by Dannika Dark
The audience howled and cheered as the lights dimmed, leaving only the stage illuminated by a few spotlights. Jericho scanned the crowd and didn’t see Chaz.
“Where the fuck is he?” he said in an angry breath.
The backup guitarist spat out a curse and plugged in his guitar.
Jericho played it cool and turned his back to the crowd. “I’ll give him one song to get his ass onstage. If Chaz isn’t here by the end of this song, he’s fired and we’re going to have to wing it. Let me have this one, guys.”
His guitar was a curvy Les Paul with a mahogany body that faded to black around the edges. It had a sweet tune when played just right, and Jericho knew exactly how to stroke the lady to make her sing. He adjusted the pickups and tone until the sound was rich and full-bodied.
He approached the mic. “Something a little different to start off the show tonight.”
Sweat formed on his brow and as the room buzzed with anticipation, he began to play “Yesterday” by the Beatles. Jericho dragged out the guitar melody, and the crowd soaked it in.
As soon as the lyrics rolled past his lips, he realized he’d never performed this song in public before. The only time he’d ever played it was in the late hours of the night in the hotel room he shared with Isabelle. He’d quietly sing as he watched her sleep, dreaming of a better life. Every word became an explanation to Isabelle. He glanced toward the back of the room and saw her suddenly freeze as she walked to the bar, pivoting around slowly to face the stage. She set the tray on the bar without taking her eyes off him and stepped forward. The light from the bar illuminated her hair, and damn, she looked angelic. Every word of the song replayed a regretful moment in their lives, and he wondered if he was half the man he used to be, before all the drugs.
When he sang the line about why she had to go away, Isabelle wiped her cheek and tilted her head.
No one else in that room existed—only her.
His yesterday.
The crowd swayed to the sound of his smoky voice that mimicked some of the greats. Soulful and broken.
Isabelle lowered her somber eyes and shook her head. He sang louder and tried to reach out to her with his words, but she turned around and headed toward the restroom.
Then he was alone.
Alone in a room full of people who clung to his every word, except for the one person who mattered. His heart splintered.
Chaz suddenly appeared and leapt onstage, hooking up his gear. “Fuck, man. Sorry ’bout that.” He wiped his nose and widened his eyes at the crowd.
Jericho wrapped up the song and released a heavy breath. Time would never erase his mistakes, and he wished more than anything that he could go back and do it differently. All that regret—why did he have to be such a fuckup?
That girl still owned his heart. All the bullshit aside, he wanted Isabelle back in his life. But it was too late. She had a man, and all Jericho had was his guitar. That’s all he’d ever wanted, and that’s exactly what he ended up with.
He wondered what she had done with his first guitar—the one she’d swiped from their motel room. Isabelle knew how much that instrument had meant to him. He used to fool around with the guitars backstage when he worked as a roadie, setting up equipment for bands. Isabelle had said he had a God-given talent. Wouldn’t you know it? That girl had taken every penny she’d saved waitressing and bought him a butt-ugly Fender Stratocaster with a powder-blue body from the local pawnshop. She’d told him he was destined for greatness. Despite its second-rate quality, he loved that damn thing.
In the end, Jericho had destroyed everything he valued in his life because of his addictions. She must have realized she was too good for him. And she was right. But how could she have just left him there to die? He wanted to follow Denver’s advice and hate her with every fiber of his being.
But he didn’t.
He couldn’t.
Chapter 8
“Hon, wake up.”
I moaned and lifted my head from the wooden table where I’d dozed off. Rosie peered down at me with her purse slung over her shoulder.
“I’m about to head out. There’s a bubble bath waiting for me with my name on it. Don’t you need to be going home? Rush hour is over and the birds will be chirping soon.”
I sat up and stretched out my arms. “I was just waiting around until the donut shop opened.”
She gave me that look. The one a person gives when you’re shoveling manure and they can smell it. The bracelets on her wrist slid up her arm when she touched her hair. “Take care of yourself.”
