“Will you get me a drink?”
“There’s another bar.” He pushed through the crowd. I lost sight of him for a moment, startling when he appeared at my side, holding a half-drunk highball, a cheeky grin on his face.
“Have you been using your powers to steal Samson’s drinks?”
“All night.”
“That’s so petty of you.” I high-fived him but, of course, he left me hanging. Jerk. I was tempted to make a Speedy Gonzales crack because the comparison turned him a particularly rich shade of “Nava Red” but then I’d have to listen to him go off on the difference between short bursts of super speed and the ridiculousness of anyone racing around the planet at the speed of light.
We arrived at the much smaller bar in the back corner. A handwritten menu propped on a stand listed a number of different absinthe drinks.
“I’ve always wanted to try this stuff.” I pushed close for a better view as the bartender made two drinks for the couple ahead of us and set the alcohol on fire.
“Way to waste booze.” Drio’s American accent was back.
“A good show though.” When it was our turn, I ordered an absinthe mojito.
“No. Old school,” he told the bartender.
The bartender pulled out a green glass bottle from under the bar and showed it to us. Drio read the label, nodding in approval. The bartender poured a generous slug of pale yellow liquid into two glasses, then he placed a slotted spoon with a sugar cube on top of each.
“This is what got all those artists and writers tripping balls, isn’t it?”
Drio rolled his eyes.
The bartender put an old fashioned water fountain with two spigots on the bar. Sliding the glasses under the spigots, he turned them on, water dripping into the absinthe, before dropping dry ice into the fountain at the top. Smoke billowed out, curling around the entire apparatus.
“Unnecessary,” Drio said. I, however, appreciated the theatricality. Our glasses filled with water, turning the absinthe cloudy. The bartender handed them over.
I raised mine to Drio. “L’chaim.”
“Salut.” We clinked. “Sip, don’t chug,” he ordered.
“Mmm. Licorice.”
The music cut out to boos. Forrest stepped onto the stage which I noticed had been outfitted with a drum kit. Also a drummer, a bassist, a guitarist, and a keyboard player. It wasn’t actually Fugue State Five, but it was the same set up.
The director held up his hand for silence but people kept talking until someone in the crowd let out an ear-piercing whistle. “Thank you, Anya,” he said. “Tonight, I have a treat for you. Rohan Mitra, lead singer of Fugue State Five, is here to perform a few numbers for you, including a bit of the theme song for Hard Knock Strife.”
The room erupted into cheers and applause.
I edged my way forward to be closer to the stage, making sure to stay on the opposite side from Lily. I just couldn’t.
“Without further ado, let’s get him out here. Rohan!”
Rohan came out and man-hugged Forrest. Then the director stepped off the stage, leaving Rohan to take the mic.
Hel-lo, rock god.
23
Rohan wore a slim-fitting black velvet jacket, cut to precision to show off the broad line of his shoulders. It tapered down the V of his torso over a partially unbuttoned black shirt with Hindi script in metallic silver across the front. A silver chain hung low around his neck, the braided leather and silver circle hanging from it drawing the eye down to his black leather pants. His ass was going to look incredible when he turned.
He’d forgone spikes for his natural curl, messed enough that he’d been raking his fingers through his locks. He looked like he’d rolled out of bed, and given the dreamy stares cast up at him, plenty of people here would be very happy to roll back into it with him. His eyes burned deep amber, his smoky eyeliner causing them to pop with a fiery intensity.
I was really going to miss getting a piece of that. I sagged against the wall, the movement putting Lily directly in my eyeline, my slug of absinthe bracing me as much as my hip. I rubbed the heel of my palm against my chest. Seems I wasn’t the only one watching Lily. Poppy stood off to her left, glaring daggers.
Rohan’s leather strap and silver bracelet slid up his arm as he adjusted the mic stand, his rings glinting off the stage lights. “For my first song, I thought I’d sing something I wrote here in this incredible city.” The crowd loved that.
