But then we all packed ourselves into the bus. The tour had to go on. I thought Kace would be able to release some of that tension he was holding, but every time I tried to talk with him, he would give me curt answers. Plus, he was repeatedly checking his phone. It was odd.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Kace responded. We were sitting on one of the couches. I could see my uncle watching us, so I kept my voice down so only the bodyguard could hear.

  “It’s just that ever since this morning, you’ve felt… different. Did something happen? Did I do something wrong?” I searched Kace’s face for an answer. He glanced at me for a second but then looked away.

  “I’m trying to concentrate, Belinda.”

  It felt like he was dismissing me. Why would he do that? Did he regret what happened last night? It was irritating that I lost my virginity to Kace, and he couldn’t even give me the time of day. I wanted to tell him off, but I heard my uncle call me over.

  “Belinda! Can I talk to you?”

  I got off the couch and went over to John. He took me aside and gave me that look he always did when he was worried. I knew he meant well, but I found it annoying. And since I was already irritated, it just made everything worse.

  “What is it?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “What do you mean?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  John frowned. “What are you doing with Kace?”

  I rolled my eyes. I didn’t want to answer, and I wasn’t going to. Sure, John had done a lot for me over the years, but he didn’t get to know or run everything about my life.

  “You need to be careful,” John continued, going into full agent mode. “Your career is taking off, and you can’t do anything to derail it.”

  “I doubt anyone is going to care if I’m dating my bodyguard.”

  Fuck. I didn’t want to bring my uncle into all of this. I trusted him, but things with Kace were so new and unknown. It was already complicated enough.

  John glared at me. “Are you two dating?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe?” Since I’d already blabbed, I thought I may as well keep talking. It wouldn’t hurt. I really hoped that Kace saw us as dating or on our way to dating. His attitude that morning made me feel like he might not be, but I also couldn’t get last night out of my head. It was like he was two different people. It was just that things really clicked with him. They clicked in a way that had never clicked with anybody else.

  My uncle grabbed my shoulders. “Belinda, you’re supposed to be focused on Alexandrite. With Mary and Samone on the verge of leaving, the studio wanting that new album, this tour. You don’t have much time.” John kept arguing, and I could feel my temper spiking. I had never felt this angry before, and I exploded.

  “I don’t care! If you don’t like it, that’s not my problem! Keep your opinions to yourself! I didn’t become a musician to worry about my image. Even so, no one will care!”

  My uncle’s eyes went wide, and he held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I’m only trying to look out for you, Belinda, and I want you to be happy. Just stay alert. This whole stalker thing hasn’t been resolved.”

  I calmed down a little because he was right, sort of. But I wasn’t going to let Kace make me stupid. I could take care of myself, and I just wanted my uncle to know that.

  “I love you, too,” I told him, giving John a quick hug before going back to sit by Kace on the couch.

  The bodyguard was looking at his phone and seemed to be upset. I couldn’t see his screen and didn’t want to look like I was snooping, so I decided to ask instead.

  “Did something happen?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Kace snapped.

  I was shocked by how aggressive he sounded. It shut down any willingness in me to keep pressing. I looked at his face, and he was scowling. Something had made him insanely angry. He looked sexy but also kind of scary. What could upset him so much?

  I thought it best to keep quiet for the rest of the ride. We arrived at the next hotel and checked in. Kace kept a lookout, but something was different. Once we had gone through all the usual stuff, the bodyguard and I headed up to our suite. We were finally alone, which made me both excited and nervous.

  “Belinda, I need to talk to you about something,” he started, cornering me in the living area.

  My guess was that Kace wanted to have the relationship talk. I braced myself to hear something I did not want to. His attitude had me thinking he was about to tell me he had the opposite reaction I had had.

  Before Kace could continue, there was a knock at the door. I welcomed the interruption if it meant postponing the pain.

  “I’ll get it!” I went over to the door and looked out to see Oliver. I opened the door and let him in. “Hey!”

  “Belinda, Kace. I wanted to go over the particulars of tonight’s performance. There are a few things I want to change. You killed it in Minneapolis, but I think we could do it a little differently now that we are in Chicago.”

  “Of course!”

  I didn’t always like Oliver’s need to micromanage. Still, I’d take anything that postponed hearing Kace tell me that our night together was a mistake. I could see him regretting it because I was his client, but I refused to believe that anything so amazing could be wrong. I had to find a way to convince him to see things from my perspective. I was sure he would come around.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kace

  I needed to talk to Belinda, but Oliver showed up, and that man could talk. By the time he was done, we had to head to the concert venue. I continued doing the job I was hired to do, protecting Belinda from any danger. Still, it felt like I was going through the motions. Inside, I was furious. Nothing made sense anymore.

  While Belinda was talking to John on the bus, Leo had texted me back. The info he had rocked my world. He had traced the origin of the text and the emails. Unsurprisedly, the text was made from a burner phone. It was the only message ever sent from that number. However, the emails were a different story. Leo traced them to a computer hooked up to the IP address of Belinda’s router. The stalker was in her home.

