Domination

by Lyra Byrnes

  “I’m chinning up, soldiering on, et cetera. Now if I could only get this damn door open.”

  Jet tried the handle. “Stand back and watch a master at work.”

  “Thanks. So I guess you heard Bucky saved my ass.”

  “Yeah. Wish I’d thought of that. He’s a clever boots, he is. The best part is imagining him as Buckingham Croft, Rock Slut.” He peered into the slot then produced a slender metal nail file from his pocket.

  “Don’t even say that.”

  “So you’re staying on?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Wicked.” He grunted and the door flew open.

  “You’re a magician!”

  “Just an ’umble bassist, miss.” Jet tipped an imaginary cap. “No trouble at all.”

  “Jet, wait.” He turned to her inquiringly. “I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Fire away,” he answered warily.

  “I promise not to publish your answer but I was curious. What’s it like, being in this group and being gay? You’re not closeted, which is great, but how do the fans react? Heavy metal isn’t the most tolerant genre.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s hard to explain. Everyone knows but doesn’t know, you know? I don’t hide anything but it’s not said aloud. If I hook up with a bloke in a pub on Bourbon Street,” he grinned like a schoolboy, “somehow no one calls the presses the next morning.”

  “You’ve been lucky.”

  “So far. Angelic good looks can take you a long way in this life. Meantime, you count on the givens.”

  “Like?”

  “Like heavy metal isn’t the most observant genre.” He shrugged. “People see what they want to see. As long as I look out for number one, I’ll be all right.”

  He shot her a wink and walked away.

  This hotel room was as ugly and anonymous as ever. At least the air-conditioning had come back, although in a weak and bleating state. She bent her head over the vent, trying to soak up as much cool air as possible before organizing her notes and handing them to Bucky. He insisted on keeping her electronics. All men who don’t trust me, get in line, she thought.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Another public appearance, another dismal suit party, another night hovering in the shadows watching other people enjoy themselves. Except she couldn’t disappear in the nude gown. To Josie’s surprise the gown’s color deepened against her skin and matched the tone of her full lips. Even her hair looked darker and fuller in contrast.

  At least that will distract from my little bear eyes, she thought, fitting in her contact lenses.

  There would be no way Bram could fail to notice her tonight. She brushed out her hair, letting it fall loose, and regarded herself. It was hard to tell her life was a disaster. Her skin was clear and smooth, cheeks lightly pink. He would notice but whether he’d care was a different matter. She stuffed her keycard into her bodice.

  The aquarium glowed like an underwater palace, lit with blue and green. Champagne flutes sparkled on long tables, the ladies’ gowns caught the light, a girl in a spangled bikini slowly rotated overhead from her perch on a suspended crescent moon. It would have been magical if it hadn’t been for the faint sounds of growling and thrashing coming from one of the side galleries.

  Josie picked up a glass and made her way toward the source of the noise. Considering what was on the screen in the dark little room, the small group watching looked sophisticated and very much out of place but they nodded and chatted with each other comfortably. It was one of Domination’s videos involving cars, flames and a shirtless, angry-looking Bram. She watched with interest—no, he wasn’t angry. She had seen him performing like this and that was all it was, performance. It would pass for rock-and-roll passion to anyone who didn’t know him as well as she did but his eyes were calm. The truly furious Bram, lit from within by rage, was a different, and terrifying, animal. He had a trick—she didn’t understand how he did it—of making those strange black-and-blue eyes catch fire.

  Like that. The opening image of the next video so startled her she took a step back. Even as the scene changed she could still feel those eyes upon her, full of judgment. Some kind of shadowy monster appeared. Snakes slithered out from under a majestic bed, meat rotted in time-lapse on a banquet table, rain sheeted down on a paint-peeling carousel horse. It was creepy, beautiful and deeply unsettling. Of course it was. They were playing her song, the one Trinity had inspired.

