The Forgotten Fairytales (14 page)

I stared at myself through the mirrors of the rehearsal room. We changed for class much like you would for gym. Instead of baggy boy shorts and stinky white shirts that always managed to get stains under the armpits, we had pink tights and solid black leotards. Leotards. As if I wasn’t already humiliated enough.

Kate said my attitude was the reason I was failing dance, but really, who could concentrate when your dance partner was a pubescent boy with traveling fingers and hormonal acne? Not that there was anything wrong with a few pimples, but hell, that didn’t give him the right to let his hand slip to my ass. To top off the suckage, he wasn’t strong enough to support my body weight.

The leotard flattened my chest, and the gauzy bubble gum pink skirt I had on sat low on my hips and barely covered my butt. For a school so stressed on appearance, they sure didn’t mind their students looking like a cross between Ballet Barbie and a Thirty-Fourth Street Prostitute.

I took my position in the middle on the room, huffing as the music began again.
One... two…three.
I closed my eyes and imagined the routine in front of me. The mass of people moving in unison and I moved right along. The dance had been danced at every ball for over one hundred years. A dance I was doomed to destroy.

I pretended Creepy Hand Boy was guiding me, though he sucked at that too, around the dance floor. Something hit my heel and I tripped, falling backward right on my butt. Great. Fantastic. Now I’d have a nasty bruise. This school had turned me into a failing girl who bruised like a peach.

Pushing the hair from my face, I stood up and found the culprit was the pair of heels I ditched a half an hour ago. The tips of my toes ached from being jammed in character shoes for hours, and I wasn’t any better than when I started.

“For a princess, you suck at this.” Wolf’s taunting voice increased my irritation. He stood in the doorway of the practice studio. The thin material of the gray cotton shirt clung to the biceps bulging beyond the sleeves. Worn, burgundy suspenders fell along his waist. He never wore them up, always hanging down, as if he were too lazy to put them on right.

I scowled. “Don’t you have a house to destroy? I hear the pigs are rebuilding after the last disaster.”

Uncrossing his arms, he pushed off the door with his heavy combat boot and stepped toward me. A smirk tugged at the corner of his full lips. “That’s a lot of sass for a girl as uncoordinated as you.”

My fists clenched and unclenched at my side, insults beating on the tip of my tongue. If this were a sword match, I’d have no problem slaughtering him.

Wolf walked around in a slow circle, examining me as if I were on display. “And here I thought all princesses were born with grace and poise.”

“Like you could do any better. You’re a ‘wolf’.”

Wolf barked a laugh. “Air quotes, really? I thought we were beyond the pettiness, princess.” He strutted to the record player, dropping the needle on the black record.

The music filled the holes between us, and in one quick motion, he seized my hand, and jerked me to him. My heart beat frantically as he dragged one of my hands to his shoulder, rested one of his hands on my hip, and laced his fingers in mine. An instant later, we were moving, my feet keeping time with his as if it were an act of God alone.

My jaw dropped, words took longer than usual to process. “How are you doing this?”

“Shh. No questions.”

Wolf was so smooth, so effortless. Each movement was sharp and precise, like he’d done this his entire life. At the first dip, my foot wasn’t prepared and I began to I slip backward, but with Wolf’s arms around me I was saved from cracking my head on the floor.

Wolf didn’t let me flounder. Instead, we went again, and again. He cursed under his breath every time I stepped on his foot or fell, but he never wavered, never acted as if I were hopeless. No matter how hopeless I felt.

“I suck!” I yelled, tempted to punch the mirror.

Wolf came up behind me, his warm breath tickling my neck as he exhaled. “Relax.” He pressed his chest against my back and rested his hands on my hips. His long, firm fingers toyed with the strap of my skirt. “Dancing is about emotion and feeling the music in your veins. I know you can do that. I’ve
seen
you do that.”

Looking at us in the mirrors a grin flicked over his face and the night in the woods flooded back. Our bodies coming together so perfectly, I wondered if we were two people or one. I hated to admit that we did look pretty good together. His roughness complemented me.

When the music began again, he didn’t start the routine, instead, we stood still.

“Close your eyes.” Nerves twitched, but I obeyed his command and took in slow, small breaths. “Forget the steps. Let the music move you.” His heavy hands dug into my hips, swinging me back and forth to the slow beat. Soon my shoulders shifted up and down, the music like a fire blazing in my bone.
The steps don’t matter
, I told myself.
Feel the music.
And I did.

Wolf spun me out. The tiny skirt flared with the familiar smoothness as he twirled me into him, my back to his chest. His hands traveled down my thigh and back up again, biting into the thin, tight fabric. I shivered, warmth buzzing through me as I reached back and put my arms around his neck.

Behind me, he tightened and sucked in a breath, soaking in whatever drew him to me like a mosquito to sweet, sweet blood. The tips of his fingers lingered over my ribcage and I shivered against him. No words separated us. No irritation. Nothing but my body against his.

Wolf drew my hand into his and twirled me so we were face to face, and then, the routine began. Slow and steady, like a beating drum, we moved with the effortlessness I envied in others. The world disappeared as we danced, and for some time, it was just the two of us. The stereotypes slipped away until we were two people, two people who had the possibility to be anybody.

“I never knew you could dance so well,” I said.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” His hand loosened as he pushed me out and twirled me back to him. The warmth of his breath spread over my skin, teasing me like a light summer breeze.

Another dip, and this time he didn’t pull us up right away. Our eyes bore into one another’s; secret messages passed through us, messages I didn’t quite understand, but I knew, in that moment, there was something there. Something unspoken. Something beautiful.

