by Anya Nowlan
“Whatever you want,” she said confidently, not letting her determined expression falter for a second.
Michelle was about to bite back with a comment but Alexander spoke up first.
“Do Late Night Road,” he said, his deep voice seeming to make the walls shudder a little.
She couldn’t blame the walls – she felt that delicious vibration all through her, right down to her core.
Damn. He should sing more, she thought to herself, while her hands were already going to work.
She knew every single one of their songs by heart. Gold Dragons had started when she was still a teen. In fact, she had picked up her first instrument – a guitar – after listening through their first album, Double Trouble. It escalated until her parents threatened to take away her laptop if she didn’t stop blasting the damned angsty rock all over the house. But that just meant she shelled out the money she’d earned over the summer for a pair of headphones – right after she’d booked her very first guitar lesson that is.
She’d ditched the guitar for the earthier bass quickly enough and hadn’t regretted it for a second, even if most of her contemporaries never understood the appeal of the relatively simple instrument. To Jade, it was exactly what she needed. A way to enjoy music, to control its tides and turns without getting into the foreground where she may have been subject to more immediate attention than she was willing to handle.
Her fingers plucked the chords smoothly, and she closed her eyes, letting the music suck her into its own little world. Honestly, it may have had a little to do with the fact that she didn’t want to focus on the Goldplains brothers and that they were damn hard to look past. For now, she just had to give it her best.
When the small solo part came up – a rarity in the Gold Dragons’ repertoire – Jade’s shoulder slumped forward a bit and her teeth grazed over her lower lip, feeling the vibrations of the chords reverberate through her. She loved that song. When she plucked the last chords and let the long echo of the bass fizzle out, she finally opened her eyes again and the serenity she’d just felt evaporated within a moment’s notice.
Apollo was staring at her with that primal gaze of his, like he could peel every stitch of clothing off of her with just his eyes, and Alexander looked at her like he’d just seen an apparition and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Not too bad,” Michelle said, cracking an uncharacteristic smile.
Jade relaxed a bit, unplugging the lead from the amplifier and bunching up the chord in an effort to do something, anything, but getting lost in the golden-hued oases that were the Goldplains brothers.
“When can you start,” Alexander said abruptly.
She could feel his blue eyes considering her, trying to make up his mind about her, and she wasn’t sure what he was hoping to find. What she did know, though, was that she’d been given an opportunity, and she wasn’t about to squander it.
“Right now. I’ve got my gear in my car.”
“Good. We leave for Albuquerque in an hour. Michelle will get you hooked up,” Alexander said, giving her a pleasant, if a bit distant smile, and nudging his brother to join him.
“Wha… Okay,” Apollo started and then quickly quieted, hopping up.
He shared a look with Michelle, and Jade could almost see both of them mentally shrugging, before Apollo turned towards her again.
He strode across the room and stopped in front of the stage, reaching out a hand to her. She grabbed it, and they shook hands, his touch sending a thousand fire bolts skittering through her veins and lighting up her body from the inside out.
“Welcome to the Gold Dragons, Jade,” Apollo said, flashing her a private smile that told her that he was more than glad to have her join.
She gulped again, not finding the words to reply. When he let go of her hand, she couldn’t shake the immediate feeling of loss that went with it. Though they’d hardly touched at all, it almost felt like she’d have to give up a part of herself now that he’d gone.
Straight into the lair of the beast. Well played, Jade, she thought numbly, watching the Goldplains brothers leave. How the hell am I going to tell them why I’m really here?
CHAPTER FOUR
Jade
Michelle was a whirlwind of action. Jade had serious trouble keeping up with the small, spritely woman as she blew through the Gold Dragons crew, directing what gear should be packed where for their departure, while also holding a conversation with Jade. With her guitar over her back and both hands loaded with suitcases, holding all her worldly possessions in messily packed containers, Jade kept bumping and piling into the rushing roadies as she tried to keep up.
