Red Hot Alphas: 11 Novels of Sexy, Bad Boy, Alpha Males (Red Hot Boxed Sets Book 2)

by Jo Raven

  Then Elfie lay in his arms, still panting, while Tryp held her against his body like he was afraid someone was going to rip her away from him, his strong arms shaking.

  He had told her little about his visit from Nephi, his childhood friend, and the other guy, but something was so terribly wrong. Elfie finally got enough air in her lungs to ask, “Tryfon, what happened? What did those guys threaten you with?”

  “Everything,” he whispered, and when she pulled back, his black eyes held helpless rage. “They threatened everything. Xan insists that we don’t have to pull the single, that he and Jonas can manage all of the repercussions, but they can’t. Those guys are going to beat up Sariah. She’s still there. She hasn’t ever left, and they’re going to beat the crap out of her and probably send me pictures.”

  Elfie’s chest hurt. “We should call the police.”

  “The Sheriff is the Prophet’s nephew, and the town chief of police is my uncle. No one will save her.”

  “Someone has to be able to do something. You should tell Xan about Sariah. He wouldn’t let someone get hurt. He’ll pull it.”

  “They’ll do it anyway. Her husband, my stepfather Kumen, is an evil son-of-a-bitch. I made myself forget all these years, told myself that it was her decision to stay, but I’ve got to go in and get her out. I can’t, though. The tour schedule is packed tight. If I just up and leave, Xan will never forgive me. He’ll chuck my ass out of the band, and everything I’ve worked for, gave up conservatory for, will be gone, but it might be Sariah’s life at stake, and the worst part is that she probably won’t leave even though Kumen might kill her if she stays.”

  Elfie put her arms around him. She had read Sariah’s letter, and yeah, she could see that Sariah might not leave even if she had the chance. “The shows at the end of the week are smaller venues,” she said. “Maybe Xan could get a studio drummer for a week, and Rock could do my pyros.”

  He reared back and looked hard at her. His voice broke with hard emotions when he said, “You would come with me to rescue another woman?”

  Elfie knew exactly what she was doing. Tryp needed to go rescue his first love, the girl he had been grieving for seven years, the one who haunted his nightmares. When Tryp and Sariah saw each other, there was a damn good chance she would run into his arms and he would take care of her.

  And he would be happy.

  Between Elfie and Tryp, one of them wasn’t going to be with the one they loved, and she wanted him to be happy and to stop suffering those nightmares.

  “She’s a human being,” Elfie said. “Someone is beating the crap out of her and might kill her. Yeah, I’m with you.”

  Tryp gathered her into his body, rocking them both. “I can’t leave the band and the tour anyway, but you have the most beautiful soul I have ever seen.” He laid her back on the bed and kissed her again, tenderly this time.

  At least she had these few minutes.

  Birmingham

  Technically, the Birmingham show went off without a hitch. Elfie listened to Tryp through her headphones for most of the show. His warm baritone filled her headphones and her ears.

  Xan reached into the audience and pulled a little kid up on the stage a couple songs before intermission. The kid danced up front for a second, then ran around to see Tryp’s drum set.

  Through her headphones, Elfie heard Tryp say, “Hello, there. Do you like drums?”

  Mitch went nuts, dragging Tryp’s feed down so that the audience wouldn’t hear him talking to the kid, and then he had to rebalance the sound board.

  Elfie listened to Tryp.

  Tryp continued drumming, but he talked to the little kid. “This is the bass drum. You stomp on the pedal to hit it. Can you stomp on it? Yeah! Just like that!”

  The kid sat with Tryp for another song and a half, and Tryp had him smashing the crash cymbal and bonking out a steady rhythm on the snare, sending Mitch into a tizzy as he tried to keep the kid’s drumming off the speakers. When the set was over, Tryp picked him up around his waist and carried him back to his parents, the kid swimming in the air the whole way. His little-boy giggles carried over Tryp’s microphone. Tryp carefully lowered the kid into the audience and crouched to talk with his parents for a second before he jogged off the stage.

