Protected by the Wolves: Paranormal Biker Reverse Harem Romance Read online

  All eyes were rapt upon me. My skin tingled and my heart felt as though it was going to burst with pure emotion. The bar suddenly seemed more beautiful. Its scars faded and a resplendent aura emanated from the crowd. It was glorious. That was the power of a song. That was the power Mom was trying to teach me, and now I finally understood. After all this time, I finally understood.

  The last note left my lips and the song faded. I bowed my head and wiped the tears from my eyes, gasping and panting for breath.

  “Goodbye Mom,” I whispered as I placed the microphone back. I bowed, thanked the band, and then left the stage to rapturous applause.

  Chapter Two

  As I walked back to my friends it felt as though there were wings on my feet. I was elated and exhilarated, my heart pounded and I struggled to catch my breath. My eyes glistened with tears and my clothes clung to my sweat-stained skin. I collapsed into the chair. Rachel leapt upon me and hugged me. The others there were more like acquaintances really, only Rachel truly mattered. She was the only one who knew the anguish I had been through.

  “You’ve earned this,” she said, and thrust a shot in front of me. I took it and felt the hot liquid burn my aching throat. I shook my head and felt a haze rise within my mind. The band was taking a break so the music had stopped for the moment. The bar was devoid of music, but the chatter of conversation gave it a pleasing ambience. My legs were like Jell-O and I was still trembling with raw emotion. Rachel handed me a proper drink after that, which I took gratefully, trying to gain at least a little hydration.

  “You were amazing!”

  “I had no idea you could sing like that!”

  “How have you not done karaoke before?”

  The people around me said all these things and more. I had never been very good with praise though. I dipped my head and my cheeks flushed. I mumbled something about not being very good and that this was just a special occasion, but I don’t think they really understood. It did make me glow with pride. The praise and adulation of others was a powerful drug and I had to be careful to not enjoy it too much.

  “This was just for my Mom,” I said, and that was all I wanted to say on the matter.

  “Are you sure about that?” Rachel asked. “You looked a natural fit up there. And you’re better than anyone else that has sung tonight.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, “but that doesn’t mean anything. Performing could never bring me happiness. I’ve known that for a long time. Maybe if Mom hadn’t pushed me so hard when I was younger…” I breathed, “no, it’s not fair to put it all on her. I just don’t think I’m the type of person who is comfortable with performing.”

  “You could have fooled me, and everyone else in this bar.”

  “That wasn’t just me up there. Mom was with me in spirit,” I said, smiling softly. “I could feel her presence.”

  “Okay,” Rachel said.

  “I know you don’t believe me, and that’s okay. But I did feel her. She was up there, singing with me. I know it won’t make any sense to you, but it does to me. Things like this…there’s more to the world than we understand. I know there’s a little bit of magic and I know that she’s still out there somewhere, at least her soul is, watching over me.”

  Rachel offered a pinched smile. I know she didn’t believe me. Before all this I wouldn’t have believed it myself. She probably just thought that it was wishful thinking on my part and that it was due to me not being able to let Mom go. Maybe that was part of the truth, but I could feel that there was more to the world than what we could taste, touch and smell. There had to be. Singing was a way to bridge the magical world with the physical one. It was spiritual and deep and meaningful, and it was also draining. I felt exhausted after having performed, but also glorious and delirious. I closed my eyes and I could see a vision of Mom forming in front of me, telling me that she was proud of me. I gazed towards the stage. I could feel the pull of it, but I steeled myself against the desire. It was just the rush of emotion controlling me, I thought, when the sensations faded and the cold light of day shone upon my face I would be back to sanity and back to my usual self, realizing that this life wasn’t for me.

  “I’m glad that you’ve made some peace with things,” Rachel said, leaning over, resting a hand on my arm. It felt comforting to be in close contact with another human, with a good friend after all that I had lost. Rachel had been at the funeral with me. I had been pretty broken up and barely made it through the eulogy. A lot of tears had been shed and even when I was standing over the coffin I found it difficult to believe that she was really gone. I almost expected her to leap out and declare that it had all been a performance to garner some attention, but she hadn’t. It almost seemed wrong that she wasn’t alive to see the crowd that had gathered there, but in some ways I suppose that death was always the grandest performance that drew the grandest crowds. It was morbid, but I started to think what my own funeral would be like.

  At my age, death always seemed like a vague, distant thing, elusive, lurking in the shadows. It was something that was easy to ignore and worry about in the far future. But then someone inevitably dies and it casts light on this darkest of things. Thinking about it is unavoidable. You question your life; everything in it and everything you have done. Suddenly none of it seems enough and there’s a sense that time is running out. The world closes in and you know that, at some point, there’s going to be nothing.

  As exhilarating as my time on stage was, it was impossible to not be dragged down by my sadness. My head dropped and tears started to form in my eyes again.

  “So now that you’ve done this, what’s next for you?” Rachel asked. I didn’t respond for a few moments.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you said it yourself that you feel as though your life has been defined by your Mom. What are you going to do now that she’s gone? Does performing up there change anything?” she asked.

