Phoenixcry: A Reverse Harem Romance (The Rogue Witch Book 1) Page 17

  “Ace,” Eli growled. Ace threw up his hands.

  “Okay, okay, geez, sorry. It was a rattlesnake. Uh, I’m sorry.” He glanced at me again, and bit his lip. “Really sorry. She gonna be okay?”

  I rested against Cash’s chest, trying to slow my breathing to help with the pain.

  “She’s gonna be fine,” I said, my voice doing funny things, drawing out real slow.

  “Sweetheart?” Cash’s voice broke through the lines criss-crossing my vision.

  “I’m fine,” I said, or I’m pretty sure I said. I blacked out after that, so I don’t really know.

  “Miss Llewellyn. Miss Llewellyn. Darcy!” The dark parted and Eli was looming over me, his crystal-blue eyes narrowed, two fingers on the pulse in my neck. His skin was rough, working-rough, probably from playing guitar and loading equipment in and out of venues all the time. I shuddered in response to his touch and closed my eyes again.

  “I wanna sleep,” I said, because sleep sounded like the absolute best thing in the world right then. Better than ice-cream. Better than sleeping in and bacon in bed and chicken n’ waffles. Better than I thought Finn would be when we both finally gave up keeping away from each other. I bit my lip just thinking about it, his heavy heat covering me as he pressed me down, down, down

  Eli snapped his fingers and my eyes popped open from where they’d flagged shut.

  “Stay with me,” he said. “You’ll be fine, you just need a few minutes, and you’re definitely not going to sleep.” Beyond him, Cash and Finn hovered. I could hear Charlie talking to Ace, but their words were blurry and I didn’t care about them right then.

  “How do you know?” I asked, my words belligerent and sloppy. Sleep sounded so amazing. “You a doctor or something?” Eli’s face split into a brief, shadowed grin.

  “More like I have practical experience.”

  “He patched more than a few guys up in the field,” Cash offered.

  “Oh no, you guys are not doing that old war-dogs story-time shit,” Charlie called. “Just cause some of us never were possessed with a sense of self-sacrifice to serve our country doesn’t mean you can rub it in that you were.”

  Finn and Eli exchanged twin smirks, and I had a feeling, sleepy and swimmy as my mind was, that this was some sort of bone of contention and if not right then, sometime soon, Charlie was going to get his ass hard-core trolled.

  “You’re so serious,” I said to Eli, reaching up to pet his face. “‘Cept when you and Finn decide pranks are a good idea.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eli said solemnly, but he took my petting and didn’t avoid my hand on his cheek when Finn snickered.

  “She’s on to you, brother,” Finn taunted.

  “Alright, she’s fine, just can’t sleep. Ace, no more freaking out over rattlesnakes,” Eli ordered.

  “Aw, but, I didn’t mean to.”

  “It’s okay Ace, “ I reassured him as I rolled over on my side to be able to see him properly. His eyebrows looked like they were permanently fused together in an expression of worry. He got down on his knees.

  “I feel like an ass.”

  “You kinda are but you’re our ass. Help me up?”

  Ace gave me his hand and Eli slid his arm under my back, helping me to sit up.

  “How big’s the cut?” I asked, reaching for the side of my face. Eli tapped my hand gently.

  “No,” he scolded me, sounding completely mother-hen and not at all like his normal scowly, rumbling self. “It’s just a small cut, but head-wounds bleed a lot. You’ll be fine, just take it easy.”

  “I’m gonna take on manager duties tonight,” Charlie said. The guys moved back to their seats, Finn helping me into mine.

  “I can do up my own seatbelt,” I told him as he tried to do it for me, and he gave me such a look that I let him, rolling my eyes. The throbbing in my head was still there, and I wanted drugs. “I can do tonight, Charlie, you don’t have to. Does that first aid kit have any painkillers?”

  A bottle of water and two pills appeared as if by werewolf magic, and I swallowed them down. I closed my eyes.

  “Don’t sleep,” Finn muttered to me.