  “That was number one with a bullet.” A bespectacled suit guy nudged her. “The video too, and that’s a lost art. We made a truckload of money on that song. But it’s only going to get bigger.”

  “I can’t imagine them topping it,” she said.

  “Not them—him.” He pointed into the corner. “When Jet Slade’s solo album comes out, it’ll make Goddess of the Nightworld look like Mary and her lambs.”

  She followed his pointing finger. It was Jet, beaming under his soft curls, a spectacular blonde on his arm. He caught her eye and came toward her.

  “Jet! My million-dollar baby!” the suit cried. “Who’s the stunner?”

  “Oh, Inga? Wait for the first video, you’ll see much more if her, if you know what I mean.”

  The suit leered back and drifted away.

  “A solo album?” Josie asked. “That’s what tonight is about?”

  “That’s right.” He didn’t bother looking sheepish. “Mostly. Cut my own deal while Bram works out the kinks in our next one. Idle hands and all that.”

  “Does Bram know?”

  “None of his business, is the way I see it.”

  “Wow. Looking out for number one.”

  Jet shrugged. “One must.”

  “And this girl thinks she’s going to be a star?” Feeling bad for a Swedish supermodel was a new experience for Josie.

  “Her or another. What’s the difference? Gotta have birds hanging all over the star or no one will buy the act.”

  “That’s just what it is—an act. How can you do this? It’s the worst kind of hypocrisy.”

  “Ssh! Not a word about that. I had to finesse a thousand situations and massage a lot of fat egos to get this. Neither your blog nor your Adventures in Being a Big-Mouth Slag are going to ruin it for me. Do you hear?”

  “Is that a threat?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the industry players crowding a platter of king crab legs.

  “You can’t even dream about the kind of money they have backing Jet Slade solo. Hell yes, it’s a threat.”

  He left her openmouthed and trembling while Bram continued to spit fury on the screen behind her head.

  So she had been wrong about Jet—he had been keeping her close to buy her silence, not out of motherly affection. She had been right about one thing though. Men noticed her, some of the women too. Looks of admiration, envy and query were cast her way as she winded through the crowd, unsettled. What was the point of wearing the nude gown if Bram wasn’t around to see it?

  Finally she spotted him, black shirt open on his magnificent chest, hair artily mussed, long, tautly muscled legs washed with undulating light from a tank of smoothly gliding manta rays. He nodded solemnly at something a guy in a baseball cap was saying, Trinity beside him looking bored witless.

  I knew she’d wear red, thought Josie. Though she didn’t know they made fabric that could cover someone from chest to toe and still reveal more than it concealed. She looks like a vampire. She is a vampire. They looked like the perfect couple—rock-and-roll royalty. Except for one thing. Funny, but even though Trinity was hanging around with the persistence of a gnat, Bram didn’t seem to acknowledge her. She wasn’t drooping from his arm like Jet’s blonde or making proprietary moves. Maybe he was counting on her very presence to scare away the competition.

  She sure scares the shit out of me.

  “Do I know you?” A balding fellow in shiny shoes poked a finger at her.

  “I don’t think so.” Josie tried to move away.

  “Yeah, yeah. Y
ou’re the Rock Slut.”

  Her face flamed.

  “No offense. That stunt was great for us—kindled interest in Domination and got a lot of panties wet. All those little girls wondering if it was true what they say about Bram Hunter filled up their fantasy tanks. I mean, look at you!” He beamed. “That’s the best part, see? There’s hope out there for anyone.”

  “Fuck you,” she said, suddenly exhausted. “No offense.”

  “Hey, simmer your tits. Your secret’s safe with me. Eighteen years in this business—I know damn well it wasn’t a publicity stunt. Bucky Croft is good but he ain’t that good.”

  “You have something on your, uh…”

  When the man looked down Josie made her escape. The huge space gave her more room to melt into the crowd anonymously than the wax museum party had but she couldn’t avoid Kraxis when he stopped her, laying a meaty paw on one shoulder.

