Plunder: a reverse harem omegaverse romance, page 9
I nod. “Okay, good. That’ll work.”
“Seriously?” says Gable. “You really think so? They don’t know me.”
“It’ll work,” says Bandit. “You have that thing about you.” She doesn’t sound pleased.
It works.
At our next show, people are rabid about Gable. The project funds before midnight that night, and it’s not an insignificant amount of cash, replacing his income and paying his rent and paying for additional hotel rooms and all of that.
It took us months to get the tour funded.
I’m starting to realize that something about the band has changed, and it’s both exciting and unsettling.
We’ve experienced jumps in success like this before, and they’re always jarring. It’s weird but things like this are never a slow build. It’s sort of going along at one level and then suddenly, yank, and then you’re somewhere else. It’s good, of course, but it’s hard to adjust to.
When we first started out, we were just some stupid crappy band that was struggling to get anyone to watch us. We would go out and play at a school-sponsored open mike where anyone from the college could show up. We barely got any attention there, but that was mostly because the other people there were all musicians and we were all there hoping to be seen. It’s hard to focus on liking other things when you’re mostly hoping someone likes you.
We finally clawed our way into a few gigs at parties and then finally at a bar. None of us could drink yet, so it was all kinds of strange. The usual deal was to pay the band a small part of the door charge and then also free drinks, but we could only have free soda.
Right after I wrote “Dreamy” which was my first real love song for Bandit, things started changing slowly. People would request that song, and we started getting people at the front of the stage singing along. We started getting calls from bars requesting us to come.
It was like one minute, we were no one, and the next minute, we were a really real band.
The next big jump really came from the FretFund site, and that was pretty insane. Suddenly bringing in money, real money, none of us could believe it.
Our big, big jump, though, the jump where all of us quit our jobs, happened by chance. Someone shared our project on social media along with a video they’d taken of us playing “Dreamy” live.
The thing went viral.
We suddenly had thousands of subscribers and backers, clambering for more music. We had fans who lived far away, in other states, on the other side of the country, in Australia.
That was like a night and day moment.
We went to sleep the night before as one kind of band and woke up the next day with fans and money and pressure. It was great, of course. We were pleased.
But growth like that it requires an entire restructuring of everything. Last time, it was fine. We all quit our jobs—well, downsized into temp-type jobs—and then we all had more time to deal with the daily minutia that appeared. This time, I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to handle it ourselves. I worry about success, and that seems kind of weird.
Right now, we work on a lot things. We have more gigs now, and we need to be able to field calls and schedule them. We have to replace equipment that doesn’t work, invest in better equipment when we can afford it, that kind of thing.
But really the bulk of our day-to-day is interacting with fans and keeping up with FretFund. That is like a job in and of itself.
Bandit can be good at it. When she is, she’s brilliant, because people just want to be close to Bandit, and any interaction she has with anyone is like touching her bright star.
But Bandit gets in these moods sometimes, where she’s just whiny.
That’s maybe not fair. I’m a little moody myself, after all. I’m a songwriter and a musician and an alpha. So, really, it’s me, too.
We both get whiny.
This—case in point—me being worried about being successful. This is exactly the kind of thing that I need to keep to myself and not dump on our fans. Problem is, it’s all I can think about. So, if I go onto the FretFund site or social media or whatever, and start trying to interact with people, it ends up bleeding out.
And the last thing I want to be is a guy who’s complaining about people liking me. I don’t want my fans to feel bad about being my fans.
You know who was consistently good at interacting with the fan base?
Sam.
Damn it.
I sometimes wonder if I could have stopped that train wreck from happening.
I think back to the moment when the Sam-and-me thing went off the rails.
It was only a few months ago.
She was here, in this house, because she was always here even though she lived elsewhere. I’d never been with a beta before. Hell, I never really dated anyone else who wasn’t Bandit. I always assumed Bandit and me were written in the stars or something.
It’s like one of those cheesy coming-of-age movies, where it starts out with the childhood sweethearts and they grow up but never truly let the other one out of their hearts?
Bandit and I connected when we were both in kindergarten. It was Mother’s Day, and we were all making cards for our moms, and the teacher came over to gently talk to Bandit about making a card for her grandmother or something and Bandit burst into tears and ran out of the room.
I got up and went after her.
I should have got in trouble, but when the teacher found us, Bandit and I were sitting at the top of the steps in the school, and she had her head on my shoulder, and I had put my arm around her. I turned around and looked at the teacher and said, “She needs a minute.”
And that was how it all started and that was how it was going to be.
I was going to be Bandit’s shield for the rest of her life and in return she was going to be my muse.
Isn’t that the way these things work in the really bad coming-of-age movies? Isn’t the girl just happy to be mused upon?
Anyway, Sam and I were good, solid, I think, even though there always a nervous sheen of jealousy over everything between us. I think she knew that I was never going to care about her the way I care about Bandit, and she told herself that was okay, but deep down, she wasn’t cool with it.
