through a nasty breakup and drank herself silly at a nearby dive bar in Manhattan. She had been a mess, make-up running down her face, and barely able to walk.
I’d never forget the shock followed by the pure delight when Natalia caught us leaving the bar, with Abbie leaning heavily against me. Since then, she’d been spreading rumors that Abbie was an alcoholic, despite the fact that my friend hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since that night.
It took every ounce of self-control I could muster to swallow my pride and smile pleasantly at Natalia.
“Look, I really don’t have time for this. Great job out there. May the best dancer win, and all that jazz.” I quickly grabbed my baby pink duffle bag and attempted to slip past her.
Unfortunately, I noticed her calculating look a second too late before she seemed to trip over nothing and stomped on my foot. Hard. I yelped and dropped all my things, but managed to stay upright.
Several obscenities flew through my mind at that moment, but I just glared silently at her, picked up my bag, and fled from the room. I didn’t have time to deal with her.
I couldn’t help but slam the dressing room door behind me. I winced and wiggled the toes of the foot she had stepped on and was relieved that nothing was broken.
Anger welled up inside me as I hurried out the doors of the studio and immediately hailed a taxi to take me home. It was no secret that it would have been devastating to have a foot injury as a ballet dancer. Natalia was taking this rivalry between us too far.
As I buckled myself into the backseat of the smelly cab, I replayed the audition in my head once again, lingering on the moments when I felt the most confident and graceful. It had gone so well, and I wasn’t going to let Natalia ruin it for me.
I called Abbie again, planning to complain to her about the bitch, but this time, her phone went straight to voicemail. Unease filled me as I stuffed my phone in my bag. I reasoned that she must have misplaced her phone, which was more common than I thought was humanly possible for a girl in her mid-twenties.
I tried to calm the mother hen that was rising in me. Abbie and I had been roommates for just over three years now, and it was more than enough time for me to learn how clumsy and accident-prone the girl was.
She was the type of girl that would walk into poles and trip over ladybugs. Miraculously, when she danced, she was as graceful and sure-footed as a dancer with triple her experience.
I practically flew out of the cab once it stopped in front of our shabby apartment complex. I hurried through the doors leading into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time until I felt my phone vibrate.
Finally! I frowned when it wasn’t Abbie’s name that appeared on my screen, but my heart started to beat wildly when my brain registered who it was.
“Hello, this is Mia.” My voice squeaked and I swallowed thickly.
I could feel the world around me disappearing as I struggled to make sense of the magic words that the producer of our dance company was saying. My shocked brain barely processed the most important ones: Congratulations … impressed with your performance … lead role … Odette … excited to work with you.
My lips were barely moving as I struggled to respond. “I really got the part?”
“Yes! Congratulations again, my dear. We’ll be in touch soon with the next steps.”
I finally snapped out of my shock long enough to be able to thank the producer profusely before ending the call. I stood there dumbly for several moments, just staring down at my phone.
My breaths were coming out as pants as what had just happened sunk in. I let out an excited shriek that echoed through the dank stairwell before I resumed my thunderous ascent up to the fifteenth floor of the building.
I was completely out of breath when I finally made it to our floor. With shaking hands, I fumbled to grab my keys to our apartment, excited to tell Abbie that I got the part. If it had been anyone else in her position, I’d be nervous to tell her, worried she’d be jealous, but Abbie had a heart of gold and I knew she’d be nothing but happy for me.
I froze in confusion as I approached our door. It was ajar. Frowning, I nudged it open with my foot. I squinted into the pitch darkness of our living room, my confusion multiplying.
“Abbie!” I called out, feeling the wall behind me so I could flip the lights on. “Why the hell is it so dark in here–”
I somehow swallowed the scream in my throat.
Blood. Everywhere. On our plush blue sofa, the coffee table we had picked out together, and the framed pictures of us on the opposite wall. Most of it was on our polished wood floor, a huge pool of it.
And my best friend, Abigail, was facedown in the middle of it.
Last Chapters
#50 Chapter 50
Last Updated: 3/3/2025#49 Chapter 49
Last Updated: 3/3/2025#48 Chapter 48
Last Updated: 3/3/2025#47 Chapter 47
Last Updated: 3/3/2025#46 Chapter 46
Last Updated: 3/3/2025#45 Chapter 45
Last Updated: 3/3/2025#44 Chapter 44
Last Updated: 3/3/2025#43 Chapter 43
Last Updated: 3/3/2025#42 Chapter 42
Last Updated: 3/3/2025#41 Chapter 41
Last Updated: 3/3/2025
You Might Like 😍
Mated to Her Alpha Instructor
Weeks later, our new Alpha combat instructor walks in. Regis. The guy from the woods. His eyes lock on mine, and I know he recognizes me. Then the secret I've been hiding hits me like a punch: I'm pregnant.
