Rocked by her Alpha Read online

  Then the crowd erupted. Cheers, whistles and chants shattered the peace. The lighting snapped off and he sagged, drained, his time in the spotlight over. Straightening, he ran a hand through his wet hair and wiggled his ass to peel the leather from his balls. He curled his lip back. Yeah. Soaked through. Which meant the pants would be a bitch to get off.

  “H-ounds! H-ounds! H-ounds!”

  Ignoring the chant of the crowed, he turned to make eye contact with the other band members, eager to ensure they were all okay. Arrayed in a semi-circle behind him, they looked as shattered as he felt. That was the thing though, they put everything they had into every show. A fact the fans loved.

  All gave him a quick nod back and he breathed a sigh of relief. Talking was pointless with the noise from the crowd. Instead, K cocked his eyebrow in question, the band waiting for his decision on a second encore.

  Aaron shook his head, the wet ends lashing his bare skin. On a normal night he’d consider it, but it was the last night of this leg of the tour. Which meant they had a week off. A week of rest and relaxation they all desperately needed…and which he intended to start off with some “me” time.

  K flicked him the thumbs up, expressions of relief on all three faces before they put down their instruments. Above them the overhead lighting illuminated and the big screen flicked on, starting the gig wind-down video for the fans clearing the stadium.

  Aaron clipped his mike onto the stand and strode toward the wings. The warmth of the stage disappeared as he made his way to his dressing room. Stagehands and roadies, used to his mood after a gig, moved out of the way quickly. Like any other night, he didn’t talk, but he had far more on his mind than the usual post-show thoughts.

  He was exhausted.

  A new show each evening in a new town. So many he’d lost track. Different hotel rooms night after night. Living out of a case like they had years ago when trying to make it. The only difference being hotels and cases were more expensive these days.

  Money didn’t buy happiness, nor did fame.

  It ground him down.

  Some days he only felt alive on the stage. Everything else was just limbo as he waited to go back on. Endless fans screaming, all wanting something from him. Wanting him to sing, perform…like veracious little vampires draining his soul and taking him apart one little bite at a time.

  Oh, the women had been great at first. He could have his pick, a different one each night. More if he wanted. He had for a while, all the guys had… what red-blooded guy didn’t want that? It was a male fantasy come true.

  Tempest…he didn’t go there. So didn’t go there.

  His sister could take care of herself, a lesson the rest of them had learned the hard way. None dared argue with her about her personal life anymore. Not if they liked their heads, and their balls, where they were.

  Female werewolves could be savage and unpredictable, and Tempest? True to form. A rare, true alpha female, she’d need a hell of a strong wolf to take her on. A human would never survive… Nearing his dressing room, Aaron smirked. There were no guarantees a wolf would survive Tempest either.

  By the time he pushed open the door, the sweat had dried on his skin. Striding through the room within, he headed for the en suite, shedding his clothes on the way. That was it. He was done with faceless women. Done with fans. Done with the whole rock-n-roll lifestyle.

  It was the reason he’d contacted an old friend…poured his heart out—he wanted one night, just one night with a woman who didn’t recognize him on sight. One night to reassure himself that yeah, without the fame, the persona, he could still….

  Fuck, he had no idea what he wanted. Thankfully, Lacey had read him like a book, arranging his night, the heavy cream linen envelope tucked into his guitar case in the other room.

  Stark, bollock naked, he snapped the shower on and stepped under the spray. Tomorrow night, he had a date. He’d find out whether he was worth anything as a man or whether the rock star had consumed anything worth having.

  The hot water hit him like a firestorm of needles, the power shower doing its thing and massaging his aching muscles. He sighed in relief and lifted his hands to lean them against the tiles as the water cascaded over him.

  He had a date.

  Fuck.

  The last time he’d been on a date was… he blinked, shaking the water out of his face as he tried to think. He hadn’t been on a date for years. Not since before he and the band had taken their music seriously, that was for sure.

