Only when they rushed past her did she recognize Lee and Wolfgang. They lit into another Shroud. Two more remained. The beasts saw their advantage disappearing and quickly attacked Misty and Trevor.
Trevor anticipated the first blow, ducking under and driving both his fists into the monster’s chest. It fell back just as the other creature arrived. Misty let it slash wildly until it was off balance. She punched once, missing its jaw and hitting a hard shoulder. But at least the creature staggered to the side.
Right into Trevor’s grip. He hauled it into the air and slammed it hard on the ground. The second Shroud tried to attack, but stumbled over its fallen comrade. As it fell, Misty grabbed it by the back of the neck and shoved it hard into the concrete. The beast’s head snapped sideways at an unnatural angle and the body lay still.
The other Shroud lunged from the ground, wrapping its claws around her ankles. Trevor stomped down on its back until the hands fell limp. They both turned to see Wolfgang and Lee finishing off the last Shroud.
She spoke after the last of the monsters’ cries had died away. “Of course you guys are also...demons.”
Wolfgang narrowed his eyes on her. “How much does she know?”
“Not enough,” she replied.
Trevor stood beside her to face his bandmates. “She’s part of us. She’s with me.”
“Fuck.” Lee shook his head. “It’s fucking real.”
The dead Shrouds dissolved.
“You have a mental bond, a connection?” she asked. “That’s how you knew where to find us.”
Lee held up his phone. “Twitter. The people in the club were pretty amped to see you.”
Wolfgang added, “Figured if you’d come this fucking far down Sunset, it was trouble.”
“Thanks for getting out of bed.” Trevor nodded to the others.
“Anything, brother.” Lee nodded back. He eyed her warily. “How much bad news out there?”
Trevor put his hand on the small of her back. “Shrouds are coming after her. She dies, I die. But she’s getting stronger.”
“Saw it.” Wolfgang glanced at where she’d smashed the creature into the ground. “Drop-dead Anatolian warrior woman.” He gave her a wink. Maybe he was warming up to her.
“Thanks?” At least he didn’t look at her like an oddity. Lee just kept staring.
Until blue and red light glanced into the alley. Cops.
Lee pointed to the retaining wall and the hillside above. “Bounce. We’ll party.”
Trevor took her hand, leading them to the Dumpsters. They jumped onto the lid, then scraped their way higher onto the retaining wall. The cop car turned into the alley, sweeping the shadows with its invasive white searchlight. She and Trevor got over the top of the wall and into the thick bushes just as the electric daylight blasted under them.
“Turn off the fucking lights, man.” Lee stumbled like a drunk through the alley, shading his eyes. “Disco’s dead.”
Heavy shrubs broke up the view of the alley. She and Trevor held still, his hand on her shoulder. She wanted to tell him she hadn’t run from the cops since she was seventeen and drinking beers with friends on a golf course, but her heart was pounding so fast she was afraid she’d shout every word.
The cop car came to a stop and two LAPD officers stepped out, a black woman and a white man. Both kept their hands ready near their belts. With cautious poise, they moved around the car toward Lee and Wolfgang.
The female officer spoke first. “Having some fun tonight?”
Wolfgang swayed on his feet, scratched at his chest, then took off his T-shirt. “We have fun every night,” he slurred. He kept rubbing at his skin, as if the sensation would never be enough.
The male officer spoke. “A little too much fun.”
“No such thing, bro.” Lee took a staggering step toward them, then recoiled when they tensed. “You’re not here to kill my buzz, are you?”
“Looks like you could use a little sobering up,” the male cop answered.
Lee waved his arms like a clumsy folk dancer. “But tonight’s a special occasion.”
Wolfgang nodded wildly. “That’s right, our friend just found the lady of his life. That’s worth celebrating, right?”
The female cop scanned the area with her eyes. “And where’s your friend?”
Lee stumbled to a stop. “Fuck if I know. Wherever two fated people go when they want to be alone.”
“So it’s just the two of you partying?” The other cop also glanced warily throughout the alley.
Wolfgang sat down on the bare ground. “If I had a lady to occupy my mouth, I wouldn’t drink so much.”
Lee staggered to him and hooked a hand under his arm. “Get up, dude. Get up. Don’t be sad. We’ll drink another toast.”
