Marked By Fire (Dragons Of The Darkblood Secret Society Book 2)

by Meg Ripley

  “We didn’t mean fuck her brains out and form a side project,” Nick countered.

  “Yeah, well, apparently, that’s where me playing nice with her led us, so either you guys decide to be okay with this, tell me what you want me to fucking do about it, or shut the fuck up.” I stubbed my cigarette out and blew the smoke out of my lungs. “Because personally I’m kind of done with making everything so goddamn complicated.”

  “Jules is in love,” Alex said, grinning. I glanced at my other band mates; Mark was staring in shock, Dan looked like he’d just swallowed an entire hive of bees and was waiting for them to start stinging him, and Nick was smirking.

  “Jules is in looooove,” Nick agreed. “Damn, son—about fucking time you found a girl who wouldn’t get tired of your shit.”

  “Shut up,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not even what we’re talking about right now.”

  “It kind of is,” Alex pointed out. “I mean, if you’re in love with her than the whole side project thing makes sense. You’re not just humoring a steady lay.”

  “It doesn’t make a difference why I’m doing it!” I grabbed another cigarette and lit it; at the rate I was going I’d hack up a lung before midnight. I didn’t care. “Look. Either you’re all okay with me doing this project, or you’re not okay with it, and we figure something out. That’s all there is to this situation. My relationship with Fran doesn’t fucking come into it, okay?” I took a drag from the cigarette and sat back in my chair.

  “Let’s put it to a vote,” Alex said, still looking amused. “All in favor with Jules doing what he wants as long as it doesn’t interfere with the band?” Alex raised his hand; Dan and Nick followed, and I raised mine—obviously. Mark left his hand down. “Opposed?” Mark kept his hand down still.

  “Jesus fuck, Mark,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t get to fucking abstain this time.”

  “Why not?” Mark half-scowled at me.

  “Because if you’re against me doing this then you might as well be against it.”

  “I want to know you’re not just using this as an excuse to try and put us behind you,” Mark told me, arms crossed over his chest.

  “I’m not,” I said. “I love this band. I’ve been doing other music for as long as you’ve known me—when have I abandoned you guys when it counted?”

  “So, we’re good?” Alex looked around the room. I looked at Mark for a little while longer in silence.

  “We’re working on our album first, right? And the band still comes before—whatever it is you’re doing with Fran?” I nodded. Mark shrugged. “It’s whatever then. But if you start sneaking off…”

  “I’m not going to,” I told him. “I haven’t tried to yet.”

  “Then we’re good,” Mark said; he still looked doubtful, but I knew that he wouldn’t have agreed to it if he was really, truly skeptical of me keeping things separated.

  We talked for a few more minutes, about the next album and rehearsal schedules, and then I left the rest of the band to drink a few beers and talk about me behind my back while I called Fran. She picked up after the second ring. “How’d your talk go?” I almost laughed as I stepped out into the afternoon sauna heat.

  “Things are still stable,” I said. “They’re going to spend the next month making fun of me for actually being in love with someone.” Fran laughed.

  “Are you now? That’s fascinating.” I rolled my eyes, sitting down on the curb outside of the rehearsal space.

  “You know I am.”

  “You’ve never told me that,” Fran said tartly. “Maybe that would have come in handy for my own conversation.”

  “That I’m helplessly in love with you?” I laughed.

  “Is your band worried that I’m going to lead you astray like some Yoko figure?” I nodded, even though I knew that she couldn’t see.

  “Mark is,” I admitted. “I think probably Nick has his doubts, too. But it’s not like he has much room to talk. Alex is surprisingly cool with everything. Dan…” I shrugged. “Dan just wants to keep moving forward.”

  “Sounds about the breakdown over here, too.” Fran paused for a moment. “You’re really sure you want to do this, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” I said. “Are you getting cold feet?”

  “In this climate? Impossible.” Fran’s voice rippled with amusement—but I heard doubt there, too. “I just want to make sure that you’re sure.”