“See you tonight,” I said with a pitiful smile.
“I have the day off.” She jutted her curvaceous hip. “The mister is taking me out to dinner and salsa dancing.”
“Salsa?”
She winked and waved her fingers as she walked toward the door. “Hold down the fort, honey.”
I yawned and took a sip of warm water from my glass. Only a few customers remained, mostly drifters. We stayed open twenty-four hours since some immortals worked odd shifts and had no qualms about having a few beers at six in the morning with their breakfast plate of sausage and eggs. Because of the tumbleweeds that blew through this time of day, only one girl worked the floor from five to nine. From what I’d heard, moms brought their kids in for breakfast, but they weren’t big tippers, so most of the girls didn’t want to waste their time working the early shift.
Remembering how Jericho had sung that Beatles song gave me the shivers. Hell’s bells, he was phenomenal. I’d heard him sing plenty of rock songs, but the ballads had always been my favorites, especially that one. He used to play it in our hotel room late at night when he thought I was asleep. His voice had poured through the microphone like smooth bourbon, and I’d become drunk listening to him. But for a fleeting moment, I could have sworn he was looking right at me. I knew Jericho often looked toward the back when the women became a distraction in the front row, but it just felt like his eyes were on me.
It was a good thing they weren’t, or he would have seen me running to the bathroom in tears. I’d stayed in there for another full song and finally found a way to pull it together and put the past behind me.
It wasn’t just that he’d slept with that woman all those years ago, because we had never been exclusive or even in a relationship other than being friends. But walking in on him having sex had made me realize I didn’t matter to him. I’d falsely believed I was special, and when things had heated up between us the night before, I’d thought it meant we might be moving in a serious direction. To be fair, I was young and too foolish to realize a man like Jericho could never settle for just one girl.
All that history shouldn’t have mattered now, but it did. I couldn’t endure losing him twice—once was hard enough. If I had to go through that again, it would break me. After the night I left him, I’d never once dated a musician. How could I expect a man who had the most beautiful and available women at his disposal to be monogamous?
Jericho had addiction problems: sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. A drug addict must abstain from all drugs to be clean and sober, but it was unrealistic to ask someone to become celibate. By no means did I think I was vastly superior to him—I had my own drawer full of dirty socks. I just didn’t air my laundry out in the open the way he did.
A plate of scrambled eggs and bacon appeared in front of me. Jericho stood across the table and spun the chair around, straddling the seat and folding his arms over the back. He was wearing a black suit jacket with no shirt, and the hickey on his chest soured my stomach.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Just the way you like it. Bland as all fuck.” He shoved a saltshaker toward me. “Go on and eat. You’ve been passed out for the last thirty minutes, and I don’t remember seeing you eat dinner earlier.”
“It’s hard to serve on a full stomach.” I lifted the fork and shoveled in a few bites. “Usually I just snack on protein bars and save the big meals for the afternoon. What are you still do
ing here? Your show ended hours ago.”
He reached across the table and broke off a piece of my bacon. I noticed most of his eyeliner had smeared off. “Decided to hang out for a while and play a little pool with one of my brothers,” he said, chewing on the bacon.
“Is he the one who sucked on your chest?” I asked, pointing at the purple bruise.
Jericho pulled open his jacket and glanced down at his left pec with drowsy eyes. Then his mouth widened in a fiendish smile. “We spilled popcorn. I had a mishap with the vacuum cleaner. Swear it.”
“How come you never talked about your brothers? They seem decent, and I only remember you mentioning them once or twice.”
He slowly licked his finger and then sucked off the remaining bacon crumbs. “I was in a different place back then. Austin was just a kid, and my parents didn’t want me around; they thought I’d be a bad influence. They were right. By then we were all living on our own, but the other guys would return home for long intervals to bond with Austin. It was always weird when I showed up. I got a lot of shit from some of my brothers for not visiting as much, and I guess they could see what I’d gotten mixed up in. Reno was afraid I’d get too famous and people would eventually notice I wasn’t aging. You know how the Breed feels about fame.”
