8. Kai
CHAPTER 8
Kai
I’m amazed she’s survived her opening slot, but from the looks of her, it didn’t go down as well as she’d hoped. She storms past then stops when she draws level with me, where I’m standing in the backstage area talking with the guitar tech.
“You have something to say?” she snarls.
I didn’t realize I was staring but Jan, the guitar tech, nudges me in the side with his damn pointy elbow. “Yes,” I say. “You managed to get through it. Well done. Sixty-seven to go.”
That did not come out the way I hoped.
How did I hope? I have no idea because right now, my entire head feels like a cloud of opium’s been pumped into it. Every nerve ending is in a state of overload, and my thoughts are a jumble.
Jez narrows her eyes at me, throws a look to Jan, then flicks those violently-blue daggers back my way.
“If you have nothing more encouraging to say as the experienced one in this exchange, strutting around like the unflushable toilet that you are, then I would just as soon you not bother speaking to me.”
Bizarre, because she’s the one who stopped. But she seems as out of sorts as I feel, watching her hurry off with her assistant at her side.
Ash jobs over to her and speaks in her ear. I can’t see her face from here, and frankly, mine is stunned into stone. She nods her head, returns his high-five, and carries on, presumably to her dressing room.
Ash heads my way while Jan sniggers about our incomprehensible exchange. The former shoots me a distressed look as he jabs a thumb at the stage which I guess means less Go get ‘em, Tiger and probably more like, Go fix the mess she’s created. Though I’ve no idea if she created a mess. The crowd’s going nuts for us currently, but I refused to watch Jez’s performance.
If she scrubbed it and wiped out, I don’t want to hear the anger or exasperated told-you-sos from our fans. If she was a raging success, somehow I feel like that’ll come back to me in many a snarky comment. I have no interest in either.
Thomas and Nico watched, and Holden, as usual, napped. They were all in our dressing room but I paced the corridors, listening to the ebb and flow of the crowd outside, and had a quick phone call pep-talk with Enzo Flynn, from Arcadia.
Don’t be so hard on her , he’d said. She’s had to put up with what you lot did to her, and she’s still bounced back enough to make it here. There’s more to her than you can see. Give her that credit.
“Thanks a lot,” was all I’d said, but probably didn’t sound nearly as sarcastic as I’d felt.
Enzo is a good guy. I’d met him first, before Nico, and then saw their old band play dozens of times at the club that used to stand at the end of my street. When their first band parted ways, it was Nico I’d pinched for mine. Enzo was set up well with Grayson Cove’s lot in Arcadia Echo, and Nico was an extraordinary rhythm guitarist. Focused, steadfast, and funny as hell. But since Arcadia flew off to global success and Fable on Fire was mainly only amassing British fans back then, Nico’s always seemed to feel he had something to prove. A bit of a chip, but really, a friendly one. He and Enzo are cousins, after all, and their family’s blood seems to run thick.
But Enzo’s words an hour earlier aren’t exactly the ones that warm my heart. I saw Ash’s footage of the queue outside the door four hours earlier. The crowd was almost completely Fable fans to a man, and it was time I had to admit that what we’d done—what I’d done—to Jesamine had only made her stronger. It had brought her here. Could I face a similar situation, if I were in her shoes?
And if I’d kept my trap shut and she’d run her course in Ten to One , who knows? She could be waiting tables, sitting behind a desk, or be opening for Arcadia instead of us. Or Arcadia could be opening for her.
The girl has talent. She has looks. Damn, does she have looks. Those long, slender legs, those hips maybe slightly wider than her frame would suggest. That dazzling mane, those full lips. And those hazel eyes, sparkling with energy and determination.
And stubbornness. Probably enough to match my own.
When she’d first walked out of her dressed room, I’d been standing in the shadows of the loading dock area, phone attached to my ear, Enzo rambling in it from the other end. Jez hadn’t seen me, but I’d seen her sweep out with confidence for miles, those painted-on jeans and that open-back halter top. From behind she looked half naked, and her single sleeve of tattoos on her left arm made me melt. I’d never seen so much of her skin before. She looked like a fucking angel.
How could I not notice any of those things? And all of them together made it impossible for my dick to not wake up and start its ascending protest against my trousers. Especially when she passed me, and the scent of her—the scent, and those perky nipples pressing against the silky fabric of her top—turned a key inside me.
A door I’d kept shut. That I’d told myself had never really opened. Pretended it was a truth I’d misunderstood, a realization I’d misread, three years ago when we’d shaken hands at the Ten to One qualifying round. She’d made it in the final ten. I’d scented her, and wondered, feared what I now know without any grounds to deny it to myself any longer. Even after three years of lying daily about it.
This girl, whose anger I rightly fused, whose hatred I’ve rightly been the recipient of—whose life I’ve made a lot shittier through my fears—is my scent match.
She’s our scent match. And I’ve never told a soul.
When they find out, they’ll fucking kill me.
I lock myself in the restroom and get myself off. It’s not a usual pre-stage ritual, but I know if I don’t, my cock’s going to be grabbing all damn night. Because her scent is now everywhere, in my nose, in my veins. I won’t be able to escape it.
All because of another truth I’ve kept hidden—that rut suppressants don’t work on me. The horrific allergic reactions I’ve had since my early twenties have made it impossible for me to take them. I’ve trained my physical desires and impulsive lust phases to pass as quickly as possible. But the day the guys in the band find out, they’re going to put a whole lot of things together and they’ll rightly never trust me again.
I’ve come too far in these lies, but these guys are my family, my brothers, my pack.
So they shouldn’t disown you.
And so, you should—really—trust them with any and all truths.
I clean myself up and run through the set list, do vocal warmups, and look in the mirror. My eyes are slightly red, and that’s a telltale sign of my body reacting to my scent match. To wanting her, but not having her.
If the other guys notice, they’ll either think I didn’t get enough sleep or—no. They won’t remember. That every time Nyah was in heat, my eyes reacted to her overpowering scent like this. And we weren’t even scent matches with her, though she did smell damn good. We were just horny as hell for her body and her attitude. And when she was in heat, it was enough to make my eyes red, raw, sometimes watering.
I always thought, God, if it’s this bad with her, what would it be like with an actual match? How much would my body cry out during my rut to hold close the one made for me?
I’m about to find out.
I head out to the side stage when my assistant Jonah comes to get me. The other guys are all ready, and I don’t look any of them in the eye. The aroma is unmistakeable, but they’re on rut suppressants so they’ll have no fucking idea.
My cock’s hard again just from the cloud of her left behind on the stage, mixed with the pheromones and sweat and mere existence of her.
This cannot be. This cannot fucking be. It’s almost like she planned it. To ruin me. To ruin Fable.
And then we’re running out onto stage. Jan hands me my Fender and I throw it over my head and shoulder, reach down to quickly arrange myself in my trousers, and take a deep breath.
Big mistake.
Forget a long tour. It’s going to be one long ride right through hell tonight.