I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me (I Feed Her to the Beast, #1)

by Jamison Shea

TO THOSE WHO FIND FREEDOM IN BECOMING A MONSTER WHEN DENIED THE SPACE TO BE HUMAN

We were desperate to be the girl who dies, always.

In every room was a chance to have our graceful suffering acknowledged.

everything. Once we crossed that threshold, none of us would come out whole.

“The shoe is an extension of your foot.” And the best shoes required a delicate balance—rigid enough to prop you up but beaten into silence and the shape you needed.

And every month, there was another rumor about the new étoile Joséphine Moreau and her rapid rise to fame, stories dark, wild, or twisted.

People always manufactured excuses to deny us our successes.

There wasn’t any love that could withstand the ballet but love of the ballet itself. Not family, not yourself, and certainly not a doll-like girlfriend.

We hated her as much as we loved her, because she had our dream caught between her perfect, pearly white teeth, dangled in front of our faces.

Coralie was my best friend—my only friend—and I loved her. I wouldn’t let them talk about her like that, as though they didn’t see me sitting right here. Even if they weren’t wrong, exactly.

A great Kitri had to be fearless. It demanded everything she had, everything she was.

I was spared to dance another day. As Giselle.

“Without ballet, I’d be dead.” Because I meant it. I didn’t see a world for me without my art in it, where I didn’t live this beauty and torment every single day.

The handsome Duke Albrecht took his sweet time crying over my grave.

I needed to savor every second of it, of being a darling before high society in the hopes they might remember me and one day make me immortal.

The air went cold and still. A chill brought the hairs at my nape on end, as though my body sensed the presence of someone—or something—lingering in the shadows.

There were strange doors in the dressing rooms that didn’t open and tunnels beneath the stage, and no one knew where they went.

We seldom talked about it aloud—if you asked an older dancer, you’d only be met with the same advice: Ignore it.

At first, the loss was an aching bruise. Then a callus. Now, a hunger.

I would be a star like Joséphine Moreau, and they’d bask in my glow too.

Because Joséphine Moreau was extending an invitation to me, as if she and I were alike.

Stalactites the color of blood speared from the ceiling, and a pool lay in the center of the room, filling the cave with a soft, red glow. Silence was thick as I took wary steps inside.

“This,” she answered, “is my gift to you. This is how you ascend.”

“Nothing you aren’t willing to give. A little blood to start the process, a wager to prove you’re serious, and bargain for whatever you want.”

Your life must mean very little that you bargain it so freely. “If I can’t dance, it’s no use to me anyway—”

The darkness had promised me power, and I’d be a fool not to use it when it mattered most. If it even existed.

Because I, Laure Mesny, a nobody with nothing, beat Coralie Baumé, the daughter of titans. My power exceeded hers for once—her name, her face, her legacy.

We understood this omen before us loud and clear: This could happen to any of you.

I could help her with this just like I’d helped her with her parents the previous night. We were in this together, forever.

Three months, the dark god decreed, jolting me from my trance, as you worship at my altar.

Show some respect, I commanded, shoulders back, head up, as loud and clear as my thoughts would go. After all, they needed someone like me, someone hungry. The savior of their dusty ballet was coming through.

“What’s the point of having all this power and not using it? I’ve spent my whole life under the boot of others who had no qualms about using theirs.”

… I was angry. Even now. All the time. At the way people looked at me, what they said, how easily they dismissed me. Reduced me to nothing. I had enough rage to go around.

Everything comes from something. Everything exists in balance—Ciro’s money doesn’t just appear from thin air (otherwise the value would drop, no?).

Even Chaos has rules. To receive, we must be willing to take. To win, you must be willing to fight.

Because the Laure I knew, the Laure I was, didn’t care about anything or anyone other than the ballet and getting ahead.

She was an étoile, she was supposed to be immortal. That’s what they promised us: If we surpassed premiers, we would never die.

It was all I could say without ruining us, and it pained me like an exposed nerve. Coralie and I experienced every success, failure, hurt, and joy together for years.

“Did you hear it’ll be a full house? Like two thousand people?”

The city was a god of transformation, a phoenix demanding blood and bones, from the guilty but mostly the innocent, in exchange for being made anew.

Paris was beautiful in the ugliest way, and I only dreamed of being loved so unconditionally.

All the horrors of my spoiled dinner paled by comparison.

A thrill ran through me at how her eyes rounded, the flash of fear in them as she finally, finally noticed the red in mine. The beast that was tired of feigning deference, waiting patiently for scraps.

He’s sitting out of reach because he’s poisonous, some tempered part of me insisted, though it did my racing heart no good.

Only my march through the Catacombs was not so alone as I thought. I sensed it all in rapid succession: rock sliding underfoot, a chill in the dead air, my mark shuddering meekly, skin crawling, and the slippery muffle of a heartbeat, brushing against my consciousness.

Because the beast was gone, leaving just Laure. Weak, powerless, fragile mortal Laure.

There was nothing from anyone at the ballet. No calls or texts, no emails of well-wishes or flowers for recovery.

Because I couldn’t dance anymore. Because my best friend tortured me over it. Because they wouldn’t allow me this, even if I could.

We were all ephemeral, both on- and offstage.

Three years, it said as filaments parted skin, and forgiveness. For your loyalty and the mark stripped against your will.