by Sky Winters
She turned, her eyes going to the closed door. Was she imagining things or had she heard something out there, a creaking floor or a hasty step?
She hesitated but heard nothing for a few long seconds. Her eyes went to the door handle. She had locked it automatically, and her heart hammered hard in her chest as she saw the knob turn in a slow but deliberate way, one that she was most decidedly not imagining.
Joaquin’s scent came clear. Her pulse slid upward, and she moved fast. She went to the window, which she had left unlocked the night before, and looked out. The backyard was empty. The faint snick of the lock turning came again. Joaquin was trying to get in, and he was deliberately trying to do it very quietly. What was more—he had hidden his car so she would not know he was there.
The onions and garlic had been meant to mask his smell. She knew that now. Angelina tossed her bags out and went out behind them. She grabbed her stuff, slinging the bags over her shoulders and gripping the old neck of the guitar in one hand as she ran around the side of the house, her feet kicking up small pebbles.
The front door burst open just as she reached her car. Joaquin came roaring out. His face was contorted with rage and even from where she stood, Angelina knew he was two seconds away from shifting right there in the street and be damned to anyone who might see.
A loud roar from the exhaust of a motorcycle cut the air. The bike raced closer, cutting across curbs and the driveway, cutting Joaquin off just as he headed for her and her car.
Angelina wrenched her door open and slid inside, slamming the door hard as the rider, whose face was hidden below a large helmet with a dark face guard, kicked out one long leg. Joaquin, unable to run forward without running right into the back end of the spinning bike, halted, but his shout was long and loud. Angelina could hear that cry over the roar of her car’s engine.
She hit the gas and reversed quickly. The bike kept slewing in circles. She did not know who that was but she hoped whoever it was had the good sense to get the hell out of there and fast.
Damn! She paused, wavering with indecision. She should make sure whoever that was didn’t get killed by a ticked-off wolf. Before she had time to fully form that thought, a new one hit.
At first, she had thought that the biker had lost control of the chrome beast and was just spinning wildly, but now she realized that spinning was an act of utter and total skill, and the man on that bike was using that skill to get between her and Joaquin!
“Thanks,” she muttered, slammed the car into drive, and hauled ass.
The bike stopped spinning. The rider cut a wide arc and ended up on the other side of the street, going too fast for Joaquin to catch up even if he shifted and ran wolf-like after the bike.
Angelina knew all the shortcuts out of the hood and she took them. She kept an eye on her rearview and saw the biker fall in behind her, the sun gleaming off the helmet and the heavy black leather jacket.
Drake.
It had to be Drake!
They careened out of the neighborhood and ended up in a side street that would dump them off an exit and on the crowded freeways just beyond. There was no time to stop. She had to keep moving and make sure that Drake—and she was positive that it was Drake now—did not get caught by Joaquin, who had obviously been about to either rape her to force her to be his mate or kill her.
If she had to bet, she would guess the former. Joaquin would do anything to prove how powerful he was, and he knew she did not want him. As long as she refused to mate with him, he could do nothing but if he got her with child, it was a whole different ballgame.
The bike roared up beside her car. Drake flipped the visor up and he shouted, “Take the third!”
The third exit would lead them to Beverly Hills or beyond, out to Sherman Oaks. Scared and worried now, and knowing Silver Lake was not an option at the moment, she nodded. Drake fell into traffic just ahead of her. The traffic slowed. A snarl was up there somewhere. Sweat trickled down her face as she considered the situation.
Joaquin might be following them, but in her car her scent was too narrow. There was too much traffic and all its stink to make it possible for him to track her that way.
Silver Lake was dangerous because she would be a wolf in bear territory. Drake might have given off his scent, and if Joaquin knew that the man on the bike was a bear that would be the first place he headed. He wouldn’t be able to scent track Drake either, not unless he went to ground and sniffed Drake’s house out, but shifting to track in wolf form was too risky even for Joaquin.
He had contacts with Magda though. Angelina knew that. Joaquin’s major supplier of heroin and other dope was the bikers that Magda ran from her house over in Silver Lake. Would Magda turn on her own son?
Probably—especially since he was not Alpha and his twin brother was. Damn, how had she forgotten that? Her father had told her that, last year. That one of the twins had been displaced as Alpha for the other. He had not known why, but he had worried about it. Now Angelina found herself wondering, too.
They reached the hills. Angelina’s hands were slick with sweat as she turned the wheel to follow Drake down a long and winding road that raced along a steep gorge before dropping out to a flatter and more level stretch that he took at a surprisingly fast speed.
He pulled up at the gates of a small house and hit a button. The gates opened, and he pulled in with her right on his heels.
Angelina got out of the car. “What the hell was that?”
Drake lifted the helmet off. Sweat made his hair stick to his head and his face glisten. He unzipped the jacket, pulling it off to reveal his broad and fit upper body. The bike sat between his legs, held their by the sheer strength of his lower body and a wave of heat crashed over her yet again. Her mouth went dry. Goddamn, that was so sexy. Him, the bike, the sweat, the stubble on his jaw, the piercing gaze—all of it.
