Cirque Du Minuit (Cirque Masters 1)

Scared? The understatement of the century. When she thought about her future, and Theo’s, she was so scared she almost lost her mind.

“Is it time?” she asked. “Is Lemaitre here?”

Theo crossed to her in his light, shiny costume, so unlike what he usually wore. He threaded his fingers under the back of her headpiece and rubbed her neck. “How different you look without your blonde hair.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d changed it from a butterfly to a ladybug?”

“Because I like to surprise you sometimes.” He dropped his hand and looked at her in the mirror. “Don’t be scared,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to be. You’ve got this.”

But not you, Kelsey thought to herself. I’ll never have you.

*** *** ***

Theo preceded her back out to the stage area, unsettled by her tears. He usually knew why she was crying. Hell, he was usually the one who’d made her start. But this time, he wasn’t sure what had released her flood of emotion. He also wasn’t sure why it had affected him so much. He’d seen a hundred girls cry, and felt nothing.

Fuck.

Silly ladybug costume. It was true that butterflies were too commonplace, too easily symbolic to work for the Cirque. The Cirque du Monde was all about surprising people. It was about asking them questions that had no answers. It was about originality and, in the case of this show, confronting them with the macabre. That night under the stars, Theo realized Kelsey shouldn’t be a butterfly at all, but a ladybug.

All children loved to chase ladybugs. He’d caught ladybugs in his youth, played with them until he’d killed them with curiosity. Until they pulled up their tiny legs and sat on his hand and never flew again.

Ah, Kelsey. She walked ahead of him in her fitted black costume with her translucent little wings. Michel was already out in the chairs, seated with the director and some of the coaches from the other acts. The stage was in the center of the massive auditorium, comprised of moving platforms and set pieces and an elaborate system of rigging overhead. It was from this rigging that the silks dangled, rising and falling via electronic controls operated by a technician. The man was already waiting in the tech box with the sound and lights people.

Michel and the others came to talk to Theo and Kelsey and check out their costumes first. For the dress rehearsals and shows, they would have makeup too, but not today. This was just a preliminary critique of the act. Michel would either love it or hate it. He would either offer suggestions and encouragement, or call for the act to be completely scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up. In a vote of severe no-confidence, he might bring in totally new performers.

Theo didn’t expect that.

Michel was already exclaiming over Kelsey’s shimmering antennae, her wings that caught the light and reflected it like diamonds. “Une coccinelle noire!” he exclaimed. “I love the darkness of it. You will look lovely on the red silks.”

Theo studied Kelsey’s face. Like the ladybug in their story, she seemed happy and pleased with Michel’s attention, not realizing how easily he could hurt her if he chose.

“On y va!” yelled Michel, heading back to the theater seats, and then their act was underway. As the music began, Theo relaxed, just experiencing the moment, the result of so much hard work. Kelsey’s emotion was still all on the surface. Her performance was even more compelling than the magic of the earlier run-through. Good girl, he thought in his mind, each time she created a perfect movement, a theatrical sweep and subtle foot loop.

When he finally caught her in his arms at the end, her shock and ambivalence was palpable. So was her fascination. They shared that one tender moment, when he paused, as a character, to appreciate her before he unwittingly maimed her. She played her part with such trusting, vulnerable innocence.

That was when some wall in Theo started to crack. If he could pinpoint the moment in time when he admitted to himself that he would change for her, that he could change for her, that was the moment. Kelsey...

They finished the act. The music wound down, Kelsey crying silent tears in his arms again. The wings, so cleverly designed, looked crumpled and broken now in the glare of the single overhead spotlight. With the end of the music, utter silence. Theo didn’t look up. He just swallowed hard and waited.

“Mon dieu,” Michel finally whispered in the silence of the cavernous space.

The other staff started chattering in rapid-fire Frenglish. Their act was a success. The theater staff surrounded them, Michel singling him out.

“Your work with Kelsey is amazing! She has really never done silks before?”

“Non,” Theo said. “But she’s a quick learner. Easy to train.”

“Ah,” Michel said knowingly. “A good girl, yes? And you’ll still bring her to play with me tonight?”

Both men looked over at Kelsey, and she gazed back with a ghost of a smile. Theo was so pleased with her, so proud of her. In love with her, whatever love was.

No, he knew what love was. Love was wanting someone so much that they changed you. She’d been changing him, little by little, from the start.

“Are you sure you want to go tonight?” he asked her as they walked back to the residences.

Kelsey was giddy with her success. “Well, I have to go now. He likes me. Right? I met his standards.”

Theo chuckled softly. “That doesn’t mean he’ll go easy on you. His standards in the back room are even more stringent than his standards in the theater.”

“But you think I should go, right? I mean, you’ve been working with me on dominance and submission all this time.”

“Do you enjoy it?” Theo asked. He knew the answer, but somehow it became very important for him to hear it.

“Of course I do.” Kelsey slowed down and looked at him. “Why so many questions? Do you think I shouldn’t go?”

He stopped and pulled her close, as busy pedestrians passed them on either side. “I just want you to know that you don’t have to. I won’t be disappointed if you choose not to go. It’s your choice.”

She looked troubled, and then summoned up a smile. “The old me wouldn’t have wanted to go, but you’ve made me into a bad girl. As long as you’re there. But--” Again, a troubled look. “But afterward, you and I will still... I mean, that won’t be the end, will it?”

“The end?” Theo asked. “The end of what?”

Kel

sey shrugged. “I don’t know. The end of what we do together.”

Theo released her and started walking again. “I don’t see the end coming any time soon. But when it does, there’s always Wayne waiting in the wings.”

It was a dig, and partly a joke, but he was happy to see a fleeting flash of displeasure cloud her features. The end for them?

Theo couldn’t even consider it at this point.

Chapter Twelve: The Back Room

Kelsey felt strangely calm as they threaded their way through the Citadel. It was after midnight already, the party in full swing and rising higher. Theo let her have one drink to build up her courage--the first drink she’d been allowed since the debacle of her first night at Lemaitre’s club. She had a few sips of the Citadel Tea and found she was too nervous to swallow it. Theo watched her, silent, offering no words of encouragement and no way out. He’d given her a chance to beg off and she hadn’t taken it.

It was too late to reconsider now.

Not that she would. She’d fallen under Lemaitre’s spell as much as anyone else in the company. When he’d praised her after the performance, touching her costume wings, taking her hand and shaking it warmly, she’d felt so grateful just to have his attention. His pale blue eyes could be warm and engaging, as much as they could be icy and judging. When he smiled on you, it was like bathing in joy.

But when he was displeased... Kelsey was sure she couldn’t bear that, so she was determined to please him.

At one A.M. on the dot, Theo led her down the hall in the back, past the smaller play rooms, past the DJ booth. The pounding of the music faded as they approached a black double door. The other rooms were back rooms. This was The Back Room. There were no security guards, no bouncers, since no one dared trespass here uninvited. Hell, Kelsey was here by invitation, and she was still terrified. Theo led her to a small adjoining space, pointed to a tall oak armoire in the corner, and started to undress.