  “Chin up, girlie. Shame about quittin’ that blog, but. It were the most innerestin’ thing about ye, until ye put on that dress, that is.” He gave her another pat and she reeled away.

  A mike tap startled her. Some people had gathered on a small riser, a smug-looking Jet and his blonde bombshell among them. The mike squealed and someone called for attention.

  Time for the solo album announcement, she supposed. Better paste on a smile and get her clapping hands ready. If there were such a thing as karma it would come back to bite him on the ass anyway.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, the Atomic Records family welcomes you. As you all may know…”

  The speaker was obviously going to be as boring as most speakers and take twice as long as he needed to get to the point. Just introducing everyone slated to make a profit from Jet’s deal was so dull she was swaying on her feet.

  She turned away and saw Bram and Bucky speaking quietly. How had she gone from ecstasy to misery so quickly? Even now, through all the anger and pain, the sensation that rose through her body was pure desire. She wanted him. She would never stop wanting him.

  He caught her looking and held her stare. Something electric passed between them. He wants me too. You can salvage this before it’s too late. Talk to him. There’s hope for anyone, remember? she recalled grimly. Even mousy little me.

  She took a step forward and her field of vision turned red. Trinity stood before her, glass of champagne in hand, eyes blazing.

  “Quit hanging around Bram.”

  “I’m a journalist and it’s my job to hang around. And I don’t take orders from groupies. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

  Trinity didn’t budge. “Groupies? Nice try, mouseburger. I just happen to be his fiancée.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Conveniently for anyone who tried to outrun a shattered heart by escaping from a city with an airline hub, there was always a flight available. Josie wanted to be gone before anyone noticed—fewer questions to avoid, fewer witnesses to her tears—so she fled the gala, stuffed her things in the duffel and headed straight to the Atlanta airport.

  Two hours until the next flight home. She sipped her coffee and tried to read the stale news in another city’s newspaper, which always felt weird. Then again, being stranded in the no man’s land of an international airport in a full-length gown, running away from an affair with a smoking-hot rock god, heart broken in a thousand places—it all felt pretty weird.

  What she was going back to, she had no idea. Her job had been hanging by a thread as it was and now she’d fled the tour, handing Warren reason to fire her on a silver platter.

  Let him. The business was a snake pit of lies, intrigue, backbiting and fakery fueled by ego and unseemly amounts of money, and she wanted no part of it. Not anymore.

  She had glimpsed the life she did want and that left her hungry for more. Bram had pulled aside the curtain and let her see the glittering world beyond, one in which she could be herself, explore her sexual needs, worship and be worshiped by someone who understood her completely. He touched her with surprising tenderness but appreciated her feisty side. It turned him on to see her tussling and spitting venom, knowing every second that this was a fight she desperately wanted to lose. The red marks where the lash had stung her still burned bright against her thighs and breasts. When they faded, so would the reality that for a shining moment she was his girl.

  Had she been stupid enough to believe it? And yet he had trusted her, opened his heart a crack after sealing it shut. If only he could understand that she never betrayed him. She had only been trying to protect him by not handing over his private notebooks.

  If I could turn back the clock, even to when we were sitting at the bar, and tell him that… But she couldn’t. Bram didn’t need to know she had been asked to spy and compromise him. It was too filthy and sordid, while what they had—whips, cuffs, fights and all—was pure.

  It was Warren who did all this, Warren and whoever had hacked into her laptop in the first place. Someone had been sabotaging her since the day she joined the tour, starting with the almost-missed bus from Austin. Who disliked her that much? Who was always skulking off, making phone calls and refusing to come out and play with the rest of them?

  Varian. He’d been a dick from day one and hadn’t said a word to her since, just picked at the chipping black polish on his nails, glared and slept through bus trips. Varian, that mopey bastard, if I get my hands on him…

  “Hey.”

  Varian, the mopey bastard himself, towering over her in his black leather duster. Had she conjured him up with her rage?

  “You. Haven’t you done enough?”

