by KT Strange
Jakey nodded and reached for his phone. I could hear him praying under his breath as he turned away from me.
Charlie strolled up, sucking down a frappuccino with a relaxed look on his face.
“Everything’s on fire?” he asked, unhelpful and cheerful as fuck.
“Yes, where’d you get that? I need one.”
“Coffee truck around the corner. Amazing. You want?” He offered it to me. I sighed and took it, sipping down the cold, creamy coffee beverage.
“That’s what I wanted,” I murmured.
“So, Gem’s sent me, like, fifty million text messages,” he said casually. “I may have blocked her. And I’m not sorry.”
My eyebrows slid up my forehead. He was going to get in so much shit. I was going to get in even more trouble when Gem got her hands on me. I had a moment of panic as I imagined her wrapping her hands around my throat.
“Uh- You can’t-”
“Oh, hell, yes, I can. We signed a record contract. Not a who-we-are-allowed-to-fuck contract.” He frowned furiously, and I passed him back his drink. “That shit doesn’t fly with me. I’m fine with the fans having a problem with it—and they are going a bit squirrely right now. But our team doesn’t get to dictate what we do and who we fuck. Remember that horrible weird arranged date she set up for you and Eli? Allowing them to interfere in our lives this intimately just makes more problems.”
He reached for me, cupping my chin in his fingers, kissing me solidly. I sighed, closing my eyes and letting him hold me close. He tasted of bitter-sweet coffee, his tongue cold on mine.
“You’re worth all this hassle. Our relationship is worth it. All off it,” he promised me when I tucked my head against his shoulder, melting against his chest. “You’ve given us so much, Darcy. We’ll fight through hell fifty times over to keep you.”
“I know,” I said, although my voice sounded small. I hated how weak I felt. Even after all we’d been through, I still felt like they were going to disappear on me. I should have been so sure of them, and, instead, I was questioning everything.
“I don’t think you do, but that’s not your fault,” Charlie said. He offered me another sip of frappuccino, and I drank it down gratefully. I needed the sweet treat to wake me up and make me feel better. Nothing was quite like snuggling a hot guy and having him ply me with delicious caffeine. “We just have to work harder at reminding you how much we love you, how needed you are.”
I cast him a sly look, stealing his drink for myself.
“I know you need me. None of you would pack socks if I weren’t reminding you.” The close contact was doing me good. Maybe it was lazy, but I hoped that taking a few minutes to center myself and regroup would make the rest of the day go much more smoothly. From the way Charlie was holding me, I could tell he felt the same way. With us handling the majority of the band business, he was often just as stressed-out as I was. He seemed so irresponsible to most people on the outside, but his spreadsheet skills were downright sexy.
I couldn’t believe I’d thought that, but after dealing with disorganized merch orders and tour books that never had all the information in them, color-coded cells and rows were one thing that got my motor running.
“Mmm, you’re right about the socks,” Charlie hummed his agreement and kissed my cheek right by the corner of my eye. “You’re something special, sweetheart… my sweet sock princess.”
“You’re so weird,” I murmured, enough of the stress from the day melting away that I could appreciate his attempt at humor. “Okay. So, Gem’s pissed you off-”
“I’m not talking to her right now. She’s on ignore, and she can stay there until she behaves like a normal human who doesn’t send fifty million messages and blow up my phone like a thirsty dude sending dick pics.”
“Charlie,” I said, trying not to laugh while attempting to give him a stern look. “You need to unblock her. She’s our strategy expert, and she’ll know how to handle this. Let me talk to Willa, at least, to see if she can get Gem to calm down and back off.”
“I don’t want anyone telling me what to do,” he growled, and I shivered at the sound. His eyes were wild and intense. For the first time, he was really digging his heels in, and I could see the savageness inside of him, waiting to claw its way out.
“Well that’s too bad. You’re an adult, not a wolf in the woods, and you can’t just do whatever you want. There are consequences,” I reminded him. He growled again, his arms tight around me.
“Mine,” he muttered.