Drake leaned closer, cutting off all thought but not the lust. The lust just intensified. A little bead of sweat hung in the tiny little hollow of his throat, begging to be licked away. Her fists clenched, and her stomach filled with butterflies trying to wing their way out.
“That was me saving your ass. I saw him coming down that little hall between the houses, and I knew it was him. I decided to circle the block, see if you came back out. When you didn’t, I rode a little farther up and waited. I was going to give you a half a minute more when I saw you come running around the back with all your stuff and figured you must have outrun him. I also figured he was going to come out next, so I decided to stall him so you could bolt.”
“Thanks.” She rubbed her arms up and down her arms. Now that she was not in present danger, the adrenaline died out, leaving her tired and limp.
“You hungry?”
Her eyes went to the house they were parked in front of. “Are we breaking into this house?”
“Yeah, do you mind?”
“Only if we get caught.”
His lips canted upward. “There’s that.”
“I’d rather not go to prison. You know, all things considered.”
“I can see where you could disrupt the hell out of the general population.”
The joking made her relax, her muscles loosen and the tension ooze away from her neck and shoulders. “Ditto. For real, if we are about to engage in some B&E, you had better hope there’s food in there.”
“There is. It belongs to my bass player, Pete.”
Her eyebrows raised. “Oh?”
“Yeah, getting a rich kid in your band’s sort of the new trend.”
Just then, the door opened and a scrawny guy with dark brown hair and a sallow face appeared. “What’s up, dude?”
“Not much; just thought I’d check in with you and introduce you to someone. She’s a hell of a singer.”
Was he kidding? “I’m not. I mean I’m a singer but I’m not…” She glared at Drake, who just grinned back at her.
Pete said, “Okay then.”
Drake said, “Dude, we’re starving.�
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“I got some steaks. I was about to toss one on the grill and it would be no biggie to add a couple more.” Pete jerked his head toward the door.
The house was a post and beam thing with long wide windows and designer furniture. The pool was right outside the back door, and Pete led them that way, making a brief stop at the kitchen to grab some steaks from the fridge.
They stepped out into an outdoor kitchen that would have made a gourmet chef green with envy, but Angelina was more interested in the thick and marbled meat that Pete laid on the gas grill than wondering if that counters were the granite they seemed to be.
Pete finished laying the steaks out and added a few potatoes to the grill then pointed the way to the fridge that held some really good wine and beer. Drake seemed to know the way pretty well. He took out a bottle of red, uncorked it and poured three glasses.
“Thanks.” Their fingers met as Angelina made to take the glass he offered to her. She turned her face down quickly so he wouldn’t see the naked desire playing out in her eyes. She needed him to not know how she felt. She had to figure out what to do next. She did not need the crazy emotions and physical attraction Drake kept bringing up in her.
“Welcome.” Pete stretched out on a chair and asked, “So you sing?”
“I do.” The words were reluctant. Her fingers curled around the stem of the glass. The sun lay thick and heavy on her head and shoulders, and she turned her face up to it.
Pete asked, “You any good?”
“Man, you should hear her. She can play rhythm, too.”
Drake sure was pushing hard—wasn’t he?
“We tried it, like me and him, but I don’t think it will work,” she said.
Pete said, “Oh. Shit. That is too damn bad. I don’t know what it is about Drake, but he seems to run people off left and right for some reason. No idea why—he’s a good dude but he scares folks or something.”
Her eyes met Drake’s. His held a troubled expression. The wine warmed as her fingers moved up to cup the glass. “I get that. Sometimes people are jerks.”
Or they sensed the difference and got scared—or mean. Sometimes both.
There was something Drake’s eyes that triggered a feeling of kinship. He was running away, too. He didn’t want to be a part of his pack. He wanted a life filled with music and normalcy. So did she. But they were different and always would be. They could never escape that, no matter how hard they tried.
The food was delicious, and she was starving. After the meal was over, they went inside. Pete had a whole room dedicated as a music space and Angelina took one look at all the gear and went to go get her guitar.
I’ll just play with them today, but that’s not a promise to be in the band. She settled onto a low sofa with the guitar over her legs.
Drake wrote down the lyrics and the chords to a song. “Can you just strum along? Don’t worry about trying to figure out a pattern just yet, just do the chords on the time and sing the words?”
“Sure.” Angelina looked down at the paper and nodded. “I need a capo though. I suck at the B minor chord.”
He laughed. “I hate that chord. I always capo the third and play it with the G, C, and so forth.”
“You could have just written that down,” she teased as she grabbed a pen and began to make the changes on the paper.
Drake said, “Well, I had to know if you’d try, anyway.”
“We had a guy who was a piano player turned guitarist, and he insisted on playing the hardest chords because he could. Drove us nuts,” Pete added.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that with me.” Angelina blinked. What am I saying? This has to be the last time I play with Drake, in every way. I can’t be with him!
She shook that off. There was far too much uncertainty going on right now. Music was static, it was a good thing, and she needed it just then, and badly.
