Forbidden Witches (Tarot Witches Book 2) Read online

  But I wasn’t embarrassed by Road Crew’s lengthy examination.

  No, the sensations I was experiencing were a lot more…carnal.

  His eyes felt like hands as they roved over my body, focusing mostly on the mounds of cleavage offered up to him by the corset. Heat rushed over my skin. Goosebumps crawled down the back of my neck.

  Then I looked down and realized he wasn’t looking at my cleavage, exactly, but something that had wormed its way free of my cleavage: The Hierophant tarot card, which I had stuffed down the corset for safekeeping.

  Now my cheeks started burning.

  Of course this muscular, mohawked god hadn’t been checking me out. With all these half-naked skinny girls around, who would care about the fat girl in a corset?

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “Um…” I fumbled for the card, pulled it out of my cleavage, and lifted it with a trembling hand so that he could see. “I got this in the mail last week, and…”

  “It’s her ticket.” Chad gave Road Crew a sultry smile, batting his glittery eyelashes. That was the kind of smile that guaranteed we would know if Road Crew was gay in about two seconds flat.

  Tragically for Chad, Road Crew seemed to be straight. Tall, dark, and hunky never stopped looking at the tarot card.

  “The Hierophant,” he muttered.

  I don’t know why, but the way he said that made me even more embarrassed. Like he was insulting me.

  His gaze sliced from the card to my face. He studied me closely.

  “I thought it was a ticket,” I said meekly. “I’m sorry, I was assuming, and—I don’t know. I can leave.”

  Road Crew grabbed the chain, pulled it off the pole, and stepped aside, leaving a big gap for me to step out of line.

  He was clearly telling me to leave. My eyes burned. I hung my head and sidled toward Road Crew, trying to edge past the pole so that I wouldn’t have to get any closer to him than possible.

  “Hey!” Chad protested.

  As soon as he closed the line again, Road Crew’s hand clamped down on my wrist. His skin burned like a brand against mine.

  “No,” I gasped as he pulled my hand toward his face, taking a closer look at the card.

  I didn’t take a single breath while he examined the image of The Hierophant, the text at the bottom, the abstractions on the back.

  Then he pressed his nose to the inside of my wrist. The stubble on his upper lip scraped along my tender skin, and he inhaled.

  Was he smelling me?

  Road Crew exhaled a hot breath down my delicate forearm and then inhaled again, even deeper, as if he couldn’t get enough of the scent.

  Oh yeah. He was smelling me.

  Before I could think of how I should react to that, Road Crew lowered my arm. “This is a VIP ticket.” His voice was suddenly huskier than it had been before. “We have a special seat for you. And you get to meet the band.”

  “M-meet the band?” I stuttered. “But—”

  Chad’s jaw dropped. “Oh. My. God. You lucky bitch!”

  Road Crew was already dragging me away from the line—away from the crowd, away from my friend. He pushed me toward the staff door instead.

  “But I wanted to see the show with Chad,” I said weakly.

  Road Crew didn’t listen to me.

  He shoved me through the staff door, and the real world vanished behind me.

  The darkness swam past me. In the half-light, I glimpsed men at work, their muscles rippling as they lifted amps and guitar cases onto the back of the stage.

  A man with jaw-length hair turned to watch me pass. I only glimpsed him for an instant: a tall, muscled god wearing hip-hugging leather pants and a loose black shirt.

  He looked at me like he recognized me.

  I had no idea who he was, but I felt like I should have known him too.

  Then Road Crew was marching me up a set of stairs to a balcony overlooking the entire stadium. We were literally right on top of the stage. I could see the final preparations for the concert below, including a huge drum kit that looked like it should require a dozen drummers to play.

  Beyond the edge of the stage, the floor was already full, and the seats around the edges were filling too. Knowing that the concert was sold out and seeing what a sold-out stadium looked like were two totally different things.