“Ours,” Eli corrected him, joining us. “Is that coffee?” He grabbed the drink from my hand and took a sip. “Ugh, way too much sugar.”
I gave him a flat look.
“You know you hate our drinks, so why do you always steal them?” I asked as I wormed out of Charlie’s grip. “Unblock Gem. Or no sex,” I said, shaking a finger at my rebellious wolf-boy. Charlie threw his hands up in the air.
“That’s unfair,” he cried. “That’s blackmail. That’s-”
“Fucking reasonable, so listen to our girl,” Eli said, continuing to sip on the frappuccino. “You can’t block Gem, because then she starts texting me, and you know I hate using my phone.” Eli grunted and drained the last of the drink. “That was disgusting. You’re both going to get diabetes if you keep drinking those things.”
“Thanks for taking one for the team, then, Eli,” I drawled, before holding my hand out to Charlie. “Give me your phone, now.”
“Darcy,” he complained, but handed it over. I unblocked Gem and sent her a quick apology note to appease her before passing it back. I really needed to respond to her emails, if Willa thought it was a good idea.
“Don’t be an infant. You wanted me, we all knew we had to go public eventually deep down, even if we pretended like it’d never surface, and here we are. Let’s deal with it, okay? You’re being as bad as Cash right now, or Eli when his phone operating system updates.” They all needed to behave, starting with Charlie, because, like it or not, he could be a shit-stirrer if he was in a bad mood, and he instigated all sorts of bad behavior in the other guys if I didn’t stop him soon enough.
“I hate new things,” Eli groused.
“Yes, we know,” Charlie and I said at the same time. We exchanged smiles and he sighed.
“Alright, I’ll deal with her. But only because I know she’ll be rude to you if you’re talking to her. At least with me, she’s not totally awful,” he said.
“Mmhmmm,” I wasn’t listening as I checked my phone, frowning as more messages came in through the Facebook fan page. The fans were really, really freaking out. Most of the comments were supportive, but the ones that weren’t… they were getting vocal. I sighed. The show later was going to be chaos.
“Alright, you phoenixes out there, I want you to put your hands together for this next song, because we can’t do it without you,” Finn called into the mic. A cheer went up from the audience, shaking the dust from the rafters.
I hadn’t been totally wrong. There were a lot of girls giving me the side-eye as I stood back from the merch booth, letting Jakey and the other merch people handle everything. Most of the fans who were in the know—as in, following along on Facebook and Twitter—knew what I looked like, so I’d stayed in the shadows. I didn’t need to make a spectacle of myself when things were already so out in the open.
It was weird to not have anything to do. I was letting everyone else take care of things. In a way, I felt like I could use the moment to just sit in my own thoughts. I wasn’t sure if I was bothered by the fan reactions, negative and positive, or not. Did it really matter? Looking out over the audience, I couldn’t help but feel compelled to care. These people, screaming for the band of guys I had fallen in love with, mattered. They were important, and keeping secrets from them suddenly felt like a betrayal of all the passion they poured into their devotion to Phoenixcry. The energy was a fire in the room, the temperature warming with each song as my guys played their hearts out—begging the crowd to
love them, and loving the crowd in return.
With a sigh, I closed my eyes. The subtle lick of magic, so innate in the music, lapped through the room in ebbs and flows. It felt like being plugged into a giant battery, and my stress and exhaustion from the day just melted away.
I lifted my phone up to take a photo of the band, a thousand hands in the air between me and them as the audience reached for them. Frank would want to see how far his pack had come, and what they were doing. My heart ached, but at the same time as I felt so strong, like I could run forever, maybe even fly. I swallowed roughly as Finn stepped right up to the front of the stage, his arms outstretched to either side of him; the crowd screamed as he dove forward. For a moment, he looked like he was falling. I jerked forward, out of my music-induced trance.