He has an offer that binds us tighter than ever. Protection… or a cage? Whispers turn ugly, darkness closes in. Why am I the one without a wolf? Is he my salvation… or will he drag me to ruin?
Mated To My Ruin: A Dragon's Debt
But the prince lied. The dragon she touched bound itself to her soul and now she is trapped in the vampire kingdom with a king who has waited centuries for her return. King Caelan remembers everything. The love she destroyed and the great war she started. The lives she burned to ash with the very dragon now living inside her.
She remembers nothing.
He wants her to suffer for crimes she cannot recall. She wants to survive long enough to save her sister. But the bond between them refuses to stay buried and the dragon has its own plans. When she turns twenty and her fae powers awaken, Nyx discovers the truth is far more twisted than centuries of hatred.
The prince who sent her was the one who destroyed her family. The king who hates her saved the only person she loves. And the past life she cannot remember might be the key to stopping another war.
This time she will not run. This time she will burn the world herself if that is what it takes.
The Ice Between Us.
Then comes Jax Miller.
Jax is a hotheaded rookie with a lightning-fast puck and a reputation for burning bridges. He doesn't follow playbooks, he doesn't respect authority, and he’s determined to melt Julian’s icy composure. When a viral video of their on-ice collision threatens to bankrupt the program, Coach Clain delivers an ultimatum that feels like a death sentence: they must live together in a cramped, two-bed dorm for the duration of the season.
Forced to navigate the high-stakes world of sports fame, "forbidden" locker-room tension, and the mysterious blackmailer who caught their first mistake on camera, Julian and Jax must decide what’s more dangerous: losing their careers, or losing themselves to the person they were supposed to hate.
After One Night with the Alpha
I thought I was waiting for love. Instead, I got fucked by a beast.
My world was supposed to bloom at the Moonshade Bay Full Moon Festival—champagne buzzing in my veins, a hotel room booked for Jason and me to finally cross that line after two years. I’d slipped into lacy lingerie, left the door unlocked, and lay on the bed, heart pounding with nervous excitement.
But the man who climbed into my bed wasn’t Jason.
In the pitch-black room, drowned in a heady, spicy scent that made my head spin, I felt hands—urgent, scorching—searing my skin. His thick, pulsing cock pressed against my dripping cunt, and before I could gasp, he thrust hard, tearing through my innocence with ruthless force. Pain burned, my walls clenching as I clawed at his iron shoulders, stifling sobs. Wet, slick sounds echoed with every brutal stroke, his body unrelenting until he shuddered, spilling hot and deep inside me.
"That was amazing, Jason," I managed to say.
"Who the fuck is Jason?"
My blood turned to ice. Light slashed across his face—Brad Rayne, Alpha of Moonshade Pack, a werewolf, not my boyfriend. Horror choked me as I realized what I’d done.
I ran away for my life!
But weeks later, I woke up pregnant with his heir!
They say my heterochromatic eyes mark me as a rare true mate. But I’m no wolf. I’m just Elle, a nobody from the human district, now trapped in Brad's world.
Brad’s cold gaze pins me: “You carry my blood. You’re mine.”
There is no other choice for me but to chose this cage. My body also betrays me, craving the beast who ruined me.
WARNING: Mature Readers Only
The mafia princess return
King of the Underworld
However, one fateful day, the King of the Underworld appeared before me and rescued me from the clutches of the most powerful Mafia boss's son. With his deep blue eyes fixed on mine, he spoke softly: "Sephie... short for Persephone... Queen of the Underworld. At last, I have found you." Confused by his words, I stammered out a question, “P..pardon? What does that mean?”
But he simply smiled at me and brushed my hair away from my face with gentle fingers: "You are safe now.”
Sephie, named for the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone, she's quickly finding out how she's destined to fulfill her namesake's role. Adrik is the King of the Underworld, the boss of all bosses in the city he runs.
She was a seemingly normal girl, with a normal job until it all changed one night when he walked through the front door and her life changed abruptly. Now, she finds herself on the wrong side of powerful men, but under the protection of the most powerful among them.