The music kicked in, my pulse kicked up, and Rohan kicked off “Slumber.” He started off slow, working the crowd up to the chorus. A lot of people sang along. There was something intensely compelling about him. Stage presence on steroids. I’d never seen Fugue State Five live in concert and as good as he must have been then, this was cult-leader charismatic.
His next number “Falling Sideways” was more upbeat. A bass-heavy number.
Rohan slunk across the stage like a panther. Jim Morrison was a toddler compared to the sinuous sexuality that Rohan exuded. He revved the audience into a frenzy with small ass shakes and hip shimmies, like the music lived inside him. The melody poured out of his blood and his heart.
All around me people danced, rapt looks of delight on their faces as they watched him. With one pissed off exception. Samson.
“Told you he was something,” Drio said.
Rohan posed, hip popped out, arrogant smirk on his face.
I swooned.
He gripped the mic stand, swinging it in toward him as he stretched out a hand. “Falling sideways, help me land,” he sang.
The audience roared in approval, reaching out for him. Lily practically glowed with adoration.
I tipped back my glass only to find that I’d already finished my drink.
Rohan tossed his jacket off to the side, his biceps flexing as he grabbed the mic stand. For the third and final Fugue State Five song, he announced he’d be singing their last number one hit, “Trainwreck of Lost Saturdays.” He hit the ground running, jumping up and down, the audience moshing along with him.
I threw myself into dancing with as much abandon as everyone else. I flung my arms up to the ceiling, the absinthe seeping through me like a languid high. Colors were sharper, more intense, from the flash of a woman’s silver sequins to the pop of Drio’s green eyes. He was one of the few people who didn’t dance but even he looked captivated.
Watching Rohan on stage, it was clear that he ruled this room. He told us to jump, we shook the floor when we thudded back to earth. He held the mic out to us and we sang his words back to him with fervor. He was mesmerizing.
Magnetic.
Mine.
My arms dropped to my side. He wasn’t though, was he?
The song ended and the cast and crew went nuts. Rohan grinned at us, king of all he surveyed. Then he held up his hands for quiet. Unlike when Forrest had tried the same thing, for Rohan, it went from frenzy to could-hear-a-pin-drop in seconds.
“Thank you. It’s been a while and well,” he ducked his head, “I was nervous.”
I snorted. If the room could have group hugged the boy, they would have. Rohan grabbed a stool that he put in the middle of the stage, moving aside the mic stand. He went over to the guitarist and spoke a few words to him. The guitarist nodded and handed over an acoustic guitar propped on the stage behind him.
Rohan sat down on the stool, adjusting the guitar strap around his neck. He blinked coyly at us. “Do you want to hear the theme song?”
I put my hands over my ears against the deafening roar.
That earned us a Cheshire Cat smile. Foregoing the microphone, he rested his hands on top of his guitar. The lights dimmed, an expectant hush falling over the room. Even the club’s staff had stopped working, with nary a tinkle of glass daring to break the moment. I waited for the band to start up but he sang a capella.
His deep baritone rang out pure and clear through the first verse.
Hard fists they strike/ Still not the stone my heart entombed lies beating
&n
bsp; Scoring big/ I pay my dreams in blood/ Rush like a knife
Strike a match blaze/ Seize the bright lights/ Give me some illumination
In the end Hell will come calling/ Crown me king of hard knock strife.
Rohan growled the last line, his famous rasp front and center. He stretched out the final word impossibly long, the rest of us collectively holding our breaths.
With the first three songs, he’d given us a show.
With this one, he gave us magic.
The silence when the note finished was absolute; the chord he struck for the start of the chorus was shocking in comparison. The dark majesty of it resonated through the room after the clarity of his voice. I shivered.
Rohan didn’t play the next note. The crowd wailed in protest. He shot us a sleek, satisfied smile. “I live to tease,” he drawled.
The woman next to me fanned herself.
Rohan stood up. “That’s all you get… for now.” He winked and walked off the stage.
Samson immediately jumped on it, clapping. “Big hand for Rohan. Now let’s party.” Points for effort, but the audience demanded their idol back.
“Encore,” they chanted, stomping their feet.
