Treasure Lane Dragons: Complete Series (BBW Paranormal Dragon Shapeshifter Romance) (36 page)

Fuck,
she concluded.

She wasn’t usually quite so foulmouthed, even in private, but shit like that made a woman lose her cool head and calm manners.

Jade van der Kamp was the bassist for one of the biggest names in dark rock – Death Wing. The band was built around the dangerously charismatic personae of Cameron and Colt Blackscale, and what the duo lacked in musical prowess, they made up for in rabid fandom. To say that their fans were loyal was a massive understatement, and for a plethora of reasons, Jade knew that she didn’t want to be on the bad side of said throve of fans.

She’d thought her gig was good enough. It paid solidly, the guys were complete jerks, but they mostly let her be, and she got to live her dream – being a musician, and a damn good one at that (even though sometimes she thought that the stuff Death Wing produced was about as pleasing to the ear as a bunch of screaming cats in heat). Yet, here she was, rocking herself back and forth in her seat, trying to plot a way to quickly and effectively unravel herself from Death Wing’s fame.

You can’t just go. They’d know something was wrong… And they’re fucking dragons. Do you really want to risk that? But the alternative is staying here…

Jade let her head fall against the glass with a thud. What a mess. In one fell swoop, she’d found out that the men she’d been touring with were shifters,
dragon
shifters, and that all the stuff that had been bothering her about Death Wing’s shows might be a lot darker than she’d originally thought.

The way the fans worshipped their every move… The way they would turn concerts into riots, ransack stores and beat up anyone they didn’t like, all in the name of Death Wing… The way the crowd got nothing less than terrifying whenever the black fog spread over them at concerts…

Jade shuddered. Yeah, okay. She had to get out.

She wasn’t sure what she was going to do once she made a break for it, but bile wanted to crawl up her throat every time she thought about playing even one more show with them. It was only made worse by the fact that she was pretty sure Cameron had noticed when she made her hurried exit from the stage that fateful night. He hadn’t said a word yet, but the looks he’d given her in rehearsal earlier in the day had told her that things weren’t quite right between her and the band’s vocalist.

As if on cue, the bus slowed down and pulled into a small, dimly lit gas station off the interstate.

“5 minutes!” the driver yelled, waddling out of the bus after he’d opened both the front and back doors.

No one stirred. One of the roadies changed position on the narrow seats and snorted through his sleep, but that was it. It seemed that besides the bus driver, Jade was the only one up. Carefully, she uncurled herself from the seat, her heart pounding in her chest. She peeked out of the front window, expecting to see Cameron’s and Colt’s bus right out in front of them, but they were nowhere to be found.

This is it,
she thought.

Driven only by her will to survive, Jade got up and gingerly fished out her suitcases and bass case from the overhead compartments. She set them down carefully, trying to move as fast as she could without making any noise. She took down two more suitcases and put them on her seat, covering them up with the duvet she always travelled with. Jade considered it critically and shrugged. It would have to do. She’d have to hope that the bus driver was too lazy to make a thorough check of his travellers, as was usually the case.

Jade slung the bass case over her shoulder and grabbed both of the suitcases. She inched through the spiky alleyway of legs sticking out of the seats and gear littered all over the floor, praying that she didn’t wake anyone. For a moment, it was touch and go when she bumped into Jim the drummer’s outstretched arm, but he just murmured something through his sleep and retracted his arm.

She slunk down the stairs, and when her feet touched the pavement, she let out a breath. Jade glanced around, trying to decide where the hell she was going to go.

Not the best plan ever,
she chided herself.

But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and Jade was just about ready to beg.

Just then, she heard a door creak open somewhere, and she let reactions take over where rational thought couldn’t. She darted around the small, squat off-white building and ducked into the women’s bathroom just as the bus driver rounded the corner and headed for the bus. Her back against the grimy, dark wall of the gas station bathroom, she froze in place, listening.

Any light she saw came from the small window high above the sinks, looking out onto the interstate. There was a thin glow from one of the lampposts that cast eerie shapes on the bathroom stalls.

“We’re going!” the voice of the bus driver called, cranking up the engine.

Jade held her breath. Only when she heard the doors close and the bus take off did she finally relax. When she heard the bus shift gears and tear onto the black tarmac, she let the suitcases drop from her hands and slid down the wall to sit on the floor.

Jade stared at the barely lit tiled walls, dirt and years of scarce cleaning glaring back at her. She was stuck in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, with two suitcases and her bass, and quite possibly, two furious dragons after her. In the span of twenty-four hours, she’d gone from having a stable, if not successful career in an up and coming band, to huddling on the floor of a truck stop bathroom, wallowing in her personal misery. She felt completely lost and aimless, like nothing she could ever do would give her life the kind of direction she wanted, like everything she did just made things worse.

So, how are you going to fix this?
Jade asked herself.

Frankly, she had no idea.

CHAPTER TWO

Alexander

Alexander closed his eyes as Apollo dove into the verse alongside him, taking the crowd with them. Every word they uttered, every note they strung, the fans were right there with them. It was hard to tell where the teeming mass of people ended and where the rest of the world started, and frankly, Alexander didn’t care to know the difference. His dragon basked in the unfaltering love and devotion the crowd bathed them in, the golden giant within him yearning to break loose, but subdued enough by their adoration to remain dormant.

