I reached for him, consciously now, though that throb of power still dulled my senses. It shut out Jen and her increasingly louder protests, the crowd, the band, everything, until there was just those sparkling green eyes and that smile. I tangled my hands in that ragged mohawk of hair, his eyes closing as I did so.
“Pull it harder…” he moaned, grinning when I did so. There was something in that I liked. He was all powerful and famous, but watching him go all squirmy as I gripped him made me feel bold, bold enough to close the gap between us.
Kissing Jake was wet, messy, and sexy, like he couldn’t hold anything back enough to finesse it, so he threw his whole self into it, promising to do a lot more if it progressed further. But it couldn’t.
“C’mon, Jake,” Liam’s voice cut through the haze. “The crowd’s going nuts.”
“No, Ma, I’m staying right here…” he crooned, cradling me in his arms and rubbing his face against me like a cat. “I’m all warm and cozy.”
“For fuck’s sake, Jake…”
His eyes flicked open the moment Liam started over towards us.
“I’m gonna love being your proxy, butterfly. You just fucking wait. I’m gonna have you simmering.”
He jerked away from me right before Liam’s hand smacked down on his shoulder, twisting so that his body brushed his bandmate’s as he moved.
“Miss Rutherglen, I’ve brought the feeders as required.”
Mark stood there, looking stiff and uncomfortable with Circe, Bran, and Chyna at his side.
“Thank you, Sentinel,” she said with a nod of her head. She turned to face the band. “Kira will be fine now. You gotta get out there.”
“You don’t get to call the shots here, princess,” Liam said. “Lucas, you’re up.”
“She doesn’t need that—”
“I decide what is needed in my court.”
Jen’s eyes flashed at that.
“You didn’t negotiate with my father in good faith. If he’d known—”
“He’d have her installed in his cage, fucking her and letting all his ‘business associates’ run through her, using one of them,” he jerked a thumb at the feeders, “to scrape all the power out of her he could. You know that’s true.”
I searched Jen’s face, for what? Evidence of prior knowledge or righteous indignation, but instead, her eyes dropped down to the ground, and a strange hollow expression spread across her face.
“We’ve got to get this show on the road. Lucas, now.”
Was there anything a woman wanted more than a man snorting out his frustration and ambling over to kiss you with all the reluctance in the world? I found myself stepping back as he ambled over, and he stopped in his tracks when he saw it. Those pale blue eyes crackled as he drew closer, Jake’s head jerking up when he heard a rumble of thunder.
“You sure this is a good idea?” he said, looking at the roof of the auditorium.
“Yes. Stop pussy footing around. You’ve kissed millions of fucking girls before. I’m not asking you to fuck her,” Liam snapped.
The big man shook his head, trying to shield those flashing angry eyes from me, but I still caught them. A hand slammed down against the wall beside my head, and he leaned in closer.
This was ridiculous. I was still thrumming with whatever they said was my power, but it didn’t feel quite so much like my body was too full or my skin stretched too tight. I could hear the shudder of his breath, see the tension in that big body, but Liam watched us like a hawk. So I did what was needed. I bounced up and placed a chaste kiss on his cheek.
“We’ve kissed,” I said as I felt Lucas staring at me. “Now go play.”
Liam’s eyes narrowed down into slits, and he thought about it, about pushing us further, but the increasingly raucous cries of the crowd seemed to finally sink in.
“Fuck it. Get on stage.”
It felt weird when they went. Suddenly, the air was clearer, easier to breathe, yet I felt my skin tingling, as if missing the contact of the half dozen guys I’d just made out with. My mind tripped over that thought. I remembered my last kiss from before my transition, before Mark. It was tentative and had too much tongue, his stubble scraping painfully over my chin. They were so few and far between that I’d been resigned to remembering them, whether I wanted to or not.
“How are you feeling?” Jen said, coming and taking my hand.
“Better. What the fuck was that?”
She shook her head. “You’re a bit unusual, but I think you’re able to generate power much more easily than others. It’s why everyone’s sniffing around. They can sense that potential. Things like this, music, art, it pushes your buttons more than the rest of us. You’re going to need to formalise something with this preceptor or another. It’s why we live in courts. If we generate too much power, it can be funnelled off into a central receptacle, used by the wider court. If you don’t want Hartley—”
“I don’t know what I want,” I said. “I’ve been on this juggernaut since I took that job, and haven’t had time to work out what I think about anything.”
She rubbed her hand up my arm and nodded. “I’m sorry. This has been such bad timing. Well, you need to use the drainers.” We turned to look at a faintly irritated looking Mark and his retinue. Circe and Bran were much better dressed in band merch and checking me out way too closely, but Chyna just smirked. “Let them keep siphoning off your energy until you’re ready to make a decision. Or we could go home?”
Her home, not mine—the implication was clear. What would I do in mine? Sit and eat bangers and mash with Mum and Dad? Listen to Nan screech like a cockatoo at having one of our kind in her presence while her medication was doubled, tripled to keep her calm while I was around? It stung when I realised it, that I wouldn’t be going back there ever. For a second, I mourned the loss of my little cottage.
“You know that’s not going to work. I wanna be real clear. I don’t want anything to do with your dad, Jen.”
She took a breath in, ready to…what? Plead his case? I frowned slightly, my heart stuttering at the thought of it. He was her dad, I understood that but…
“I get that, but I’m here for you. If things don’t work out for you with Johnno, there’s always Aen.” We both turned to see the man himself lounging against the wall, watching us with a slight smile. “But the band’s about to start, and you’re already glowing. A drainer. Which one are you going to pick?”
Chyna sat on a nearby box, picking at her nails, bored now that the guys were gone, but the other two? They stepped forward as soon as our eyes lit upon them, only Mark’s hands stopping them from coming any closer.
“These?” Jen said to Mark.
“He asked for the hungriest. That was these three. She says she’s on a hunger strike,” he replied, jerking a thumb at Chyna.
“But I’ll break it if I’m reinstated. Doesn’t have to be the rest of the Concubines, just me,” Chyna said, getting to her feet.
“No, I have zero problems with you and yours chasing the guys, but I don’t want to get in between it. Have Liam,” I said flippantly, yet as the words came out, I could feel the places his teeth had pinched my lips. She watched me touch them, then jerk my hand down with a flat gaze.