“I’m glad you’ve sorted it all out. I’m sure they’ve always loved you, but you were a handful back then.”
He pulled a cigarette from behind his ear and gingerly tapped it on the table. “I wasn’t that bad.”
“You walked naked into a gas station and bought Twinkies on a dare. You didn’t run, Jericho. You walked in there just as cool as a breeze.”
He leaned back with a nostalgic expression. “I forgot about that. Now tell me, Isabelle, whose idea was it? I can’t seem to recall what kind of deviant person would have made such a dare.”
I kicked him under the table, and it roused a smile. “I had no idea you’d go through with it.”
“You wanted Twinkies.”
“Actually, I wanted those little cupcakes, but I guess you’d forgotten by the time you walked across the street and went inside.”
He shrugged. “It was chilly that night.”
I took another bite of my eggs. “Thirty degrees with snow flurries, as I recall.”
We both laughed, and a moment of silence fell between us, one thick with memories and tender feelings.
“I like your hair better now,” he suddenly said. He frowned and quickly bent forward so a veil of hair obscured his face. “What I mean is it’s not braided like you used to wear it.”
“I’ve learned to accept the wild nature of my hair and just roll with it. Thanks, though.”
“How’s your family?” he asked in a stony voice. Jericho knew about my tumultuous upbringing.
“My parents divorced.”
His brows rested at an indifferent slant. “And your siblings?”
“We don’t keep in touch. We’re related by blood, but I have no love for them. You have no idea what it’s like growing up in a house where you’re the odd animal out. After they went through the change, they used their animals to intimidate me, and because no one stopped them, it progressively got worse. My mother would defend them, saying they were just acting on instinct against another predator.”
“Bitch.”
“Yeah, calling her own child a predator when I was the one who was prey in that family. I’m not surprised about the divorce; they fought all the time. My dad isn’t so bad, he’s just… distant. Maybe it’s because he’s an older wolf.”
Jericho popped the cigarette in his mouth and pulled out his lighter. Light gleamed off the silver shell, and he snapped it shut with a click.
“You didn’t use to smoke,” I pointed out.
After taking a short drag, he blew the smoke over his shoulder. “Started up after… Well, I just picked up new habits and got rid of old ones.”
“Do you mind?” I asked, holding out two fingers.
“Yeah, the hell I mind,” he said in a harsh tone. “You don’t need to pick up any bad habits.”
“How do you know I don’t smoke?”
Jericho smiled cunningly and pulled another taste from his cigarette. “I’ve seen the way you wrinkle your nose in disgust when leaving a table full of smokers. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not.”
“Maybe I want to see what the fuss is all about. It’s not like Shifters can die from cancer.”
“No, but your breath won’t be as pleasant as it is now.”
I arched my brow. “And what about your breath? Do you think women enjoy kissing an ashtray?”
Jericho tapped the ashes into an empty glass. “It’s not my lips they usually want their mouth on.” He smiled invitingly and broke off another piece of bacon, watching me squirm in my seat as I tried to pretend his suggestive comment wasn’t sexy.
“Do you ever miss traveling?”
“We do small tours around the state sometimes,” he said. “I don’t miss sleeping in trucks and doing shit jobs for a few extra dollars to buy dinner.”
I sighed. “Me either. Although…” I glanced around and laughed softly.
Jericho leaned in tight. “Is Jake paying you good?”
“Fair. The tips are decent, but the guys are holding back because I’m new. That’s why I haven’t been able to put any to the side. I know the drill. They do that with fresh blood because they think they can make me work harder for them. The other girls don’t like telling how much their regulars tip them, so it’ll take me some time to figure it out.”
His jaw set. “Let me know the next time that happens.”