  As soon as they’d stepped on stage, things had changed. Rather than chasing women, the women had thrown themselves (or their underwear if he was on stage) at him. Literally throwing.

  Dates? Sometimes he’d barely gotten out a “hello” before the chick’s tongue was halfway down his throat, never mind had to ask half of them anything.

  Closing his eyes, he slicked his wet hair back off his face. Yeah, conversation hadn’t figured largely in many of his relations with the opposite sex in the last couple of years. Actually, he couldn’t remember any that he’d sat down with and talked… really talked.

  Well, he’d talked to Bianca, if you could call it that. Their screaming matches had become legend on tour until they’d split two years ago.

  But arguments weren’t conversation. Nowhere near. Just like fucking wasn’t a date. And he had more experience with the former in both cases than the latter. So what the hell did he say on this date tomorrow night?

  He reached for the shower gel, squeezing a healthy dollop into the palm of his hand. Would he even need to talk? Lacey had promised they could find a woman who didn’t know who he was, but as his face was plastered over billboards and the front of glossy magazines worldwide. He failed to see how they could manage that. Not unless the lady in question had been in either a coma or a convent for the last couple of years.

  He paused, mid-soaping. The agency wouldn’t… would it?

  Nah. His hands resumed their motion, lathering the gel on his skin up into cleansing suds. No matter how desperate they were, no one would stoop that low. Although, his lips quirked into a devilish little grin, the rock star and the nun… he was sure he could get some material out of that to shock the censors and do-gooders who liked to vilify the Hounds’ work regularly.

  What would she be like?

  In all his planning, he hadn’t thought much about his date. Sure, he’d given the agency a general idea of physical characteristics but only because they’d asked and he needed to give an answer.

  Really? He didn’t care what a woman looked like. He liked them all. Short, tall, curvy, slender… he didn’t care. They were all infinitely sexy and fascinating to him. It didn’t matter though. He was a wolf and whoever the agency got would be human, so there was no chance she would be his mate.

  Bowing his head, he let the water rinse the suds from his weary body. It didn’t matter, though, because he had no mate. He couldn’t… not according to the old wives’ tales anyway. He was one of a set of twins. He and Karlan had been born minutes apart. Twin wolves were not only rare, the tales said they weren’t actually two people but that they shared a soul instead. One soul, one mate. That was how it worked.

  If only one of them got a mate, it should be Karlan, not him. Aaron was the eldest, the strongest. He would survive without that special connection. Karlan, while strong himself, was… softer somehow. Aaron saw the longing and loneliness in his eyes when he thought no one was watching.

  Stepping out of the shower, he reached for the towel to wrap around his hips. Watery footprints stretched out behind him as he padded into the main dressing room. The room was spacious and luxurious, his guitar on its stand to one side of one low-slung leather couch, his holdall abandoned by the other. Striding across the room, he bent down to flip it open.

  Movement behind him warned him he wasn’t alone a half-second before a delicate hand landed on the small of his back and a husky female voice murmured, “Hey, sexy… I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “
Fucking hell!” he hissed, spinning on his heel and facing off against the intruder with his wolf in his eyes. A woman stood behind him, a small smile on her face even as her slender figure shook with nerves.

  “Who are you?” Aaron demanded. “How did you get in here?”

  She was a fan, that much was obvious from the “Hounds Forever” t-shirt she wore and the adoring expression in her eyes when she looked at him. Managing a small, nervous giggle, she clasped her hands in front of her, fingers laced tightly.

  “I’m Lola. I-errr… there was a door back there…” she half twisted to indicate the back of the building. He frowned. That area was off limits to fans. “I was ill earlier, during the concert. The medic guys took me to a little room but they didn’t come back.”

  Fuck. He resisted the urge to let out a frustrated sigh and pulled his wolf back under control. A lost fan, that was all, and somehow she’d ended up in his dressing room. Great.