For my part, I lied like a con-man. I told her over and over that I was entirely done with Bandit and that she and I were never going to be anything to each other and that—furthermore—it had never really been that serious with us, just some kids’ thing, something immature.
I’m past all that now, Sam, I would say. I love you and only you.
That day, Sam was looking for some paperwork that we were going to need to go to the DMV to get the registration renewed on the van, which is a crappy, beat-up mini-van with the seats torn out which we use to haul all our stuff around.
She was tearing apart the closet in the spare bedroom, which is where I have all the important paperwork in to-be-filed boxes.
I know.
You should eventually file the to-be-filed things?
Well, I’m a musician. The fact I keep all the important papers in one spot, it’s an achievement.
She came out of the room, holding the envelope, and I should have known what it was, because it’s not like I forgot about it. It’s not the kind of thing you forget about.
But I didn’t recognize it until she was slapping it down in the middle of the kitchen table, going, “Never serious with Bandit? Just an immature infatuation? You fucking bastard.”
I recognized the envelope, the papers, and I gathered them up, really worried they’d get creased or crumpled or dirty or something, and I might need that paperwork someday.
She realized why I was doing it, and her lower lip trembled. “You just put her on hold.”
“Hey, she left because of this,” I said, clutching the papers to my chest. “She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t want anything like this from me.”
“But you want it from her,” said Sam.
I hesitated a little too long. “No, not anymore.”
A tear leaked out of Sam’s eye, and then her shoulders slumped, and she looked so, so sad that all I wanted to do was gather her into my arms and hold her and soothe her, but I was holding the envelope against my chest, and I didn’t want it to get creased or crumpled…
She turned, dejected, and plodded out of the house.
We tried after that.
She told me she didn’t want to be my girlfriend anymore, but we tried to keep playing music, all of us.
About a month ago, Sam decided to leave the band. She told the others it was too hard looking at me every day, but she told me it was too hard watching me and Bandit, knowing that it was just a matter of time for us in my head.
Just biding your time, alpha, Sam taunted me.
Now, here we are, and there’s another omega in the band, and I’m developing an attachment to him. I never thought I could want someone in the way I wanted Bandit, and I don’t want him that way, not exactly.
But sometimes I’m not sure if I don’t want him more than I want Bandit.
It’s just because there’s so much baggage with Bandit and me. So many slights and hurts between us.
I’m afraid of him, I think.
Not just of how badly I want him, but of what his presence is going to do to my band. Where are we going? And is it going to break us all apart?
bandit
SOMETIMES I THINK I’d like to sleep on stage.
It feels like the safest place to be in a way.
Maybe it’s because in the real world, I never know who it is I’m supposed to be, but on stage, I never question it. It’s obvious how to be entertaining, how to make people feel good, how to hold them in the palm of your hands and give them just what they need.
I wish being alive was as easy as being on stage.
We’re finally on tour, and this show is full of fans who have come because they paid for this tour. They feel a sense of ownership, knowing that they brought this to fruition, and they’re crazy excited.
Everyone who was a backer was sent a t-shirt (mailing stuff out is not my favorite part of being in a band, let me tell you, but such things are necessary) and lots of them are wearing their shirts now. It says, I Funded the Plunder of this Village.
When we take the stage, they scream and hoot and stamp their feet.
When we play, they sing along.
They love Gable immediately. They’ve all heard him already, seen clips of him shared from people’s cell phones—we encourage people to video and record our shows. It’s our best form of free advertising, truly. People like to have lots of different versions of the same song, and they all want to give us money to record the “official” one. We’re lucky to have the kind of devoted fans we do.
Gable and I start out on separate microphones and end up singing into the same one, gazing into each other’s eyes as the audience roars and dances.
We sing lots of Plunder’s old songs in new ways and we sing several new songs that Raider has written (all of which seem to be about Gable, something that makes me kind of annoyed) and we’re about to launch into the new cover we do together when I turn to the audience and yell out, “You guys want to hear ‘Landslide’?”
It’s usually one of our staples for shows.
They scream.
I gesture to Gable, who looks surprised and pleased and unsure, as if I’m trapping him in some way.
But I just give him the song. Everyone else plays, and I don’t. I tuck my guitar behind my back and watch Gable.
We stand at the microphone, and he looks deep into my eyes and sings to me that he’s been afraid of changing, that he’s built his life around me.
After the show, this is the song that everyone is posting to their feeds. This song, wherein I’m doing nothing except gazing at Gable with stars in my eyes, gazing at him like I’m in love with him.
I see it. I see why it affects people. Gable’s gorgeous and his voice is haunting and strong. When we’re looking at each other on stage, a whole story can be inferred just from the way we interact with each other.
He sings and his gaze flits down to my lips, and I tilt my face back, offering him my mouth, and he leans in like he’s going to kiss me, but instead he just croons about the snow-covered hills, and it’s everything.
I hate it.
I don’t want to be this.
I’m not going to be defined by my infatuation for a man.
