Chapter One

“One-night stand?” A flush blossomed over Melody Simmons cheeks. “You mean like…sex?”

Tucking her cell between jaw and shoulder, she carried on working, using precise, careful flicks of her brush to remove the encrusted dirt on the fragment of pot from the dig earlier. Small, methodical movements. Anything to keep her hands busy during the uncomfortable conversation with her older brother.

“Yes, Mel. I mean ‘as in sex.’ The horizontal tango. Doing the dirty. Knocking boots. Whatever name you want to call it.” Barr chuckled, amusement in his deep voice. “I’m not surprised that you can’t remember. It’s been what…two years since you last had a date?”

Just like her brother to mention that. Her guard went up as she sectioned her strokes and started on the last quarter of the pot. Fifth century, so not groundbreaking stuff, but combined with the rest, it would be more than enough to keep their backer happy even if they hadn’t found hard evidence of a werewolf element at the settlement. Yet another poor, deluded fool desperate to prove the existence of a werewolf clan in the area from which he could claim descent. Seemed these days everyone wanted wolf blood.

“Yeah, well. Plenty more fish in the sea,” she grumbled, keeping her voice noncommittal. A lump of dirt proved way too stubborn for its own good, and she schooled the motion of her brush, attacking it, trying not to think about the fact her brother had mentioned her and sex.

In the same sentence.

“To catch them though, love, you need to be in the sea with a bloody net. Not avoiding the water like you’ve just seen Jaws.”

Temptation got the better of her. She started to hum the theme tune from the film. “Duurrr…duh. Duurrr…duh…Durrr…duh… durduhdurduhdurduh.”

“Melody Jane Simmons! Will you be sensible for a moment?”

Uh-oh. My full name. That meant trouble.

“Sensible? You’re one to talk, Barrett.” She threw his hated full first name back at him. “You’ve not exactly been out there with your line in the water, have you?”

Silence from the other end of the line was her answer. Shit. She’d pushed it too far. A war veteran, Barr had come home from his tours injured, but in one piece. Not whole though. He’d left part of his soul out there on the sands where many of his squad had died…where his lover, Sax, had died…and brought back nightmares in its place. A medical discharge had forced him to leave the only job he knew, one he couldn’t do anymore. In the blink of an eye, Mel had gone from embarrassment at the obscene fortune and estate the siblings had inherited, to being thankful Barr had a comfortable place to recuperate, and no need to work when he had.

“I’m sorry. That was wrong of me. You date when you’re good and ready to.” She kept her voice low and gentle, wishing she were there to wrap him up in a big hug. “So tell me more about this one-night stand thing you’ve booked me.”

She held her breath and waited for something. Anything.

Finally, Barr sighed and spoke, his voice light. “Well, I thought at least one of us should break this drought we’ve got going on, so when a friend of mine mentioned this service…I checked it out and thought it sounded perfect. You should be getting a parcel delivered to you shortly. Me? I’d have had you kidnapped and taken to the hotel, but Madame Eve, the owner of the service, was most insistent that you have all the details and be totally comfortable with everything before you left.”

“I like her already.” Mel decided on the spot to make all the right noises of agreement to Barrett’s madcap scheme. With the training her brother had, he would be more than capable of carrying out his threat. “When does this parcel arrive?”

The PC behind her pinged, the chirpy ‘you’ve got mail’ sound invading the silence of the room, totally out of place with the centuries-old artefacts on the table next to it.

“I believe it just did. Madame Eve said with the late booking she would send everything over via email rather than snail mail. Read, do as you’re told, and enjoy,” he ordered, using his best ‘officer in command’ voice.

She smirked, stamping her foot and snapping a mock salute. “Yessir!”

“You always did salute like a sack of shit.” Barrett chuckled, the sound a welcome one and worth the fact that stamping a foot on hard concrete in ballet flats hurt like hell. “Read the email. And Mel?”

“Yes, bro?”

“Chance meetings. You never know.”

She held the phone to her ear long after Barrett cut the connection. Sadness for her brother washed over her. Chance meetings. Since they were kids, that’s what they’d always called the good things that happened to them. A chance meeting for their parents had led to a lifelong love that never left their children feeling left out. A chance meeting in a field with a lost archaeologist led to her finding her calling, digging up fields searching for evidence of lives long past.

Barrett had called Saxon his chance meeting, and had planned to ask her to marry him. Before…. Mel shook her head and set the phone on the counter without a sound before turning to the PC. She’d gotten the message.

Live. Enjoy life. Take a chance. Love, if only for a night.

Because the world often changed in a heartbeat.

***

“…and I wanna ride…that sttttooooooorrrrrmmm!”

Aaron belted the last line of the song, cradling the microphone and dragging the final note out to make it his bitch with the kind of lung-power human singers only dreamt of.