  In truth, I hadn’t really thought about it. I hadn’t thought about anything other than today. I just had to make it through today, but Rachel was right. Now that Mom was dead, now that the funeral was over I had to move on and find another path. I had always lived my life in Mom’s shadow, even when we hadn’t been speaking to each other. Everything I did had been to try and escape the parameters she had defined for me, although I couldn’t say that I had done particularly well in that regard. When I spoke about her at the funeral it seemed as though she had done so much, and when I thought about what people would say in my eulogy I was left with a blank mind. In fact I didn’t know who would give a eulogy.

  “I don’t think it does. I’m not going to copy Mom’s life and try to be everything she wanted me to, now that she’s gone. I wasn’t lying when I said that this was a one time performance. I’m never going to sing in front of people again,” I declared, probably a little too defensively.

  “It’s a shame because people really enjoyed it. But if you’re not going to do that, then what are you going to do?”

  “I have no idea.” I’d never really given much thought to what I wanted to be, only what I didn’t want to be. Mom had been so insistent on a single path that she had failed to teach me about all the other things I could do in life. She had been focused on one area, and so the world had seemed closed off and small to me. I had drifted for a while, working an ordinary job at an ordinary place, but I didn’t want to do that forever. I had yet to discover my passion in life, and I was starting to wonder if I actually had one.

  “Maybe I’ll just continue as I am and see what happens for a little while,” I said.

  Rachel pouted and tilted her head towards me. “That’s no way to live life. You can’t just wait for things to happen. If you do that then you’re never going to get anywhere, and you’ll only grow bitter as you see everyone else making progress in life while you get left behind. There must be something you want more than anything else in the world. You can’t just drift.”

  I wracked my
brains to think, but there wasn’t anything. The only thing I had ever shown any real aptitude for was singing, and that wasn’t going to be an area I wanted to explore. I sighed and rubbed my temples. The band had returned and struck up a heavy, fast-paced tune that lured people onto the dance floor in front of the stage. The rest of our table went up. They tried to get me and Rachel to go, but I shook my head and told them that I was still recovering from my performance. They shrugged and went off, blending into the crowd, leaving Rachel and I alone. We were so close I could smell the whiskey on her breath. Our words were clear through the blazing noise that rumbled through the rest of the bar.

  “I know I can’t, but I’ve never been someone who has had ambition. I’ve seen firsthand how much that can affect someone’s life, and their relationships with others. I’ve conditioned myself to stop myself from thinking in that way.”

  “But there must have been something you’ve wanted,” Rachel said. “Even if it’s just a simple thing? Hell, I had a friend who all she wants out of life is to catch every Pokémon in every game. That’s all she lives for, and when she does it she’s happy enough and moves onto the next game. I wish we could all be satisfied so easily though…”

  “You’ll get to France one day. I want to walk through Paris and see your restaurant. You can make it.”

  “I’m not sure about that, not when I’m stuck working for Joe.”

  “You’ll get there one day. It’ll just take time. Maybe you should just up and leave, go to Paris in search of your dreams and never come back. It’d be like a movie!” I said.

  Rachel chuckled and shook her head. “That only ever works in the movies. I don’t speak a lick of French. If I went over there now I’d probably be laughed back to America, or I’d be stranded and I’d have to find some way to live on the streets. Besides, I could hardly leave you right now.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine, I always am,” I offered a weak smile.

  “You say that, but you don’t even know what you want.”

  I looked around at the bar and saw all the people who appeared to be happy. Their moods were fierce and there was nobody drinking alone. I searched my mind, diving back into the furthest recess of my psyche to try and pluck an errant ambition from my muddled mind. As my gaze drifted over the crowd, and a number of empty seats that had been vacated by people who had marched to the dance floor, I caught sight of the three men who had been looking at me on the stage. They were looking at me again, with such intensity in their eyes that I immediately looked away. My skin grew hot. Their eyes did not waver even though I had caught them. The thin hairs on the back of my neck rose and I turned back to Rachel, trying to put them out of my mind.

  “There’s only one thing I can think of, and you’re not going to believe it,” I said.

  Rachel clasped her hands together and her eyes gleamed with excitement. “This sounds juicy!”

  “It’s really not. It’s just that…growing up it was only ever Mom and I. I never knew my Dad and we didn’t have any other family around, but there were so many times when I would have loved a big family. Don’t get me wrong, Mom always tried her best to make things special and I was never left wanting on birthdays or at Christmas, but when I watched movies or read stories that had huge families spending time together I was always envious. I suppose it’s that feeling of security you get from knowing there are a lot of people around you who are there to help you and support you no matter what. I’ve never had that and I’ve always wondered what it would be like. When I was younger I only ever had my Mom, and as much as she took care of me and worked hard to make sure that I had food on the table and clothes on my back, she was never the most empathetic person. When I went to her with a problem, sometimes I just wanted her to hug me and tell me that everything was alright, but she was always certain that it was my fault somehow. Like, you remember Danny?”

  “Of course! How could I forget Danny?”

