Page 45 of Poet & Protector

“It will be okay,” I promised.

On stage, Nev looked at the other musicians, signaling he was about to start the next song.

It began with him playing the twelve-string with no other accompaniment. A complicated melody poured out of the instrument, Nev’s fingers flying along the guitar neck.

“Wow,” Ansel murmured.

Caleb’s bass joined the guitar. Tom started on the drum kit a moment later.

Then Nev began to sing.

My body became a live wire.

This was a mistake. This was a huge mistake.

Not bringing my alpha’s baby brother to a bar full of bikers. Not the unexpected presence of the Banes. Those were negligible missteps compared to the mess I’d just stomped into.

I should never, ever have let myself hear Nev’s voice.

He sang in a deep resonant tone with a touch of gravel, like he couldn’t keep his wolf from occasionally growling beneath his words. His low voice carried over the guitar, bass, and drums, filling the room. Sometimes the notes rose and Nev shifted effortlessly into a haunting falsetto; the contrast between depth and lightness he’d mastered was astonishing. And devastating. My skin hummed as if he’d cast a spell I had no means to resist.

This was a disaster.

A second voice layered a harmony over Nev’s melody. Sabine.

“Her voice is beautiful,” Ansel said with quiet awe. “She’s so scary in normal life. How can she sing like that?”

Sabine’s lyric soprano had a hint of smoke beneath. Ansel was right, she sang beautifully.

But all I could think about was Nev and the tangle of emotions I was trapped by. Shock, admiration, disbelief, longing, and more all knotted in my chest.

This was Nev? This entrancing, addictive voice? That serene expression on his face as he sang and played?

First the Whitman poem we both loved. Now music.

I felt like I’d fallen off a cliff and was plummeting into an abyss of confusion and desire. I couldn’t blame anyone but myself. I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t be doing anything that set me up for a heartbreak I never wanted in the first place.

And that’s what it felt like. As much as I wished I could deny it, I couldn’t ignore the way Nev provoked a primal reaction deep within me. I wanted him.

My throat was suddenly dry as a desert. I felt like I’d choke on the next breath.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Ansel, my voice cracking.

Ansel’s gaze remained fixed on the stage, but he said, “If you’re going to the bar, can you get me a Coke?”

“Sure,” I croaked.

I skirted my way along the back end of the room, taking a circuitous route to the bar. The long wooden counter was pitted and stained and, as I discovered by making the mistake of resting my hands on the surface, sticky.

I could still hear the music, and Nev’s accursed voice, but I could breathe a little easier with the low buzz of conversation and clink of glasses to distract me.

The bartender approached. “Get you something?”

He was someone I had seen in the Bunker. His quick smile and brief nod calmed me further.

“Two Cokes.”

“Coming right up.”