The male cop held out a palm. “That’s not a good idea.”
“The best idea!” Wolfgang sprang to his feet.
“Oh, shit.” The female cop shook her head.
Her partner readied for action, his hand hovering over his sidearm. “What?”
“I recognize these two. They’re in a band. Some rock-and-roll bullshit. My aunt listens to them.”
Wolfgang grinned. “If she’s as good-looking as you, I’d be happy to sign her iPod.”
“Or a backstage pass,” Lee added.
“I
like
my aunt, Rod Stewart. No way I’m letting you two near her.”
“Rod Stewart?” Wolfgang rubbed his head. “What he did with Jeff Beck was the pivot point.”
“But if we’re talking guitarists,” Lee said, “we have to talk about Howlin’ Wolf.”
“We don’t have to talk about any of them.” The male cop took a step forward. His partner moved with him, corralling Wolfgang and Trevor. “Why don’t you two just take a seat on the loading dock over there and we dial this party down?”
Misty’s joints ached. How long had she been crouched in the bushes with Trevor? How much longer would she have to wait?
Lee and Wolfgang let themselves be herded toward the loading dock. The cops glanced at each other, shrugging off the routine bullshit of dealing with the drunks.
Misty burned to run, but commotion in the bushes would definitely draw the cops’ attention. How the hell did Trevor stay so still? Then she remembered the stone. The calm of granite. Slowing her breath, she tried to draw the weight and stillness of the rock into her. The fire cooled in her. She ventured a glance at Trevor and caught his appreciative gaze.
Their attention was drawn back to the loading dock when Lee blurted out, “While we’re singing the praises of guitarists, you gotta give it up to Freddie Green. Rhythms like that? Not getting buried by Count Basie’s motherfucking big band?”
“No more talking.” The male cop’s patience thinned. “You’re going to sit quietly until we figure out what to do with you.” He stepped close with his partner, speaking too low to hear.
The small door to the loading dock creaked open and the cops again readied for action. Misty had never thought about the constant tension of the police’s job. Every new face was a threat. Blind corners meant trouble until every shadow had been chased. Life had never been that dangerous for her. Until tonight.
Trevor stayed close at her side They were both poised to move when they could. The possibility of danger was real. But so was the potential with Trevor. A whole new world to discover in one man, who was much more than a rock star.
Below, the club owner stepped out of the doorway, open hands raised to shoulder height for the cops’ sake. His voice was low and smooth. “Officer Warren, Officer Hembree.”
The cops relaxed a bit when they saw who it was. The woman nodded back. “Hi, Abraham. Got a noise complaint from some neighbors.”
Abraham dropped his hands and shook his head, disappointed. “In
my
back alley?”
“Howling and yelling,” the male cop responded.
The club owner stood behind Lee and Wolfgang on the dock. “You know we seldom have problems back here. Two of my friends got a little wrapped up in the nightlife.”
The woman put her hands on her hips. “We noticed.”
Wolfgang raised his hand to speak, paused, then said, “Where’s my shirt?”
Abraham leaned down, placing his hands on Lee and Wolfgang’s shoulders. “Let me get them inside.”
“Keep them there.” The woman tilted her head, no bullshit.
“I will, Officer Warren. Thank you for your discretion.” Abraham patted the rockers on the back and they stumbled to their feet, knocking into each other.
The cops started moving to their car, but stopped when Wolfgang called after them.
“Your aunt—”
Officer Warren shut him down. “You are one, maybe two words away from an overnight cell.”
Wolfgang smiled, clammed up and swaggered to the loading dock door with Abraham and Lee. Once they were all inside, door shut, the cops climbed into their car and backed out of the alley.
Welcome darkness thickened around Misty and Trevor. He rose up through the bushes, and she followed, stretching her aching limbs.
She whispered, “I owe them a gift basket.”
“A bottle of arak for Wolfgang, ouzo for Lee.”
“You prefer bourbon.”
“As do you.” He started to head up the hill, farther into the shadows. “Come on.”
Rock and roll and death and satyrs and monsters—still, she knew she’d only tasted a drop of this world. “Where now?”
“Sometimes civilization holds no advantages. We go back to the beginning.”