The Alpha King's Human Mate
“I have waited nine years for you. That’s nearly a decade since I’ve felt this emptiness inside me. Part of me began to wonder if you didn’t exist or you’d already died. And then I found you, right inside my own home.”
He used one of his hands to stroke my cheek and tingles erupted everywhere.
“I’ve spent enough time without you and I will not let anything else keep us apart. Not other wolves, not my drunken father who’s barely holding himself together the past twenty years, not your family – and not even you.”
Clark Bellevue has spent her entire life as the only human in the wolf pack - literally. Eighteen years ago, Clark was the accidental result of a brief affair between one of the most powerful Alphas in the world and a human woman. Despite living with her father and her werewolf half-siblings, Clark has never felt like she really belonged in the werewolf world. But right as Clark plans to leave the werewolf world behind for good, her life gets flipped upside down by her mate: the next Alpha King, Griffin Bardot. Griffin has been waiting years for the chance to meet his mate, and he's not about to let her go anytime soon. It doesn't matter how far Clark tries to run from her destiny or her mate - Griffin intends to keep her, no matter what he has to do or who stands in his way.
My Benchwarmer Boyfriend's Secret
As the team's benchwarmer, Marco practices harder than anyone, though few seems to notice. There's something about his quiet determination that draws me in, and I find myself falling for the underdog.
But when Marco's true story starts unraveling—about that first night, about who he really is, about the future he's destined for—I realize I might have gotten in way over my head.
And there's another problem: this was always meant to be temporary. His training program has an end date, and we're both fighting against a reality that seems determined to pull us apart.
When everything is on the line, how far are we willing to go for love?
Diaries Of A Hybrid And Her Mate
Beautiful Aubrianne Ivanov, raised by her single mom, had a tough childhood. With low self-esteem, she became an outcast and was alone one too many times for her liking. Time spent at her part time job, she eventually grew into a brave, confident, and determined young woman who walked right into an opportunity that would change her life forever.
Will Aubrianne truly feel whole? Will she find what has been missing in her life? Will she allow herself happiness and joy? Will she find love, and most importantly, will she survive what's to come?
Join Aubrianne on her journey as she discovers who/what she is and navigates all the heartbreak, betrayal, drama, and exciting and thrilling events that come her way...
Excerpt:
She lay before him in all her magnificent beauty draped across his king-size bed in the most compelling and provocative way known to man or beast. And for Alpha Zayne, it was the most captivating view he had ever had the pleasure of seeing with his own eyes.
She stared at his every movement, lips slightly parted, her stunning brown eyes scanning every inch of his gorgeously toned and glorious body while heat radiated off of hers. He was HERS.
Her body trembled in delight and anticipation; she was ready and wanted to be with him in every way.
As innocent as she was, she wanted him to...no need him to take her in the worse ways, bringing her to heights of pleasures she had never experienced before.
Fuck she is beautiful, one fine specimen, and she is all MINE, MY MATE. A wave of pure unbridled possessiveness vibrated through Alpha Zayne. He thanked the Divine Moon Goddess, for she has truly blessed him.
He drank her in, eyes trailing up her toned sexy legs spread wide for him, and she gave him that come-and-get-it look.
The Alpha & The Vampire Queen
Whips crack against her skin, blood pooling on the cold stone floor, while her mother's pleas fade into silence, abandoning her to the monster's wrath. Xander's protective cries turn to accusations under Penny's dark spells, fracturing their sibling bond into shards of mistrust and isolation.
Goddess Of The Underworld
When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
Where The Ice Gives Way
Blake Atlas scents his mate the moment Charlotte arrives. The bond hits hard and unmistakable, but Charlotte doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t know why her chest keeps pulling toward the one boy she absolutely cannot afford to want. Blake is Charlie’s new hockey captain. Charlie’s chance at making something good. Charlie makes it clear; his sister is off-limits and Blake tries to do the right thing, but secrets don’t stay buried forever. Rogues prowl the edges of town. The ice cracks. The bond tightens. Then Charlotte’s rare white wolf awakens, the very thing that makes her powerful, also makes her a target.
Shanti needs Shakti. (Peace needs strength.)
Where the Ice Gives Way is a slow-burn YA paranormal romance filled with fated mates, protective alpha energy, fierce sibling loyalty, found family pack bonds, hurt/comfort, and quiet, aching tension. It’s a story about first belonging, learning to be cared for, and what happens when the girl who has always held everyone else up finally falls, and someone catches her.