“Tell me something.” I kept my voice soft, afraid that the wrong word would send him away. “Anything. Please?”

“Like?”

I sucked in a breath when he yanked me back to him harder than he had before. My knee knocked against his but he didn’t flinch. “Tell me why you dance better than any boy at this school. You put the princes to shame.”

His eyes left mine, staring beyond my shoulder, but he smiled. It was small and almost invisible, but he enjoyed a good stroke of the ego.

“My mom.”

“She danced?”

Wolf nodded. “Before she had me she danced in a company.”

“Really?” The Big Bad Wolf’s mom was a prima ballerina. Fascinating.

Our dance slowed, but Wolf didn’t seem to notice. “She was one of the best. She had offers to join a company in London.”

London, how exciting. I loved London when I went there with Dad and April a year or two ago. We didn’t stay long, a few days and then we were on our way elsewhere.

“What happened?”

His throat tensed and I ran my thumb over his hand, willing him not to stop, to keep talking to me. “She met my dad, got pregnant, married. The story goes downhill from there.”

The hand holding mine dropped and he backed up, his head down. “You seem fine now. I should get back to my dorm.”

“Please don’t.” I grabbed his elbow and his eyes bolted to mine as if touching him was the worst action ever. “I want to know more.”

“What?” He sounded so disgusted, his nose crinkled at my words. “Why do you want to know anything about me?”

“Curiosity, I guess.” Stepping forward, my other hand rested on his arm. “Tell me how you learned to dance.”

“I told you.” Though his jaw was clamped shut, his voice was soft, full of pain. “My mom.”

This was not going to be easy. I took a deep breath, staying calm, like a lazy river. I settled back into him and danced slow, hoping the music would keep him relaxed. “When did you start?” I rested my head on his chest. He stiffened, relaxing after a second or two, once he realized I wasn’t about to run off.

“I was four. My dad didn’t believe in dancing, not like my mom. She said the way to a girl’s heart was through music, so she taught me. Mostly so she had someone to dance with, but I knew dancing took her mind off him.”

“What was wrong with your dad?” I stroked his back, hoping the small touch calmed him. It seemed to. His cheek rested on the top of my head and I took a deep breath, relishing in his pine scent.

“He was an angry drunk. Yelled a lot. Mostly at me, sometimes at her. My mom said she loved me, but sometimes, when she looked at me, I knew all she saw was the spawn of her husband, the reason why none of her dreams came true.”

I lifted my head off his chest and stared into his honey wheat eyes. “That can’t be true.”

“She was never happy. Ever. No matter how hard I tried. At some point she figured life wasn’t worth living, that I wasn’t worth staying for.”

Tears built in my eyes, but I willed them away, promising not to cry over his words. If I did, he might stop and I didn’t want him to. This was a side of him I never saw, a side of him that warmed my heart in a way that made me want to curl beside him and never leave.

“With her gone, all I had was a father who hated me because I had no desire to be a criminal.”

My eyes dropped to his chest, imagining the scar beneath the shirt. I wanted to touch it. “Is that how you got…”

He nodded, breathing in a gulp of air. “He hated me. Before I came here, he went off to prison for murder, promising me I’d be beside him one day. Because, despite the pureness of my mother, that’s what wolves are. Murderers. He’s right. In every story, the wolf is bad, evil, a killer. It’s inevitable.”

“You are a lot of things. Yes, you are a little annoying and kind of teetering on the line of stalker.” A slight smile broke his frown. “But you are not a killer. I don’t think you’re capable of taking a life. At least not willingly.”

“But what if I did?” he asked, his brows knitted together. “Sometimes I get so angry, I can feel it, this monster building inside, beating at my flesh, aching to kill.”

“Don’t let it win.” I stopped and took his hand in mine. “You’re stronger.”

He sucked in a breath, his eyes flared with heat and wonderment. Ninety percent of the time, I wanted to hit Wolf over the head with a frying pan, but not now. He drove me nuts, but after the life he had maybe he was entitled to a little craziness.

“Stories are meant to be rewritten. You can rewrite yours. I know it.”

And in that moment, I vowed to change his history. To alter the life he thought was already planned for him. After the hand he was dealt, Wolf deserved happiness. But I kept that plan to myself, unwilling to show him that I found a weakness in his stoic facade.

He released the air he’d been holding. “You’re kind of insane, you know that right?”

“So I’ve been told.” I laughed.

Our eyes locked once more, gold flickered through his irises like a shooting star. I swallowed hard. The pale light in the studio darkened his face, making his cheekbones more prominent than before.

I took his hand in mine. “Let’s dance. I have a lot to learn and no time to practice.”

“Yeah, you do.” He twirled me under his arm and back to him.

I giggled and rested my hand in his. “You know something? You and I, we make kind of a good team. We could fight crime.”

Wolf laughed again, deep and straight from his stomach. “I don’t know. You’re a bit of a wild card.”

I stopped, my jaw dropped. “I’m a wild card? Please. You’re the one who likes to instigate people and—”

“There you go again, flying off the handle when you already know the truth.” He grabbed my hand and yanked me back into him. My chest slammed against his rock hard stomach, sweeping the air from my lungs, rendering me speechless.

“What truth?”

His head tipped down, meeting my eyes with his fiery stare. With one swift motion, he pushed me out, then twirled me in, my back pressed firm to his chest. My toes curled, unable to resist the smile burning my cheeks.

“I’d go anywhere you are.”