guy who’d laugh in the devil’s face? That takes a hell of a lot of hard work.”
He flicked a switch as he spoke and Khan’s voice filled the booth. The song wasn’t one of Beast’s. It was an old love song, with a sweet melody, haunting in its intensity. Khan didn’t apply any of his usual vocal fireworks to this performance. Alone, unaware of his audience, and with no backing music, he closed his eyes, pouring his heart into the song.
As she listened, tears burned the back of Sarange’s eyelids. What was it about this man? Where had this invisible thread that pulled her to him come from? And how the hell was she going to sever it? She didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry that Ged had shown her Khan had another side to him. Would it have been easier to walk away believing he was shallow and self-absorbed? Khan had given her no choice. She had to walk away. It was never going to be easy.
Ged waited until Khan had finished singing before he spoke. “His vocal range is unique. Khan can sing opera just as easily as rock.”
As if to demonstrate, Khan started to sing again. The same ballad with a slightly different emphasis. There was something rawer in the emotion this time. God, he could tell a story with that voice! The last version had made her think of unrequited love. This one was a whole lot hotter. It conjured up visions of steamy sex and crumpled sheets...and it made her whole body burn.
“Who is he?” She tilted her head back to look at Ged. The question, coming out of nowhere, surprised her.
Ged didn’t falter. “He is Khan.” Ged said it as though it clarified everything. And maybe it did. Khan was one of a kind, defying explanation. “This campaign you have with the blue wolves, is that because of your own heritage?”
“I certainly have an interest in their plight because I was born in Mongolia, but that’s not the only reason I want to help.” She still wasn’t sure why she felt so fiercely about this pack of wolves. Her homeland, heritage, Mongolian folklore...none of those things could quite account for the intensity of emotion this cause aroused in her.
“You must know that’s not what I meant.”
Sarange frowned. “What else could you possibly mean?”
Ged’s expression was unfathomable. It reminded her of the look in Khan’s eyes when he had called her “wolf girl” just before she initiated that devastating kiss. What is it with these people and wolves? Was it to do with the name Beast? Were they looking to use wolves for some sort of gimmick? Ged was staring at her as if she was an alien being. As if he couldn’t make up his mind what to do about her.
Enough was enough. Whatever his problem was, she really didn’t have time to spend analyzing it. On balance, she decided she was glad Ged had shown her this other side of Khan. Although her pride was still stinging, it helped to know he wasn’t the one-dimensional jerk of first appearances.
She turned toward the door. “You’re Khan’s friend. Why does he hate me?”
Ged took a last look at the lone figure. “Khan doesn’t really do friendship. And it’s not you he hates—” he flicked the switch, and the booth went silent “—it’s himself.”
* * *
Beast had won Best Band at the Rock the World Awards for the last two years. This year, when they burst onto the stage to receive the award for the third time, Khan looked out at the sea of faces in the vast audience with a feeling close to apathy. The great and good of the music industry were gathered under one roof to honor their own, but there was only one person he wanted to see. He already knew Sarange wasn’t there. If she’d been there, he’d have felt her.
They were in her town, yet she’d stayed away. It was her message to Khan. He knew she felt this invisible, unbreakable thread as powerfully as he did. By not attending this prestigious ceremony, she was showing him she was stronger than he was. She didn’t need to see him. Didn’t need the buzz that came from his nearness. This was what he’d wanted, yet the despair he felt was like a giant rock sitting on his chest. How could he miss what had never been his? All he knew was there was an aching hole in his life that could only be filled by Sarange. How was he ever going to learn to deal with this constant gnawing pain?
Beast was closing the award ceremony with a number from its new album. It was time to don 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