  “Not sleeping, just hurts to keep my eyes open,” I said softly. A weird feeling of homesickness enveloped me. My mom may never have been the greatest when it came to comforting her one daughter who should’ve been a boy and couldn’t even cast a basic magic spell, but the times I got sick she was always there with a cool cloth for my forehead and a story. My throat got tight and my eyes damp. I kept them shut, not wanting to let any tears leak out. Finn nuzzled the top of my head, and a soft, subtle rumbling sound started up. I froze and looked up at him, the light hurting my eyes. “Is that you?” I asked. A flush of color rose in his cheeks and the rumbling stopped.

  “Yeah,” he said, glancing away.

  “Is that a thing? Like, do werewolves, are you purring? Like a cat?”

  He scowled.

  “It’s not like a cat.”

  “It’s like a cat,” Charlie called back to us, breaking the unwritten rule of the rest of the van pretending like they couldn’t hear us talking/making-out/whatever in the back. I covered my mouth with one hand as a laugh burst out of me.

  “You guys are like big cats.”

  “We are not like big cats,” Finn glared and pulled back.

  “No, come back,” I said, tugging on his arm. He gave in without a thought, wrapping around me, and I settled against his chest with a sigh. “It was nice.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, and relaxed under me. After a few moments, the soft, deep rumbling purr in his chest started again. It was soothing, like a big cat, but better, because he was warm and also crazy sexy, and a good kisser. He chuckled.

  “Did I just say that out loud?”

  “I’m a good kisser, huh?”

  “No kissing her until she’s more awake, interim-manager’s orders,” Charlie interrupted again. Finn grunted and grabbed his water bottle, chucking it across the van and pelting Charlie right on the back of the head. Charlie snarled for a moment, but when he caught my eye, he softened. Whatever he saw, me curled against Finn, defused the situation immediately. Finn’s hand stroked up and down my back. I sighed. Tonight was going to be interesting, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about being benched.

  Twenty

  I was back to normal, mostly, when we pulled up in front of a low, purple-painted club. It was smaller than the last few venues we’d played at, but the guys piled out without remarking on it. I hadn’t spent much time, if at all with Glory Revolution, but Jake was prone to fits of temper if a venue didn’t live up to his standards. My guys? They were just happy to be on the road and playing. The pure joy of performing for an audience radiated out of them even when we were tired and had no clean socks. Obviously they’d seen worse than crappy dressing rooms with toilets that rocked off their bolts when you sat on them, and green room food that was basically a bag of chips and a bottle of water each.

  And the guys? They ate a lot. More than the per diems would cover. I put it down to their preternatural appetites to their supernatural natures, and started stinting myself a little to pad the communal food budget, since the guys would buy groceries together and share. That was the other thing that was making me fall more for them, putting me dangerously close to that family thing that Willa had mentioned.

  Phoenixcry stuck together. Sure, they fought, snarling at each other, and there’d been more than one night that devolved into fisticuffs (Finn wanted to go after Jake for wolf-whistling at me, Eli had warned him to leave it alone in one instance) but they took care of each other. Nobody went without, if there wasn’t enough then Eli and Finn cut back, then Cash after them. The youngest got priority, and they never ate anything I had bought no matter how hungry they were. It was enough to melt my heart, a part of me I’d thought was long-frozen.

  “You lost in your thoughts again?” Finn asked me as he helped me down from the tour van. The bus that Jake shared wit
h Glory Revolution was parked right next to us. There wasn’t enough room in the lot for more space, even though the guys usually preferred to stay away from Jake and his buddies. He was a dick, and his band wasn’t any better. Glory Revolution were okay as far as I could tell. “Thinking about how hot I am?”

  “You wish,” I teased Finn and he grabbed at his chest, faking a broken heart. He really was a big goofball, like Ace, but flirtier and less panicked by rattlesnakes.

  “Gunner.”

  Finn stiffened at the sound of Jake’s familiar drawl. Jake came around the side of the van and saw me there and stopped short. His gaze went right to the bandage that was half-hidden by the fall of my hair.

  “You get hurt?” Jake asked.

  “Just a bump,” I brushed it off. It wasn’t any of his business anyway. “You guys all loaded in?” Jake ignored me though. He turned to Finn.

  “She hit her head,” Finn said before Jake could open his mouth. “She asked you a question.”