  During the second set, everything seemed to be going fine. Elfie was listening to Tryp sing some more, but when everyone swiveled their heads to watch Xan, she switched her monitor over to him.

  Xan’s voice cracked right where it always did, in the middle of “Standing on the Mountaintop.” Rhiannon jumped down from her riser to run to him, and Elfie delayed a couple of gerbs that shot golden sparks into the air until Rhiannon was clear. Rhiannon only had to sing one verse before Xan could take over the lead again, but Elfie and Mitch gave each other a long, sad look.

  “It’s just like Frankie Beverly, Roger Waters, and Bob Dylan,” Mitch said. “Xan Valentine has maybe three years left unless he stops this ass-breaking touring.”

  “He’s only twenty-five,” she said.

  “Doesn’t matter. He’s going to rupture a cord. They can’t fix that.”

  Tipping Point

  Atlanta was the tipping point.

  Tryp had watched from his drum kit every night for weeks as Xan’s voice grew more ragged, but anyone who told him to slow down got an icy English glare and assurances that he could carry on, but if you couldn’t, you should let him know in time to make other arrangements. You just didn’t tell Xan Valentine to slack off, to rest, because Tryp was pretty sure he couldn’t.

  In Atlanta, Tryp stomped his bass drum and twisted in his seat, his shoulders and muscular arms pounding on the skins, beating his frustration and anger out.

  Three days had passed since Nephi and Teancum had threatened him.

  Seventy-seven and a half hours of wondering if they were beating Sariah yet.

  Ninety and one-half hours left until Nephi’s one-week deadline.

  And it had been just one day since Elfie had made the most selfless offer he had ever heard when she said that she would help him get Sariah out of New Empyrean. He had almost broken in half and told her that he loved her, but she deserved better than a dirty rocker. She deserved a man who would make a home for her, provide for her and their children, and stay with her, not waste his life on the road with a rock band.

  Tryp smashed harder on the drums, painfully aware of everything he wasn’t.

  He had left his wallet with Jonas because they were, Dear God, once again pulling a runner to hit the tour busses tonight before they drove north, but he had stuffed Nephi’s card right behind his driver’s license in there, the most secure position.

  Not that he needed the fucking card. That phone number burned like a brand in his head. He even saw it when he was dead drunk.

  Damn, he wished Elfie would ride the band bus with him. He missed the feel of her satiny skin in his hands, the scent of that rosemary and mint shampoo in her hair and the softness of her long, blond hair around him, and the sweet sound of her voice when she said everything, even when she was chewing him out for drinking too much.

  Especially when she was chewing him out for drinking too much. No one else gave a shit if he fucking died in his sleep or of a heroin overdose in a bathroom, his blood painting the walls from an artery puncture.

  To stay with her, he would do anything. For a few extra moments with her, he would lie, cheat, or steal. He had been bribing the property gaffs to tag her luggage for his room instead of hers for weeks.

  Tryp had already called the reporter from Rolling Stone to write another interview so he could recant everything he had said. No one would probably believe him, but it gave Kumen and Nephi the deniability and reasonable doubt they would need to fight subpoenas and indictments based on his statements.

  He would confront Xan on the band bus tonight and, first, try to convince him to pull the single, and when that didn’t work, threaten him with lawyers. Tryp would do anything short of breaking the band to get that s
ingle down.

  Kumen and Nephi would continue to abuse women and girls out of the public’s knowledge, but they wouldn’t post over two thousand one-star reviews and destroy Killer Valentine.

  Because if Tryp broke the band, he wouldn’t ever see Elfie again, because when the tour disintegrated, she would leave and find some other way to earn the money for college.

  Gone.

  Tryp couldn’t bear that.

  All for her. He would do anything to keep Killer Valentine alive just so that he could see her if only for a few minutes a day.

  Yet, he couldn’t leave Sariah to torture and death at the hands of his step-father, either. He had arranged for a guy whom he had known at the Colburn School conservatory, Hippie Joe, to sit in for three shows while Tryp went to Utah tomorrow to bust Sariah out of that cult.