A darkness slithered behind Samson’s eyes. I doubt anyone else noticed but I was close up and besides, Rasha. I was watching more intently than most. He covered it with a big grin. “Ro, get your ass back out here.”
Behind me, Drio chuckled.
Rohan came out, shaking hands with Samson like they were the best of friends. After presenting Rohan with an arm flourish, Samson jumped off the stage and Rohan once more sat down on the stool. He slung the guitar around to his front, then spread his hands wide as he raised an eyebrow, as if saying “you got me, now what do you want me to do?”
“Toccata and Fugue,” Samson yelled out.
My breath hitched. It hadn’t occurred to me that this song would be played. That I’d have to listen to Rohan sing it to Lily.
Rohan’s eyes flicked to mine for the briefest second, the genuine concern in them causing me to step back. “What about–” he said. Any potential suggestion was drowned out by the demon rallying the rest of the crowd into picking up the “Toccata and Fugue” chant.
As one, Rohan and I turned toward Lily. She beamed, nodding at him. Dancing hearts couldn’t have conveyed her feelings any clearer. He smiled at her, the kind of smile bestowed on a woman by a man who is powerless to deny her anything.
I’d seen those smiles. In movies.
I flinched, my gaze clashing with Samson’s. A mocking smile on his face, he held up a glass in cheers. I looked away.
Rohan strummed the opening chord, his head bent forward in concentration, cocking a hip to better adjust for the weight of the guitar. Looking down at the instrument through half-lowered lashes, his hair falling forward, he had the tiniest smile on his face.
Barely blinking, barely breathing, I let the song flow over me, forcing myself to remember with every word flaying my soul, that these lyrics were not for me and never had been. Forcing myself to watch the bond between Rohan and Lily, my head bouncing from his face back to hers. The entire audience were voyeurs on an incredibly intimate moment between the two but, for me, there was no titillation in the spectacle.
Standing rooted to the spot as Rohan sang of the girl with lightning in her eyes and the boy with demons in his soul to the actual fucking lightning girl, I learned exactly how deep my masochism ran.
At some point Drio took my arm trying to pull me out of there, but I tugged free.
It was the rawest version of the song I’d ever heard. My stomach twisted with the irony that as much as that song had freaked me out when he’d first sung it, now it broke my heart.
Rohan’s bow when he finished the song was more subdued this time. He disappeared off the stage. Further demands for another song were ignored. The show was over.
People wandered back to the bars or stayed on the dance floor as the band brought out the funk. I raced toward the green room. If I was going to have any hope of facing myself in the mirror again, this ended now.
I found him leaning against the wall, eyes closed. His head was tipped back, hair sweaty and sticking up in tiny spikes. One leg was bent, his foot planted on the wall. A mostly empty water bottle dangled from his hand.
His eyes snapped open, pinning me in place. The blazing naked hunger in them stole my breath. He peeled himself off the wall. I stepped forward, powerless to resist his gravitational pull. Rohan inhaled, a harsh shaky sound and–
“That was so good,” Lily squealed, bounding into the room and breaking the spell. She leapt on him, kissing him squarely on the lips. Rohan tensed for a second, then his arms came around Lily and he kissed her back. Short and sweetly everything.
I shut down. Eviscerated. There were parts of my heart and my brain that I wouldn’t–couldn’t–visit right now. I cauterized them just to make sure.
Other people poured into the room and I slipped away.
Drio caught up with me outside the club. He fell into step beside me, telling me some stupid story about Samson’s posse. I didn’t know when things had shifted between us for him to become my guardian angel, but I was very happy to have him there distracting me.
Back at the hotel, I went straight to the bar. Drio matched me drink for drink. Eventually I’d consumed enough that he had me laughing. I poked his shoulder. “I like you.”
“I’m likeable. You’re a hot mess.”
I curled an errant strand of hair around my finger. “Yeah, but you’re trouble and I bet you love hot messes. We don’t come with strings.”
He cocked an eyebrow in interest. “No strings?”
I licked a drop of vodka off my lip. “None at all.”