  “You know why I brought you on this tour, Gunner? You and your moody bastard of a twin brother?” Jake’s snapped each word, and he squared his shoulders as if he was honestly thinking he might equal up to Finn. Jake wasn’t a slouch in the muscles department, but Finn was stacked, pound on pound of hard, well-earned muscle. I knew. I watched him do pull-ups every chance he got in playgrounds when we stopped for a breather. Jake didn’t have a chance.

  Given the way he was eyeing up Finn, he didn’t really care. I stepped in close to Finn, my hand brushing the back of his lightly to remind him how badly we needed to be on this tour, to stay safe, to grow the band, to be together.

  My heart skipped a beat in my chest. We were an ‘us’, even if we’d never said it out loud.

  Finn grabbed my hand and squeezed it and I relaxed. He had this handled. I trusted him. He’d never endanger the pack. We were safe.

  Eli came out from behind the van, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned up against the side of the hood.

  “Is there a problem, Tupper?” he drawled, scraping the heel of his boot over the ground. Jake’s eyes flicked from Finn to Eli, then back to me.

  “What’s going on? Why aren’t we loading in?” Cash sounded annoyed as he emerged from inside the trailer, one drum balanced on his shoulder.

  “Jake was just checking to see if we need any help loading in,” I said sweetly, lifting my head to meet Jake’s gaze. His eyes broke from mine and looked at where my fingers entwined with Finn’s.

  “This shit is heavy,” Cash said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “I think we’re good here, aren’t we Eli?” Finn asked, his voice soft and dangerous.

  “Looks good to me,” Eli replied, his tone more relaxed. “Looks damn good.”

  Jake made a noise of frustration in the back of his throat, glared at me, and spun on his heel to stalk off, taking his bad attitude and his artfully ripped, expensive, jeans with him.

  “Asshole,” Finn murmured as he pulled me into him. I went without protest, curling into the cage of his arms as his fingers ran up and down my hands and wrists, as if to warm his skin.

  “Yeah, well, he’s the only reason we’re on this tour,” I said. Eli scoffed.

  “There’s not a lick of truth in that.” He pointed at me. “You’re the only reason we’re on this tour.”

  “Cause he wants in my pants?” I asked. Finn grumbled, and held me tighter. Eli’s expression softened.

  “Because you said yes when we asked. We’d be nowhere, if not for you.”

  I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face.

  “Aww, Eli, are you softening up on me?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Let’s load-in, slackasses,” Eli called as he rounded the back of the van. “Especially you, Cash.”

  “Hey, what? I’ve been? Oh fuck no,” Cash said, but before he could set his drum case down and go after Eli, I whistled, sharp. His head jerked up and he looked at me.

  “Load in,” I repeated Eli’s words, but with a slight touch of thunder. My head was pounding, and that somehow made it easier to call on the echoing power that was hidden away, inside of me somewhere. Cash’s eyes went wide and he shivered in response, before nodding

  “Yes ma’am,” he said.

  “That’s my little manager.” Finn tousled my hair. I swatted at his hand; he was going to mess up the carefully plaited braid I’d done up that morning since my curls had decided to turn wild and unmanageable.

  “You guys aren’t weird about me doing that?” I asked, “Like I feel guilty. I shouldn’t be ordering you around.”

  Finn sighed and shrugged before he picked up a box of gear and started walking. I followed with my backpack that held all our paperwork.

  “If he really didn’t want to listen, he wouldn’t. Cash likes you, too much, probably, for his own good.”

  “I think I’m insulted.”

  Finn laughed and shook his head.

  “I think maybe, some of us, like Cash, enjoy being bossed around a little,” Finn admitted after being quiet for a few moments. A little thrill of heat raced down my back.

  “Oh really? And what about you?”

  Finn shot me a look out of the corner of his eye.

  “Well, sweetheart, if you have to know, you wanna boss me around, you go ahead. But don’t forget that the tables are gonna turn eventually, and when they do, I’ve got nothing against making you beg for mercy.”

  I had to remember to breathe. He nudged me with his arm.

  “C’mon, now who’s holding up load-in?” he asked.