  Under the burning lights of the stage, Tryp was destroying his drum kit while they sang “Nine Levels of Tortured Souls,” working out his rage at Nephi and Kumen and Teancum and all the rest of those fuckers who should burn in any Hell that might ever exist, when he heard Xan’s voice seize up.

  Jesus, it was too soon. They weren’t even singing “Standing on the Mountaintop” yet.

  “Nine Levels” wasn’t even a challenging song. They’d transposed it down a third of an octave for performances, and the chorus was nearly a monotone chant.

  Tryp’s sticks froze in the air for an entire measure when he saw Xan grab his throat and go down on one knee. Xan’s harsh gasp echoed through Tryp’s in-ear monitor like Xan was hanging on his shoulder.

  His struggling wheeze sounded a lot worse than usual.

  Tryp stood inside his kit, watching Xan over his line of snares.

  Rhiannon vaulted the monitor wedge on the floor and ran to Xan, her chubby legs flashing beneath her skirt, singing the whole way into her mic. Tryp didn’t have her line in his monitor, so he could only hear Xan choking and sucking air like he was drowning in the middle of the stage. Tryp could see that Rhiannon was still singing, even if he couldn’t hear her, so he sat and came in on the downbeat because the show must go on.

  Shit. Xan was getting worse, a lot worse.

  Down below the bank of drums, Cadell was jogging over to Xan, his fingers flying on the frets and dragging the electrical cord behind him on the stage, and damned if he didn’t miss a note the whole way over there. He crouched beside Xan, still playing, and said something to Rhiannon, who rested her pale hand on Xan’s dark coat sleeve but was singing the melody line of the song. She was so close to Xan that the mic taped to his cheek picked up her golden alto voice behind Xan’s choking and struggling for breath.

  Jonas came out on the stage and bent over Xan, his expensive gray suit an understated contrast with the musician’s antique costume. Rhiannon and Cadell stood and backed off while Jonas led Xan off the stage. Xan coughed a sick, constricted wheeze in Tryp’s ear until a static squawk cut him off and Rhiannon’s clear, bright voice filled his head.

  Tryp had a two-minute drum solo at the end of the bridge here, and he took the opportunity to pour rage onto his drums.

  Centerstage, Cadell and Grayson slung their guitars over their heads and switched instruments. Now that Cadell was tethered to the amps at stage right, Cadell traced back Grayson’s cord and followed Xan and Jonas, his fingers still a blur on the neck and body of the guitar, though now Cadell strummed the bass line and Grayson played the lead guitar’s line.

  Tryp settled in, listening to Rhiannon sing and bop down near the crowd.

  Evidently, the crowd was aware that Xan sometimes blew out his voice, because there wasn’t a hushed, horrified silence. They all just danced to Rhiannon’s vocals.

  Tryp drummed extra hard to give her a vibrant dance beat behind her voice to get the crowd on its feet and rocking, but it seemed like the audience was already dancing, their arms waving in the air and jumping to her voice.

  When Tryp looked over to the wings, Xan was watching her dance and sing to the audience and holding that electrode thing to his throat to stop the spasms, terror written on his face.

  Everyone Sees

  Elfie was waiting in the hotel parking lot. The advance-party tech bus had beaten the band bus to Augusta, a minor miracle due mostly to a batch of traffic that the tech bus had whipped through, while the band bus had gotten trapped by semis carrying frozen chicken.

  Tryp stepped out of the band bus and caught Elfie to him in an enormous hug and a bone-melting kiss.

  She tried to push off him but her bones were all melted and she flipped her arms around his neck instead. When he broke it off, she whispered, “Someone will see. Oh, my God. Someone will see.”

  She looked over his shoulder and around.

  Everyone had seen.

  Rock was cracking up, doubled over and bracing himself on his knees, but Mitch marched at them, teeth bared like he was going to chew Tryp’s head off.