“Alexander must really like you,” Michelle said, sounding a bit terse. “Hey, those do NOT go there. I’ve told you a million times, Jimmy. Unless you want Clay to smack you over the head with one of his percussion drums, you’re going to stop separating his stuff, or so help me god, you’re going to have to deal with me.”
“I guess so,” Jade said with a small voice, ducking as two microphone stands whished by far too close to her head.
“Anyway, we got the contract signed, so now it’s all legal. You’re part of the Gold Dragons, and girl, you better keep things clean. No getting off your ass drunk, no funny business. We work hard, and we play harder, but only when we’ve earned it. You understand?” Michelle asked, all the while giving an evil eye to some hired local help who were making a mess of the elaborate set designs they needed to fit into the countless trucks that made up the Gold Dragons’ Great Expectations tour convoy.
“I understand,” Jade said, relieved when Michelle came to a stop in front of one of the big tour busses.
“This one will be yours. Clay, the drummer, and Tayo, the second guitarist, are in there as well, along with some of the assistants and production crew. I got you the back bunk, right above Shelly. I bet you know her – she’s the Amazonian-looking back-up singer.”
Oh yeah, everybody knew Shelly. She, along with Maya and Phoenix, made up the Gold Dragons’ back-up singers. At least for now, as the trio seemed to change quite often, except for Shelly, who seemed to be a semi-permanent fixture. All Jade knew was that the back-up singers were always picture perfect, thin, long-legged and beyond gorgeous. Nothing like her if she had to judge – Jade was on the shorter side and had curves that were lush and proud, but not exactly Cosmo cover worthy by conventional standards.
“If you need anything, let me know. I’d rather deal with your bullshit before you fuck up, rather than after, either way it’s usually my time that you’re wasting. And treat this like a job, not something that’s rightfully yours – Alexander may like you, but if you fuck up during one of the shows, you’re out of here as fast as the last guy. Capiche?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jade answered.
Michelle snorted, but thankfully enough more good-naturedly than anything else.
“Look at you. You’re shuddering like a leaf. It’s okay, they have that effect on everyone who meets them. You get used to the ‘Goldplains’ charms’ after a while,” Michelle said, making air quotes.
Jade cracked a smile. They were awfully charming, yes.
“I’ll leave you to it. You’ve got my cell if you need anything. For the love of all that is holy, I’m going to shove my foot so hard up your ass you’re going to taste the puke I walked through last night, Jimmy!” Michelle yelled, shifting from perfectly pleasant to scary in less time than it took Jade to blink.
Note to self, don’t piss Michelle off.
Jade looked at the big bus painted in the Gold Dragons’ white and gold, with their trademark swirls of two dragons flowing and weaving past one another. It didn’t take much from her to figure out where the inspiration for the illustration came from. Smiling to herself, Jade angled herself through the door of the bus, turning sideways so she and the big luggage she was carrying would fit in at all.
Hauling the bags and guitar up, she had to stop at the entrance.
“Wow,” she mutte
red.
The bus was spectacular. Gleamingly clean, decked out with wide chairs and counters in the Dragons’ colors, looking like it had every amenity she could ever wish for. On a bus!
“Nice, right?” a chuckling voice called, revealing itself to belong to Clay Anderson, who was lounging on one of the wide couches that ran down the side of the bus.
He was flipping through some kind of magazine. Jade returned his smile, and when he reached out a hand in greeting, she dropped one of the suitcases to grab hold. He was handsome with his big arms and boyish grin, but when their hands touched, she didn’t feel anything near what she’d felt when she’d touched Apollo.
Hot and hot came in different variations, it seemed.
“I’m Clay. And you must be the new bassist. Let me help you with that,” he said, grabbing both of her suitcases and easily navigating the tight space of the huge tour bus.
“I’m Jade. And yup, that’s me.”
“Another lamb for the slaughter,” a spiky-haired man said sullenly, giving her a slight nod as she and Clay passed.
