by KT Strange
The sound was quiet at first. It began building, the guys and their heavy breathing sounding almost pained. And then the shuffle of paws, claws, on the floor, and a few low rumbles. I shoved at Eli, knowing it was futile.
“I will spark you, I swear,” I threatened him. He nuzzled my nose with his, licking it before pulling back, and stepping off of me. He shook himself out, his fur fluffing up. I got to my knees and stared.
Holy mother-flapping shirts. I had an actual, legit pack of wolves on my hands. If I didn’t know they were my guys, I would have been crapping myself.
“So,” I said, trying to regulate my breathing and not lose it. “If they managed to shift without wrecking the place, what exactly happened to you?” I asked Eli. He avoided my gaze and instead padded over to Finn and head-butted him in the side. Finn growled and head-butted him back.
Ace was the only other wolf with light-colored fur, his body lankier than either of the twins, and he came to sit primly in front of me, looking up at me with big eyes, his tongue lolling out of a doggy smile.
They’d really done it. I reached down to him, wanting to burying my fingers in his fur.
The door beeped and pushed open.
“Hey, guys-” Chelsea stepped in and shrieked, her hand slapping over her mouth. The wolves turned, their reaction times even faster than when they were in human form. She shut the door behind her and stared. “Oh my god.”
Charlie or Cash—I couldn’t tell, the chocolate-black of their coats equally dark—moved toward her and licked at her hand.
“I’m not sure what’s freakier: the sudden shifting, or the massive mess you’ve made,” she said, bending down to give the wolf a hug, her eyes closing. “Oh god, I’m so glad you can shift again.” The wolf leaned into her and huffed out a sigh.
“They wouldn’t let me watch,” I said. Chelsea smiled.
“It’s kinda weird,” she admitted. “I don’t like my guys watching me shift. It’s kinda like melting wax? Or angry playdough? Something like that. Imagine that, but people melting into wolves and unicorns and-” The thought was kind of nauseating. I held up my hand.
“Stop, I’m good. Maybe….” I looked down at Finn and Eli, the two brothers nuzzling each other affectionately, until Finn took it too far by sticking his nose in Eli’s ear, and Eli growled at him. “Maybe next time.”
“You know,” Chelsea said, her eyes wide. “Don’t get mad at me for this, but maybe you can pretend they’re a pack of therapy dogs? And… take them around?”
Cash… or Charlie… jumped up and put his paws square on her shoulders, and started licking at her face, shoving his snout against her nose until she pet him.
“That is… hilarious and ridiculous,” I said, scratching Finn behind the ear. Eli had nipped him, and Finn was sulking. Who knew they’d squabble even more in their wolf forms? Visions of having to deal with them shifting in the green room, and the destruction they would wreak on the furniture… and having to explain that… filled my mind. I winced.
“I think you guys should go into the bedroom and shift back, you’re freaking out your girl,” Chelsea said, giving the wolf she was snuggling a healthy scratch behind the ears. “But I’m so glad to see that you can shift now.” She gave me a meaningful look. “Maybe another, really important conversation should happen if shifting is going on. That isn’t the only thing changing, biology-wise.”
I made a face at her. Really? Did she need to bring up a possible pregnancy now? Seriously? When I had a wrecked hotel room to deal with?
“Yeah, shift back and explain exactly what the fuck happened to the couch,” I said, pointing at Eli. “No ducking the subject.” Eli blinked at me in all his wolfy glory, and then padded away, tail wagging slowly. Ace bounced after him, beating him to the bedroom doors.
My knees wanted to give out from the nerves, but there was nowhere to sit. Something brushed my hand; I glanced down.
“Cash?” I guessed. The dark wolf could’ve been either Cash or Charlie. The wolf in question stuck his tongue out at me and made a soft blep sound. I laughed and bent, hugging him around the neck, inhaling the faint scent that clung to his fur. “Charlie. You’re cute as a wolf.”
He nudged his nose into my ear, then ducked out of my grip, following Cash into the bedroom.