  Tryp led her away and whispered, his deep voice trembling in her ear, “We have five days off. Five whole days. I’m going to Utah to get Sariah. Gotta call Hippie Joe and tell him to stand down. If I can’t do anything else, I’m going to get her out of there.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Elfie said.

  “Hell, no.” He leaned down and whispered, “This isn’t safe. They’ll shoot me on sight. I can’t take you into that kind of danger. It isn’t right.”

  “Shut up!” she yelled and refrained from kicking him in the shin. “You will take me with you. You can’t do this alone. You need someone there to back you up. I will fucking go with you if I have to crawl inside your suitcase!”

  “Elfie, I can’t put you in danger.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because you’re a—”

  She balled her hands up into fists. “I’m a what?”

  “You can’t—” He stopped, his eyes a dark storm of anger and dismay. “I can’t take—”

  “What, the women and the children must be protected because they’re weak, helpless, and stupid?”

  “I didn’t say that. You said that.” He stepped backward, confusion flickering over his face.

  “You were acting on it.”

  “I don’t want you hurt, okay?” He took her hand and led her farther away from the crowd, where other technicians were speaking very seriously to Mitch.

  Tryp took her into his arms, held her against his beating heart, and whispered in her ear, “I don’t know how much of this is because of how I grew up, that men should take care of women and protect them and not let anyone else near them, but I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. It would break me in half, Elfie.”

  She slid her arms around his waist because, if this was their last couple days together, she didn’t want to end it with a fight. “I just want you to be happy, but you have to take someone with you, and I want to go. I can help you.”

  Tryp sighed, his heavy chest heaving against her cheek. “Okay. Let’s break into the arena here first and get make-up supplies. We’re going to need a disguise.”

  Utah

  At the airport, Elfie stood aside with their few bags while Tryp threw down a black credit card and booked them on a plane to the closest airport, Las Vegas, that left an hour later and then rented a car that was waiting for them at the airport for the two and a half hour drive to New Empyrean as soon as they claimed their luggage.

  Damn. Money could move things.

  On the way to New Empyrean, Elfie refrained from snorting and being derisive about the pretentiousness of the name of the settlement, but Tryp was doing an excellent job of extolling the many disgusting crimes and revolting practices that occurred there regularly, so her contribution was unnecessary.

  Besides, she was too busy listening to her heart crack long, jagged chasms like clay earth parched by drought as they neared the place where Tryp was going to go all Galahad and rescue his first, one, true love.

  Tryp drove the rental car off the highway onto a dirt road, and the car bumped over ruts, jarring El
fie. She clung to the panic handle on the door to keep from bouncing right out of her seatbelt.

  A couple teeth-loosening miles later, Tryp killed the engine. “We should get out and walk.”

  Good thing she hadn’t changed out of her work clothes. She stepped out, her steel-toed boots sliding on the gravel and loose sand. The sun overhead puddled her shadow around her feet.

  They hiked through scrub brush that snagged Elfie’s clothes like angry kitten claws. Tryp dodged the shrubs better than she did. Even though he wore a soft, white tee shirt that should have been a magnet for every burr out in that desert, he skirted the thorns while Elfie was getting scratched to bits.

  He must have spent a lot of time out here as a kid.

  As they came over a rise, Tryp crouched in the brushes and motioned for her to get down. She crawled forward, the beige sand gritty under her palms, wishing she had her leather work gloves. She whispered, “What?”

  Below them, in a small arroyo, a Spanish castle rose out of the wild scrub. Squared-off crenellations topped walls of smooth, red clay. On the first story, arrow-slit windows were cut into the walls, and the massive front door was dark wood, kind of like a drawbridge. Both upper stories had wide windows and balconies below the gables of the tile roof.

  At least a hundred people milled around the house, mostly small people, like toddlers and small children, and the desert sunlight glinted golden off all the blond heads. The women’s and girls’ pastel dresses fluttered in the breeze.

  “Holy shit,” she muttered. “You don’t think of a house like that out here.”

  “It’s gotta be big enough for eighteen wives to each have her own room and space for dozens of children.”