Johnny shakes uncontrollably, pretty much the same way he’s been shaking since I picked him and Gemini up at the airport. I thought for certain he’d ask for Emme. He knows she can heal even rattled emotions, but instead of requesting her presence, he begged for mine.

I’m sitting in the back of Gemini’s SUV with Johnny, something Gemini didn’t take too kindly to. I get it, and ordinarily, I’d prefer to sit with my man. But I can’t leave Johnny. Not like this.

He reaches for the pack of cigarettes in his back pocket. Most are crushed, but he manages to retrieve one that was somehow spared. With a trembling hand, he lifts it to his mouth.

“Can I get a light?” he asks, stuttering.

“No,” Gemini replies from the front.

“Beings with supernatural senses don’t like smoke,” I explain. “It bothers their noses and makes them cranky.”

As if to validate my point, Bren turns around from his spot in the passenger seat and shoots him a nasty glare.

“Please,” Johnny says. “Look, I’m not exactly keeping it together back here.”

Ordinarily, I’d take the wolves’ side. This time I don’t. This past week, Johnny has experienced pain on multiple levels, and despite the agony he endured in Destiny’s presence, nothing compares to how bad he looks now.

“Just let him have a few drags,” I say.

Gemini’s dark eyes flicker to the rearview mirror. “Fine,” he says, more for me than Johnny.

The brisk air that flows during the early hours in Tahoe sweeps in as Gemini rolls down the rear window as far as it will go. Johnny extends his hand, and with a small flick of my wrist, I light his cigarette.

He inhales deep like a seasoned smoker, releasing a small stream that transforms into a white bird with fluttering wings. It turns its small head briefly to look at Johnny before flying swiftly away.

His motions calm him, and he takes another drag. Again, another bird forms, this one smaller, the tail dissolving into three smaller birds that follow the leader out.

He flicks the ashes as Tahoe comes into view, the rising sun just a blip of light across a horizon filled with gentle waves. The road inclines and Johnny takes another drag, once more another white bird takes shape within the smoke, stretching out its wings and soaring into the air.

“What are they?” I ask.

“Huh?” Johnny asks, appearing lost in his own thoughts. “Oh. Doves,” he says, turning around to speak to me. “I’m saying goodbye, you know? To my people.” He returns his focus outside. “I won’t get another chance to, will I?”

“No,” I say. That’s one of the things about the human and supernatural worlds, as much as they interact, they continue to be separate entities with different rules. They can’t know about us, and given everything we spare them from, they wouldn’t want to anyway.

“Who was the first dove for?”

I only ask because he seems to want to talk about what happened. Johnny grins, the smile excruciatingly split between bitterness and joy. “My manager.” He laughs. “For the most part, Drake could be a real asshole. ‘You can’t eat that shit, Johnny,’ he’d tell me. ‘People won’t pay to see a fat bastard.’” He shakes out his hand when he sees the disgust on my face. “It gets better. My personal favorite was, ‘You have to stay fuckable, for the women and the men. Make them want you and you’ll never go to bed alone, even long after your balls shrink and gray.’”

“You’re right,” I say. “He was an asshole. God rest his soul.”

Johnny laughs again, like before, it’s with that same stoic humor that reveals another layer of pain. “Yeah, but you know what? He helped me. He was the one who hooked me up with the right people and put money in my pockets.” He returns the cigarette to his lips and takes another puff, creating another dove who doesn’t appear as ready to leave him. It circles his head twice, its wings flapping fretfully before it sweeps out of the window and takes to the sky. “Without Drake, I’d still be on the street, starving and begging for change.”

That didn’t give him the right to mistreat you.

It’s what I want to say, but I don’t. Regardless of how he was treated, Johnny loved Drake, and mourns him. I let him because he needs to.

I lean against my seat, the motion reminding me how long it’s been since I last lay in my bed, and how one more night has passed without me sleeping.

I stayed with Destiny following Gemini’s call. It’s not like I could sleep after learning what happened, nor could I bring myself to leave her.

She’ll be gone soon. No more feathers, no more funky zebra and polka dot prints, no more glow-in-the-dark booty shorts.