  “I’m sorry about that.” He kept the growl out of his voice and offered a tight smile. The last thing he wanted to do was babysit a sick fan, but he wasn’t an asshole. If she’d been ill, she didn’t need him scaring the shit out of her. “They shouldn’t have left you alone.”

  Walking past her, he opened the door and stuck his head through it. “BONNIE!” he yelled, the loud shout summoning the band’s manager. She’d sort this shit-storm out without batting an eyelid.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude or anything,” Blondie behind him was apologizing continuously, her voice soft and breathy.

  “I’m really, really sorry. Just… I missed most of the concert so I was hoping to get a program or something… you know…” She dropped her head, her hair covering her face as she blushed furiously. “Something from backstage to make up for it.”

  Her expression when she looked up was so hopeful, it speared Aaron right through the heart he always said he didn’t have.

  “Is that so? Well, let’s see what we can rustle up then,” he commented, his sensitive lycan hearing picking up the sound of footsteps running down the corridor. Bonnie. She always wore heels, but they never seemed to slow her down. She could outpace most of the security guards in them.

  Rifling through his bag, he pulled out a play list. It wasn’t one of the professional promo things the PR team had set up for the tour, all printed and glossy. Instead, it was one of the lists Tempest printed off before every gig for the band themselves to use. His copy was dog-eared and had a coffee-mug ring on it, but it was the best he had.

  “Oh my god, thank you!” his visitor gasped as he signed it with a flourish and then held it out to her. Her eyes were luminous and suspiciously watery as she clutched the piece of paper as though it were the crown jewels themselves. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!”

  “Hey… How we doing in here?” Bonnie stepped through the door, assessing the situation with an experienced eye. Despite her smile, Aaron could see the look behind it. Professional mode as she decided whether she needed to be full on mama-bear to protect a member of her band or PR guru to deal with a fan.

  “We’re all good,” he reassured her, motioning her forward with one hand as the other held on to the slipping towel. “Lola here was ill earlier and missed some of the concert. She got a little lost when she left the medical area and found the dressing rooms.”

  “It’s a good job she did.” Bonnie’s voice was pleasant but he didn’t miss the flash of displeasure as she easily read between the lines. That a fan had been left alone to wander about backstage was bad enough, that the self-same fan had also been ill and had been left alone was even worse.

  “This place is like a damn rabbit warren. I got lost between the ladies’ room and the canteen earlier. It was awful. So, Lola, how about we look into getting you home, darling?” Bonnie said as she stepped up to Lola’s side.

  “Huh. Yes, thank you. My friends will be so worried about me,” she managed to answer distractedly, still looking at Aaron like he was the sun, moon and stars all rolled into one.

  “Well, let’s not keep them waiting, shall we? How about you give them a call and we’ll send you all home in one of the band’s limos.” Bonnie winked over her shoulder as she ushered the girl toward the door.

  Aaron sighed in relief as the door shut behind them. A fan in his dressing room… with how crazy some of their fans could be, it was the stuff of nightmares. At least she’d been relatively normal, if a little starstruck. Obviously, her illness earlier in the night hadn’t been serious. Fortunately. He wouldn’t like to be those medics, though, when Bonnie caught up with them. The tiny woman was a force of nature, not to be crossed.

  Silence fell in the room, almost deafening after the chaos that had filled it mere moments ago, as Aaron stared at a very scared looking member of the stadium’s management.

  “We are so sorry, Mr. Rixx,” he said quickly, his words almost falling over themselves in the rush to get out of his mouth. “I don’t know how she got in. We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  Aaron nodded and tried not to grit his teeth. This was not a conversation he wanted to be having when wearing nothing more than a towel. Plus, the guy’s sweat filled the room with the acrid stink of his nervousness, fouling up the air and messing with Aaron’s sensitive sense of smell.

  He’d been accosted in his own damn room, so the guy shouldn’t just be nervous. He should be fucking terrified.

  Anger grew the more Aaron thought about it. Bonnie, the band’s manager, had had reservations about the security of the stadium for weeks. It was one reason she’d hired extra hands on their security team.