  “For the first fucking time in my life,” I said, smiling slightly. “I’m sure of everything. I want to stay in the band. I want to be with you. I can do both of those things. We’ll make it work.” It felt weird to say it out loud—to say it to Fran—but after we’d nearly let everything crash and burn, I’d made a kind of promise to myself that I wasn’t going to let things go the way that they had so many other times when I’d fucked everything up with a girl. I was going to make it work.

  “I’ll see you in a couple of hours? We’ve got a meeting with the label to talk about the recording schedule.” We had a standing date to meet for drinks once we were done with whatever we had going on for the day; from there we’d either go back to Fran’s place or mine.

  “I’ll be waiting for you at Bardot with a drink,” I told her. “We’re going back to my place tonight. I want to show you something.”

  “I’ll try to keep the suspense from killing me,” Fran said dryly. We said our goodbyes, and I hung up, closing my eyes for a moment before I started back towards the rehearsal space. I realized I was smiling to myself like an idiot and I didn’t even care. Next month’s Florida Scene Magazine headline: ‘Fran and Jules Turn Rivalry into Beautiful Music’, I thought. The press were going to have a field day with the fact that Fran and I were not just together—but actually working on a project.

  “Fuck it,” I told myself. I didn’t care how much crow I was going to have to eat: Fran was the only woman I’d ever met who not only put up with my shit but immediately got what I wanted to do with my own music. A million assholes could call her Yoko and I’d punch each and every last one of them. Don’t let them call her your Yoko. Make them call her your Meg White. The image made me grin again; that was exactly how we’d play it for the press. I stepped back into the building, thinking that maybe if I sweet-talked Mark I could get him to design a logo for the new act. There were too many details to think about—but if anyone was the perfect fucking partner-in-crime for what I wanted to do, if anyone could support me without trying to force me away from the band I loved, I knew it was Fran.

  And that was all that mattered.

  THE END

  Dan

  I’m the bassist in Molly Riot, one of the biggest bands in the Miami area, and I’m surrounded by female fans night and day.

  I love the life I’m living…hell, I wouldn’t change it for the world. But, I have a confession to make…something inside me has been changing lately.

  This isn’t like me, but, I’m falling hard for this chick Sophie, the hot new bartender at my all-time favorite local dive bar.

  Problem is, our drummer Mark has his eye on her as well. Normally this wouldn’t matter, but there’s just something about this girl that’s different. I can tell already that I don’t want this to be just another one night stand.

  I have to get to know her–all of her. There’s no way in hell I’ll share her, but it looks like Mark has a similar agenda and it’s creating a divide between us.

  Could Sophie be the girl that spells the end of Molly Riot, or will Mark and I find a way to play nice?

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was a Saturday night at Respects, and Mark and I had PB&Js—Pabst Blue Ribbon with a Jameson shot—in front of us. Outside on the patio, the karaoke was just starting to get into gear; the MC had to wait for the burlesque show to end, but everyone had managed to get a good few drinks in, so he had plenty of people willing to take their turns on the smaller stage.

  “Seriously,” Mark said, leaning in close but still shouting a bit to be hear
d over The Cure, playing through the system, “how fucked is it that Jules has a girlfriend before we do?” I laughed, shaking my head at Mark’s question. It was one we’d passed back and forth about a dozen times since Jules and Fran had come out about their relationship and started working on their side project together.

  “We don’t need girlfriends,” I told Mark, throwing my arm around his shoulder. “We’ve got Molly!” Mark rolled his eyes and picked up his Jameson and gestured for me to follow suit.

  “Man, fuck Molly,” Mark muttered. I raised an eyebrow even as I took the shot glass in one hand and my beer in the other to chase it.

  “You can’t fuck Molly,” I pointed out, smirking at my own wit. “She doesn’t have the right parts.”

  “She doesn’t have any parts,” Mark agreed. We knocked back our whiskey and I drank a gulp of beer. I knew I’d need to slow down soon—I was getting into the territory where fun drunk started to slip into messy drunk, and I didn’t want to end up on some stranger’s couch again.

