Chapter 4 Ryder
RYDER
A YEAR AGO… OBLIVION HAZE’S TOUR BUS
I thought about the year-ago kiss again, the one that had pushed me off course and made the rock star life tarnish. That Omega had scorched right through me, leaving behind nothing but ash. She’d burned everything.
After her destruction, when I began to grow again, there were different flowers taking root, different trees rising towards the sky, different expectations of what my land should become.
It changed my perspective and redefined my future.
I didn’t want only fame. I didn’t want drug-hazed nights of debauchery.
I wanted her. Needed her. Desired her with every fiber of my humanity and Alpha nature.
I wanted to mark her and be marked in return.
Nest with her. Bed her. Lock in so tightly that we’d never separate.
And if we did? It would always be too soon and so fucking painful.
God, the way she'd smelled, the way she'd moved. Like she was tailor-made for me. The second our lips had touched; I’d had this insane moment of ferocious certainty that she was supposed to be mine. Over time, I’d convinced Dixon, Mac, and Tray—or rather I’d fooled myself into believing I’d convinced them—that if they’d only seen my mystery Omega, they’d all know why I was obsessed.
Hell, maybe if we’d all met her, she’d have cast her spell across them too.
We’d all be irreversibly hooked on the fan with sparkling, soulful blue eyes.
My pack would have hunted for her with me.
No doubt we’d have found her by now, simply because our Alphas would have united to find our goddamn mate.
If only… if only… if only.
Though, also, the idea of sharing her made my inner Alpha bare its teeth, snarling with jealousy.
The first sight of her was enough. The way she’d stared back at me through jarring spotlights and dense special effects fog.
Her beautiful face was burned into my memory.
Out of the blue, the vision of her would return with brutal force.
Taunting me with the fact that I’d not found her.
Maybe I’d never find her. Maybe that all-too-brief backstage moment was all we’d share in this lifetime.
Every day, even as the little details faded, I became more convinced that what I’d experienced with her was real, maybe the realest thing I’d ever felt.
When the guys laughed, or told me I was being a fucking pansy, I wanted to scream at them.
You don’t understand! You can’t understand until you feel it yourself!
That shifting of worlds. That puzzle piece clicking into place, as if it was always there even if you’d never seen it.
The way time began to move again, suddenly showing you that for all your miserable, damn life you’d been frozen in place.
Until fate intervened. Until she arrived.
And the minute hand of your internal clock ticked, the sound deafening after so much silence.
And then the hour hand of that same, never-used timepiece yawned and stretched and also began to slowly, yet surely, move.
The guys thought I was insane, that I’d lost my mind and with it my sense of purpose. I’d forgotten the dream. The music. The reason Oblivion Haze existed in the first place. I was crazy. I knew that. The part of my brain, soul, and heart dedicated to her was the only sanity left.
Finishing the last bite of banana, I downed the remaining orange juice and stood up to walk over to the trash can.
I pulled open the lower cabinet door right of the small compact dishwasher and hooked the receptacle’s edge with one finger to pull it out.
The rollers protested, squeaking and fighting against the pull.
I looked down to discover something chunky had dried on the rails.
Gross. Not my problem. The cleaners would get it at some point.
If not, the deep scrub after the tour would sort the issue.
I chunked all the trash into the already too full trash bag.
Blinking up at the microwave, the time stared back. Almost midnight.
I was depressed in a bus alone. And my big post-concert victory meal had been a bottle of top shelf tequila, orange juice, and a cold, unripe banana. I couldn’t keep living this way. That’s what no one understood. It’s not like I was choosing to be the saddest fucking sack in the world.
If I could forget her and go back to carefree Ryder Hendrix, sex god singer of Oblivion Haze, I certainly fucking would.
I had tried to move on. I was trying. Just last week I’d told the guys we should find one scent match for our pack.
I hadn’t even made it about her. It was just…
if it couldn’t be my mystery Omega, then I sure as fuck didn’t want four others in my goddamn house.
On the surface, I said it would keep us all closer.
One Omega meant our attention wouldn’t be divided outside the band we’d built.
We’d still be one pack, one unit. When Alphas mated separately, the pack inevitably grew larger.
Eventually, one Alpha and Omega pair became the de facto leaders of the group.
The dynamics were just too different than what we’d created inside Oblivion Haze.
Sometimes, large packs with multi-pairings fractured. Sub-Alphas and sub-Omegas craved more than second tier citizenship. Not all large-scale packs did it well like the poor Fortune Pack; God rest their souls. I couldn’t fucking imagine having my entire pack wiped out in a plane crash.
Twenty-two souls were lost that day on the way to Verbier, Switzerland.
Nineteen of the Fortune pack, the Alpha pilots, and a Beta flight attendant.
I’d read somewhere that the only survivor had fallen off the grid.
I didn’t blame them. I’d crawl into a hole and die if I lost the guys.
The family’s law firm had kept the survivor’s photo out of the press throughout everything—the initial tragedy, the follow-up stories.
Even the ‘Search for the Missing Fortune Survivor’ documentary that aired six months ago could only show a person’s shadow with a big question mark over where the face should be.
I couldn’t remember the name. It didn’t matter.
I needed to get over Seattle. Every part of it.
Maybe I should try harder. Put myself out there again.
There’d been one or two Omegas that had smelled pretty good.
I could have easily given them a chance.
But how do you accept a bubbling creek when you’ve already navigated violent, adrenaline spiking rapids?
How do you settle for less than perfect after getting a taste of perfection?