  Twenty-One

  The merch booth was in a cramped corner of the room that night and there was only space for me behind it. I couldn’t be backstage, waiting for my guys to pile off, sweaty and excited after their time on stage. The fog machine kept misting through the air, curling and swirling from an AC that was on high as the venue was prepped for three hundred kids that were about to enter it. Ginny, the merch girl for Glory Revolution was arranging the t-shirt display. A new shipment had come in earlier that day for all of us. The guys had a fresh, heathered lilac shirt that was so soft under my fingers, the band name emblazoned on it in a weathered gray. I planned on stealing one later to wear to sleep. I hadn’t packed enough clothes for the tour, even with our frequent laundry stops.

  “Your guys soundcheck okay?” Ginny asked as she flipped open her cash box and started counting through her float. We had a little more time for this show, and I was relieved. Doors were pushed back because the local nightlife laws were more lax in the area.

  “They keep just getting line checks, and it’s killing me. They’re rocking it anyway, but...”

  Ginny nodded.

  “I feel you, I feel you so bad, girl. They’re so good though. The nights you’re not at the booth, like, when they’re on stage? Oh my god, the girls are going nuts over them. They outsold Jake last night, but don’t tell him that.”

  Shara, the other merch girl working Jake’s stuff leaned over Ginny’s shoulder.

  “Do not tell him,” she hissed. “He keeps asking if you guys are doing shit or what, and I’ve been telling him yes. He’s got an ego the size of a planet.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. Jake’s attention on me, and his ego problem, were definitely causing me a few sleepless nights. The rest of my difficulty sleeping had to do with the fact I was sharing a van with five impossibly attractive, deadly sweet guys.

  “How are you handling it in that tiny van with all that dick?” Shara asked as she pulled out a cardboard box of t-shirts and began sorting them by size. “I would have murdered at least half of them by now.”

  “Oh, they’re really great actually. It’s like the nicest road trip I’ve ever been on,” I said despite the fact I’d never been on a road trip before. Witches spent most of their time spell casting, talking about spell casting, surveying the human world from their fancy chateaus and oversized mansions, and engaging in back-stabbi
ng politics. They didn’t do road trips. I bent down to give Shara a hand since my display was finished. Ginny shot me a smirk.

  “I don’t know how you keep your hands off of them, like, holy shit, the Gunner twins? So hot. I wouldn’t mind a twin-sandwich with them,” she said.

  “You’re such a slut, but I love you,” Shara laughed and rolled her eyes.

  “Doors!” called one of the security crew. We shoved away the last of the merch and stood as the crowds were let in. There was a high-pitched shriek, and a group of girls ran to the front of the stage, where the barrier was belly-high and they could hang onto it in case a real mosh pit broke out.

  “They always do that, I swear. It’s getting old,” Ginny said as she took a long sip from her water bottle.

  “More like you’re getting old.” Shara elbowed her in the side and held out her hand. “Pass that here.”

  “You thirsty?” I asked. “I’ve got a cooler under my table with extra water bottles.” Shara and Ginny exchanged a long meaningful look.

  “Ours isn’t—it’s y’know,” Shara paused and searched for her words.

  “Fire-water. You want some? Makes the night go a hell of a lot faster.” Ginny held out the bottle.

  “Oh no, I’m good.” I shook my head. Ginny narrowed her eyes at me but I didn’t have to explain further when a pair of girls came up to the merch table, holding tight to their wallets. The guys weren’t getting paid much per show, being an opening act meant we got the dregs of what was left over, but the merch sales were 100% ours.

  “Hey guys, see anything you like?” I put on my best smile to greet them.

  “Are you Darcy?” one of them asked, as her other friend giggled.

  “Um, yeah, I am. Can I help you find something? We just got in these—”

  “Like, Darcy-Darcy, as in Darcy who tours with Phoenixcry?” the first girl asked, eyeing me up and down.

  “Yeah, that’s me.” I looked over at Ginny who’s carefully groomed eyebrows were making graceful arches up her forehead.

  “Okay,” the girl said before looking at her friend and snickering. She turned back to me. “You’re a slut!” she yelled, and ran off, dragging her friend. They disappeared into the thickening crowd, as I stood there, jaw dropped.