He turned, walking through the low shrubs. They tangled around him, brushing his legs and hands like adoring fans. He blended with the foliage, as dark as their silhouettes. Elemental, he truly belonged in the wild. Misty followed him into the unknown, because somehow, she belonged there too.
Chapter Eight
For years she thought Trevor Sand was best fit for the stage. Prowling its edge. Burning the first few rows of people with his intense eyes. Playing his guitar until the electricity ran out. Shaking the air with his low voice, pumped out of tall amplifiers.
But here, in the nature that lived in the cracks of the city, she saw where he truly came from. The animal nature he showed onstage was real. There was no makeup or costume to be taken off at the end of the night. If his layers were stripped away, they would reveal something wilder than the rocker who stalked the stage.
“Show me.” She was only a step behind him as they moved up the side of the hill.
He stopped amid a stand of high reeds, taller than either of them. “What do you want to see? I’ll take you there. Soccer stadiums full of fans in South America. Jewelry stores and restaurants no one knows about in Hong Kong. A ninety-year-old guitar maker in Italy.”
“Your hooves. Your horns.” The terror at seeing him like that had thrown her out of the hotel. “I have to see it again. Real.”
“That’s why we’re here.” He collected a handful of dirt and let it slide through his fingers. “This is real.”
When she expanded her focus from his hand, she saw his forearms were covered with the thick fur. Horns curled from his forehead.
He glanced down at his feet. “I’d have to take my boots off for the hooves.”
“I...” Even without his legs transformed, the effect was there. A satyr. The tall reeds moved about him, flickering his image. “I see.” Other shapes seemed to form in the shadows. Distant memories? They flashed with orange, lit by a ghostly fire that crackled in a large brass bowl. Marble columns. Blue silk banners. And when she looked at herself, her shoulders were draped with white robes, edged with the same silk. She blinked and it all disappeared.
“You do see.” His eyes were the blue of the silk, burning brighter than the fire. “Some of my history. It’s yours now.”
How could she not be afraid? Just a few feet away was a man and a beast. Wild black hair. Horns. Stubble around his wicked mouth. But he was right: it was hers. The images of the past faded away.
Can I do this?
Ancient demons and the cerebral forces who wanted to kill them. Elemental power. It wasn’t just a matter of learning this world existed. She was in it, part of the landscape. She’d changed. Fire and icy water ran through her. At a thought, she could turn her body to stone. Unbelievable. But too real to be denied. And despite all the things she didn’t understand, there was still so much more clarity in this world than the one she used to know. Everything had been chaos. Paying bills to anonymous corporations with money earned from a job where hardly anyone knew her name. She’d made her mark tonight. Going to the show, finding Trevor. Taking him how she needed. Her new power seemed like a continuation of what she started when she was just a human.
Can I go back?
She knew she couldn’t. The fear was overshadowed by excitement. Better to live and discover than waste away in the known world. And who better to guide her through the mystery than Trevor Sand?
He backed higher through the reeds. They striped shadows over his face and body. The fur was gone from his arms. His horns disappeared. But his blazing eyes remained on her. He extended his hand. She took it, and he helped her into the tangle of reeds. The tall plants moved light and dark across her vision. Like night and day. Or truth and mystery. She was in it, surrounded by it. The divisions seemed less important. Trevor had transformed before her eyes. She had changed too, becoming more herself than ever before.
* * *
The territory was too rough for modern man’s tender feet. Rivulets of dirt and green trees and thick bushes wound through the streets and homes of the Hollywood hills. Too steep and difficult to develop, the land was left to the ebb and flow of nature. Rabbits and coyotes, tarantulas and lizards.
Traveling these raw swaths was more difficult than taking the curling paved streets, but Trevor had no use for the constructs of man. He helped Misty through some thick-stalked bushes, their bodies working in union to break through the foliage.
“Home,” he told her. “You already met my friends.”
“I can’t tell if they like me.”
“They’ve never known anything like you.”
“No other Muses running around out there?” She gestured toward the grid of city lights behind and beneath them. “Yoko Ono or Jerry Lee Lewis’s young cousin?”