  Even Sav, the most laid back of them all, had winged an eyebrow up when she’d told them the new guys on the security team were ex-special forces.

  Now it made sense. The security here was so lax a fan had just fucking strolled into his dressing room and made herself at home. A lawsuit for the personal endangerment of a Lyric Hound wouldn’t just take a location like this out of business; it would blow it out of the water and into next year, next decade…so far the guy’s grandkids would be feeling the ripples until adulthood.

  A bead of sweat detached itself from the other man’s brow and rolled down the side of his face. He reached up to swipe it away, the movement sending another scent Aaron’s way. Baby powder and milk.

  Fucking hell.

  He had kids, young ones by the smell. Aaron might have a rep as a complete bastard, but he wasn’t enough of one to threaten the man with his job.

  Aaron sighed and shoved his still wet hair back from his face. How did he get into fucked-up situations like this? The wolf-struck were a nightmare to deal with. No one knew why, but some humans’ fascination with lycanthropes tipped over into obsession. A dangerous obsession, which needed medical attention.

  “Okay, do that. And make sure she gets some treatment? She’s wolf-struck for sure, which means she’ll be a pain in the ass for any wolf she comes across.”

  “Yes, Mr. Rixx. Of course, Mr. Rixx.”

  Aaron grabbed a pair of pants off the nearby couch and hauled them up over lean hips. His nose wrinkled in distaste. He’d needed three showers to get Lola’s perfume off him. How the hell he’d missed her when he walked into the room, he had no clue.

  The manager turned for the door and then paused. “Again, I apologize. I—is there anything else we can do for you during your stay?”

  Grabbing his shirt off the chair, Aaron shrugged it on, leaving it unbuttoned. He shoved his feet into unlaced combat boots and looked at the manager.

  “Yeah, you can have someone bring my case up to the helipad. My ride should be arriving soon,” he said, moving to grab the guitar case from the couch. He always sang on stage, but he also played, writing and composing all of the Hounds’ material. The record company had wanted to bring someone in, but they’d vetoed it, Bonnie fighting in their corner like a mama-bear.

  Their sound was unique. Always had been, and always would be.

  “Of course, sir. Will do.”r />
  Chapter 3

  Mel had to admit, the dating service Tiff had booked was efficient. Within an hour of receiving the email, a limo had arrived to take her to the nearest airport, a little affair near the Claremont Estate, and whisked her away from the sleepy English countryside by private jet. The short flight had been very comfortable. Although she’d been slumming it in tents and no-star digs for the past couple of months, she knew luxury when she saw it. She just didn’t get to experience it often.

  “Mind the step, ma’am. I hope you have a good stay and thank you for flying with us.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled at the flight attendant, waving off his offer to help with her bag, and stepped out.

  Set back from the hotel, the narrow runway ran the width of an impressive expanse of lawn. Behind a small rise, and with the landing lights set in the tarmac, it was inconspicuous, hidden once the plane had taken off again. Nice touch. And in thousands of years, people like her would dig up the remnants and wonder what the hell the road to nowhere had been used for.

  Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she set off, heading down the short flight of steps. Her strides ate up the distance to the sprawling hotel, no doubt part of one of the big chains. She assessed it, picking up the details of what must once have been a stately home, but they’d done well in converting it to a hotel. It still retained the majesty and charm of a noble family’s estate and she half expected some batty old codger to wander across the lawn to greet her in battered wellington boots with his grandmother’s shotgun over his arm.

  Instead a neat young man stepped out of a double door onto the terrace to wait for her. He was the only person in sight, but that was expected. The information from the agency had been rather specific. Her date for the evening wanted the entire hotel closed off to ensure their privacy.

  She’d snorted a little at that. Close the hotel off? He had to be wealthy if he’d paid to have the place shut down for a date, plus the private plane. And in her experience, rich men thought they could buy anything and didn’t bother themselves with what others thought, or what they felt.