Drio’s nostrils flared.
I ran a hand over his pecs. These Rasha boys had such nice bodies.
Drio grabbed my hand. We practically sprinted over to the elevator. Inside, he pushed me up against the wall, sucking on my neck. I pulled his shirt out of his pants to get closer to his skin. To feel his heat.
To feel something.
The second the elevator door opened, he flash-stepped me down the hall, slamming me up against my door. Giggling, lightheaded from the jaunt, I nipped at the underside of his jaw. “Speedy.”
Drio leaned into me, his erection hard between my thighs. “No, bella,” he purred, “it’s going to be a very long night.”
My knees buckled. I wove my hands into the silky strands of his blond hair as he made his way down my body, his mouth hot and sloppy through the fabric of my dress. My head thunked back against the door and I closed my eyes to better lose myself to the tingling along my skin.
Drio pushed my dress up, his breath ghosting over Cuntessa. She voiced her approval with ripples of hot pleasure. With a wicked glint up at me, he nipped the inside of my thigh.
An electric sizzle caught at the base of my spine, arcing up through me. Holy yes, Batman! I fumbled in my clutch for my keycard, yanking him to his feet. “Inside,” I breathed. “Now.”
His eyes, fiery emeralds, locked onto mine. Using his powers so absolutely for good, he had me inside on the bed with my dress off my shoulders before I could blink.
“More skin.” I wrapped my leg around his waist, tearing at his shirt buttons.
Drio dragged his finger up my side. The sharp smell of his arousal pushed me into overdrive.
I moaned, rocking against him.
“I don’t kiss,” he murmured in my ear.
“What?”
He raised his head. “I don’t kiss.”
His words were like a douse of freezing water. Ice seeped through my veins, making everything numb when I should have been on fire.
I pushed Drio off of me.
“Does it matter?” he asked.
I rubbed my hands over my arms, thoroughly unnerved by this of all similarities between us. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”
He wasn’t angry. In fact, the look he gave me was
heavily laced with compassion. He shrugged. “Sometimes you just want to feel something else, you know?”
I nodded. Yeah, I knew. I pulled my dress back onto my shoulders.
Drio made himself presentable once more. “Will you be all right?”
“Yes.” I squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”
He was already opening my door. “Yeah, yeah.”
I figured that I’d toss and turn all night, but sleep claimed me pretty fast. The next morning, I woke up to a moment of horror for what I’d almost done. That turned into a moment of horror that I felt horrified about being horrified when Rohan and I weren’t in a relationship. Whatever had not happened with Drio was none of Rohan’s business. Just like whether or not Rohan spent the night with Lily was none of mine.
Then I sprinted to the bathroom and vomited.
24
I’d always thought battling demons involved physical fights, but Samson was the second demon I’d faced who’d unleashed emotional wreckage and mind game fuckery on a brutal scale. I almost blinded myself with my mascara wand, lost in the grip of my savage urge to destroy him for loosing that encore on me.
So when Drio and not Rohan called me with the details of the location for the meeting, I needed more than a few steady breaths to calm down. Rohan didn’t get to start avoiding me now. Not before I’d had my say and officially ended our penile paradigm.
I armored up in all-black.
The one good thing in my morning was a message waiting at reception for me from Dr. Gelman saying her panel had gone well. Her check-in calmed me down a bit.
Using Rasha connections, Rohan and Drio arranged for us to have use of a cool underground bar. I’d texted Samson the time and address, receiving confirmation that he’d be there.
I paced at the top of the stairs leading down to the bar for a good ten minutes before I felt psyched enough to go meet up with my team, though I was surprised to descend the stone stairs and find other patrons inside. The bartender looked up from drying a glass, studying me with more curiosity than my presence warranted. Then he nodded, raising his hand to show his Rasha ring. Ah. He’d looked a bit too ripped to spend his time slinging booze. Each of the half dozen or so other men here were hunters as well, providing background so Samson didn’t get suspicious by walking into a deserted bar.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Sting (Nava Katz Book 2) Page 22