I saw his hand pierce the air, and he rose up, surfing on the crowd as a hundred hands lifted him. His other hand held the mic to his mouth as he continued to sing, the moment making my breath stop dead in my chest. The direct contact with his audience was amplifying him. I could feel the music in my bones, the sound shuddering through me. It was calling my magic—Finn and the boys were pulling it out of me. The lighting unfurled inside my belly. A flash in my peripheral vision made me blink.
I looked down at my fingers; sparks were lighting up along my skin. I shoved my hands in my pockets, hoping no one else had noticed my flare-up.
“Darcy?”
I turned to see who it was. Jakey. He stared at me and lifted a hand to his face.
“Uh,” he said. Shit. My face must’ve been glowing too.
“New makeup, what do you think?” I lied quickly.
“Uh, right, okay,” he said, his gaze sliding sideways, like he wasn’t quite sure what to believe. “So, um, the VIPs are already lining up for the after-party. But the venue says they can’t stand there ‘cause of fire regs. Can you deal with it? They’re not listening to me.” Jakey pointed at a group of girls, flicking their hair and standing around impatiently. I sighed and squared my shoulders.
“Okay, I’ll deal with it,” I said. Jakey coughed. “What?”
“Uh, maybe you wanna… your face?” he asked, pointing at me. “That makeup is heckin’ weird.”
Not sure whether I should laugh or cry, I gave him a brief smile before ducking out the back door to get to the bathroom. I had to get my powers under control. Why the hell were they acting up now?
8
Darcy
“I brought extra shirts for you guys in case you don’t have anything that’s clean enough,” I said, setting down a stack of subdued merch shirts with a dark gray-on-black print on the table where, in a few minutes, the guys would do their autograph signing and meet-'n'-greet with the VIP fans. We were waiting in a side room at the venue, with the VIPs lined up outside of it. The guys glanced up as I walked in.
“Thanks, doll face,” Cash said, sweeping me up in a kiss. I tried not to moan and prised myself from his grip.
“I love you, but we have hungry fangirls waiting to eat me alive out there,” I said, “so, not now? Rain check?” Cash gazed at me, his eyes smoldering. I really wished that we were in the tour bus, with him on top of me and his weight pinning me down, instead of about to be trampled by pinchy, grabby-handed fans.
“Rain check,” he replied, his voice full of hot intent.
“We calling dibs?” Ace said from behind me, and I felt him cup my ass through my jeans, a bold move that he normally wouldn’t have made. When I looked at him in shock over my shoulder, I could see the arousal on his face too. Whatever had happened out there during the show that night had gotten to my guys. Maybe it was the electric connection between the audience and the band, but something was different in them. “I call dibs, if that’s the case. Right here.” His fingers dragged down my ass to swoop between my thighs from behind.
“Ace, christ,” I hissed, swatting at his hand. He growled, the most un-Ace-like sound ever.
“Y’know what would be really shitty right about now?” Charlie said, crossing the room to me, an intense look on his face. He grabbed me from Ace, and I yelped softly, tumbling against Charlie’s chest. “If we all had a rut right this fucking second.”
“Rut?” My eyebrows hiked up and I gulped. The last time had just been Finn, and he was more than enough to handle when all he wanted to do was sex.
“You can’t- you’re not serious.” I wriggled away from him just as Eli and Finn bracketed me. “Guys, no, there is a line of like, a hundred fangirls out there, and you cannot-” Eli’s mouth found the side of my neck and I closed my eyes. “Fuck. Fuck.”
Cash growled, the sound making my skin tingle.
“God, sweetheart, if we were with our pack way back when, we’d just take you right here in front of all of them,” Finn said.
“That’s called indecent exposure, and we’ve already had enough problems with the law,” I said, trying to breathe through my sudden arousal as Eli’s tongue dragged up the side of my neck before he nipped me below my ear. “Stop it.” When he grumbled, his hands going tight on me, I sparked him hard.
With a snarl, he pulled away, before shaking his head.
“Shit.”
“Yeah, stop being bratty wolves, and start thinking with something other than your dicks,” I said. Charlie grumbled and adjusted himself in his jeans.
“You’re just so hot,” he said, by way of explanation.