  “Yeah, exactly, anyway, I told her that I liked him but he wasn’t paying me any attention, and she kept saying that I was obviously doing something wrong. Either I wasn’t wearing the right thing or I wasn’t doing enough to get his attention. Not once did she tell me that maybe he just wasn’t interested in me, and that was okay, that maybe I had an idea in my head of what things would be like with him, but that those thoughts didn’t necessarily translate into reality. Somehow she had a way of making me feel like all the weight of the world was on my shoulders.” I trailed off, growing despondent again. I hated to speak ill of the dead, but it was difficult when Mom had been such an overbearing presence in my life.

  “Anyway, here’s to Mom I guess,” I raised my glass half-heartedly in a toast to her. I shot back the rough, dark liquid and swallowed it hard, forcing it down my throat, hoping that it would in some way take the pain away.

  It might have dulled things for an instant, but the pain ran deeper than any alcohol could touch.

  Rachel toasted along with me and offered me a reassuring smile.

  “To your Mom. And to the future. If you want a family then you can go and find one for yourself. There’s nothing stopping you. Look around; there are plenty of men in this bar and one of them might be the one you’re looking for.”

  I cast my gaze around again, this time trying to purposefully avoid the three men who were dressed in leather and looking at me as though I was the only thing that existed. Had they been so moved by my performance that they were utterly transfixed by me, or was there something more? My stomach churned and fluttered and nerves tingled all over. I looked to other men. I couldn’t say that any of them were my type because I didn’t know what my type was. I suppose I always liked the idea of a strong man, someone who would stand up for me and protect me, someone who would be able to bear the weight of the world so that I could take a break for a little while. I wasn’t sure that I was going to find it in this bar.

  And those men…like a magnet my gaze was drawn back to them. Was it a trick of the mind? When I looked back another time they were facing each other, hunched in conversation. I strained my ears to try and overhear what they were saying. Mom had never told me that eavesdropping was bad. In fact she had only ever encouraged me to do it, because she said that we learned things from other people’s conversation that we never would have learned otherwise. I trained my ears on the men, trying to fight through the blusters and bellows of the bar, but it was hopeless. My skin crawled. Were they talking about me? Was I just being egotistical?

  I turned away. I could feel my skin growing clammy with sweat. My throat was dry despite everything I’d had to drink and the bar suddenly seemed cramped and confined. It was as though the ceiling was being lowered to just above my head, pressing down on me. All the people around me were hot and sweaty and the air was musky. My chest tightened as I was suddenly aware of them all swirling around me, like vultures buzzing, ready to feed on whatever carcass I left behind. Those dancing were a sea of people all caught in one undulating rhythm. The music surged through them, seizing them in their stupor, invisible strings that connected them like paper dolls. But I also knew that I was separate from them, a world apart, with my own sorrow and pain. The Honey Pot was a place for outsiders and in that sense I fit in, but as I looked around at all the people I only saw strangers. I didn’t know how to connect with them, how to be one of them, and I was tired, so tired. All I could hear in Mom’s voice was her saying ‘go to them, go to them,’ but my natural instinct was to fight it. Perhaps it would have been better if I had just gone and thrown myself into that sea of flesh and let the rhythm carry me away, but I railed against it, fought against my natural inclinations and I tore myself away.

  “I need to get some air,” I said, rising from the table before Rachel could offer to come with me. I pushed past the sweaty people, squeezing through their leather, trying to stop the music from pounding in my skull. It felt as though a drill was tearing my mind apart. With every step the door seemed to be farther away.
I reached out, trying to physically pull myself forward out of the bar. Mean eyes looked at me, sneered at me. Hands clawed at me, trying to take advantage of what they saw as a weak woman. I wrenched myself away from their clutches, twisting away from this evil place, trying to escape the only thing that I could never escape; my own mind.

  And then suddenly I burst out of the door, staggering out into the cool air. My feet crunched against the gravel and I almost fell, having to double over to catch my breath. I rested against the outer wall, feeling the entire bar rumble with the power of the music. The night was long and lonely. The moon hung like a silver coin in the sky, bright and wide, accompanied by the stars that were set like jewels against the murky, inky sky. The neon sign flickered above me, the honey pot looking as though it was going to pour its thick, sticky substance over my head. A row of bikes stood outside, and beyond that there were cars and trucks dotted all around the square parking lot. To my right there were a group of people huddled together, sharing hushed conversation and cigarettes. Wispy smoke rose in a cloud above them, the ends of the cigarettes burned amber. They paid no attention to me.

  I walked along in the shadows, trying to hide from the world. Maybe that was the best place for me. I didn’t know if I could ever find a family for myself. What kind of life could someone like me have? I had nothing to offer anyone. I had no idea how to even be a part of a family. I had failed as a daughter, and I felt as though I couldn’t even mourn properly. All I wanted was to go home, crawl into bed, and curl up with some semblance of comfort to sleep the night away. I had done what I had come here to do. I had sang my heart out for Mom and I knew that she was pleased. Now I had to figure out how to do something for myself. I had to figure out how to live.