“Are you going to beat them up?” I wondered aloud, poking a fork at my eggs.
“No. But I’m going to have a talk with Denver. He knows what’s up around here.”
“Denver doesn’t want to be bothered with that kind of thing. We’re not on friendly terms.”
He quieted, as if he knew I was right. Denver held a grudge against me, and although we maintained a working relationship, he wasn’t about to bend over backwards to do me any favors.
Jericho watched me stabbing my eggs. “Eat, Isabelle. Or else I’ll pin you to the table and shovel it in.”
I set my fork down. “Always such sweet words rolling off your tongue, Mr. Cole.”
He snorted. “Ladies seem to have no complaints about my tongue.”
Which killed my appetite.
“I need to get going,” I said, rising from my chair and stretching. “I’m beginning to wonder if I can work these late hours every night.”
He sat up. A thin necklace with a razor on the end slid across his chest from behind the lapel of his jacket. “What did I say?”
“Maybe I don’t want to constantly hear about how much other women want you. Maybe that’s not the kind of thing that turns me on.”
I spun around and walked toward the locker room to get my purse. My face heated with embarrassment. Did I just say that out loud?
As I opened my locker, the door closed on my right. Jericho leaned against it with hooded eyes.
“What do you want?” I asked. “I have to leave.”
He kept his intent guarded as he walked behind me, lightly brushing my hair away from my shoulders. His hands never touched my body, but I shivered when he blew a soft breath against the back of my neck. I felt a flurry of tingles between my legs and stepped forward against the lockers.
“Jericho, don’t touch me.”
I felt the heat of his body behind me, then the caress of his words moving across my neck like silk. “I’m not touching you, Isabelle.” He blew on my neck again, concentrating the intensity of his breath so that heat snaked across my skin.
I reached in the locker and gripped my purse, making a soft and almost complaining moan. He placed his hands on the lockers, and I felt the faintest movement of my hair, as if he might be moving his nose through it and smelling me.
A lick of pleasure raced down my body, quickly extinguished by an intru
sive thought that crossed my mind. This was how Jericho seduced all his conquests, and I would be no different from them if I let him continue.
I turned around. He tilted his head—eyes alight and buzzing with arousal. I focused on the only thing that would turn me off, and that was the hickey on his chest. “How come you haven’t settled down with a mate? You’re not getting any younger.”
“Never found anyone worth settling for.”
“Maybe you’re attracting the wrong women.”
“I could say the same about you. Only men, not women.”
I touched his nose and smiled. “You haven’t met the men in my life.”
“Nor have you met the women in mine,” he countered.
My fingers traced the outer edges of his hickey. “This tells me all I need to know.”
Jericho’s rings suddenly bounced across the floor, and he rubbed his chest as if he were trying to erase the mark. “If it bothers you that much…”
Faster than a blink, Jericho shifted into his animal in a fluid motion. The beautiful wolf I remembered stood before me, proud and tall with his head held high. He licked my hand and sat back on his hind legs. I squatted down and ran my hands alongside his face, burying my fingertips in the angel-soft hairs behind his ears. Jericho’s wolf was a spectacular creature—earthy brown with shades of cream and orange. In certain spots, the tips of his hairs were black, especially around the tail. Most Shifter wolves were easily identifiable because of unique markings, unless they were a solid color. But sometimes you could simply tell by looking in their eyes.
He lapped me up with those jade eyes rimmed in black, and I laughed. I never had to worry about his wolf putting on a façade. Like all wolves, his loyalty ran deep for those he loved. Because of our travels, we’d learned to trust and protect each other. There were nights when Jericho’s wolf had kept me warm and guarded me with his life. We didn’t always have a bed to sleep in, but I’d never had any fear as long as he was by my side.
His eyes bubbled with familiarity as he excitedly licked my face and greeted me after years of separation. Wolves are pure and not polluted with all the hang-ups humans carry around like spare change.
