by Kailin Gow
Never Ending
The Never Knights #3
kailin gow
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
This is the last book in the Never Knights Trilogy, which I hope you have enjoyed.
But life is full of surprises. You never know what can happen. Never Say Never to new experiences, new surprises, and new adventures.
Thank you for taking the journey with Never and the boys from the Never Knights Band.
This is a New Adult novel (a sexy rock and roll contemporary/fantasy romance) which may contain scenes not suitable for younger teens. Recommended age of reading is 18 years and up.
Never Ending
Published by THE EDGE
THE EDGE is an imprint of Sparklesoup Inc.
Copyright © 2013 Kailin Gow
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, please contact:
THE EDGE at Sparklesoup
14252 Culver Dr., A732
Irvine, CA 92604
www.theEDGEbooks.com
First Edition.
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN: 9781597480727
DEDICATION
For anyone who dares to dream.
Prologue
Outside, it was a cool spring night, balmy and breeze-filled. The palm trees rustled with the mild winds of twilight; the pink and golden lights of the setting sun casting their rosy-fingered glow across the waters. But inside, it was boiling.
There were people…more people, it seemed, than I had ever seen… all crammed into a single space, their numbers doubled and tripled in appearance by the mirrors hanging on the walls. But even without the benefit of illusion, I knew, this club was packed to bursting. And in West Hollywood, where clubs open and shut so quickly that it was impossible for even the most devoted night owl to learn all their names, that could only mean one thing.
This was the place to be.
I swallowed, hard, as I tried to catch my breath. Not that I could breathe at all in this space. Bodies, beautiful, toned, tanned, West Hollywood bodies, were rubbing up against me on all sides; long arms clad in Cartier raised in applause at my sides; just as many Louboutin heels narrowly missing trodding on my toes.
And all of them here for one thing, and one thing only.
Dusk Riders.
I whispered the name to myself through gritted teeth as I watched them up there on the stage. They weren't bad – that was the worst part. In fact, they were pretty good. The guitar licks were full of erotic thrill; the drum beats loud and savage, like the beating of a heart in the throes of passion. And the singer...
She's beautiful, Neve. You can't deny it. She could have been on the cover of Sports Illustrated; she could have sashayed down the catwalk with the rest of the Victoria's Secret Angels. She was tall – a few inches taller than I was – with enormous breasts that threatened to escape from her tight corset top. Her legs, endless beneath her leather miniskirt, looked like the product of several years spent locked in an LA fitness club. Her hair was long and dark, like mine, with chocolate highlights glimmering in the frenetic glow of the stage lights. And her eyes were hazel, piercing, full of joy.
Of course she was happy, I thought to myself. She had every right to be. She was singing her heart out, sending the crowd into raptures with every note, with every word that passed through her pouting, red-lined lips. She was the frontwoman of the Dusk Riders, the hottest rock band in LA, if not the whole world, the band that legendary record label RRR had plucked out of obscurity and overnight transformed them into singing's biggest sensation. She had looks, money, talent, fame, adoring fans, a whole nightclub of writhing bodies moving to the sound of her voice. She had it all.
And she had the handsome man next to her, the debonair sex god with rippling muscles and artfully smudged eyeliner, his biceps tightening as he clutched at the microphone, whispering in his hoarse, throaty voice the words that were sending every heterosexual girl, homosexual man, and a whole lot of people in between into ecstasies.
Show me how you want me to want you
Tell me what you want me to do
But I'm warning – what you want
Is what you'll get before we're through.
He smiled as he sang those words, his eyes meeting his partner's, and as they smiled at one another a shiver passed through me. I recognized that smile – it was the smile of two people who shared more than just a musical connection. It was the smile of two people who had touched and kissed and tasted every inch of one another's bodies, who had experienced every single variety and variation of pleasure, who had discovered joy in every gesture – and who were still as crazy with desire for one another as they were the first day they met.
Yes, I knew that look, I thought bitterly, as I watched them sing, as I watched the crowd grow wild. It was the look I had shared with Danny so many times. When we were the ones up there. When we were the ones who were making the crowd go wild. When we were on top.
That's what they say about Hollywood. Nobody's ever on top for long. It was a lesson my dad tried to teach me when I was a child. His own fame, he said, was hardly something to aspire to. He'd gone through periods when he was the most famous rock star on the West Coast – and periods when nobody even knew his name – highs and lows that less legal highs had made less bearable, not more. “That's the thing about this industry,” my father said to me. “They'll chew you up and spit you out. They'll tell you that you're worth everything because people love you, because people want to listen to you. But, Neve, what happens when they stop?”
This...I whispered to myself, trying not to let the hot tears sting at my eyes. This is what happens when they stop.
But all my father's fatalism, all his stoic warnings, couldn't have prepared me for my feelings of anger, of rage, of unfairness.
It should have been us.
It should have been us up there on the stage, playing our hearts out, making people scream with joy and desire and love for the world we were creating for them. It should have been us singing into those microphones, yes, me and Danny, starting into each other's eyes, making each other shudder just by looking at one another. It should have been us.