Whenever you need me,

I’ll be there

Whenever you want me,

I’ll be there

Alexander opened his eyes, his voice joining Apollo’s and garnering an excited scream from the first row of fans – mostly women in their twenties, pretty and more than willing to go to the ends of the Earth if the Goldplains brothers asked them to. And often, they would. The guitar strings underneath Alexander’s fingers felt like home, like he could talk better through them than without.

With Apollo’s voice as the current in his ocean of sound, Alexander watched with quiet pleasure as an invisible golden shroud spread across the arena, taking everyone underneath its protective shade.

It was what the Gold Dragons were known for – not only their ghostly, almost ethereal rock, but the fantastic shows they put on. Countless rivals had tried to poach their lighting and special effects guys over the years, believing that it was they, who accounted for the brothers’ insane success. But it was hard to steal dragon magic. Alexander smiled to himself as he saw a sullen looking man perk up as the wave hit him, bathing him in the healing rays.

He knew what it felt like, to be taken by the ancient dragon powers without even understanding what they were. It felt like being lost in a sea of sound, taken and elevated by the music and the crowd to the highest state of concert nirvana. Sure, it was a bit unfair to their competition, but hell, he wasn’t about to care.

Casting his gaze over the packed arena, Alexander’s smile faltered just slightly. In the far corners of the crowd, he could see the golden wave of light flicker and stop, not reaching the very last rows. His face hardened slightly, and he stepped closer to Apollo, still lost in the song and giving the crowd the show they had known to expect.

“Reel it in,” Alexander murmured, motioning towards the far end with his head.

Apollo’s light blue, gold-flaked eyes met Alexander’s and then took in the sight before them, his expression unchanged.

“If you say so,” Apollo said under his breath.

Alexander could feel the way his brother tensed, even if his body language and expression betrayed nothing. The joys of being dragon twins – one’s feelings were rarely lost on the other.

Alexander leant towards the crowd, letting his fingers play the strings for the finale – a roaring, fast solo that was only backed by the drums. Alexander’s keen ears heard the bassist struggle and falter, and his mood fell further.

Another thing to deal with, getting a new bassist,
he thought darkly, casting a look at the replacement bass they’d had to drag along with them on the tour.

Their original bassist had had some family troubles even the Goldplains couldn’t solve, and the aftermath wasn’t particularly pleasing.

When the music quieted with the last chords echoing over the crowd, Apollo raised his hands in a good-bye wave that was met with pleading cries and ranting cheers. Alexander couldn’t help but smile. Underneath all the problems, at least their fans remained true.

“Good night, San Antonio! You’ve been a fucking awesome crowd!” Apollo screamed.

“Good night,” Alexander added, his deeper voice mixing with the cheers.

With a heavy heart, Alexander took off his guitar and set it next to one of the speakers, giving one last wave and seeing the golden wave flicker and then disappear as he and Apollo stepped off the stage.

***

“You’ve got to relax,” Apollo said sullenly, sinking into one of the big leather chairs that waited for them in their green room.

The younger Goldplains dragon reached for a beer in one of the several ice buckets set at strategic intervals in the room, uncapping it and taking a long swig. Alexander was half-surprised Apollo didn’t already have some crazed fangirl all over him. He must have been having a slow day.

“That’s not good for your vocal chords,” Alexander added mirthlessly, getting a singeing look from Apollo as he toweled off his messy wheaten hair.

His black wifebeater clung to his sweaty, muscled body like a second skin, outlining every hard ridge and dip. Thin gold chains hung around his neck and double gold cuffs were locked around his wrists – just a tiny offering of the Goldplains hoard, but enough to make him feel close to it.

Apollo propped his combat-booted feet up on a small table, leaning back on the couch and taking a long, luxuriating sip of the ice-cold drink – doubtlessly to piss Alexander off. He only smirked. Apollo was always the rebellious one. Though that was a lot to say about a duo of brothers making their vast fortune as some of the most beloved rock stars in the world.

“I’m sure that’s our biggest problem,” Apollo murmured in reply as the green room door opened with a bang, making way for a disheveled and annoyed Michelle, her red hair as a crown of thorns around her head.

The forty-something manager and also the only person on their crew, who knew the brothers’ secret, hesitated for a moment at the door, her gaze locked on Apollo. Alexander glanced in the direction she was staring, and he and his brother shared a private smirk. Yes, a shirtless, sweaty, gold-covered Apollo was enough to make any woman stumble, even one as used to their random bouts of nakedness as Michelle was.

“You two have some nerve,” Michelle started finally, regaining her iron composure and slamming the door behind her. “Where do you two get off on leaving almost a hundred thousand people screaming for an encore and then not giving it to them? What the fuck?”

Alexander picked up a beer from a nearby bucket and slung it to her, Michelle catching and uncapping it in one smooth move. She had the striking, unnerved gray eyes of a hawk hunting for its prey, never missing a single thing, and her demeanor was almost always that of extreme efficiency. Alexander liked her, even if she was a bit overbearing at times. Dragons above, he and Apollo both knew they needed a bit of reining in and herding around at times. And, being the heir of a fairly impressive record label, Imprint Records, there was literally nothing Apollo and Alexander could do that would shock her – even if they were dragons.