She made it to the hospital just in time. I still can’t believe how close she cut it. One minute I was throwing bras and toiletries at her, the next she was on a plane, and somehow, less than thirty minutes after getting to the hospital, she was holding a whole new life in her arms. I’m so happy for her I could scream.
And selfishly, I already miss her like hell.
I keep catching myself looking over my shoulder, waiting for her to do one of her signature throat clears or give me the “wrap it up” finger when I start running behind. But she’s not here, and she won’t be for a while. She deserves every second with her family, but that doesn’t mean it won’t sting without her standing guard backstage tonight.
But Jamie being gone isn’t the only thing rattling me.
There’s a storm raging inside me, and it has nothing to do with the tens of thousands of screaming fans waiting for us to go on stage.
I can’t shakehim.
The big, brooding bastard I gave my heart to, only for him to throw it back in my face. In the beginning, we both thought our relationship was only physical, but over time, it felt like things were changing. I thought maybe we could work things out,between his job and mine. We were opening up to each other in a way I’ve never experienced with another person.
I clench my fists, nails biting into my palms, and I try to anchor myself to this moment. I listen to the hum of the crowd, the feeling of the cold of the mic I’ll soon have in my hand, the flicker of stage lights through the doorway, but the past keeps bleeding in, color and sound and hurt.
He didn’t even give me a choice. He decided for us and told me I was better off without him. As if I hadn’t already made up my mind the moment I saw him lying in that hospital bed, pale and in pain.
I had been ready to stay as long as I could. I would have fought for him. We had made the decision to turn our fling into a relationship and I was ready to tell him about Ara, I even thought about taking him on the road with me. I would have rearranged things to fit him in my life while on tour. I would have found ways to make him comfortable, to sit with him through the long, boring hours, to call nurses and coordinate care between cities. I would have been there in the ways I could be without collapsing everything.
But I could not quit the tour. I could not put forty cities with sold-out stadiums on hold. That was the line I could not cross, not because I wanted to choose the stage over him, but because the life I had built in Umbra was also the thing that kept other people fed and dreams moving. He shut me out without listening to what I had to say. He locked the door and threw away the key. He had me blacklisted from the hospital and later from the rehab facility.
The woman staring back at me from the mirror doesn’t look like someone about to walk out in front of almost seventy thousand people. She looks raw, like her heart was just bruised and she barely had time to stitch it together.
Celeste Smith. Blonde. Beautiful. A little ditzy when it suits her. Once people see my smile, the preppy matching outfit sets, and easy laugh, they stop looking there, not even bothering to see what’s underneath.
But Celeste doesn’t go on stage.
Ara does.
And Ara feels nothing.
I grab the paint stick and drag it across my collarbone, streaking it down my arms in long, deliberate strokes. Slowly painting Celeste away, watching her disappear with every swipe of the stick, with every pat of the black setting powder.
The woman who loved too much. The woman who would’ve given everything for a man who decided she wasn’t worth fighting for.
I smear the paint across my hands, up my wrists, erasing the softness, the vulnerability.Hewouldn’t recognize me. He had just started to get to know the real me. Would he have let me stay if I had been more honest with him?
The thought tears at something deep in my chest. I shove it away almost as quickly as it appears.
Across the room, Korbyn—Shadenow—lounges on the green chaise like a cat in combat boots, drumming a stick against her thigh. Her copper hair glows against her dark stage outfit, braids swinging when she tilts her head toward me. “You’re quiet tonight,” she says, her tone easy but her gaze razor-sharp.
She’s always the first to catch a crack.
Shiloh—Dusk—leans her new electric bass against her knee and snorts. “Quiet? You meanmoody. She’s brooding.” Her voice softens the words, teasing but warm. “It’s the Ursa thing again.”
Shade grins, wicked and knowing. “Definitely a Ursa thing.”
Their eyes cut toward our guitarist, Linkin—Twilight—who sits cross-legged on the floor, tuning his instrument like it’s ameditation. “Obviously,” he chimes in, his voice dry. The single word carries more amusement than judgment.
I roll my eyes and drag the paint along my jaw, up my cheekbones, turning myself to stone. “I’m not thinking about him.”
“Liar,” Shade sing-songs. “It’s opening night of our sold-out world tour, and you’re brooding. That’s a Ursa problem.”
Ursa.
The secret relationship I had with my brother’s best friend, Special Agent Lucian Sterling.
With the band hiding our identity from the press and our fans, we always take special care to never use anyone’s actual name. When Lucian and I first started sneaking around, they noticed a change in me and wore me down until I confessed. After I showed them a picture of him, they declared then and there he’d be Ursa, whether he became a big or small part of my life; the name worked. He is a bear of a man—one you didn’t dare poke unless you were prepared to deal with the consequences.