I left the house in tears, struggling to come to terms with her impending death. As I waited for Gemini and Johnny’s plane to land, I cried even more. I couldn’t help thinking about how unfair life is, not just to beings who are different like Destiny, but to those like Johnny who only appear to have it all.

“What about the other dove?” I ask, forcing myself back to reality. “The one with the little chicks?”

A cobweb of red lines crawl across Johnny’s sclerae. I think he’s going to cry again, but the tears don’t come. For now, the well has run dry. “That was my publicist, Jude. She was nice, smart.” He swallows hard. “She had three kids, used to talk about them all the time.”

“Oh, God,” I say.

“They’re grown,” he adds, his voice hollow. “Nena, her youngest daughter just graduated law school.” He shrugs. “Still, she won’t get to tell her mama goodbye so I did it for her.” He rolls the cigarette between his fingers. “Starlight was the third. She was Jude’s assistant and was always stressed out, worried she’d say the wrong things, but always managing to say the right ones.”

“She sounds sweet.”

“She was,” he agrees. “She was from the south, Mississippi, I think.” He chuckles. “Always called me, ‘sir’, no matter how many times I told her not to and that I was too young for that shit.” His voice fades further away. “Paulo was the last bird. He was my stylist. If I was gay, I probably would have dated him. I’m not, so we settled on being best friends.” His smile dwindles. “He was a great guy, the first person to tell me it was going to be okay, even when it wasn’t.”

He flicks the cigarette out of the window, something I hate that people do. But I can’t call him out, not when he’s falling apart.

“How will anyone know they’re gone?” he asks.

Gemini answers, like me, he’s been listening closely. “There was enough blood on the scene to suspect foul play. The police will rule it a homicide and the appropriate people will be notified.”

“What about the shapeshifters? Any chance they’ll be arrested?” he asks.

Once more I’m reminded how little Johnny knows about this world. “Shapeshifters aren’t exactly human,” I explain. “They’re born witches and they can resume their human forms if they choose, or as they die. For the most part, they maintain the form they feel most powerful in, usually a predator or something that can do a lot of damage.”

“You mean something killer, like a dragon?”

“Dragons were never real, kid,” Bren says from the front. Like Gemini, he doesn’t trust Johnny, but at least he keeps his voice fairly neutral.

I grab onto the armrest when Gemini makes a sharp turn and takes the highway leading to Squaw Valley. “As much as they can command any form, they’re limited to creatures that exist or existed in the past,” I explain.

“Like dinosaurs?”

“Yes.” Although there’s nothing to smile about, I manage, my sense of pride getting the best of me. “My sister once took on a pterodactyl.” I give it some thought. “And a wooly mammoth.”

“Whoa. They sound incredible,” he says.

The wolves don’t outwardly growl, but they come close. “That’s not how I’d describe them,” I say, my tone dissolving Johnny’s awe. “They’re monsters who make hundreds of blood sacrifices in order to command the power of hell within them.”

“By killing vamps?” he asks, sounding confused.

“You’re associating blood sacrifices with those who drink it,” I interpret. “That’s not how things work.”

Bren cuts me off, appearing annoyed. “Vamps don’t count as sacrifices. They don’t have souls. Humans do and are easy prey which is why they’re the ones often targeted.”

“What about you?” Johnny asks me. “Can they come after you?”

“They’ve tried. Weres, witches, and beings of magic like me all have souls, and because of our magic, we’re more worthy sacrifices. But we don’t go down easy, not like humans.”

He grips the seat in front of him, struggling to steady his breathing. “So Drake, Jude, all my friends weren’t just killed. Those shifters sacrificed their souls to gain more power?”

“Not exactly,” I reply. “Their souls were sacrificed to move one step closer toward their goal of becoming shifters. But shifters aren’t stupid, and if they’re part of the evil that’s rising, we’re in a lot of trouble. What happened to your friends is just the start.”

“So no justice, for Drake, Jude, Paulo—anyone of them?”