And it could have been, too, if it hadn't been for Veronica Taylor.
Hell hath no fury... That was another thing my father had taught me – when he was remembering the groupies and the girls of another age, of the decades before he met my mother. Now, Veronica Taylor, Danny's stepmother, was that woman – and it was on us she was getting her revenge. Danny had turned her down, for my sake as much as for that of his father, her husband, but that refusal was something she could never forgive. Veronica, it was clear, was not about to take rejection lying down. She'd taken control of RRR records from Danny's father; overnight, the Never Knights had vanished from the radio waves, from the touring circuit, from the nightclubs and the arenas.
And the Dusk Riders were here to take our place.
It wouldn't have been so bad, I thought, if they had been different from us – a different look, a different style, something to make it easier. But no. Roni had planned her revenge well. The Dusk Riders were just like us in every way. And they were almost as good, too.
Almost.
I raged inwardly. We should be up there, I thought. We'd be doing a better job, I'm sure of it. Their passion, their charisma – what was it compared with the Never Knights at our best, when we'd made every barfly in every back room in Hollywood swoon? Before R
RR, we'd worked our way up the old-fashioned way – I was so afraid of my father finding out that I wanted that same unhealthy career he so decried that I could never bring myself to use the connections my parentage had brought within my reach. But not the Dusk Riders. They'd been chosen to be famous. They'd been manufactured, packaged, to sell to the adoring fans of the Never Knights, the band that RRR had dropped like a hot potato.
To torment me.
“Had enough, Neve?” A soft voice was whispering in my ear, and the low, throaty sound sent shivers down my spine.
Danny put his arm around my shoulders. “Come on, Never, honey, let's go. You've been torturing yourself enough over this. Let's go...”
“Just five more minutes!” I was sharp with Danny in spite of myself, overcompensating to hide the tears that were starting to trickle, unbidden, down my cheeks. “Five minutes and then we'll go, I promise.”
“We could go practice...or go to the jazz club, come on, Neve, you like jazz...it'll cheer you up.”
“You mean, going to see music that isn't our clones?”
“Neve...”
He gathered me into his arms. “Or my place? How about that – let's just go home, go to bed...”
But not even the promise of sex, however mind-blowing, could stop me from staring at the Dusk Riders in all their glitzy, pre-packaged glory.
“I just don't get it...” I'd said it at least a hundred times, I knew – I was sick of hearing it myself – but I couldn't bring myself to stop. “They're just like us. Just. I don't even know how she was able to get them? I mean – was that the casting call? Neve Knight Lookalikes? Is that how she picked them?”
Danny shook his head in exasperation. “I know...” he said roughly, and although I knew his anger was not directed at me, I still gasped at the fury in his eyes. “I know. She did. I wouldn't put it past Roni, you know. To do something like – something so cruel, so mean, just for spit. Just to stick it in our faces. To kick us when we're down. Then back over us with a car.” He smiled grimly. “For a former Victoria's Secret Angel, she's sure got a diabolical streak in her.” He sighed. “But – we've been over this, Neve. Talking about it again and again isn't going to get us anywhere. As much as we might wish it could...”
“If wishes were horses...” I started to laugh. I reached out to touch Danny, to feel his soft skin against mine. But as I reached out, I lurched forward, my fingers grasping empty air.
“Neve? Neve – are you okay?”
“I...I...” I looked around. Suddenly, I wasn't so okay. The air seemed hotter than before – so hot that I could hardly scarf down air. There were people everywhere; their sweat seemed to be everywhere, too – getting in my eyes, in my nostrils, in my nose, so loud and thick and hot that I could not breathe. The lights began to blur. “Danny...” I whispered, my voice shaking. “I don't feel so good...”
He pressed his hand to my cheeks. It burned like ice. “Neve, you're...I think you'd better go home. You've got a temperature.” He kissed my forehead. “Let's get you out of here.”
I opened my mouth to reply. But before the words could come out, I began to sway more violently, my feet buckling under me. My body felt heavy, so heavy, like a magnet being sucked towards the floor.
My knees hit the ground first, but by then it was too late for me to break the rest of the fall. Everything went black.
Chapter 1
A cool, light place. Somewhere safe, where the breeze, salt-tinged and sweet, blew in so softly, so gently across my face. And something cold, refreshing, firmly pressed across my forehead, wiping away the sweat, wiping away the sting. I winced with the pain, biting back a cry – what was I feeling?
“Careful...” Danny's voice was low, sweet, and tender, as soft and kind as it ever had been. “Don't you worry, Neve, darling. You got quite a nasty bruise there, didn't you?”