“Poor girl was misunderstood. But she wasn’t the same as you.” He’d always thought the legends were just firelit tales meant to spice the imagination. “If there have been other Muses, no one’s actually said.”
“Why now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s all part of the ebb and flow. Or some destiny determined that you were to be born a certain number of years and days and hours before we met tonight. Just don’t ask, ‘Why me?’”
“I’m finished asking that.”
Dense trees rose around them. Softer grass quieted their steps. There must be a spring nearby. Protected within the foliage, there were no houses in sight.
He stopped in a small clearing and turned. Through the tree branches the city glittered below, like a night sea on fire. “So you wouldn’t go back.”
She shook her head. “I’m alive.”
The leaves of a hardy shrub next to him were thick and dry beneath his hand. He gestured toward the rest of the plants around them. “Now meet my family.”
A smile brightened her face. She walked about the clearing, running her fingers along the bark of a tree or brushing her shoulder past a stand of reeds. “Pleased to meet you. Trevor really swept me off my feet.” Her words were directed to the thickest stand of trees. “After a brief courtship of rock and roll, bourbon from a bottle, then blindingly good sex, he revealed his horns and hooves.”
Her low laugh slowly drifted away. She turned toward him, shadowed by night and thoughts. He could still see her green eyes, but he couldn’t read them.
She asked slowly, “That’s the real you, isn’t it?”
“It’s the first me. My first memory is in a place like this. Mankind was close enough to nature and their own animal that my horns and hooves didn’t frighten them all away. The ones who did run weren’t worth the festival.” In his memory, old fires burned, accompanied by ancient songs. “We were out in the wild. Pan flutes. Hollow logs for drums. We drank wine from skins. And the songs we sang...”
“I wish I could hear them.”
“You will. When the band’s back together. Loosely translated: ‘The Shepherd’s Sorrow.’ ‘Thunder Between Us.’ ‘Shame Makes Us Run.’” He stepped toward her. “‘Fire Licks Fire.’”
“And you danced.” A frightened deer would’ve fled the clearing, but Misty stayed. She wasn’t prey. “On cloven hooves. In and out of the shadows.”
The rhythm of those ancient drums drove him to her. “The revelry fed us.”
He and Misty were close. She reached out and curled her fingers in his torn shirt. Just the glance of her fingernails across his flesh flared his need.
She licked her lips and spoke slowly. “Now I feed you.”
“Our fables say that destiny determined a Muse for each demon. But fate didn’t make you my Muse.
You
did.” His hands found her hips. “Fate just brought us together.”
With the night dark as wine around them, they kissed. He tasted her sweetness and her spice. She pressed into his chest. A woman, hard and soft. Whole.
Breaking the kiss, she stepped from his grip. The energy grew in her again and she moved through the clearing. “And you feed me.”
“You feel it. How it flows between us.”
Her pacing slowed, then stopped. “I see it, golden and red. But it started with your songs.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “When I was shaking with fear, coming to this town, I had your music. During my loneliest moments, when I felt like I was at the bottom of a dry well and everyone passed by at the top, not giving a shit, your songs were there. They fed me.”
“And I was writing songs to a woman with green eyes, who didn’t exist until you.”
“We’ve been dancing for years.”
He dragged his toe through the leaves in an arc, then brought his foot down as if to start a song. “Don’t stop now.”
The heat from her body reached him before she did. When they came together again, their hands roamed, seeking flesh within the fabric. The kiss was animal. Open and needy. And when the urge grew too high, he moved his mouth from hers and bit into her shoulder. He couldn’t tear her flesh and consume that, but her moan fueled him. Her fingernails along his back drove his hunger again.
Even in the Arctic, the heat from their bodies would be enough for them to live. She pulled his shirt off. Her top and bra joined it on the ground. Their flesh came back together like a lightning strike. He explored from the top of her ass, up the elegant curve of the muscle along her spine, then the back of her neck.
Her hands roamed too. Across his chest and shoulders, as if she was shaping him from the clay of his birth. Under her touch, he was alive for the first time.
She spoke. “You sang,
Find me
,
Green Eyes.
Find my lies.
In the darkness
,
no more alibis
. Is this what you had in mind?”
“‘She’s Incoming.’ Wrote that in a night blacker than this.”
