When I open my eyes, I feel filled with a power that's exhilarating and breathtaking. It's heady and intoxicating. I've spent so much time honing my craft with a blade, I've never given much thought to the actual power of my people.
With the energy inside of me filling me so completely I feel like I'm about to burst, I let Kaitlyn Howard's image fill my mind. I summon the memory of the energy she gave off and focus on it. Let it consume me.
It takes several long moments, but I feel that familiar draw of energy again. I feel Kaitlyn's energy wrap its tendrils around me, squeezing me tight. Her energy fills me – it's somehow comforting and familiar – and I take a moment to savor it.
With the trace of her energy firmly in my mind, I release it all. I slip off the hood of the truck and head off into the darkness of the night.
I know how to find her.
Chapter Nine
Kaitlyn
“We've been going all day,” Ashley whines. “Aren't you tired yet?”
I laugh and shake my head. “Not even close,” I reply. “Come on, just a little bit longer? One more drink?”
Ashley rolls here eyes and sighs dramatically, but there's still a smile on her face.
“Fine,” she says. “One more drink. But after that, we're Ubering our asses home. I'm beat, babe.”
“Scout's honor,” I say. “Just one more drink.”
It's a little after one in the morning when we stumble into an Irish pub called Mick's. With a live band on stage and an electric atmosphere, the place is jumping. I can't explain it, but I just feel energized. I feel alive.
Ever since my night with Nyro, I've felt an energy coursing through me I've never felt before. I feel confident. Strong. Powerful. And it's really come through in some of my auditions. The feedback I've gotten from the casting agents I've dealt with has been glowing and I'm in serious consideration for a couple of really prime roles.
Which is why Ashley and I are out on the town. After nailing my last audition, I felt like celebrating, so we decided to have a little impromptu bar crawl.
We take a seat at the bar and I slap my hand down on it, grinning and laughing.
“Barkeep,” I call out.
A tall, thick chested man with close-cropped hair and eyes the color of a shamrock walks down to us, a rag draped over his shoulder casually. He flashes us a smile.
“Ladies,” he says, his voice carrying a hint of an Irish brogue. “What can I get you? And please don't ask me for an Appletini.”
“I think my friend here would like a little piece of you,” I say, laughing. “She can't resist a man with an accent.”
Ashley smacks me in the arm and laughs. “Shut up,” she says and turns to the bartender. “Don't mind her. She doesn't get out much and hasn't learned proper social graces.”
The bartender laughs and shakes his head. “It's a pity,” he says. “But I don't think my wife would approve of me bringing you home anyway.”
“That is a pity,” I say. “Two Appletinis please.”
The man gives us a smile and another shake of the head. “Whoever thought up the Appletini should be drawn, quartered, and dragged through the streets,” he says. “But, your wish is my command.”
He saunters off and quickly makes our drinks, sliding them in front of us with a flourish a few moments later. Another customer flags him down, so he gives us a small smile and heads off to the other end of the bar, leaving us alone.
“What's going on with you lately?” Ashley asks, looking at me curiously.
“What do you mean?”
She shrugs. “I don't know. It's just that lately, you seem – different,” she says. “You're more – confident. You have an energy and, I guess, a zest for life I've never seen in you before.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
She shakes her head. “Not at all. I actually enjoy seeing this side of you,” she says. “It's just – different.”
“I wish I could explain it,” I say. “Just – ever since that night I spent with Nyro, I feel like something changed in me. It's like he unlocked something in me that's just giving me a vitality I've never had before. I didn't know life could be like this and I'm enjoying it.”
Ashley raises her glass and smiles. “Well then,” she says. “To unlocked doors and new beginnings.”
I clink my glass against hers. “Unlocked doors and new beginnings.”
“Not all doors are safe to walk through, you know,” said a man's voice.
Sipping my drink, I turn and find myself face to face with a man who looks strangely familiar. He's got long hair that's dark and shimmers with a hint of blue. He's got a toned physique and chiseled features. And his eyes are the color of the Caribbean Sea – it would be so easy to get lost in them and never find my way out. And in that moment, it doesn't sound like a half bad fate.
I stare at him for a moment and the feeling of familiarity is strong and gnaws away at my mind. I know I know him. I just can't place him.
“Have we met?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No, not officially,” he says, clinking his glass against mine. “My name is Wyn.”
“Well, hello, Wyn. I'm –”
“Kaitlyn Howard,” he says. “Yes, I know.”
I feel my face flush. He obviously recognizes me from the work I've done. A fan. So far as I know, my only fan. It's sweet – and a little bit flattering.
“Wyn, this is my best friend in the whole world,” I say, putting my arm around her shoulders. “This is Ashley.”
He gives her a small nod. “Pleasure.”
“Nice to meet you, Wyn,” she says. “You in the industry too?”
He smiles and it transforms his face. It becomes softer. Kinder. And he's got a sweet, boy-next-door look to him.
“No,” he says. “Not at all.”
“You should be,” Ashley purrs. “I could see you as a leading man type.”
His laugh is melodic – like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. “Thank you,” he says. “But its not really my thing.”