“Not necessarily,” Gemini responds for me. “Actual shifters didn’t kill them, their neophytes did. I could tell by the type of magic littering the room. We have weres in the responding police force. If they can find them, they’ll take care of them.”

 “By locking them up? Bullshit,” Johnny states. “It’s not like they can just take away their wands and be done with it.”

“I never said the weres would arrest them,” Gemini replies. “I only said they would be taken care of.”

“Oh,” Johnny answers, Gemini’s frankness hitting him all at once. He reaches for another cigarette. Gemini notices, but doesn’t stop him.

The cigarette is partially broken. Johnny breaks off the damaged tip and extends what he salvaged toward me. “Please,” he asks.

My fire flickers from my fingertips and the tip ignites in blue and white. Johnny inhales, creating another bird. “How do you do that?” I ask.

“I’m an artist,” he replies simply.

“How do you do that?” Gemini asks, albeit a little more harshly.

Johnny pauses, bouncing in his seat when Gemini rolls through a large pothole. I think he’s toying with the idea of not answering, if so, the glare Bren tosses over his shoulder changes his mind rather quickly. “I will some of myself into whatever I create,” he replies. “Be it my tats, a painting, or my music.”

“So when you sing . . .”

“I will myself to sound good, and for those who feel pain to feel my pain, too” he adds, his mind appearing to wander.

I think back to the rough and tumble crowd of people who attended his concert. I mostly dismissed them as delinquents and offenders, and they probably were. But sometimes the toughest people become that way not because they’re born predators, but because they were preyed upon. I’ll give Johnny this, he knew just the right crowd to lure in.

I pretend not to care or notice the effect his music had on me, my attention trailing to the road and to the thickening forest edging closer to the asphalt. “What happens when you draw?” I ask.

“Anything I create gets a piece of me,” he states. “The longer it’s with me, the stronger and more real it becomes.”

Which explains why he has so many tattoos. In keeping them close, they absorb more of his power. “Is that why your bandmates could speak to me. They were with you a long time?”

“Yeah.”

I turn in time to catch the way his gaze skims down my body. He’s not leering, but he has taken an interest in me.

“I inked my boys in when I realized how much of me went into my lyrics, and how society throwaways like me seemed to connect to it.” He blows out a stream of smoke from the side of his mouth, sending a flock of tiny white birds to disappear into the wind. “I needed a band, you feel me? People who could stand by me and make me Johnny Fate.”

“How did you teach them to play?” Gemini asks. His voice is even, and anyone else listening might not pick up on his anger. I do. But then no one knows him like me.

Johnny tenses as he often does when the wolves address them. “I willed them to learn.”

“That’s not good enough,” Gemini says, picking up on something I don’t. “From what I’ve learned, you don’t play an instrument, and I don’t think your power would allow you to play one just because you wanted to.” He eases off the accelerator as he rounds the bend, keeping his stare ahead and his attention very much on Johnny. “How did you do it?”

“I watched a lot of music videos,” Johnny admits. “And stuffed whatever I felt in each note into my boys.”

Gemini doesn’t respond, seemingly satisfied with his response.

“They seemed so human,” I say, recalling their imposing forms. “At least from afar.”

Johnny puts his cigarette out on the sole of his boot. Instead of flicking the butt out of the window, he shoves what’s left into the front pocket of his jeans and reaches for another one. This one is broken, too. As much as I don’t like the amount he’s smoking, I want to keep him talking, and light the next before he can ask.

“My boys were with me for a few years,” he says, his mind once more wandering.

 “Right,” I say carefully. “But how did they go from your skin to performing for hours on stage?”

“They became entities of themselves,” he replies, appearing to withdraw. “Even though they were mostly figures of what I needed them to be.” He drags his fingers through his bleached white bangs, pushing them away from his eyes. “I used to let them walk around after the shows so they’d be more visible. One morning, I woke up and they were standing by my bed, watching me.” He laughs. “Scared the shit out of me and two women lying next to me . . .” He frowns when he catches my surprise. “What? I’m rock star, Taran. Did you expect me to be a virgin?”

“It’s not that, you’re just young.” I shake my head. “I don’t like you doing that.”

