Chapter 1 #2
The crowd screams, the lights shift, and he moves, enough for the shadows to slip across the ink on his skin. My camera feels heavier in my hands than usual; fingers tightening around the camera. I’m here to work, to focus, but my focus keeps breaking, drawn to him like it’s not mine to control.
I lift the camera, hands steady, breathing… not so much.
I’m tucked into the shadowed corner of stage left, half-hidden behind a rack of backup guitars I’m absolutely not supposed to touch and a black equipment case. Cables snake across the floor like hazards waiting to trip me if I don’t pay attention.
Macee said to get close enough to capture the moment, embracing all the emotion, energy, and chaos, but not so close that I get crushed. Basically… bleed for the shot, but don’t actually die.
The lights shift from a blood-red wash to ultraviolet haze, casting the crowd in violent purples and bruised shadows.
A scream rises, high and primal, swallowed by the thunder of drums exploding behind the kit.
Sharp, dirty, unforgiving. Each hit reverberates through my chest like a countdown to something I’m not ready for.
Jasper is center stage. He wraps one hand around the mic stand while the other is dragging through his black hair like he’s already tired of the world.
He’s dressed in black jeans, black boots, and a sleeveless hoodie that exposes the twin sleeves of ink crawling down his arms like sins tattooed into skin.
A reaper with an hourglass. A serpent, chaos blooming in roses.
I adjust my ISO.
Click.
I crouch down and ease toward the edge of the stage where the glare won’t wreck my frame. My knees scrape against the metal surface, and my jeans cling to my skin. Heat radiates from the overhead lights in steady waves, and sweat beads along the back of my neck.
I’m focusing on his form when it hits. I glance up and freeze. He’s looking at me. Not scanning the crowd or acknowledging the roar of the audience chanting his name like a hymn.
My stomach drops.
Not because I’m scared, but I feel a thread of something ancient and inevitable.
My fingers tighten around the camera like it’s the only thing keeping me from stepping forward.
He shouldn’t be looking at me like that. I don’t know this man, and I don’t want to know him. I don’t need a tragedy in a leather jacket pretending to see through me.
His gaze isn’t casual; it’s consuming—like he’s peeling back my layers one by one, cataloging every crack, as if he’s planning exactly where to dig deeper.
I should look away. I need to remember why I’m here and focus on my job.
But my muscles refuse to cooperate, and neither does my lungs.
I stand there, heat rising in my throat, my pulse racing like a frantic drum under my skin.
I can’t break the stare, even as my heart pounds against my ribs as if it’s trying to escape.
I force my hands to move—to lift the camera between us.
Click.
The shutter sounds louder than it should, like I’ve just broken something fragile. For half a breath, it snaps me out of whatever this is. But he remains unaffected. He doesn’t flinch or blink.
But his lips twitch with just a flicker of amusement.
I glance down at the display.
Red lights, a microphone, an atmosphere filled with grit, and the stare of a goddamn menace.
And his eyes.
Eyes that shouldn’t see me—not like this, not beyond the protection of my lens. But they do. They see too much.
I’m not the girl that rockstars notice, and I don’t want to be. Especially not the ones who look like they crawled out of their own graves just to scream into a mic.
I take two more shots—quicker now, forcing my gaze to sweep the rest of the stage. The lead guitarist steps forward. The bassist flips his pick into the crowd. The drummer is a blur, his drumsticks flying through the air. The pianist'd fingers moving just as fast.
I take the photos, but none of it matters.
Because he’s still watching me.
What is he even doing? Why is he staring at me? Has he even engaged with the crowd? Has he even said anything at all?
The drums snap me out of my thoughts for only a second as the song roars.
Jasper’s voice rips through the air, rage laced with something that sounds like damnation and salvation all at once.
His throat works with every word, veins flexing, jaw tight as he spits the chorus like a confession meant only for me.
I don’t hear the lyrics. Hell, I barely hear the song at all.
