This was where Khan felt alive. The only place he knew for sure he existed. The heavy, thumping beat of the drums pounded in time with his heartbeat. The screams of the crowd pulsed along his nerve endings. Exhilaration fizzed through his bloodstream, sending his energy levels into overdrive.
In front of an audience of thousands, or in this case, tens of thousands, with millions more watching on TV or live streaming...this was the only place his life had any purpose.
He didn’t move. Head bowed, arms outstretched. Fire and fury exploded around him, but Khan waited. Pumped up the expectation beyond fever pitch and kept it hanging. Teased and tormented until the yelling and pleading from his fans became a fervor in his blood.
When he finally raised his head, he felt his own vigor pulse through the audience. The devil horn sign was repeated over and over as far as the eye could see. Two fingers at the side of the head. The sign of the beast. Our sign. Nothing matched this...except maybe sex. The two experiences were similar, with the need for release becoming overwhelming. The climax came when he delivered his performance, poured himself into his spectators, gave them everything he had.
Dense smoke rolled like fog from the stage and, within it, colored strobe lights danced in time with the drumbeat. Giant LED screens at the rear of the stage projected alternating images of fire, close-ups of snarling animals and the band’s logo, a stylized symbol resembling three entwined number sixes. At the side of the stage, explosions went off at random intervals, shooting orange flames high into the night sky.
The other members of Beast were unleashing a storm around him. Behind his vast, gleaming circle of drums, Diablo exuded raw, brooding vitality. His chest was bare and his tattooed biceps bulged as he hammered out a manic beat, his blue-black hair flopping forward to hide his face.
At the front of the stage, red-haired Torque, on lead guitar, was all burning drama and flickering movement. The air around him glowed with life, and he matched the sweeping arc of his hand on his guitar to the explosions at the side of the stage. In contrast, Dev, on rhythm guitar, held his body statue still, the movement of his flying fingers the only sign of life. His white-blond hair and pale skin added to the illusion that he was carved from ice. Slightly to the left of center, just behind Dev, Finglas was lost in his bass guitar, a faraway expression on his face.
“Unforgettable.” Khan felt the stadium still as he elongated the word, starting on a whisper and ending on a screech. He knew the power of his own voice, knew what people said. Is Khan the best rock singer ever? Does he have the greatest vocal range of all time? Or is he just a showman?
Khan didn’t give a damn about speculation and comparisons. Tonight, in Los Angeles—and at the simultaneous concerts in Manchester, England, and in Sydney, Australia—as long as they were talking about him, that was all that mattered.
“Unforgettable” was their bestselling track from the album of the same name. As he launched into the number and the crowd sang along, Khan gave them what they expected. Throwing back his red-gold mane of hair, he swaggered, swayed and jumped around the stage in skintight leopard print pants and a flowing white shirt slashed to the waist. His voice ranged from husky purring to wild yelping, with acrobatics to match.
He ended the song in one of his favorite ways. Approaching Diablo, Khan howled out the final chorus while dry humping the drum kit. It was always a crowd pleaser. It was less popular with Diablo, whose expression became even more tempestuous. Ged Taverner, Beast’s manager, frequently warned Khan that he would one day push Diablo too far.
“When I’m asked to identify your body, Tiger Boy, there’ll be a drumstick through the center of your eye.”
Acknowledging the adulation of the crowd, Khan returned to the front of the stage. Before he could speak, he was conscious of a change in the atmosphere. A curious hush fell over the packed stadium, something Khan had never known. He wasn’t sure he liked it. Silence? Where was the validation in that?
A slender figure swept onto the stage. Sarangerel Tsedev, known as Sarange, was unmistakable. One of the few people in the world who, like Khan, needed only one name. Even if that hadn’t been so, her place on the stage was assured, her ability to silence thousands well established.
Although she was one of the most famous singer-songwriters in the world, Sarange was also the organizer of this concert. The Animals Alive Foundation was her nonprofit organization. Tonight was about raising awareness of endangered species. She had driven forward this vision, persuading the biggest names in the entertainment industry to come along with her. All across the globe people were watching this spectacle unfold and donating millions. The final tally was likely to be billions. Against all the odds, she had succeeded in uniting the world in a common cause.
It had always been the plan that Sarange would join Khan for the official Animals Alive anthem. This was the finale, the culmination of all her hard work. What was striking about this encounter was that it was the first time two of the biggest names in the music scene had met in person.
Khan had seen Sarange on screen many times, of course. He had heard her described as one of the most beautiful women in the world, and that accolade had piqued his interest. Yes, she was stunning. He had acknowledged it and promptly forgotten about her. Now, as Beast played the first few bars and she walked toward him, he realized she was a whole lot more than stunning.
She wore a simple full-length white shift dress. High-necked at the front, swooping almost to the cleft of her buttocks at the back, slit to the thigh on both sides. The evening breeze molded the lightweight material to her body as she walked, highlighting the perfection of her figure. Her waist-length hair was iron straight, its blue-black sheen emphasized by the strobe lighting. As Sarange drew closer and raised her microphone, singing the first few lines of the song she had written—a love song to the creatures of the planet—he caught his first glimpse of eyes that were like chips of blue ice.
Forcing himself to focus, he circled her, growling out his response. The audience went ballistic. Could they feel it? Sense what he had experienced the moment she walked into view?
Khan knew what was happening, knew what the legends said. It was like a mantra imprinted into every shifter’s psyche.
When you find your one true love, you will mate for life.
He had heard the stories about how a shifter instantly knew its mate. How the sudden hit of attraction and lust was like nothing he, or she, had ever encountered before. It was said to be irresistible, an injection of pure, molten heat straight into the bloodstream.
Yes, he’d heard other shifters talk about that feeling. He’d just never believed it. Until now. Until he’d seen Sarange. Breathed her in. Felt her touch his soul.
And now he was in deep trouble. For so many reasons. The thoughts tumbled over themselves as he continued to perform on autopilot. As far as the world was concerned, he was Khan, charismatic lead singer of the hugely successful rock band Beast. And that’s exactly who he was. Who his human was.
But, like all shifters, Khan had two equal sides to his psyche. They existed in harmony, the traits of one complementing the other. He was a weretiger. Half human, half tiger, he had the ability to shift seamlessly from one form to the other. Because of the life he had chosen when he met Ged—if “met” was the best word to use to describe the encounter—he spent most of his time in human form, but that didn’t mean his inner tiger had been subdued. Those instincts were as powerful as ever. For Khan, as for all shifters who chose to live among mortals, day-to-day living was a constant balancing act, a striving to maintain anonymity.
Rock star by day, tiger by night. He was the mightiest of the big cats, with teeth, claws and a personality to match, but that was his deepest, darkest secret. He wasn’t about to reveal it to anyone, particularly not Sarange, darling of the paparazzi. It didn’t matter how much she made the blood in his veins sizzle, or how much she triggered a zipper-straining reaction farther south. It didn’t even matter that she had her own, equally compelling secret.
Because, as soon as he saw her, he knew. Sarange’s secret was the same as Khan’s. She was a shifter, too. Khan had scented her before