  Somewhere among them, my friend Chad was about to enjoy a normal concert experience seeing one of his favorite bands. He’d probably have a lot of fun. Have a few drinks, get all sweaty from dancing, take someone home—he always managed to take someone home. The kind of guys that he could attract were embarrassingly hot. Underwear models and stuff.

  Chad would have loved the VIP booth, but I was the one Road Crew shoved out onto the platform.

  Other VIP fans were already gathered for the concert. These people wore the most outrageous costumes of all those I had seen. They sprawled across two huge velvet couches in leather and lace, platform boots, buckles, fishnets.

  A low table held multiple bottles of alcohol—way more alcohol than a dozen people should have been able to drink in a month.

  A dozen people, plus me. Out of thousands who were going to see a concert.

  Talk about VIP.

  “Hey, baby,” purred a girl sitting on the arm of one of the couches. Was she talking to Road Crew, or to me? I couldn’t tell. Her white-streaked pigtails dangled with beads and bells that jingled as she shifted.

  Road Crew surveyed the gathered fans with eyes as cold as his hand was hot. His gaze didn’t linger on Jingle Bells for very long, and it made me feel good to see he wasn’t interested in her.

  “This girl will be with you tonight.” He all but tossed me onto the velvet couch between two of the women. I sprawled between them, off-balance in Chad’s epic boots. “Take care of her.”

  The girl with the beaded pigtails grabbed me like I was a welcome addition to the party. “Oh, we’ll take care of her, all right. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m not,” Road Crew said.

  He shot a final, lingering glare at my exposed legs, then stomped back down the stairs.

  One of the remaining guys rolled his eyes. “Such a fucking ray of sunshine.” My nose wrinkled at the swear word, but he didn’t notice. He offered a hand with black fingernails to me. “Pleasure to meet you, New Girl. I’m Storm.”

  I was tempted to ask for his real name. I highly doubted that his mother would have named him Storm, after all. But I resisted the urge and shook his hand awkwardly.

  “Leah,” I said.

  Giggles spread through the fans. Why? Because I had the audacity to have a name that a sane person might put on a job application? Or because I’d actually shaken his hand?

  Ten seconds alone at a concert and I’d already humiliated myself.

  “I’m Ravyn, and I’ll be your host for the duration of the concert.” That came from the girl with the crazy pigtails. She poured a tall glass of alcohol, mixing it with something violently red. “How did you get hooked up with us?”

  “I got a special ticket.” My cheeks were burning under the scrutiny of the fans. I couldn’t tell if Chad’s game of dress-up met their approval or not.

  “Won it on the radio? Gift from a friend?” asked another guy. His shirt had freaking ruffles all down the front, like he was nineteenth-century nobility. That is, assuming that nineteenth-century nobility had really been into BDSM, because he was also wearing assless chaps. “I have never met someone whose ticket allowed them to party with us, you see. Nobody’s that important.”

  Then why in the world was I lucky enough to be stuck with the Year-Round Halloween Club?

  “It just showed up in the mail. To be honest, I’ve never heard any music by The Forbidden before.” At their stunned looks, I quickly added, “I’m sure it’s awesome. I like all kinds of music.”

  “So you haven’t heard about the after parties.” Ravyn’s eyes sparked with wicked mischief.

  “After parties?”

&nb
sp; She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The band doesn’t just sing about black magic and sacrifices. They really are witches. They cast spells that feed off the energy of the audience, and they can do anything with all that power.” The corner of Ravyn’s mouth lifted. I had a feeling that she was teasing me. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “You mean like Wiccans,” I said. “I’ve heard of Wiccans.”

  Ravyn pushed her fingers through my hair, combing it out of my face. “Oh, honey.”

  “She’s the cutest,” Storm said.

  Cute? Cute?

  After all those hours being squeezed into a corset, I hoped that I was slightly more than cute.

  “If they’re not Wiccans, then what?” I demanded.

  “Witches. Just witches,” Ravyn said.