  “I’m just saying,” Mark said, turning the empty shot glass over and sliding it on the acrylic bar top, “I need to get laid like fucking yesterday.”

  “Who’s stopping you? Go—find one of those girls from the show. Or one of the ones who wishes she was in the show,” I suggested. “Any of ‘em would lay you.” It was pretty close to the truth; Mark never had any trouble picking up women, with his long, curly hair and big brown puppy eyes. He was ripped from playing drums and going to the gym, but he had a baby face at the same time. The only person in the band who had ever been better than him at pulling tail was Nick—but Nick was an honest guy suddenly too, dating his journalist girlfriend and shockingly managing not to cheat on her with anyone.

  In fact, every member of Molly Riot was paired off except for Mark and me—which I assumed was the main point that the drummer was getting at in his comments about Jules. There was probably something about macho pride—some Spanish thing—in Mark’s objections to being single while Jules had a steady girl, but I didn’t really care all that much. For my own part, I only resented it inasmuch as it meant that none of the other guys in the band wanted to hang out as often; as soon as rehearsals were done, or we finished in the studio for the day, they were all off to their girlfriends.

  It wasn’t too bad; Mark was fun to go out with, and when I wanted to get laid, he was good for finding girls to hook up with who miraculously had friends every bit as hot as they were. It wasn’t like it was difficult for me to pick up a chick on my own—more that unless Mark suggested we find a hookup, I wasn’t interested enough to put in the effort. I had nothing to prove to anyone, and I’d come to the conclusion about a year before that about half the time, one-night stands turned out to be shitty sex; why waste the effort and time when getting myself off was at least as satisfying, if not more so?

  The DJ went from The Cure to Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and I started tapping my foot idly against the leg of my stool, looking around the club. It had cleared out some after the burlesque show, with the typical downtown club kids wandering to their preferred haunts: O’Shea’s for the guys and girls who wanted uncomplicated beers surrounded by Irish paraphernalia, Monarchy for the ones who wanted to thrill themselves with the notion that because they could afford bottle service they were somehow cooler, Off The Hookah for people who wanted something more “adventurous” and “exotic” than regular cigarettes, and so on. The hardcore Respectables crowd was there, though: goths, hipsters, misfits, nerds. Tattoos and piercings everywhere, unnatural hair colors, cute vintage-styled dresses or jeans and tee shirts or all-black for girls and the same for guys—in some cases including the vintage-styled dresses. Nobody batted an eyelash at it; the stranger thing was the odd Polo-and-Khakis college kid, who should be at O’Shea’s or maybe in CityPlace instead, drinking overpriced Miller Light or mining a friend’s bottle service.

  “You two ready for another round?” I turned my head in the direction of the voice that cut through my thoughts and saw the new bartender that Jackson had mentioned when we’d arrived; at least, I didn’t think there’d been more than one new hire at the club, and the woman in front of me was one I’d never seen before. She had dark green hair pulled back from her face in short, almost spiky-looking pigtails on either side of her head, and a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses to frame dark eyes, but other than that she looked almost more normal than anyone else in the club at the moment, save for maybe Mark and me: black tee shirt, jeans, light makeup, a pair of studs in her ears, a fine gold-chain necklace with an S pendant that hung down to just above the neckline of her shirt, highlighting her cleavage. She had an hourglass figure, all full tits and hips with a tight little waist in between, and I definitely—definitely—wanted to watch her walk away from us, though I also wanted to make sure she’d keep coming back; I was pretty sure her ass was spectacular, though I hadn’t seen it to notice yet.

  “Let’s do another shot each,” I suggested to Mark; when I looked at him, I saw that he was definitely taking in the same information I was, with the same impact.

  “What’s your name? I don’t think I’ve seen you behind the bar here before,” Mark called out, leaning closer to the bartender. The woman grinned.