Chelsea turned to me.
“So, how does it feel?”
“Wild,” I breathed. “Incredible. I did that. Me. I… helped them.” My eyes were wet at the edges, and I blinked back the tears that threatened to overwhelm me. Chelsea gave me an equally watery smile, and I was pulled in for a big hug before I could register her coming close.
“You’re amazing,” she said, kissing my cheek as she pulled back. “I hope you know that.”
I didn’t. Not really. I was still feeling… not great. But it wasn’t as bad as before. The empty, yawning blackness inside of me that had promised to eat me alive for so many nights… wasn’t as dark.
“I think I’m okay,” I said, hesitant in how I said my words. “I think I will be okay. Just… one day at a time.”
“If you can’t believe a positive thing about yourself,” Chelsea said gently, tangling her fingers with mine and squeezing them affectionately. “Try something neutral instead. Something that isn’t bad, but isn’t positive. It’ll help you, I promise. It’s like a stepping stone. Right now, you just need to be neutral to yourself, if you can’t be kind.”
I looked into her eyes; the depths of them seeming magnified, giant blue pools of color that someone could get lost in. She really was something else, the otherworldly touching every bit of her, right down to the way she seemed to see right through all the bullshit in my head to get at the heart of the matter.
“I think I can do that,” I said softly.
“Do what?” Ace was walking out of the bedroom, shirtless and in jeans, the guys following him.
I smiled at them through unshed tears. They were cute as wolves, but they were my guys in their human forms. I melted into Ace’s arms, and felt something inside of me blossoming, a warmth that filled all the aching voids like it hadn’t in so long.
“I think I’m ready to go on stage,” I said. I tilted my head up to look at Ace, before peeking at the rest of the guys around his shoulder. A grin split Finn’s face, and Eli pounded him on the back, looking relieved. I knew how important it was to them that I really get out in front of this BS with me dating the whole band. I just hadn’t had the bravery to do it.
Seeing them shift, knowing what I had contributed to them, to… us? I knew I could do it.
I could face down the fans. I could face up to what we were to the world. I could handle any criticism thrown my way. Those guys, those men? They were everything, they were my whole world, and with them at my side I was untouchable, invincible.
My father hadn’t brought me to my knees. I had killed a dragon. I was a survivor. I hadn’t seen it before, probably because of the cloud of grief shrouding me. Those feelings were melting away, bit by bit, and when Charlie wrapped me up in a hug, lifting me off the ground to kiss me, the feeling touched me all the way to my center. The frost-lined cage around my heart evaporated, and I didn’t feel so much like I was just going through the motions anymore.
“You with us, sweetheart?” Charlie asked, his eyes searching mine. I wondered how much the guys had noticed that I’d been withdrawing from them. I glanced past him. Ace’s face was eager, Cash’s arm slung around his shoulders, like Cash was holding him down to keep him from bouncing over to me and Charlie.
“Let’s show them what love looks like,” I said, “because you gotta know out there, somewhere, there’s a girl who’s going through some inner turmoil about loving too many guys at once. And she’s wondering what that makes her.”
Chelsea caught my eye, her lips pale as she bit at them. She wasn’t ready to be open about what she had with the guys in Glory Rev. I didn’t blame her. It wasn’t a piece of cake, to go through the public meat grinder.
A knock
on the door interrupted our euphoric moment, and Chelsea reached for it, opening without even thinking, just as I let out a squeaking “stop!”
The door swung open, and Gem stood there, her eyes wide as the color drained from her cheeks. She surveyed the room, the wholesale wreckage of the furniture, feathers everywhere, and… and my breath stalled in my chest. Fuck.
Holy fuck.
“Well,” she said, her words strangled and constrained, “I see that we have been celebrating, in a manner of speaking.” Her gaze swung between each of the guys before landing on me. “Clean this up. Now.” She spun and marched off down the hall, the echo of her heels like gunshots going off.
“We done fucked up,” Finn said, punching Eli in the shoulder. “Someone call down to room service and ask for garbage bags. A lot of them.”