  I snorted despite myself. “I think you guys are taking a marketing line too seriously. The magic…thing…is a part of the band’s mystique, that’s all. Sending out random tickets to people. The costumes. Everything.” I shrugged. “It’s okay to be fans, but you can’t take that so seriously.”

  Ravyn turned to the others. “She thinks we’re fans!”

  They laughed all together like a family sharing a private joke. It was a warm, welcoming laugh—or at least, it would have been warm and welcoming if I’d been included, rather than the target.

  “Have a drink.” Storm pushed a goblet into my hands. The handle looked like silver claws gripping a glass bulb, and the fluid inside was slightly warmer than my body temperature.

  I smelled it. I’d had wine before, but the odor of this alcohol was much sharper.

  “Oh, no thanks,” I said. “I appreciate it, but—”

  “You’ve never been drunk before, have you?” Ravyn asked, toying with the hip of my skirt, lifting it enough that she could slip her fingertips along my exposed flesh. Goosebumps followed the place her fingers trailed. “Oh, darling. We can get you water. It’s okay.”

  For some reason, her sympathy was so much worse than the accusation that I’d never drunk alcohol before, which I totally had. I’d had a drink once with a boyfriend when we found my dad’s boxed wine.

  “No, I drink all the time,” I lied.

  Then I threw it back all at once, turning the glass almost upside-down so that it drained into my mouth.

  Bad idea.

  The alcohol burned all the way into the pit of my stomach. I coughed and spluttered. Almost half of it ended up back in the glass.

  Ravyn laughed as she patted me on the back. “I think we’re going to like you, Kitten, and I think you’re going to grow to like us. I think you’re going to find our company very educational.”

  By the way she said that, it kind of sounded like she expected me to spend a lot more than a single concert with them.

  What I’d managed to swallow of the drink was quickly scorching a path to my extremities. I felt it in the tips of my fingers, all the way down to my toes. The smiling faces of the people around me seemed to blur, their dark eyes hungry.

  The stadium seats were completely full now. The lights began to dim. The audience seethed with glow sticks and cell phone screens.

  “Here, you need a better view.” Storm yanked me into his lap right on the edge of the velvet sofa. He was a thin guy, all bony edges. The buckles on his pants bit into my almost-bare butt, too. Those were going to leave a mark.

  The view really was better, though.

  Another goblet made its way into my hands.

  “Slow with this one, sweetheart,” said the woman who had given it to me. “My name’s Desdemona. I make a strong drink.” She had curves almost as big as mine, but she looked so much more comfortable in them. She had a mesh shirt like Chad’s. I could actually see her nipples.

  Oh my goodness.

  Desdemona was smiling. They were all smiling. They didn’t think I was weird in my corset and mini skirt.

  I wanted them to keep smiling. I wanted these people to like me.

  This time, I drank more slowly and kept it all down. The drink still vanished quickly. I felt like I was going to fall over the side of the railing onto the stage below.

  Desdemona hadn’t been kidding about the strength of her drinks. Only Storm’s arm around my waist held me steady.

  “I like it,” I gasped as I lowered the glass. “It’s kind of…fruity.”

  “More!” Ravyn sang. “Get Kitten some more!”

  All of the lights went out in the stadium. The remaining alcohol glowed with its own light.

  A spotlight blazed to life on the stage.

  And then the concert started.

  III

  Did I mention that the last concert I’d seen outside of my temple’s holiday productions had been The Backstreet Boys? Because that was the last major concert I’d seen.

  It didn’t prepare me for watching The Forbidden perform.

  The music began with heavy drums. Lights blazed to life underneath me, revealing a man sitting at the center of the drum kit. He only had two arms and two drum sticks—hardly the dozen drummers I’d imagined would be required to play such a huge instrument.

  His hands moved so fast that it looked like he had a thousand limbs. He slammed out a beat that I could feel deep in my chest, pumped out over the giant speakers, magnified for the entire stadium to hear.

  That primal sound set my blood on fire and sucked all my breath away.