I’m never that girl.
After the show, we’re all staying at a hotel, and I’m in a room with Lloyd, and Gable is supposed to be in a room with Cam, and Raider’s got a room to himself.
I leave Lloyd, telling him I’m filling up the ice bucket.
It’s late. We stayed at the venue to tear down and have some drinks, and it’s got to be 2:00 a.m. When I get to the ice machine, Gable and Cam are there laughing with each other as Cam scoops up ice.
“Come on, omega, like I’m knotting you for the first time in a hotel room,” Cam says.
Something goes through me, something ugly. I’m not proud of it. But I push forward and I show myself to them both.
“Hey,” I say, and my voice is a little sultry, but I try to pretend like I’m only being friendly. “Cam, you’re an alpha.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Uh… yeah?” He’s confused.
“Can you come out to the bus with me?” I say. “I got my guitar strap stuck in between the front seat and the armrest and I’m just not strong enough to get it out.”
“Can’t this wait?” says Gable, eyeing me.
Cam hands Gable the full ice bucket. “Go on to the room without me.”
Gable hesitates. “What about Lloyd? Can’t he help you?”
“Cam’s stronger than Lloyd,” I say in a low voice. “But don’t tell him I said that. I had to pretend I was going to get ice. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”
Cam smirks.
Gable’s nostrils flare.
“Give me five minutes,” says Cam, already heading towards the door.
I go after Cam.
Gable stands there, holding the bucket of ice, not looking happy.
When Cam and I get out to the bus, I open the back door, the sliding door.
He looks in the front, at the passenger seat, but there’s nothing there, no guitar strap, nothing stuck.
Cam shuts the door and comes over to stand in front of me at the side door. “What, uh, what’s going on?”
I unzip him and put my hand inside his pants.
He gasps.
I wrap my hands around him and feel him knotting up under my grasp.
“Hey,” he says, “we’re in the parking lot here.”
I tug on his cock, pulling him inside the mini van. “Shut the door,” I say.
He does, but it’s one of those doors that doesn’t shut easily, so it’s closed, hiding us from view, but it’s not latched.
I put him in my mouth.
He groans. “What the hell, omega?” he whispers.
I take him down my throat and squeeze his knot with my hand, squeezing him in an on-and-off pattern that Raider always likes.
Cam groans again. “Shit,” he whispers.
I shimmy out of the short shorts I’m wearing. I’m not wearing any underwear.
His eyes get really big. “What the hell are you—”
I reach in between the lips of my pussy and gather up some of my slick
He’s speechless now.
I rub it over his mouth.
He moans, licking my fingers clean. He grabs me. He claims my mouth, reaching down to rub my pussy himself.
“God, just quick like this, here?” I say. I pull on his dick, squeezing it again.
“We don’t even have a condom.” His voice is strained.
“Glove compartment,” I say.
He crawls into the front of the van and opens the glove compartment. “These are Raider’s?”
“He doesn’t count them,” I say.
“He’s going to be… you and I…”
I snatch the condom from him and put it on him before he can do too much thinking. Then I’m pulling him into the back of the van, lining us up.
He doesn’t take a lot of convincing. He sinks into me, and I’m lying on my back between the amps we have in here and some of Lloyd’s drums, and he’s between my thighs.
It’s good. He smells like alpha, and I’m keyed up from the performance, and this makes me feel free in some way. It’s not a good thing, what I’m doing, maybe, but it soothes some wild and awful part of me, and I can’t help but love it.
The fact it’s kinda wrong turns me on. It makes up for the fact that I didn’t get nearly enough foreplay.
I let him stroke into me for a minute or two, listening to his heavy sighs as I let out breathy ones, before I say, “Knot me?”
“Oh, shit, omega,” he pants. He bends down to kiss me. “This is barely—we don’t even—what are we doing?”
I press my pussy into him, taking half of his knot in my opening. The stretch is painful. “Please, please, I need a knot. You have no idea how long it’s been.”
He pulls up to meet my gaze. His expression shows he understands. “Oh, yeah, you’re with a beta, now, huh?”
“Please,” I say. “It’d be a real favor. I’m all worked up after the show, and it’s all I need. Cam, knot me.”
He kisses me roughly. “Well, how can I resist doing a favor like that for a pretty omega like you?” he mutters, and he does it.
It hurts.
I’m not ready, and he’s huge, and there’s been no foreplay.
The hurt’s good, though, because I’m an omega, and I like a little pain mixed in.
I let out a noise, a too-loud noise, and he muffles my mouth with one hand, and I like that, and I whisper, “Choke me?”
His hand goes to my neck, pinning me down against the floor of the bus as he pins my pelvis in place with his thick, hard knotted-up cock, and I come like that, my pussy clenching on him as he holds me down.
He gasps over me, letting up on my throat. “Did you just come?”
“Can’t you smell it, alpha?” I don’t know if that’s a thing, but it seems reasonable, doesn’t it? I should ask, seriously, if alphas can scent that.