20
Darcy
I’d never wanted to know the line-item list of expenses when it came to re-furnishing a hotel room. An hour later, after Gem surgically removed my asshole from my body through my throat, I did. We stood with the hotel manager as they gave us a complete rundown of everything the guys (read: Eli) had trashed during their shifting, and how much it would cost to replace it.
Watching five werewolves try to shrink themselves down was amusing and also infuriating.
“No more of that shit,” I said, shaking a finger at them as we gathered in a new (smaller, and less luxurious) suite. Eli glanced at Finn, who gave him a flat look.
“You’re the reason we’re in trouble. It’s always you,” Finn said. Eli’s mouth dropped open.
“No fucking way,” he said. Charlie snorted, stopping their argument before it could start.
“Okay, look, it’s done. Let’s just chill out and get ready for the show tonight. Do we want to rehearse? I’m still not sure about bringing Darce out on stage,” he said.
The guys had been going back and forth with me over it. I wanted to show my face, but also felt nervous, for obvious reasons. It didn’t help that my depression was still weighing me down, whispering in the back of my mind that I was useless, unloveable, and absolutely worthless. Now that I knew what was going on, I could zero in on it. A steady drip-drip-drip of toxic thoughts had been wearing on me for way too long. It had made me so sick. Honestly, I was surprised my magic hadn’t been affected more by the haz mat mess of my emotions.
Which brought me back to getting up on that stage. I wasn’t going to be a target any more for people and their nasty little opinions. I was going to fight back, and the best way I knew how to do that was to show them I wasn’t afraid of them. I wasn’t going to hide. I loved my guys, and they loved me.
Cash slipped an arm around me, tugging me to his side.
“Love you, girly-girl,” he said, nuzzling the top of my head. “Why do you put up with us?”
“The good sex,” I answered, and he laughed.
“Ouch. I thought it was my sparkling personality.”
I leaned up to kiss him, soothing any pretend hurt feelings he might have had.
The green room for that night was more subdued. Gem, like an irate dragon, held court in one corner with Willa at her side. Willa, who caught my eye a few times and winked, was keeping the dragon-lady appeased as best she could. I was nervous about getting on stage in a few minutes.
The band was already on stage. I stood by the buffet in the green room, staring down and small, rolled, pinwheel sandwiches and trying not to hyperventilate.
“You’ll be great,” Chelsea promised me, putting a gentle hand on my arm. “Have some water.” She offered me a sip from a cup.
“I’m going to be sick.”
“They can’t hurt you up on stage,” she said. “My guys are in with security at the barricades. There’s a good ten feet between the metal stanchions and the stage. You’ll be safe.” Her voice dropped down, “And you can always, you know-” She waved her fingers. I wrinkled my nose.
“That’s a dangerous idea.”
“You stopped time, didn’t you?”
“I froze everyone, that’s different. I don’t want to do that to a huge venue with a few thousand people in it,” I said, swallowing hard. “I don’t even think I could do that. I don’t know anyone who could do that.”
Chelsea looked thoughtful.
“What?” I asked, feeling defensive.
“I know they used to. During the great wars, centuries ago.”
“Well, that kind of magic is dead,” I grumbled. “Dead and dust. Just like the witches who cast those spells.”
A stage assistant came to the door, poking her head in, a cascade of brown curls falling over her shoulder.
“Miss Llewellyn?” she asked, politely. “You’re needed offstage. We’re almost ready for you.”
I exhaled. Chelsea squeezed my hand.
“I’ll be right there, standing in the wings. Okay? You got this.” She gave me a brilliant smile, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“You’re right,” I said.
The air offstage was cool, but I knew that as soon as I stepped under the hot lights, I would be sweating. Chelsea pressed the middle of my back, urging me forward as Finn turned toward me.
The sweat dewed on his forehead when he smiled, holding out his hand for me. A huge scream of the crowd rose up to greet me. I turned, my eyes wide as I was blinded by the lights of the stage. It was intense, the noise and other sensations buffeting me. Finn’s hand closed around mine, and he pulled me in for a kiss.