  Distantly, I was aware that I was leaning so far forward that I had almost fallen off of Storm’s lap. He chuckled. The drums were loud enough that I could only feel the motion of his chest behind me, not hear the sound.

  I didn’t care if he was laughing at me. The alcohol was too heady, the music too overwhelming.

  Now there was a bass line with the drums, and a man sauntered onto the stage who looked a lot like the drummer—narrow-shouldered, pale-skinned, and dark-eyed. Both had hair so long that it brushed their knees. But their coifs weren’t ratty, like the hippie guys at my college. These guys had hair like sheets of shimmering silk. All that hair should have made them look feminine, but it didn’t. Even with makeup, they were incredibly masculine.

  My heart had skipped a beat or six at the music they created together. I gripped the edge of the balcony, gasping for air as I watched the bassist’s fingers pluck out a rhythm in time with the drums.

  Fire erupted at the edge of the stage. It was so hot that I could feel it all the way up in the balcony. My internal eight-year-old Leah had completely vanished sometime around the first glass of liquor, so all I felt was an overpowering sense of awe.

  The audience in the stadium screamed. They weren’t awed. They were exhilarated.

  It sounded like they were about to riot.

  When the fire finally dropped again, there was one more man on stage.

  I had never seen a guy more gorgeous than this one. He looked like a painting rendered in adoring detail by one of the great masters, with all of the perfect musculature, the full lips, the dimpled chin. His eyes were rimmed with black kohl. His hair, long enough to brush his chiseled jaw, had been smeared with glitter that made him shimmer under the stage lights.

  His bared chest muscles were completely covered in tattoos, all the way from collarbone to the place his waist sloped into his hips. They curved in abstract patterns around his abs and made spikes digging into his ribs. His arms were covered, too.

  I wondered what other tattoos his leather pants might be hiding, and immediately blushed for thinking such a thing.

  I’d seen him backstage, although he’d been wearing a shirt at the time. It was the man who had been staring at me as Road Crew led me up to the VIP balcony. Now he wore a guitar slung low over his shoulder so that the instrument was by his hips.

  He was the lead singer.

  “Rage,” Storm whispered into my ear. “His name is Rage.”

  Rage caught the microphone in one hand, and he began to sing.

  The words didn’t make any sense to me. I’m sure he was singing in Engli
sh. I’m sure they were words that I knew, too. I was an English major, after all, and my vocabulary was a force to be reckoned with.

  But my brain didn’t want to process the lyrics. It was like he sang pure emotion into my chest.

  I understood why they called him Rage.

  The song he played on his guitar, backed by those wicked drums—it made rage build in my chest like I was angry for whatever crimes had been committed against this guy. I felt his anger and I liked it.

  It wasn’t just anger. His power chords switched to flats, making a bittersweet melody that evoked an aching deep within my heart.

  I lost myself in that music. And I lost myself in the sight of Rage’s face as he chugged on his guitar. He was beautiful to behold, like a work of art come to life.

  The music built toward a crescendo as he screamed. My legs clenched together, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to suppress the climax that I felt building.

  Oh my goodness. Just the freaking music was going to make me orgasm.

  Here. In front of all these people I didn’t know.

  I’d only ever touched myself a couple times, hesitantly exploring the parts of my body that my roommate’s steamy romance novels called “rosebud” and “moist center,” things that the anatomy books gave much uglier names. It was too overwhelming for me to have done anything more than a once or twice.

  Now I was on the brink just by listening to music.

  Oh. My. Goodness.

  A feminine voice whispered in my ear. “You’re thinking too much. Stop thinking.” It was Ravyn. She tried to hand me a drink, but my hands were shaking too hard to take it.

  She laughed at my awkwardness, the sound inaudible under the pounding music, and tipped my chin back with a finger so that she could pour the alcohol into my mouth.

  At first, I balked. I tried to close my lips. Liquor slid down my chin.

  Then I drank.

  Oh my gosh, did I drink, taking long swallows that filled my stomach with the heat of the alcohol. I was so thirsty.