All I hear is the beat of my heart, hitting with the bass of the drums.
The final note crashes. The drummer hammers the last beat like a warning shot.
Then—
Silence.
The crowd is screaming, but I can’t hear them. And Jasper walks off stage without a glance back.
I stand there for too long, the camera heavy against my chest, my throat dry and my legs unsteady. His stare still burns under my skin, marking me in a way I didn’t consent to.
Finally, I force myself to step off the stage, weaving through the crew and coiled cords as if I’m on autopilot. My head is foggy, and my body still hums with an unsettling energy that I can’t quite name.
I need air. Distance.
I head straight to the bar. I need something strong to smother the fire in my chest before it consumes my bones.
I have no idea what just happened. The way he looked at me made me feel like I had stepped into the wrong spotlight
The bartender slides my drink towards me, and I down the vodka in one go, hardly tasting it as the burn travels down my throat. But it’s not enough. Not enough to erase the way he looked at me. Not enough to erase the feeling of being watched.
It feels like a finger pressed to the back of my neck. I roll my shoulders, push my hair back, glance around like I’m bored… but my stomach’s coiling tighter with every passing second.
No one is looking. Not directly.
Just roadies moving gear, crew darting between cases, people running on too much caffeine and too little patience.
So why does it feel like someone’s breathing down my spine?
I take a slow sip through the straw, trying to ground myself and focus on the bar. Drops of condensation slide down the glass as the bass thumps faintly through the walls. I try to concentrate on anything else but the uneasy feeling crawling beneath my skin.
I breathe in sharply, exhale slowly. I turn back to the bar and mutter under my breath, “Jesus, get a grip.”
But the goosebumps down my arm?
Yeah, they’re still rising.
JASPER
The noise doesn’t stop when I step offstage—not the music, not the crowd, not the chaos ripping through my chest. Because she’s still here.
Her back’s to me—one boot hooked on the foot rail, fishnets climbing up to black denim shorts. Her shirt clings like sin, unapologetic.
I don’t know her name. Don’t need to. She’s already mine.
Even from here, I can see her hands tremble as she accepts her second vodka—straight, no chaser.
She’s shaken. Good. It means she felt it too.
I stay in the shadows, watching the way her fingers toy with her straw, her lip catching between her teeth as she scans the room like she’s trying to stay invisible. Wrong move.
You don’t walk into my world and expect to disappear.
She doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve already made the call—she’s going to be assigned to my band for the rest of the tour. Told my manager the second I walked off stage, and I didn’t wait for a reply. He’ll get it done.
At first glance, I knew I had to have her near me. I needed to own the look in her eyes when she aimed the camera at me like a weapon.
She doesn’t see me yet, but I see everything. The way she nurses that drink like it owes her an apology, the way her shoulders tense every time someone passes.
Enough waiting. I cut across the room without hesitation. People move out of my way. They always do.
She doesn’t flinch until I’m at her side.
“Rough night, or do you always drink like you’re trying to forget something?”
She doesn’t answer. She turns her head, slowly, looking up as if expecting a stranger, only to find the heat of a lit fuse staring back at her.
That’s when I finally get a good look at her.
And, fuck, I was already sure.
But this?
This confirms it.
She’s all black eyeliner and dreadful nights wrapped in curves that weren’t made for the stage lights—they were made for sin. She’s a lot shorter now that I can see her better, but she stands like she knows exactly how much damage she can do without ever raising her voice.
I can see the colors in her hair now. Hair black as midnight at the roots, bleeding into a riot of teal and lime—like someone dipped her in rebellion and didn’t bother rinsing her clean.
Her lips are full, parted just slightly, a medusa piercing glinting in the bow of her upper lip.
Diamond studs catch the light from both nostrils, a horseshoe through her septum.
I’ve always heard that girls with all three done are a little unhinged—not that I’ll be complaining.
She has a piercing through one eyebrow. And when she shifts, I catch sight of a tattoo peeking out from the top of her tank top in the center of her chest. And I want nothing more than to be able to see the rest of it.