The music built and crashed to a close, the stage lights snapping off, leaving a single beam that highlighted him in bright white to rival the moon above. At the last moment, he spread his arms wide, threw his head back and turned the word into a howl. He let rip with his wolf side, arching his spine, his damp hair sliding off his shoulders.

The eerie sound echoed around the packed stadium, the note dying away to leave silence. For a perfect moment he stood, eyes closed, body slick with sweat, and savoured the silence. A packed silence. A loaded silence. Silence that rang with the energy he and the band had expended on stage. Rang with need and lust and sex and wildness; all the things the Lyric Hounds, the most famous werewolf band…shit, the most famous band ever…were known for.

The crowd erupted. Cheers, whistles and chants shattered the peace. The lighting snapped off and he sagged, drained, his time in the spotlight over. He straightened, ran a hand through his wet hair, then wiggled his ass, peeling the leather from his balls. Then curled his lip back. Yeah. Soaked through. Which meant the pants were going to be a bitch to get off.

Hounds! Hounds! Hounds! Hounds!

Turning, he made eye contact with the other band members, ensuring they were all okay. His twin K, Sav the drummer, and Tempest the bass player, all gave him a nod. Talking would be pointless with the noise from the crowd, so K cocked his eye in question, the band waiting for his decision on an encore.

Aaron shook his head. On a normal night he’d consider it, but it was the last night of the current leg of the tour. Which meant they had a week off. A week of rest and relaxation…which he intended to start off with a bit of ‘me’ time.

K flicked him the thumbs up, expressions of relief on all three faces before they put down their instruments. Above them the overhead lighting illuminated and the big screen flicked on, starting the gig wind down video for the fans clearing the stadium.

Aaron clipped his mike onto the stand and strode toward the wings. The warmth of the stage disappeared as he made his way to his dressing room. Stagehands and roadies, used to his mood after a gig, moved out of his way as quickly as possible. Like any other night, he didn’t talk, but he had far more on his mind than the usual.

It ground him down.

A new show each evening, in a new town. So many he’d lost track. Different hotel rooms night after night. Living out of a case like they had years ago when trying to make it. The only difference being hotels and cases were more expensive these days.

Money didn’t buy happiness, nor did fame.

Some days he only felt alive on the stage. Everything else just limbo as he waited to go on. Endless fans, all wanting something from him. Wanting him to sing, perform…like veracious little vampires draining his soul. Taking him apart a bite at a time. The women had been good at first. He could have his pick, a different girl each night. More if he wanted. And he had for a while, all the guys had.

Tempest…he didn’t go there.

His sister could take care of herself, a lesson the rest of them had learned the hard way. None of them dared argue with her about her personal life anymore. Not if they liked their heads, and their balls, where they were. The females of their kind were savage and unpredictable, and Temp? Totally true to form. A rare Alpha female, she’d need a strong wolf to take her on. A human would never survive…. Nearing his dressing room, Aaron smirked…. No guarantees a wolf’d survive that either.

By the time he pushed open the door, the sweat had dried on his skin. He strode through the room within, heading for the en suite, shedding his clothes on the way. He was done with faceless women. Done with fans. Done with the whole rock-n-roll lifestyle.

One reason why he’d contacted an old friend…poured his heart out—he wanted one night, just one night with a woman who didn’t recognise him on sight. One night to reassure himself that yeah, without the fame, the persona, he could still….

Fuck, he had no idea what he wanted. Thankfully, Madame Eve read him like a book, arranging his night, the heavy cream linen envelope tucked into his guitar case in the other room. Later that night he’d find out whether he was worth anything as a man, or whether the rock star had consumed everything worth having.

Stark, bollock nak*d, he snapped the shower on and stepped under the spray.

Then realised he had company.

“We are so sorry, Mr. Rixx. I don’t know how she got in. We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Aaron nodded at the stadium manager and tried not to grit his teeth. The guy’s sweat filled the air with the acrid stink of his nervousness. Aaron had been accosted in his own damn shower by a crazed fan intent on, as she put it, “having his little wolfy babies.” Nervous? He should be f**king terrified. A lawsuit for the personal endangerment of a Lyric Hound wouldn’t take a location like that out of business; it would blow it out of the water and into next year, next decade…so far in fact, the guy’s grandkids would be feeling the ripples until adulthood.

A bead of sweat detached itself from the manager’s brow and rolled down the side of his face. He reached up to swipe it away, the movement sending another scent Aaron’s way. Baby powder and milk. Fucking hell. He had kids, young ones by the smell. Aaron might have a rep as a complete bastard, but he wasn’t enough of one to threaten the man with his job.

“Okay, do that. And make sure she gets some medical treatment? I’ll authorise the payment. She’s wolf-struck for sure, which means she’ll be a pain in the ass for any brother she comes across.”

He sighed. How did he get into f**ked-up situations like that? The wolf-struck were a nightmare to deal with. No one knew why, but some humans’ fascination with Lycanthropes tipped over into obsession. A dangerous obsession which needed medical attention.