Her fingers met the frets and formed the chords. Notes rang out. The supple strings bent and she closed her eyes, getting the sense of the rhythm from Pete’s throbbing bass lines and Drake’s long string of melodies. She strummed along instinctively, putting some sixteenth note strums in, varying the pattern.
When they reached the end and started the song over, Angelina began to sing, her husky voice lingering over the melody and then wrapping around the words and sliding behind the beat.
The song ended. Pete let out a whoop and said, “Hell, yes! Man, you’re awesome!’
“You’re awesome,” Angelina said. “You can really play that bass!”
Pete grinned. “Now if we could just find a decent drummer before Saturday!”
Drake said, “I had a guy call me earlier. I could call him back and see what he says—if he wants to come jam or whatever.”
Now was the time to bow out. Now was the time to say she couldn’t stay.
Angelina knew that, and she knew she should speak up.
But all she said was, “That would be great.”
“Hey, man, do you mind if we stay here for a few days?” Drake asked Pete.
“No, why would I?” Pete replied.
Angelina caught Drake’s eye. She knew what he was thinking. If Joaquin dared to go to bear territory to find her, he’d find nothing. Her scent at Drake’s would have dissipated by now and a few days at Pete’s, high in the hills where shifters did not go, would be the perfect way to keep him off their trail.
But what would happen when they did get found and caught?
Chapter 7
The Whiskey was packed. The band, with its new lineup that included Angelina, Drake, Pete, and Zeke, the new drummer—an eager and hyper guy fresh off the bus and from a tiny town somewhere in Idaho—stood in the miniscule dressing room located down a dingy hallway in the back of the Whiskey. The night’s headliners had the big dressing room and their entourage spilled down the musty concrete hallway, making one hell of a drunken racket.
Angelina took a long breath, trying to steady her nerves.
Drake put a hand on the back of her neck. “You okay?”
The warmth and weight of his hand on her nape helped a little. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
It was true. The last month between the day where she had fled Joaquin and her pack had gone by in a blur. She’d moved in with Drake and so far they had managed to keep everyone at bay, even his MC, but she knew that could not last long. The gigs they were playing had been all that she had allowed herself to think about.
She spent her days and nights in a haze of making music with the band and love with Drake. It was a special moment, a long and winding time where she could actually believe that everything was going to be okay even with all the obstacles in front of them.
Drake’s bear-ness didn’t show most of the time, and she kept her wolf-ness out of sight, too. There were times when that was harder than others but she was in full-on survivor mode, desperate to keep both her and Drake safe.
The emcee was speaking and the runner, an older man with a shock of gray hair and a heavily tattooed right arm, stuck his head into the dressing room. “Time, guys.”
Angelina grabbed her guitar and held it tightly. Drake gave her a wide smile. Pete, usually cool and collected, stumbled and nearly tripped over his own feet. Zeke gulped and jerked a few times, his eyes showing his nerves.
“Cool out, dude,” Pete said. “We’ve been here before.”
Zeke didn’t look too convinced. He just swallowed a few times and nodded. Drake whispered into her ear, “That guy’s nervous every time. I don’t know if he’s going to make it if we make it big.”
She chuckled. Once onstage, Zeke was a wonder. Drake knew it, too.
“I love it that you think we’re going to make it big,” she told him.
“I know we are.” His eyes held determination. “How could we not?”
It was their dream. To hit it big and play all the big arenas. It wasn’t the money. Drake didn’t care about money, and Pete didn’t need it. Zeke was about money and maybe ev
en the fame. She and Drake were in it for something else, for the sheer pleasure of getting to play. The more people in the audience, the better, because both of them fed off that energy in a way that was both wonderful and wild. It often sent them straight to bed, their bodies and hearts eager to shed some of the crazy, electrically charged excitement that always filled them after a gig.
The audience was already hyped up. It was like walking into a party that had already started and as soon as they hit the stage, Angelina felt the charge of it all.
Her guitar was poised, and she looked at Drake, who nodded and called out a one, two, three count before they charged into their first song, rocking it out in a hard and fast groove.
Pete played tight in the pocket, and Zeke kept perfect time. They had gelled in a way that was inexplicable and magical. Drake, with his guitar slung across his body and hanging low, strode across the stage—beyond hot in a pair of black leather pants and a plain white tee that outlined every inch of his smoking body.
Just looking at him made her want to grab him and haul him off to a dark corner. He prowled closer, all drive and thrusting hips, flashing fingers and wailing strings. Her voice and his blended, their guitars making a perfect counterpoint and harmony to each other.
The set was short, just thirty minutes, but for those thirty minutes, Angelina forgot about everything but Drake and the music and the crowd.
She was soaring when they got off stage and headed back to their dressing room. Drake grabbed her hand and asked, “Should we go watch the other band?”
She nodded eagerly. They cased their gear and hauled it out the back door and into the van then dashed back inside and down the hallway, just in time to watch the headliners take the stage.
Drake caught her in his arms and they started to dance. Angelina let go.