She looks him up and down, a small smile playing on her lips. I can tell she likes what she's seeing. And I have to admit, he's an attractive man. But I still can't shake the feeling that I know him from somewhere.
I'm so used to Ashley getting all of the attention that it takes me a minute to realize that he's focused on me. His eyes are glued to mine and when he smiles, it's directed at me. He's polite about it, but he's clearly not paying attention to Ashley. He looks at me as if I'm the only woman in the room and it makes my breath catch in my throat.
And she clearly gets it. I feel her nudging me in the side – encouraging me.
“Are you sure we've never met?” I ask.
“I saw you once,” he says. “But we didn't speak.”
“Wait,” Ashley says, snapping her fingers. “That's where I know you from. We met at Club Ice the night of the studio party. You offered to help me find her.”
He nods and that boyish smile crosses his face again. “That's right,” he says. “And I'm assuming you threw away my phone number.”
Ashley looks away, a sly grin on her face. “I might have misplaced it.”
“Uh huh,” he says. “That's okay. It was a strange night.”
It had been a strange night – he doesn't even know the half of it. And now I remember where I've seen him before and why he seems so familiar. The night of the studio party at Ice, he was the guy who'd been standing at the bar staring at me.
“I remember you now too,” I say. “You were standing at the bar. What, are you following me now?”
He gives me a small smile. “Just a coincidence,” he says.
“Uh huh. Coincidence, huh?” I say, a flirty smile upon my face. “I remember wondering if you were going to come over and talk to me that night in the club – but you just stood there watching me.”
He shrugs. “Would you believe me if I told you I was so entranced by your beauty that I felt paralyzed?”
“I'd think you'
re full of shit,” I laugh.
“It's not exactly that far from the truth,” he says. “But then the guy with the white hair showed up and you seemed pretty cozy with him, so...”
He let his voice trail off, but I could see that the fact I'd been with Nyro that night bothered him – though I had no idea why. It wasn't like he'd come up and talked to me or anything. But there's something in his eyes that tells me he's bothered by it. Maybe it's concern. Or maybe it's something else entirely. After having consumed as many drinks as I have today, I can't be certain of anything.
“Like you said, it was a strange night,” I say. “What did you mean though? About not all doors being safe to walk through?”
He sips his beer, his eyes never leaving mine. “Just that sometimes, you have to be careful,” he says. “Sometimes, you don't know what's actually on the other side of the door – and that can come back and bite you.”
“Or sometimes,” I counter, “you step into a different light and see yourself in a whole new way. It gives you a power you never thought you had before.”
He looks at me for a long moment and then a grin tugs at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah. Sometimes,” he says.
“Listen, this is getting really deep – too deep for me to handle after as many drinks as we've had,” Ashley says. “I'm going to take an Uber home. You okay with that?”
I look at her and see her eyes shifting from Wyn to me and back again – her meaning more than obvious.
“Yeah, you go get some rest,” I say. “You going to be okay?”
She nods and holds her phone up for me to see. “See that? My chariot is already outside waiting for me.”
Ashley leans down and kisses me on the cheek. “Love you, babe. See you at home,” she says and then turns to Wyn. “And you better take care of her. You let anything happen to her and I'll track you down and cut your balls off with a butter knife. You got me?”
“Loud and clear, commander,” he says, snapping her a salute.
Ashley gives me another long look before turning and heading out the door, leaving me alone with Wyn. And although I don't know him, and had no reason for it, I feel comfortable in his presence.
I don't understand it – but then, I'm not really understanding a lot about myself lately – so, I decide to just go with it.
Chapter Ten
“So, you're an actress,” he says.
“I am indeed.”
We're sitting in an all-night diner around the corner from the bar. It's a little after two – we'd had a couple of drinks and decided to carry on our conversation over a little greasy food. I'm enjoying spending a little time with Wyn. He's a bit cocky. A bit arrogant. He comes across at times like one of those frat boy dudebros I despise so much.
But underneath that layer of sometimes off-putting smugness, I can see that he's a good guy with a good heart – which is the only reason I'm still sitting here with him. I think he puts up a front and wears his arrogance like an armor – something he uses to protect himself. Protect himself from what, I have no idea. But I can see that there's layers to this man. He's a lot deeper and more complex than you'd think if you only looked at the surface of him.
He nods and pops a fry into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. I already know what his next question is going to be. It's the same question everybody asks when they find out I'm an actress – have you been in anything I've seen?
Unfortunately, my list of credits at the moment is pretty sparse. A bunch of commercials and a lot of extra work. I've had lines in a few episodes of a couple of crime dramas on TV, but nothing to write home about. As far as the big screen goes, I've had a little extra work, but nothing really meaty.
At least, not yet. I'm hoping that's about to change.
It's a tough question though, and I always feel a little embarrassed to answer it, but it's the only answer I can give. I'm certainly not going to lie about my acting credits. But Wyn surprises me. He doesn't ask about the things I've been in.
“What made you want to act?” he asks.