“Don’t mind Tayo. He’s just pissy because he can’t play an instrument to save his life, so he has to do backup guitar to one of the best guitarists in the world. Sad life, really,” Clay teased, getting a noncommittal snort out of Tayo.
Jade’s stomach was in knots. Sure, she’d been in big bands before, or at least relatively big, but this was the Gold Dragons. The best of the best, and somehow she’d been allowed to join them – insane!
“Oh, I know what the Dragons do to their bassists if they’re no good. I have no intention of being just another discarded guitar,” Jade said as they came to a stop at the very end of the sleeping bunks.
“That’s the spirit. Apollo’s all flare, no flame, so he isn’t usually the one to worry about. Just look out for Alexander. He’s the one really calling the shots. But don’t tell him I told you that.” Clay winked and Jade could do little else but nod awkwardly.
She didn’t want to end up on the bad side of either of the Dragons, and she’d try her damndest to keep that from happening.
“We’re heading out in five minutes, by the way,” Tayo called.
“Well, that’s my cue then. Need to make sure they haven’t fucked with my drums. Once, half of them got shipped to Idaho while we went to Wyoming. Not funny, man.” Clay’s face twisted in irritation and he spun around, heading out of the bus with fast strides.
Jade let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding in, her hands shaking a little as she shoved her suitcases into the compartments between the bunks. With a thankful sigh, she sunk onto one of the beds, propping the fresh pillow under her head and enjoying the moment of calm.
And that was what it was, calm – a snippet in time when she didn’t have to worry. Her hands got clammy and cold just at the thought of what, or more accurately, who she was running from.
Colt and Cameron Blackscale of Death Wing, the band she had been part of for less than a year before she’d snuck away from them a few nights ago, taking only what she could grab. She’d originally got the gig through a friend of hers, Jim, who booked her an audition when they were short a bassist. Apparently, there was something about her that appealed to dragons, and Cameron had hired her on the spot after hearing her play one song – not unlike Alexander.
At that point, Jade had been on top of the world – Death Wing was one of the biggest names in hard rock, and the fact that they’d even consider a female bassist was wild. It wasn’t exactly her scene, but she needed the money, and a great opportunity was not something to let slip between her fingers.
She’d learned their repertoire, and the first few months had been fine enough. That was until their first big single, Her Blood Tears, hit it out of the park, igniting a major tour across the country. Colt and Cameron were intense to a fault, almost scarily so, and it didn’t take long for Jade to figure out why. Their arena shows had a similar vibe to the Gold Dragons’ shows; only, where the Dragons elevated their listeners, Death Wing pulled them down, making them angry, aggravated and a dangerous, foul-minded squad all around.
Like the Gold Dragons’, Death Wing’s shows also had a wave splay over the crowd, but theirs was black as ink, undulating over the fans like some sickly mass of darkness that made them all fall into the music and lose themselves to the dark message.
She never liked the way the fans got during their shows. They obviously adored Death Wing and were willing to do whatever they were told, and Colt and Cameron took advantage of it. Often, they would tell their fans to go out and get wild, lose themselves after the show, and they would do just that. It wasn’t a rarity for a Death Wing show to turn into a bit of a riot. In the beginning, Jade had thought it just went with the fans of that particular type of music, but after seeing otherwise nice people turn into raving madmen after some of their shows, she got second thoughts.
Not only that, she could feel the darkness taking root within herself as well, seeping into her pores and making her just as dark and twisted as the crowd. Whenever the effects wore off, she could never really explain to herself why she did what she did during or immediately after the shows.
That was, until that one night in Arizona. Death Wing had played to a full house, and the crowd that left the packed arena had set fire to a number of cars and broken into a few local businesses on their way. Jade had tried to go to sleep after the exhausting concert but found it hard to rest after the negative vibe she’d got from the entire thing. For the umpteenth time, she wondered if playing for Death Wing was really her thing.