  It looked like I had been duped into a publicity stunt. What Leo told me could destroy Belinda’s career. She was stalking herself to get into the news. I had never felt so much disappointment in my life—no wonder she had been so reluctant to involve the police.

  It felt like the concert was taking forever. Belinda’s onstage persona still mesmerized me, but my thoughts were all over the place. I needed to unravel this situation as quickly as possible. I was protecting Belinda from a different danger at that point, herself. She was obviously not the innocent girl I thought she was.

  Still, the wolf part of me felt like she was my mate. How could that be? I couldn’t be mated to a liar.

  The concert finally came to an end, and I quickly hauled Belinda out of the venue and into the limo. We were supposed to wait for John and Oliver, but I couldn’t take it anymore. We had to get out of there.

  “Go!” I told the driver.

  “Wait! What about John and Oliver? We’re supposed to drive back with them.”

  “We need to go. Now!”

  Belinda continued asking questions, but the driver responded to me and left.

  “What’s wrong?” She seemed alarmed, glancing all over the place like someone was going to attack us in the limo.

  We were finally in a position to talk. I rolled up the privacy screen, so we could the driver couldn’t hear us.

  Turning, I took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. “We need to talk. I have this friend Leo who can hack into anything. I got a weird text this morning and had Leo look into both the text and the emails.”

  “Okay,” she responded. Her face was blank, not the look of guilt I was expecting.

  I was surprised that she seemed unconcerned. Could I be reaching the wrong conclusion? But what other answer could there be? Regardless, I couldn’t stop myself because I needed to know the truth.

  “The emails came from the same IP address as the one at your home. The text came from a burner, but only someone close to you would have a way to get my cell.”

  I wanted Belinda to come clean, so I set up the scene, but she kept acting confused. As if she didn’t know anything.

  “What does that all mean?” she asked.

  Frustrated, I ran a hand through my hair. “You can drop the pretense, Belinda. I know.”

  She sat back, shocked. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Kace!”

  We pulled up to the hotel and had to get out. I didn’t want to talk about it too loudly as we walked through the lobby, but Belinda was prodding me. I pulled her into the elevator, and since we were alone, I dropped the bomb.

  “If you’re not careful, you’re going to get charged with filing a false police report.”

  “Charged? I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  We got to our floor, and I pulled her into the suite. She put a lot of space between us, but the yelling didn’t go down.

  “I know you’ve been stalking yourself, Belinda.”

  “Stalking myself! What the fuck are you talking about?” She emphasized her point by pushing a vase off the table. It shattered on the ground.

  I could see her temper burning, but I needed her to admit it. I couldn’t stop myself. My mate couldn’t lie to me anymore.

  “I’m guessing you did it for the PR? Leo found an email from the same account breaking the stalker story to multiple outlets. You’re the one who leaked it, not Oliver. But you aren’t careful. There are consequences to these kinds of things. There’s a police report which could mean big trouble. Legal trouble. Do you understand that?”

  I was trying to keep my cool, but I was also upset.

  Belinda stared at me for a few moments. I thought she might finally tell me the truth, but what actually happened shocked me to my core. Her expression turned from wounded to angry, and I knew all that aggression was directed at me.

  Suddenly, my werewolf senses were on high alert as if another wolf was in the room, but it was just Belinda and me. I didn’t have time to think because soon Belinda was going nuts. She was destroying the suite—anything she could get her hands on was torn apart. Lamps were thrown. Glasses broke. She ripped apart the couch cushions with her bare hands. Stuffing flew everywhere.

  It was like her body was under some kind of attack. I tried to comfort her, but when I touched her, she pushed me away with such force that I slammed into the wall.

  How? Sure, she could surprise me, but the force was too much. The truth finally dawned on me. Belinda was adopted. My instincts were right. She was my mate. She was a werewolf, and she was changing for the first time. I looked at her with shocked eyes. She only looked back at me with hate.

  “You’re fired!” she howled at me. “I hate you, Kace. Get out of my sight!”

  The shift fully took over. Her back elongated as bones cracked and reformed. Blonde hair shortened, turning into golden fur. It ran down her limbs as her hands and feet became paws. Belinda’s shoulders hunched. She was forced down to four legs. Her nose stretched out when she howled in rage. Teeth and razor-sharp claws formed.

  My mate was a wolf, a real female werewolf. Shocked beyond belief, I watched as she continued destroying the room. Nothing was safe. I was in such disbelief that I couldn’t do much to stop her as she ran through the door.

  Finally, I came to my sense and knew I had to help Belinda find her way through this transformation. I knew she was my true mate—it explained the strange connection I had felt. Quickly shifting into wolf-form, I ran out the door, following her scent. It wasn’t hard to see where she had been, though. People screamed and ran away. If I didn’t save her, she could seriously hurt someone, and I knew Belinda would regret it for the rest of her life. Or worse, someone could hurt her. To them, she was just an aggressive wolf in the middle of a highly populated city. I would need to calm her down and explain what was happening.