The scream turned into an echoing roar, a tsunami of noise that drowned me and everything else in its path.
“They love you as much as we do,” Finn whispered when he pulled away from me. His next words to the audience blurred in my ears, and I stood there, feeling stiff and shocked. It was way crazier than I’d imagined. My eyes were starting to adjust, and I could just see the edge of the crowd pressing up against the barricade, their arms outstretched. They looked like they wanted to grab us, pull us down, rip us to pieces and consume us as we took our last breaths.
I shuddered, and Finn glanced down at me.
“You okay?” he asked, away from the microphone. His words seemed to rush through a tunnel and yanked me out of my panic.
“I’m fine,” I said, smiling out to the audience and lifting my hand. Someone brushed my side; it was Ace, bringing me a stool to sit on, and he helped me up onto it. The rest of the band came forward, bringing their own stools, until we sat in a rough semi-circle on stage.
“So, we’re gonna cut this down raw,” Finn said to the crowd. The whistles pierced the air, cheers that seemed to go on forever. “We wanted this to be real damn special, as special as you guys are, as precious as this girl is.” He nodded to me, and I felt the heat of the lights on my face, pulling a blush to the surface of my skin.
The noise was constant, the hum of energy rumbling through the room in a way that made me feel like I was standing on a split in the ground as an earthquake threatened to open it up right under me.
I was just glad I was sitting down on a stool and had something to ground me. Otherwise, I’d have gone pitching headfirst and fainted, or something like that.
Eli strummed his fingers, the sound rich and wooden. I looked over. He was holding an acoustic guitar, the flame pattern on the wood flickering under the lights. The first notes ran out as he started playing, the soft tapping of Charlie pounding his fist on the box of his own guitar following.
Cash pressed up against my back, the buzz of his voice in my ear as he murmured,
“We’re doing this for you, doll—every single note, every single beat, it’s for you.” His words cracked something inside of me as he held on, and I gazed out at the crowd, my eyes sharpening.
I breathed with him. The panic attack, or whatever it was that had been gripping me since I’d stepped on stage, started to fall away.
I melted back into him, Finn’s voice kicking in, soaring up over the buzz of the crowd. I floated along with it, my eyes falling shut. Ace took my hand in his a
nd hung onto me, his bass resting easy on his knees.
Finn was singing my song, our song, the one they’d written for me. When I opened my eyes, he was smiling at me, microphone an inch from his mouth.
“I built this fortress to keep you safe, but now I know that living a half a life is not a life, I’m done with being afraid… I don't care, I'll open up my mouth and show my teeth, sing about the things that I believe,” he sang, sounding breathless and reverent. He reached for me, and I twined my fingers with his, feeling connected to the pack with the three of them holding onto me. Charlie looked over, rolled his eyes and wrinkled his nose in fake jealousy, and the feeling in the room went from overwhelming to perfect, welcoming.
I could breathe again.
“I love you,” Cash said into the shell of my ear, before he rested his chin on top of my head. I felt a few thousand pairs of eyes staring at me, zeroing in on the person who’d wrapped up their idols around her fingers, and, for once, it didn’t feel horrible.
I could do this.
I could live through this.
With the guys by my side, I could do anything.
“We need to go home,” I said in the tour bus later that night. We were heading out for another show in another city. They were all blurring together. I needed them to stop.
“What?” Eli lifted his head from where he was re-stringing his acoustic.
“We need to go home,” I said, that shaking feeling inside of me growing loud and insistent. Being on stage that night had kicked over something inside of me. I wasn’t afraid anymore. Business needed to be finished. “We need to take care of my father.”
The mood in the bus shifted from that post-show high to deadly serious.
I was grateful it was only us on the bus—us and Craig—and the rest were in the other bus with Willa and Gem. They’d be pissed, they’d just gotten here, but-
Finn reached over and took my hand.