“We do the signing, and then we get back to the tour bus,” Finn said, his eyes flashing with unresolved arousal.
“Okay, try not to poke anyone with those hard-ons.” I gave them each a pointed look. Only Ace blushed; the rest of them either smirked or—if they were Eli—gave me a stoic look.
“Why don’t we sit behind the signing table until we all calm the fuck down,” Cash suggested, although his voice sounded strained. I had no idea how long they could hold off a rut, and I definitely didn’t know how having the whole pack go into rut would pan out. I sent up a silent prayer for the safety and sanctity of my va-jay-jay. I walked to the door as the guys arranged themselves behind the table and hopefully, hopefully, managed to get their raging erections under control.
Not that some of the fans would mind. The way they talked on Twitter, a good chunk of them were drooling over my guys (not that I blamed them) and then the rest were calling Ace their Best Boy, whatever that meant. Jakey stuck his head in and caught my eye. I nodded, and he ducked back out.
“Alright,” I heard him call out. “Single file, please, and get out the merchandise you want the band to sign. Please have your phone unlocked if you want a photo!”
I leaned against the wall next to the door and watched my guys. My only task was to get them anything extra they needed that Jakey was too busy to get. The guys were staring at me. I raised an eyebrow at them and shook my head. If I needed to leave the room to do line control so they could focus on their fans, and not on me, I would. Whatever was best for the fans.
The door swung open fully, and the first few girls filtered in, escorted by venue security.
“We’re gonna run the line switch-back style,” Jakey said as he squeezed around the door and stood next to me. “There’s too many of them. I think the venue oversold the VIP tickets and didn’t tell us.”
“Keep a count, and I’ll hold them to it at the end of the night,” I said, “when we do load-out and tally everything up with them for their percentages. I’ll withhold merch money to make up for it, if they wanna play that kind of game.” I watched as Ace did a deep lean over the table to give the first girl a big hug. She looked like she was going to faint, and her friend next to her danced from foot to foot in excitement.
“Is that Darcy?” The words made my ears burn, but I didn’t look in the direction of whoever’d said it. The tone of voice wasn’t friendly.
They, whoever it was, didn’t know me, and they didn’t know the guys like I did. They had no idea that if I hadn’t stumbled into my internship, naive and stupid, that the guys would’ve probably ended
up dead at some point. Who knows if my parents would have let me continue playing at being a mundane, either? Given the way they’d treated me when I finally went home, I felt like at some point they’d have come for me. But now I was truly free. The fans, the unseen voice talking about me, would never know the struggle we’d fought just to be together.
The weight of the heartstone, kept safely on a necklace under my shirt (Charlie’s idea after it fell out of my bra one night, so we’d wire-wrapped it securely), meant our relationship was more than a sexy fling. That, and the fact I was bonded to each of my guys. But it’s not like anyone would know that. Speaking of which, I could feel the slight fuzz of energy along the bond marks all over my neck and a soft tingle on my thigh. I glanced at the guys. Was it because of their rut? There was still so much I didn’t know about my werewolves.
Fighting off a slow, warming wave of arousal, I watched the fans as they practically flung themselves at the guys. My guys, who were all still down in their chairs, their expressions carefully guarded. Anyone else would think that they were having a good time, but were tired after a show. I knew better.
They were struggling not to demand I come over to them so they could take me in front of this entire crowd of people. The thought of that happening was… well, I was having trouble not wanting it too. Was I an exhibitionist? Was this some new kink I’d just discovered about myself? I clenched my teeth to stay focused in case they ran out of prints to sign, or a fan caused more trouble than they were worth.
The security for the venue was good, though. I saw a flicker of movement. One of the bodyguards put his hand between Finn and an anxious-looking fan. The security guy’s mouth moved. Finn leaned back, to give himself some space. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but they looked like they had it handled.
My lungs deflated as I realized I was holding my breath. I glanced away to the end of the table, where Charlie and Ace were high-fiving fans. I couldn’t help but smile.