  I needed to find my mate fast.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Belinda

  I couldn’t believe that Kace would accuse me of staging the whole stalker thing. What kind of psycho did he think I was? It devastated me. What hurt the most was his lack of faith in me. I felt like we should know each other at this point. He did take my virginity. Still, he seemed convinced that I had set it all up. I felt like we had connected on such a deep level, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe I didn’t know him at all.

  I was running through the streets like a madwoman. My rage had taken over. It had taken over so much that I felt like a monster ready to claw and rip apart anything in my way. I had never felt this angry and out of control before. It was insane. It didn’t help that people were screaming and pointing at me. I couldn’t understand why, but I didn’t care enough to try and figure it out. I was too mad. All I wanted to do was destroy things—which was exactly what I did.

  I pulled up plants, flinging them in all directions. I knocked down garbage cans. A sign for a café I passed was easily tossed into the street. In a second, it was broken into splinters. Thrusting my hip out, I slammed into a park bench. Something that big would have never moved before, yet now, the metal feet shifted and pulled up from their bolts. I ran my claws through the wooden seat, hewing long gashes.

  I have claws?

  As I destroyed various things, my anger started to clear. I began to wonder what was happening to me. I had so much strength. Where did it come from? Was I really some kind of monster?

  I ran past a storefront and paused when I saw my reflection. I looked like some kind of wolf. Golden fur, long snout, I was even running on four legs.

  But that’s impossible!

  I must have been having some kind of psychotic break. All the stress of being on tour, the stalker and Kace accusing me of being dramatic for PR, it was getting to me. I had reached the point where I was hallucinating. I needed to calm down, then maybe this would all stop.

  I trotted into a nearby park and found some bushes to hide behind. Laying down and breathing deeply, I had hoped this was all a dream, but everything felt much too real.

  Finally alone, I thought about what Kace had said to me. I hated that he had accused me, but I didn’t think he was lying about that IP address thing. The only other person on the property was my uncle. Had he set up this whole stunt? I knew he was anxious about Alexandrite, but I never thought he’d do something so insane.

  I could feel myself getting angry again. I had to confront Uncle John and find out the truth. I had to get back to the hotel.

  Running back to find John, I encountered another wolf. It should have been freaked out, but I knew it was Kace. Maybe that should have freaked me out more, but even with the stupid shit he pulled earlier, his presence comforted me.

  Big and black-furred, wolf-Kace sniffed at me and urged me to enter an alleyway. It was just the two of us—no people around.

  “Belinda. Please calm down.”

  It did start to shock me when I could hear Kace’s voice in my head. I didn’t want to appear disheveled, so I kept my cool. I realized I could reply in the same way.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked coldly.

  His eyes seemed to glow. “I realized, when you turned, you are my one true mate.”

  One true mate? I would have loved to hear those words before Kace had accused me of stalking myself. But now, I was too angry at him to care.

  “You need to change out of wolf form,” he continued speaking calmly in my head, “and I have to help you do it. If you don’t, you’ll start to forget you were a human and be a wolf forever.”

  That sounded scary. I didn’t want to be stuck like this forever, but how could I ever trust Kace again. This all was so insane.

  “I also realized,” the big wolf added, “that I was wrong. I should have trusted my instincts. Everything I know about you says you would never make up a stalker just to further your fame. I’m sorry I didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  It felt good to hear Kace apologize, but I was still angry with him. I couldn’t just forget all those things he said.

  “Congratulations on reaching the right conclusion, but it’s too little too late. Need I remind you that you’re still fired.”

  Kace took a step towards me, and I immediately got defensive, baring my teeth.

  “I’m not leaving.”

  Why couldn’t he just listen to me! I was fine before he got here, and I would be fine once he left.

  “Go away!” I yelled before attacking Kace. I was upset enough that I didn’t care if I injured him. I tried to bite him, but Kace was able to keep me off. We tussled for a few minutes before the bigger wolf was able to pin me against the wall.

  “You need to calm down, Belinda! You need to change back. Remember what it’s like to be human.”

  I struggled against him not wanting anything to do with my former lover, but he kept talking to me, telling me how much he cared about me. It was enough to warm my heart, and I felt myself shifting again.

  Together, Kace and I became human. I looked up at his face—the one I had thought I was falling in love with.

  “What’s going on?” I asked him, my voice shaky. Kace got off me and brought me into his arms.

  “It’s going to be okay. I’ll explain everything.”

  Even though I wasn’t sure about my future with Kace, it felt so nice being held. I relaxed into his chest and let him comfort him. We’d figure it all out later.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kace

  I was able to get Belinda back up to her room without anyone seeing us by using the hotel’s staircase. As we walked up, she kept her distance. I wanted to bridge the gap, but I wasn’t quite sure how to do it. I was glad that I had gotten there in time to use my alpha powers and help Belinda control her wolf half, but now I could feel the coldness coming from her. Since she was my mate, it hurt badly.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8