I'm taken aback by the question for a moment. And really, it's the first time anybody asked me the question. When people ask about it, they want the gossip. The juicy, behind the scenes stories. They want the dirt. Very few people ever ask about me as a performer. They sometimes seem to forget that I'm a real flesh and blood person – not just some trinket up on a screen for them to play with.
It's surprising, but actually, a very welcome change.
“As a little girl, growing up where I did –”
“Where did you grow up?” he asks.
“Missouri,” I say. “A little town called Parker. It's a couple hours southeast of St. Louis.”
He nods as if he knows it, but I can see by the look in his eyes that he's never heard of it. Not that I can blame him. Parker is a town in the middle of nowhere with a population smaller than some high schools out here in LA.
“Anyway, I remember being a kid and being completely enamored with the movie star lifestyle,” I say. “I used to read all kinds of Hollywood gossip magazines, read everything I could about my favorite stars, watched all of their movies – I wanted to be them. I wanted to be the one up on the screen, living out some fantasy life. I wanted to be the one little girls everywhere were reading about and wanting to be like.”
Wyn smiles and pops another fry into his mouth. His face is smooth. Nearly expressionless, other than his smile and I can't tell what he's thinking – and worry that he thinks I'm just another foolish, naive girl chasing smoke. Chasing a dream that's never going to be mine. And then I wonder if I'm the one actually thinking that as I listen to myself and am simply projecting it onto him.
And then I wonder why I care so much about what he thinks. Why his opinion of me matters. We've only just met and he doesn't know me. And I don't know him. For all I know, he could be some creep with a truckload of weird fetishes who has dreams more foolish and naive than my own.
And yet, as foolish and as ridiculous as it I know it is, for some reason, what he thinks of me seems to matter.
“That's actually sweet,” he says. “It's not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
He shrugs. “I honestly don't know,” he says. “I've actually never met an actress before, so I didn't know what to expect. I thought most came from rich families and got into acting because they were bored or something.”
I laugh. “There are those,” I say. “But for some of us – like me and Ashley – it's a calling. It's a passion. It's the thing that juices us up and make us get up in the mornings, keeps us trudging from one audition to the next, and never giving up hope.”
His look is so direct and so penetrating that I have to look away. Just like he did at the bar, he looks at me like I'm the only woman in the room. Maybe, the only woman in the world. I don't know what to make of it or really, how to react to it.
But I also find that I'm powerfully attracted to Wyn. Drawn to him in a way I haven't been drawn to a man before. I'd been drawn to Nyro at the club the other night, sure, but it was different. With Nyro, that – whatever it was that drew me to him – felt like an obligation. It's hard to explain, but I let myself be drawn to Nyro because it felt like I was supposed to. It wasn't so much attraction as it was – compulsion.
With Wyn, it feels different. The draw to him feels more open. More honest. More pure. I'm compelled by him, no question. But it feels more like a want, a desire – rather than a need. When he looks into my eyes, I feel my heart beating a drunken rhythm, my pulse quickening, and a long, distant yearning inside of me. It feels like the sound of an echo from the bottom of never-ending pit within me. Something about Wyn makes it feel like something inside of me is being fulfilled, like there are pieces falling into place – something I certainly didn't feel with Nyro.
It feels like I'm reaching for something I've never had before – and yet, at the same time, I'm terrified to take hold of it.
Suffice it to say, it's complicated.
There are a thousand different thoughts and emotions swirling around inside of me, and when he looks at me with those bottomless ocean blue eyes, he only stirs them all up again.
“What about you?” I ask. “What do you do?”
“I do – private security work.”
“Security?”
“Yeah, it's not nearly as glamorous or exciting as what you do,” he says.
He gives me a smile, but even I can see it's half-hearted. He shrugs and I can see the walls going up around him. He looks uncomfortable. Maybe, it's that he doesn't like talking about himself or maybe, it's that he’s hiding some dark secret. I don't know. His face gives nothing away. Though, it's hard to believe that somebody who looks as sweet as Wyn could be involved in anything all that terrible.
“Where did you grow up?” I ask.
“Some place you've probably never heard of.”
“Try me.”
He looks at me, his eyes hesitant, but then he speaks. “A place called Chondelai.”
“Chondelai?” I ask, racking my brain and coming up with nothing. “Is that somewhere in Asia?”
He laughs. “Something like that,” he says. “What was your first acting role?”
“My first role?”
He nods. “Very first one.”
“Well – in seventh grade, I did a school play,” I say. “I played two parts, actually. Curious onlooker in the subway and cheering onlooker in the courthouse.”
Wyn laughs and claps his hands. “And I bet you were great.”
We laugh and talk together for a long while. He seems genuinely curious about me and wants to know everything there is to know. He asks question after question and it's only after a couple of hours of that I realize he's deflected the entire conversation away from him and kept the spotlight on me.
“You're smooth, you know,” I say.
“How so?”
“You've very adeptly managed to avoid telling me anything about yourself.”
“There's really not that much to say,” he says. “My story isn't all that interesting.”
“Maybe you should let me be the judge of that.”
Baby for the Dragon (No Such Thing as Dragons Book 5) Page 7