She has another stretching across her inner arm—a strip of film twisted around a dagger that’s wrapped in thorns.
Art wrapped in pain.
That’s all I needed to know.
My eye’s move to hers—big and blue, filled with so much challenge that I almost smile. Almost.
I’m fucked.
Right now, though, I’m too focused on how she tries to size me up while keeping her guard up. She doesn’t realize I’ve already memorized every detail about her.
SAWYER
“Rough night, or do you always drink like you’re trying to forget something?”
I knew he’d come over. I didn’t know when, didn’t know why, but I felt it the second he walked off the stage. Some people radiate attention; Jasper Reign consumes it.
I blink. Once. Twice.
He’s still there.
“Is that your version of small talk?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady despite the wildfire raging inside my chest. “Because it sounds more like something you’d hear over a dead body from a true crime doc.”
His mouth twitches like he might smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. They are too dark, too sharp, as if he is already halfway through undressing my soul and wondering how loud it will scream.
And up close, he’s even worse. Dark eyes, jaw carved like sin, black ring in the side of his lower lip.
Lips that look soft enough to make me forget what breathing feels like.
I start to turn my head, maybe to break the spell, but that’s when his scent hits me—dark, clean, something sharp like cedar and smoke—and it’s fucking intoxicating.
It wraps around my brain like velvet and gasoline, making it even harder to look away.
“You didn’t answer,” he says as he leans in closer, making my spine straighten. “Was I right?”
“Do you talk to all the girls like this?” I ask, tilting my head—hoping he can’t see the pulse ticking in my throat.
“Just the ones that matter.”
The words hit harder than they should. I shouldn’t like the way he says that, but something traitorous in me leans in any way.
I shake my head, pushing off the barstool with a little more force than necessary. My shoulder brushes his as I pass, static biting my skin.
“Thanks for the unsolicited psychoanalysis,” I shoot back. “Didn’t know rockstars moonlight as amateur therapists.”
“Right. Photographer.” He falls into step beside me like it was inevitable. “You shoot bands often, or just the ones you secretly listen to in the dark?”
I laugh, dryly. “Please. If you think I have your songs on a playlist, I’m gonna need to see that ego deflate in real time.”
“You don’t deny it, though,” he says grinning.
I roll my eyes, but I can’t help the way the corner of my mouth pulls. He notices—of course he does.
“I’ve got work to do.”I say, as I walk off quickly. The hallway stretches ahead, with dim lights and the faint vibration under my boots from the music ahead.
I hear footsteps and I don’t have to look back to know it’s him. Following behind me like it’s his right, like I’ve already been claimed.”
Even though every instinct urges me to quicken my pace, I choose not to. I let him follow and I let him believe that I’m unaware of his presence. I’m curious to see how long he will continue doing this, and how far he will go.
I slip through the side entrance to the pit, swallowed by just enough shadow to pretend I don’t feel his stare drilling into the back of my neck.
I lift my camera, forcing myself to look professional and unbothered. The lens focuses, the shutter clicks, and my hands tremble against the grip.
Behind me, I can hear a faint, slow exhale, resonating in the air between us.
I don’t turn around. I force my breathing to steady, trying to calm racing heart.
Because he’s watching me.
Men like him don’t watch unless they plan to take, and I am not planning on being taken by him.
The crowd roars at something on stage, but it feels distant—muffled by the hum in my blood. I’m still firing off shots when his voice cuts through the noise.
“Your hands are shaking.”
I lower the camera just enough to glance at him over my shoulder, my expression calm, unaffected. “You following me to point out my flaws, or is this just your version of flirting?” I raise an eyebrow, maintaining my composure despite the tension hanging in the air.
“Depends. Is it working?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
He says nothing else when I don’t reply. We let that word hang in the air, and then silence returns—louder than the crowd—pressing against my spine until I have to lift the camera again to keep from revealing how much that one word affected me.