Chapter 1 The broken ballerina

In twenty-four hours, I'd trade my life for the forbidden pleasures of two merciless gods and their passionate mentee. I’ll discover sensual depths I never knew were possible, and defy every rule I was raised to obey.

But here and now, I did not know it. I was a star ballerina on top of the world.

“Go Lys!” Fentone's voice reached me from below.

And I leaped off the rooftop, plunging down forty floors of the high-rise building. The wind caught my skirt immediately, and the crowd below cheered.

Just before my anchor reached its limit, I leaped forward and opened into a midair split, catching my toes as my veils, the supporting dancers, streamed down on either side of me.

The cheer was louder this time from our audience, who looked on from where they sat in a large garden from across the building in the middle of Hollywood.

From this height, they looked like tiny marble dolls.

My wolf, Rhea, was becoming increasingly nervous, but I could see no apparent reason why. The night was perfect. I was sitting in the spot I had worked toward every day since I was two years old.

I'd be competing in the Grand Ascension next winter, a tournament which only one in every two thousand professional ballerinas ever qualified for.

The President hosted tonight's ceremony in honor of my achievement, even though I suspected it meant more to him because I would be his daughter-in-law.

My eyes found the media team perched on the rooftop of the opposite building. Despite our warnings, they used flashlights, nearly blinding us. Could they be the source of this trouble which my wolf smelled?

My wolf's response to this inner dialogue made no sense, so I decided to shut her off for the rest of the performance.

I launched into the air again, and that was when I saw it. But it was too late.

My sister was standing on our side of the road, right at the foot of the building. She had a wide, wide smile as she raised her hands up to clap slowly, once, then twice.

Gianna hardly ever smiled, least of all cheered anyone on.

My anchor snapped, and I screamed as my body nosedived. This was not a part of the performance, but it took the crowd way too long to realize that.

They continued clapping as the ground rushed towards me. My best friend and dance partner, Kael, screamed from above, but the rest of my oblivious veils went on with the performance.

As I fell to my death, I remembered Grandma’s persistent distaste for this sport.

“Nobody ever listens to me,” she said last month. “Pull her out. It will alter her life.”

Now, it was not simply altering my life, it was ending it.

Plop! My head smashed the ground like a coconut against concrete.

A woman let out a piercing shrill that rose above traffic and the festivity. That was the last I remembered.

Broken

Organ trauma

Wolf, weak, unresponsive

Concussion

Nerve Damage

The beeping sound of a monitor reached me as if from far away, and the closer I got to it, the louder it shrieked, like a needle painfully poking my eardrum.

“Someone please turn it off.” I winced, trying to move. But I felt immediate resistance.

Unresponsive

Nerve Damage.

I fought the words off, and opened my eyes to find grandma hurrying towards me.

“Sweet Lys.” She stretched out her hands, spotty with age even though her spine was straight, and she moved with the agility of a forty-year-old.

“Grandma.” I stared at my fingers as the memory of my fall slammed me hard in the chest like a hammer.

“No, no, no.” My heart thudded with a zesty punch, but I fixed my gaze on my fingers, willing out my claws.

I could not afford to lose even one week of practice this year.

“Lys, baby, look at me. Look at grandma.” Her hands rested on either side of my face, attempting to turn me in her direction, but I stubbornly kept my eyes on my fingers, and finally, my claws began to protrude as if hesitantly.

My eyes burned with heat as my body started to shift.

“Stop!” Grandma yelled, startling me. She snapped my head to face her, “You’ll be stuck in wolf form if you shift, you are too weak. You barely survived.”

“I need to heal. I cannot miss practice, the Grand Ascension…”

“Is not more important than your life.” She cut me off as the door to my ward creaked open, and my parents walked in behind a doctor.

“Mom,” I called out to my mother who was sniffing behind a silk napkin, her eyes red and raw.

She looked up, and stared at me for a long second like I had failed her, before hurriedly looking away. My father would not even look at me, standing stiffly beside her.

“How are we feeling, Miss Grunder?”

My eyes found the doctor, suddenly realizing I could not feel my body.

“Has the anesthesia not worn off?” I gasped, willing my body to move, channeling all my attention to the singular task, like I had learned to do in my teen years when I learned the wolf shift.

Still I could not move.

My mind called out to Rhea, but she whined in exhaustion and I realized I was mostly on my own till however many full moons it took her to heal.

I burst into disbelieving tears, looking around the ward and willing anyone to tell me my assumptions were wrong.

“I cannot feel my body!” I shrieked, aching to thrash around, but it felt like my flesh was a concrete bodysuit. I was trapped in it.

“Grandma. I cannot compete like this.” My gaze found the woman I had learned to lean on since I was a child. But her lips were trembling now with emotion. “Beautiful Lys” was all she could say.

“Why’s no one saying anything?” I lost my patience, a rarity for me. My life was crumbling right in front of me and my family stared on in silence.

“What happened to me? Is it temporary, how many days of practice do I have to miss?”

“Miss Gunder, you have to calm down, or I’ll need to sedate you.” The doctor said, and when my eyes swiveled to him, he winced. “You just got out of surgery, and barely survived.”

Placing his hand on mine, he stared into my eyes. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’ll never dance again. You damaged several nerves in the fall, and medicine has no solution for those kinds of injuries yet.”