Before that damn Seattle concert, I’d fucked models and actresses.
I’d even screwed a world-class chemist who’d formulated a perfume that intensified natural scent to a cosmic level.
Being intimate with her had been like tripping on mushrooms. Wavy and wild, ending in an orgasm so intense I hurt the next day.
My bed had hosted the kind of partners most guys dream about.
Back then, I was ignorant. And it was bliss.
I hadn’t known something was missing. Something that left me unbelievably hollow.
I didn’t realize that the string of physical satisfaction was just a bandage holding me together. An attempt to feel something real.
God, they used to beg me.
Kiss me, Ryder.
Fuck me.
Love me.
Look at the tattoo on my ass. It’s your name.
Your music saved me.
I’m your biggest fan.
Biggest. Fan.
It didn’t matter now. None of that mattered.
No matter how hard I tried to put it behind me, there was only one fan I cared about, only one fan I desperately wanted to appear before me.
And there wasn’t enough money in the world to go back to meaningless fucks.
They weren’t her. They could never be her.
Our connection had been instant. So intense I was convinced I’d hallucinated it until the sensation kept coming back to haunt me.
After I couldn’t find her in Seattle, I’d spent months trying to get away from the memory.
Months trying to shake the certainty that she was my mate.
No, not just my mate. She was the future. Oblivion Haze’s destiny.
Hell, even when I had managed to screw some chick this past year, I was just going through the motions. The foreplay was empty, the dirty talk forced, the sex unfulfilling even if I did cum. My body, my Alpha, had found its match and it wouldn’t be tricked into lesser.
“Someone is better than nothing.” Dixon.
“Go through the motions, maybe you’ll realize she wasn’t so special.” Mac.
“Come on, dude. You’re famous. That chick was just another groupie.” Tray.
“You’ve got to get over this, or we’re going to fall apart.” All three had said a version of this at some point.
Their prodding was probably the only reason I’d fucked anyone since meeting my mystery, Omega.
They were worried about me, so I tried to give them what they wanted.
What… they thought I needed. Empty, shallow effort.
It never worked. With every facet of my being, I was hooked on a ghost. How the hell could I find satisfaction with anyone else?
Every kiss, every moan, every time I thrust inside a girl who wasn’t her, it felt like a betrayal.
And I knew that made no goddamn sense. But every time I convinced myself that she wasn’t the one, I’d remember the electricity between our bodies and the way my skin tingled when we touched.
Her lips had fit so perfectly with mine.
Fate had to fortune us. That kind of connection couldn’t be manufactured.
I started pacing, body suddenly buzzing.
The tour bus felt too small. I beelined for the exit, plodding down the few steps and grabbing the door handle which wasn’t even locked.
I’d blame security, but we’d given them the night off and I was the dumbass who’d passed out without securing things.
I pushed out into the night, letting the dry desert air wash over me.
I shivered against the sudden chill. The day had been a five-alarm fire, but it couldn’t be more than seventy right now.
I couldn’t live in a climate like this. Melting during the day and then freezing as it dropped 40 degrees at night.
Goosebumps sprouted along my skin, nipples going hard. I should have put on a shirt.
The tour bus was parked in a gated area near the hotel.
The security shack light glowed softly, and I could just make out the shadow of its occupant—a middle aged Beta who’d indulged in far too many donuts.
Everything seemed surreal outside the confines of the band’s home away from home.
Our hotel was one of six on this street.
Even at midnight, Paradise was alive with activity.
Probably because Las Vegas was only a few miles away.
That neon atmosphere bled outward, infecting all of the adjacent towns.
The blacktop beneath my feet pulsed gently with a cocktail of music, tires against pavement, and partiers moving to their next venue.
Headlights flashed. Neon signs blinked. Someone laughed faintly in the distance.
Everything around me seemed to advertise cheap thrills, cheap drinks, cheaper company—though that last might cost you more than expected in the end.
I moved around the lot, rubbing my forearms to chase away the cold.
This was a nocturnal town. I could understand that. The day was too damn hot to survive for long.
Only now I was pacing, still flying solo, and the fact that others were just happily living their best midnight lives only grated horribly against my patience.
A breeze kicked up, wafting a million different smells in my direction.
Alphas. Omegas. I’m sure dozens of Betas were nearby, but their scent couldn’t stand out in the heady mix.
I whiffed spilled beer, the head long deflated.
A cigar, a good one. Sweet. Earthy. Something acidic and unpleasant hit my nose next.
but it was still… part of the city’s perfume.
Though my chest felt too heavy, my heart thudded with effort against the weight, and my head was bloated with too many damn thoughts, I inhaled the evening air deeply as if it would somehow heal me.
Nope. It only made everything worse.
The anxiety.
The pain.
The unchecked grief over losing something that wasn’t ever mine.
The pressure grew, threatening to flatten me against the parking lot.
I rushed back into the bus, slamming the door behind me. This time, I had the presence of mind to lock the handle.
When I was inside, nausea hit. My stomach rolled, like I’d eaten something spoiled.
The mix of smells from outside still clung to my nostrils.
I padded to the bathroom, dropping to my knees and heaving into the toilet.
Thank God for Mac, because he was the only one responsible enough to keep this damn bathroom wiped down between our actual cleaning service.
Without him, I’d be sticking my face close to a shit-stained porcelain throne.
Were the guys having fun without me?
Fuck, they probably were. I was such a goddamn drag these days. I sometimes wondered if I shouldn’t step out of the band for a while before my melancholy ass fucked that up too.