So, she got up in the middle of the night and returned to the arena to pack up her bass and store away her gear. When she got there, though, she witnessed something she knew she shouldn’t have.
Cameron and Colt had been swigging whiskey straight from the bottle and laughing about something in the middle of the still filthy arena, riddled with cans and wrappers. Something kept Jade from going forward, and it was then that it happened – the two brothers she knew as the charismatic leaders of the band shifted. The transformation was so fluid that for a moment, Jade wasn’t sure what she was seeing.
Colt went first, his wide shoulders expanding and his whole body following suit. His head got longer and thicker, two horns sprouting from the top of his head and smaller ones down along his cheekbones. His body was covered in black scales that barely caught the light of the full moon; so matte were they in color that he could have been a part of the night sky.
His wings unfolded just as his brother’s shift caught up with him, and when the two beasts stood up, Jade’s stomach dropped. They were both bigger than a house, and when Cameron breathed fire across the arena, scorching the faux grass coverings, Jade was sure she’d pass out right then and there. Instead, she stepped back further into the shadows of the stage, shuddering as she watched the brothers take flight.
They were magnificent to behold, cutting through the sky like hot knives through butter. But the red gleam of their eyes and the horrific screeching sounds they let out left Jade no doubt that the evil presence she’d felt during the concerts was those two.
After that, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together and figure out that the Gold Dragons had to be dragons as well, as ridiculous as that sounded. Having been to their concerts before, Jade remembered the soothing, healing feeling she always got when they played – their music brought a smile to her lips while Death Wing only brought snarls. She wasn’t sure why, but a deep-seated feeling in her told her that if Death Wing ever found out that she knew their secret, she wouldn’t be safe.
Dragons like that wouldn’t want to be exposed. While shifters were a bit of a public secret, Jade had never before heard of actual dragon shifters. Presumably anyone as large and as powerful as that had the capabilities of making sure their secrets didn’t get out, and Jade was not keen on finding out how they managed that.
With a shudder, Jade tucked her hands under her head and exhaled as the bus rumbled to life and to
ok off with a lurch a moment later.
I need to tell Apollo and Alexander what I know… But what if they don’t want anyone to know either? After all, you’re only guessing that they’re the good guys.
Jade’s face contorted in worry, and her hands turned into fists. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine Alexander making some teenager wreck a car or Apollo beat someone up. But she’d been part of Death Wing for almost a year, so was she really the one to judge anyone’s character?
CHAPTER FIVE
Apollo
The afterparty was by far Apollo’s favorite part of any gig they played. Filling a ridiculously large hotel room with good booze, fantastic musicians and hot women just dying to meet him was just his idea of a good time. So it was somewhat peculiar that he wasn’t enjoying himself after the Albuquerque show as he usually did. Absently, he kept toying with the gold chains around his neck, sipping on a beer that was getting stale from the amount of time he had been nursing it.
He kept looking for something, and as much as he tried to convince himself that he didn’t know what that something was, he knew he was just fooling himself. And, apparently, not doing a very good job at it.
The best of Deep Purple blared through the penthouse hotel room and the party was in full swing around Apollo. Every few minutes, someone dropped by to engage him in conversation, and he just kept brushing them off with muttered platitudes and bored looks. Nothing could really excite him at this point… aside from one thing. His heart jumped a little as he caught sight of a familiar pony tail swinging back and forth as its owner wriggled through the crowd towards one of the bars.
In a flash, Apollo had jumped up and strode over to her before he’d really even had time to ask himself what the hell he was doing.
He grabbed Jade gently by the elbow and smiled at her as she looked up at him, her lovely green eyes full of surprise. Hell yes, he wanted to have those eyes stare up at him again – as soon as possible, and preferably Jade with something in her mouth. Apollo grinned wolfishly at her, the throng of people easily parting ahead of him to allow them passage through the previously solid wall of happy partygoers.