“Zane…” Freddie tries, appearing out of nowhere with Clipboard Carl hovering one step behind him.
Zane doesn’t hear him. Or he does and doesn’t give a single damn.
His hands slap the space on either side of my head, caging me against a stack of equipment crates, sweat-slicked, adrenaline-pumped, tattooed perfect with his half-naked body braced over mine.
His voice is pure gravel and a pain I can’t decipher as he stares down at me. “What. The fuck… Did you just do?”
My lips part. “I… what are you talking about?”
His jaw flexes like he’s holding back an earthquake. “That…noise,” he rumbles, eyes devouring me. He yanks my palms to his body, plants them on his pecs. “Do it again.”
My pulse misfires. What on gremlin’s green planet is happening? “Zane?—”
“Do it again.”
I swallow. And I hum. Barely.
His eyes flutter shut and a shudder rolls through him, real, visceral, bone-deep.
Like I just flipped a hidden switch he’s been searching for his whole life.
He opens his eyes and they’re wild.Wilder. Silver and little broken, like intercepted lightning.
It’s mesmerizing. And a lot dangerous, rushing over me as if he wants to look everywhere but doesn’t know where to start. “You’re never leaving me,” he whispers.
It’s not a threat. Not that part.
“And Ruby? I hear you humming for another guy, I’ll fucking kill you both. You hear me?”
There it is. A simple, raw, homicidal truth.
A soul-deep vow and a promise forged in whatever hell he was born from.
He breathes out, resolute, even though I don’t answer. And I suddenly…terrifyingly understand.
He means it to the marrow. To the grave and the stage lights and beyond.
And God help me…
A small, reckless part of me?
The one that hums from his unhinged words and declarations. The one his body responds to like a tuning fork?
That part wants to believe him.
Zane
I don’t hearthe director shouting. I don’t hear the crackling headsets or the clatter of equipment or the guy swearing because I broke his mic again.
I hear the sound.
Thehum.
It’s soft. So fucking soft. A brush of a butterfly’s wing on my fevered rage. Barely-there. Off-key. But it slices through the chaos like a spotlight cutting through darkness.
Every muscle in my body goes rigid.
It’s her.