  He shook his head and slumped into a hard plastic chair next to her.

  “More than enough. I’m tired and sick and I can’t live like this anymore.”

  He sure sounded tired and sick. She had never seen a paler person. His skin looked so thin it was almost blue. Josie was appalled but curious. “Live like what?”

  “Haven’t been around us much, have you? Maybe you have but didn’t notice. We’re good liars—the best. Lie to ourselves mostly but it doesn’t matter who gets flattened under the steamroller, long as we get what we want.

  “You think you’re so different, so special, your star shines brighter than those junkies in the gutter.” He spoke softly, as if to himself. “But at the end of the day you are them and they are you. Junkies, addicts, drunks are all the same. The gutter’s wherever you are, because everything you touch turns to shit.”

  “I’m not sure I’m the one—”

  “I saw you leave the hotel so I followed. If you’re going to L.A., I want to come too. I have to get into rehab or I’m going to die.”

  “Why are you coming to me for help?”

  He coughed alarmingly into his hand. “You’re the only normal person I know.”

  She had absorbed Varian’s rabid partying as part of the rock-star lifestyle, never thinking he could be out of control—that any of them could be. He managed to keep it together onstage, play guitar, show up for photo shoots. Who knew he was a black hole of need inside?

  And yet he’d found the energy to mess with her.

  “You don’t know me. You did everything possible to sabotage me. First changing my address so I never got Bucky’s message about the bus in Texas.”

  “I never. Why would I do that? You think an addict takes note of anything outside himself? I’m the most selfish motherfucker alive.”

  “But Jet said, after the band meeting in Austin…”

  He let out a hollow laugh. “Dunno about that. I had a dealer waiting so I could load up for the road.”

  “And hacking into my computer. Someone had to get into my room to do that. You weren’t there the night we all went out in New Orleans.”

  “Somewhere on the east side of town in a gutter, my home away from home. Someone did these things? Who told you?”

  “Well, Jet—” She closed her mouth. Shit. Who had told her Varian hung around after the band meeting? Who had broken into her room with ease? Who resented her p
lace among the band of brothers because he had to fight so hard to keep his own? If Varian had a motive it would be that he was just an asshole. And he didn’t seem like an asshole—he seemed like a desperate, ill, fundamentally lonely guy.

  Jet, on the other hand, had a motive. As well as means and enough selfish ambition to fuel a rocket.

  Varian had taken the coffee from her hand but she hadn’t noticed. He sipped it and made a face. “Jet, yeah. I do know he made a phone call telling someone to come join us. Overheard him while I was being sick one day. I think it was in Baton Rouge but can’t be sure.”

  “To who?” She could guess and the thought turned her stomach.

  “You know how vampires need to be invited in?”

  “Trinity.”

  Varian let his head tip back. The harsh lights above made flat discs of his eyes. “Thank your little friend for resurrecting the she-monster. I doubt she’ll last any longer than the last time she clawed her way out of the grave but it keeps our name in the press for a bit. Long enough for me to do my stint and get clean.”

  She remembered the studio where the song had been recorded. Bram had met the love of his life in New Orleans and gone back to be with her. Of course Jet must have gotten the idea as they pulled into Louisiana, wondering what mischief he could stir up to unseat Josie. And he figured out he had a nuclear bomb in his pocket that would take a single phone call to detonate.

  “That little shit!”

  “You’ve been believing the wrong people. There’s no trusting Jet Slade.”

  “It’s too late to do anything about it now that they’re engaged.”

  “Told you, check your sources. Bram doesn’t want to marry Dracula’s daughter.”

  Duh. It had been Trinity herself who’d told her. Varian might be a junkie and a mess but he had her pegged—she’d believed the wrong people all along. Still, she’d let it get this far…

  “I can’t go to him. He hates me.”

  “Let me see your ticket.” He scrutinized it, sweat popping on his brow even in the air-conditioned waiting area. “Hour and forty. Time enough to get you off the flight and me on it.”