his rock star persona and do what he did best...drive this crowd wild. Doing it when his heart had just been ripped out and his limbs felt like lead? That would be a new experience.
The way the band played together had always been creative and intuitive. Each member was individually talented, but when they came together they became so much more. Maybe it came down to what they’d all been through before they got together. Their music did the talking because their emotions had been shredded. From Khan’s raw yipping, screeching tones, through Diablo’s wild drumming to Finglas’s haunting bass lines, their unique sound pulsed with primal energy.
Physically they complemented each other perfectly as well. Each member of the band had his unique, onstage personality. Khan was all strutting, purring egomania. Diablo was solitary, stealthy and quick tempered. There was Torque with his quick-fire restlessness and Dev, in contrast, who remained cool and aloof. Finglas was the newest addition to the band. The young Irish werewolf had replaced Nate Zilar, the long-standing bass guitarist, and was just finding his place among the big personalities. Finglas often appeared detached, but he could raise as much hell as Khan when the mood took him. As a cast of characters, the band came together with a power that couldn’t be manufactured. Beasts in the true sense of the word, they were one of a kind.
Behind them, giant LED screens played recordings of their signature three-sixes logo, roaring flames and the snarling jaws of wild animals. The cheering audience enthusiastically demonstrated the horned sign of the beast by pointing their fingers at the sides of their heads. The number ended on a wild note when Khan climbed to the top of the lighting installation at the rear of the stage, hanging perilously by one hand as he howled out the final verse.
He sprang back onto the stage, landing in a crouch at Torque’s feet.
“And that, my friend, is how to bring the house down,” Torque said, as they walked off the stage. “I thought it might be literally. That set didn’t look very stable.”
Khan shrugged. “Remember Moscow?”
Dev caught up to them. “How could we forget? Although I blame Ged for booking us into a theater with balconies. He must have known you’d climb into them.”
“How was I to know that building was unsafe?” Khan scowled.
Torque draped an arm around each of their shoulders. “Those were the days. Collapsing balconies. Irate Russians. Hot women. Cold vodka.”
“Talking of which—” Dev steered them toward the bar at the back of the vast auditorium “—Ged is waiting for us. Best behavior, guys. The press is out in force tonight, always looking for the money shot of Khan in a compromising position.”
Khan cursed under his breath. He wasn’t in the mood for socializing, and he was never in the mood to have his behavior regulated. Over time, he had learned to strike a balance between his human and tiger personalities. On occasions like this, he drew on his human need for company, suppressing his cat desire for solitude. And there were usually compensations. On a night like tonight, he could generally find an outlet for his wild sexual appetite. The problem was, his body had decided it had found his mate, meaning his desire for sex with anyone other than Sarange had deserted him. It was a highly inconvenient side effect to an already out of control situation.
Until now, Khan’s sexual instincts had mirrored those of a tiger in the wild. He supposed humans would call it promiscuity. Tigers would call it common sense. Find a female, have sex with her as often as possible within a short time frame until she was carrying his cubs, then move on to the next female. It was a simple rule for big cats in nature to ensure fertilization. As a human, of course, Khan was meticulous about using protection to ensure that didn’t happen. Thankfully, his inner tiger didn’t take over completely.
Monogamy wasn’t part of the tiger social structure, but despite his inner cat, Khan wasn’t all wild animal. He didn’t get to be that lucky. Being a shifter, he got to live within a set of expectations that applied to all shifters. Ones that said he needed a mate. It seemed there was no right of appeal. Even though there were so many things wrong in this case. The mate the Fates had selected for him was the wrong species. She didn’t know she was a shifter. And don’t get me started on who I am...
Khan bit back a smile. Monogamy without a partner? Wasn’t that called celibacy? That should keep Ged happy. At least there would be no sensational kiss-and-tell stories tomorrow morning.
“Come and join me, Tiger Boy.” As if in answer to his thoughts, Ged appeared at Khan’s side. He was carrying a bottle of brandy and two glasses. It was always serious when Ged got the brandy bottle out.
By some miracle, they found a quiet corner table and Ged sloshed brandy into the glasses. Around them, celebrities were getting drunker and noisier. Finglas was locked in an embrace with one member of a girl band, while her bandmate wrapped her arms around his waist from behind.
“That guy is after your reputation as the bad boy of Beast.” Ged tilted his glass toward Finglas.
“The way I feel right now he’s welcome to it.” Khan leaned back in his seat, draining his glass in one gulp.
“Does this newfound apathy have anything to do with Sarange?”
Khan stared at his manager, the man who had rescued him from a cage and given him his life back. For long, unblinking seconds he said nothing. Then he sighed. If Ged wanted information from him, he would get it. He might as well cut out the part where he tried to resist.
“You’ve heard some crazy shifter stories in your lifetime, Ged. Shall I tell you a new one? One that takes screwed up to a whole new level?” He dropped his voice, glancing around to make sure they were the only ones who could hear. “How about I tell you the story of a tiger who fell for a wolf? If that wasn’t bad enough, it gets even crazier. It turns out she didn’t know she was a wolf.”
Khan reached for the brandy, planning to pour himself another glass. To hell with it. He drank long and hard straight from the bottle, wiping the neck on the tail of his designer shirt when he finished. “I know.”
Khan’s eyes narrowed. “You know what?”
“I’ve met Sarange. I know she’s a werewolf.” Ged took the brandy from Khan and tilted the bottle to his own lips. “And I agree with your assessment. She has no idea what she is.”
Khan slumped down in his seat. “Has that ever happened before?” If anyone was going to know the answer to that question, it would be Ged.
“Not that I’m aware. Violet, Nate’s wife, lost her memory for a while.” Violet was a werewolf who had joined them on tour recently. When she and Nate got married, he had left the band. “Part of that memory loss meant she forgot how to shift. That was temporary, but this is different. Sarange seems unaware that she has ever been a werewolf.”
“What I don’t understand is how she can be a shifter yet not want to shift. It’s the most powerful urge we have. Right up there with breathing and sex.”
Ged had been about to take another drink, but he lowered the bottle. “Judging by some of the situations I’ve had to bail you out of over the years, I’d say sex is the strongest urge you have.”
Khan stretched his long legs in front of him. “I’m a cat. We enjoy the hunt.”
“Yet you’re not hunting tonight?” Ged raised a brow.
Before Khan could tell him to butt out, the music was lowered and the sound turned up on the big screens that were located on each wall. “You might want to listen to this, guys.” Torque came to lean against the wall next to them.
The screens were all showing the same news story. The announcer’s voice filled the room. “We’re returning to our main story. Earlier this evening a group of four men broke into the Los Angeles home of singer, songwriter and animal rights activist Sarange—”
Khan was on his feet in an instant, his heart rate kicking up to explosive new levels. “What the...?”
“—although the