  “Sophie,” she told him and then glanced at me to make sure I’d also heard. “How about it? Another round?”

  “Just the shots,” I told her. “And can I get a bottle of water to go with it?” Sophie nodded and turned to start pouring our shots. When she walked to one of the other ice bins to grab my bottle of water for me, I got confirmation on her ass: it was as close to perfect as any ass on any woman I’d seen in at least a week—at least in person. Mark let out a low, quiet whistle next to me; obviously, he’d seen it too.

  When Sophie came back with our shots and my water, she raised a dark eyebrow and leaned in close, looking at Mark. “Don’t think I didn’t hear you just then,” she told him.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Mark countered, grinning. Sophie held his gaze for a moment and her lips twisted in an expression that wasn’t quite a smile; it was that man-eater look that you see in women who know just how good they are, just how strong they are, just how little they need you. Sophie leaned in a little closer to Mark’s ear; I leaned away, feeling like there was something about to happen that I wanted to be out of range for. I watched as she brought two fingers up to her bright red lips, and barely managed to keep from snickering until after she’d whistled—high and loud—right in his ear. Mark’s head jerked back and he clamped his hand over the ear, but the damage was clearly already done. I caught sight of Sophie’s grin as she turned to help the next customer and laughed my ass off.

  “Serves you right,” I told Mark when he scowled at me. “Gotta learn to be more discreet, man.” I picked up the full shot glass in front of me and gestured for Mark to do the same; we knocked back the Jameson and I took another gulp of beer before fishing my pack of Pall Malls out of my pocket. Respects was one of a handful of bars and clubs in the tri-county area where you could still smoke inside—that was a big part of why Molly Riot had made the place one of our haunts. I shook a cigarette out, lit it, and handed the pack over to Mark to help himself as I looked around the club. The dance floor was starting to fill up a little bit more after the post-show slump, and there were some cute girls out there—but as Sophie walked past me, on her way to the back to grab a new bottle of Jack, I thought to myself that it was one thing to be cute—another to be as confidently, carelessly gorgeous as she was.

  “We’re back in the studio on Monday, right?” I tore my attention off the pretty new bartender and back onto Mark. You’re here to chill with him, not to ogle the staff, I reminded myself.

  “Yeah. Jules and Fran have finished up, so he’s free to start working.” Mark shook his head, sighing with exaggerated frustration at the delay that Jules’ side project with his girlfriend had caused; really it wasn’t that big of a deal, considering the band had spent that time rehearsing new material and getting it wh
ere we wanted it—including Jules. We weren’t hurting for money, and if we’d gone into the studio a month or two earlier we’d have just been dicking around; it was better to get that out of the way before we were spending thousands a day to do it.

  “As long as we don’t have to take another break,” Mark said glumly. “I’m tired of start-and-stop.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Last time we took a break you spent the week getting laid with what—five different girls? What are you complaining about?” Mark shrugged.

  “I just feel like things are changing,” he said. He drank down the rest of his beer and set the tallboy aside.

  “Of course they are,” I agreed. “That doesn’t mean they’re bad—and it’s not like Jules is the only factor. Things started changing when we got Alex’s ass into rehab and I didn’t see you complaining then.”

  “Yeah, but they’re changing faster and faster,” Mark insisted. “No one hangs out anymore.”

  “‘All my rowdy friends have settled down…’” I crooned. “Nick and Liv threw a party like two weeks ago that lasted a day and a half! They just aren’t going out as often. Can you blame them? If I had a steady lay to go home to and someone I gave a shit about besides the band, I wouldn’t go out as much either.”

  “Whatever,” Mark said. He took a deep breath and then grinned. “I’m just being a morose bastard tonight. I’m gonna use the men’s.” He stubbed out his cigarette and slid off of his bar stool. “Patio?” Mark nodded in that direction and I shrugged; the karaoke outside was starting to get good—in the sense that the people who were going up were progressively drunker. It might be enough to get Mark out of his bitter mood.