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

by Jamison Shea

“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. Firm but still broken. And always beautiful. Just like the perfect ballerina.

Almost everyone who made it into the company also had a legacy name or an inheritance big enough to make you blush, while Joséphine had neither to pave her way. It was rare for a nobody to climb high society’s ladder, and for Joséphine to reach so high so fast … that was terrifying for them. Enough to inspire endless gossip. People always manufactured excuses to deny us our successes.

She even tried to recruit Nina Brossard into her coven

Sabine Simon, a recently promoted première with the Paris Ballet, graduate of the academy, and my ex-girlfriend.

There wasn’t any love that could withstand the ballet but love of the ballet itself.

tall and slender man, face fine with East Asian features and long, full hair bleached ash white. He wore an expensive-looking white suit fitted nicely to his frame, and when she said something to make him laugh, it became undeniable how handsome he was.

There was an order to the ballet, a structure for who was featured and when. Étoiles then premiers, sujets then coryphées, and finally quadrilles, with apprentices in the gutter. When a role opened up, the ballet worked its way down the pyramid

Strangely, all the room’s daylight appeared dimmer in that corner where he sat, like a photo gone fuzzy around the edges. Broken TV static and shade obscuring an image I had to squint to see.

auditions, they liked to line us up to be evaluated, and we complied wordlessly, standing in first position, heels turned out and together, in our academy-issued uniforms of black leotards, soft pink tights, and matching buns. All cuts of meat in a display case while they prepared a dinner party. The board of directors waited hungrily at their tables.

In evaluations, we braced ourselves as they cataloged our parts for muscle-to-fat ratio, pitting the curve of my arms against Olivia’s ruthless precision, loud enough for everyone to hear.

They wanted necks longer, teeth whiter, arms slenderer, hips narrower, and thighs shapelier. And we had only months to fix what he labeled as flaws before company auditions came along.

“Imagine the embarrassment,” Rémy said, voice dropping low. “Anyone else would’ve quit or run off to another ballet already. She only got to repeat the year because her mom’s on the board

Acheron will always be here waiting.”