Her nails dug into his shoulders. “I could feel it. A dark so thick it didn’t matter if your eyes were open or closed. But a body could be felt.” She rubbed her chest against his. “Pulling. Testing.” Her mouth was on his throat, her teeth nipped his skin. “It helped me through my own black nights. Just believing the possibility...”
“It’s real now.” He wound his hand in her hair and tipped her head to kiss along her collarbone.
“Make it come true.”
With their bodies gripped together, they moved to the deeper shadows of the clearing. Tree bark scraped against his skin. He turned Misty, leaning her against the tree. She didn’t flinch when her bare back touched the rough surface. Her little moan of pleasure inspired him.
He released her hair and ran his hands over her body. Sweat glided him along her breasts, her ribs and waist. She was so smooth and slick compared to the hard bark that knocked against his knuckles.
Touch needed taste. He leaned down and drew a circle around her nipple with his tongue. Salty sweat. Her moan grew louder. He bit gently at her nipple. She raked her hand through his hair.
He let his breath puff against her breast. “I have to taste more of you.”
She urged his head lower. Quickly unsnapping and unzipping her jeans, he dragged the fabric down her legs. It collected at her ankles. She started to kick out of her shoes, but he held her feet where they were.
“I can’t...” She wriggled her legs, but couldn’t separate them.
“Don’t...move.” He held her hips. “Just like that. Let me find you.”
Her body stilled, except for the small tremors that vibrated under his touch. She continued to grip his hair. Stretching her other arm out, she gripped a low tree branch. If the finest birch was carved and polished, it wouldn’t look as sleek as she did. If lightning struck the largest oak, it wouldn’t burn as bright.
He kissed along her belly. Her hip bone was too much temptation and he bit the flesh over it. She growled and stroked her fingers over his scalp. Moving his mouth lower, he paused at the delta of her legs.
The ache of hunger rolled through him. It would’ve been agony, if he wasn’t about to feast. He was born from nature. Alone. Returning to nature with Misty, he rediscovered the cool air, the soft earth. The heat of need.
The smell of her sex was spiced with cumin and sumac. Like the smoke of fires burning to appease the gods. He was no deity. And she was no sacrifice.
He leaned closer. His nose brushed against her lower belly. She leaned back against the tree, but pushed her hips forward to meet him. He explored with his hands as his face lowered further. The curve of her ass, the length of her thigh. Gripping her around the waist, he finally brought his mouth to her pussy.
She gasped. He was breathless. With her thighs held together, his only access was a tight cleft below her mons. His tongue slid through the front, quickly finding her pearl. It was hot, pulsing with blood. He licked along the bud, gathering her moisture and adding his own.
Her soft moans traveled through her body into his. She swiveled her hips, persuading him deeper along the narrow passage. He obliged, finding more heat and moisture. Curses and encouragements tumbled down over his shoulders like summer rain.
One point of pleasure. Before him was a single need. In and out, he drove his tongue over her clit. Her fingers gripped his hair tighter. With her thighs so tight together, the access so limited, the smallest movement was magnified a thousand times. He drew away slightly, resting just the tip of his tongue against the very edge of her bud. She moved to bring him against her, but he held her waist. Yet this wasn’t the woman he twisted with in the hotel room earlier that night. Misty’s strength had increased. Pushing forward again, she moved with the force of an earthquake.
She called out when his tongue rasped against her clit. And again. Again. Faster. She bucked forward. He slid his hands over her ass. Growls and sighs mixed, bourbon and honey. Sliding his finger between her thighs from behind, he found the hot wet of her folds. She fell completely silent as he moved his finger along her cleft while tonguing her clit.
The moment grew tighter. Held breath. Locked muscles. She was so goddamn wet. He wanted it all, every way he could take her. Her breath released when he slid his finger into her pussy. Still flicking his tongue against her bud, he collected her moisture. Harder, she rocked against him.
She was slick, all through her thighs. Heat drew him, like a moth’s final climax in the fire. Anything he’d felt with her wasn’t enough. He had to be deep inside her again. But not yet. Sliding his finger out of her pussy, he spread her moisture out further.
Clever woman, she slowed her gyrations and her breath for him. The smallest move of refusal, and he’d stop. But she didn’t refuse.