So that was what the pain was. I winced again as he wiped it with a cold compress, feeling the skin prickle and swell beneath him. At last I opened my eyes. Danny's face swam into view before me, and I could feel my heart stop, as it always did when I looked at him. I never could get used to his face; I thought to myself, not even after all this time. Every time I looked at him, opened my eyes, took him in, it was like I was seeing him for the first time. So terribly, painfully beautiful – his piercing bright eyes, that promised so much pleasure. His full, dark lips, that curled into such a seductive smile. His cheekbones, hollow and sharp, cutting like diamonds. He was the sort of boy who could break a girl's heart, I thought – and I knew from firsthand experience that he'd come painfully close to breaking mine. I swallowed, taking in the air, taking in my surroundings as I came to at last.
Where are we? It took me a while for it to sink in. Danny and I had moved around so often in the past few months that nowhere had become familiar to us; nowhere felt like home. But this was Danny's newest home – a temporary one, to be sure, but a home nonetheless. We were in the presidential suite of Danny's newest place, the presidential suite of the Hotel Isotope, LA's newest, trendiest venture. Everything shone – chrome, glass, silver – painfully precise and minimalist in a way that only the truly rich can achieve. It was beautiful, to be sure – and no less beautiful was the view out the window of the 68th-floor suite, looking as it did out over the LA city lights, the sandy beaches, the mist-covered mountains, which in the early morning light appeared lusher and greener than ever before. But, surrounded by all this luxury, I felt an involuntary pang.
It used to be easier.
I remembered when Danny's house had been a simple cottage by the sea, tastefully decorated, quiet, rural. The sort of place Danny could afford on his graduate stipend, not the sort of place his father had insisted on setting him up with. Things had been so easy then, of course. I'd been a university student; the Never Knights had been a successful local band; Danny and I had been quietly dating. No worries about RRR; no worries about Veronica Taylor; no Dusk Riders. Just the two of us, kissing, looking out over the foam and the light of the sea. No night clubs...
Night clubs...
I thought back to last night, trying to make sense of my memories. I'd been watching the Dusk Riders, fighting back tears, trying my best to hide my pain. And then the room had started to swim. Then my knees had gone wobbly. Then everything had gone dark.
“Danny...” My voice came out so small, so child-like, that it surprised me. “Danny, what happened?”
Danny pressed his lips to my forehead, cradling me in his arms. “I don't know, Neve. It happened so fast. You just...blacked out.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That can't be – I never drink that much...” I'd seen enough of my high school friends go to rehab, along with their supermodel mothers and rock star dads, to avoid excessive drunkenness like the plague.
“No, I know,” said Danny. “I don't think you were drunk. You were just...so tired.” He sighed. “Neve, I'm worried about you.”
“Worried?” I didn't want to meet his gaze. “What do you mean?”
“You've been under so much pressure lately...” He took my hand and pressed it against his cheek. I could feel his stubble, rough and tantalizing, beneath my fingertips. “Getting your grades back up to where they were before London, catching up on missed assignments, trying to restart the band...and that's just the worries I know about.” He laughed softly. “Sometimes I get the sense that you've got more worries, too. Worries you're not sharing with me.”
I looked down at my lap. Danny was right – there were worries, worries that I wanted so badly to share with him, wanted so badly to unburden myself of. But I knew I could not. Danny and I had been through so much together, and although our relationship was new, it had gone through enough bumps and false starts that I didn't feel ready to rock the boat. Not yet.
“It's really just that,” I said. “Just stress – that's all. I shouldn't have gone out at all, with how I was feeling, I mean. I really overdid it. I'd been up all night studying for my Chaucer final, and I just
....”
“I'm taking you to the doctor today,” said Danny, pressing my hands against his lips. It was hard to feel quite so stressed now, I thought in spite of myself, with Danny's tongue flicking so lightly at my fingertips, tormenting me as it made my heart beat faster. Even now, with my head throbbing and the bruise still purple and swollen on my forehead where I had fallen, I felt my body stirring with automatic desire. “Even if it ends up being nothing, it's worth it. Just to be sure.” He kissed each of my knuckles in turn, sending more shivers through me. “For now, though – how are you feeling?”
“Much better,” I said. This was due in part to the sleep I'd just had on Danny's Egyptian cotton sheets– although I had a feeling the slow, subtle motions of his tongue on my wrist had rather more to do with it.
“Well, I'll make you feel better still...” He pressed a button on the hotel intercom and, before I could blink, a knock rang out at the door.
“Come on in...” Danny opened the door to a kindly-looking older woman, with a bob of flaxen blonde hair, carrying a tray.
“Maybe not the healing I had in mind – but a useful...appetizer, at any rate.”
The woman smiled as she lifted up the tray cover. My eyes widened in delight, and my stomach emitted a thoroughly inelegant growl. There was a bowl of thick, white New England clam chowder, buttery corn on the cob, freshly-baked bread, Cobb salad, pasta with tomato sauce...
“All your favorites,” said Danny. “I had the kitchen make it special.” He smiled and nodded at the hotel attendant, who set down the tray on the table and made a swift exit.
The smell of the food was intoxicating, maddening. I realized, as I inhaled the sweet, garlicky smell of the pasta, that I'd never been so hungry in my life.
“And if you want to put on some fresh clothes...” Danny took out a hanger from the closet. It was my best summer dress, a crisp white linen dress.