“Doing what? Having sex? Don’t you and—”

“I would be very careful with the words you say next,” Gemini warns.

It takes Johnny a moment to speak. “I’m legal,” he says. “And so are they. Every time I take someone to bed, my people make sure of it.”

“That doesn’t make it okay. You’re being exploited,” I tell him frankly. “And used.”

He scoffs. “What else is new?” He does a double-take when I look at him. “Taran, I’m not this guy who’s spent the past two decades being worshiped, but I am the guy who gave all those assholes who mistreated me the ultimate fuck you by taking the stage and owning it. You think girls liked me back then? Most of them laughed when I tried to talk to them. They’re not laughing now, are they? No, all of them are lining up for a chance to screw me.”

I cross my arms. “Yet when they leave you’re back to being all alone.”

Johnny rams his mouth shut. “Tell me more about your band,” I say when he quiets.

I think he’s pissed and done talking, but then it’s like he can’t seem to stop. “My boys were becoming more,” he says. “Who knows, maybe with time, they would have had families of their own.”

“Doubt it,” Bren mutters.

“You don’t know me, werewolf,” Johnny snaps.

Bren turns around, smiling. But that’s Bren, big grin on his face right until he cracks your skull open and flings your brains over his shoulder. “True. But I do know you’re not God. You don’t get to decide what lives, what becomes, kid. No matter what kind of fucking power you have.”

Johnny doesn’t like what Bren has to say. “Pull the car over.”

“Johnny, calm down,” I say.

“Pull the car over now!” Johnny orders.

Gemini veers off the road, slamming down on the brake. “Fine, get out.”

“Wait, what?” I ask.

Johnny scowls and throws the door open. He doesn’t jump out, not right away. He wants us to stop him, to know someone cares.

Apparently the two “someones” in the front don’t.

He leaps out and slams the door shut, hurrying out of the way when another SUV jets up the highway and almost hits him.

“I can’t believe you’re just letting him leave!” I yell.

“I can’t believe you haven’t killed him yet,” Bren says to Gemini. He links his fingers behind his head. “Hey. Do you want to head to O’Malley’s? I hear they offer an all you can eat breakfast for nine bucks.”

“Seriously?” I ask.

“Okay, maybe it’s ten,” Bren adds.

Johnny leaps over the guardrail and stomps into the woods. I glare at Gemini, seething. “You’re going to let him go, just like that?”

“The Fate doesn’t belong to us,” he says, keeping calm.

He doesn’t like us fighting in front of others and it reflects in his tone. Well, that’s too damn bad because I’m raring to go. “His name is Johnny,” I remind him. “And don’t pull that he’s not one of us crap. Neither am I and look at how magical things are between us.”

Bren laughs and it takes all I have not to zap the shit out of him.

Gemini isn’t laughing, he turns around, gripping the side of Bren’s seat. “Don’t compare what he is, to who you are. I don’t trust him. Where he could have used his power toward something good he used it only to better himself. Don’t you see? He became that renowned idol he always wanted to be.” His grip tightens. “You never would have used your powers like that.”

“You’re wrong.”

He rights himself, realizing I’m telling the truth.

“My childhood sucked, you know it did. Too many times we went without, and more times than not we hurt. If I had Johnny’s power, especially at his age, I would have jumped at the opportunity to save us.”

I fling open the door and throw it closed behind me. I don’t usually allow my emotions to get the best of me—scratch that, I do all the time—but it’s not often I allow my deep-seeded memories to poke through. They bring out misery I tried to forget and always result in vicious tears.

I place my hand over the guard rail and swing my legs over. I’m still wearing my hot-pink shoes. In my defense, my only mission was to pick up Gemini and Johnny from the airport.

The long thin heels pierce through the sand and mud along the rocky terrain. I stretch out my hands, trying to balance as I maneuver down the small incline. I don’t want to cry buckets over my pathetic upbringing, I’ve done it enough. But a tear escapes even though I order it back home and demand it stop being a little bitch.

I blame my exhaustion and time with Destiny for being overly sensitive, until I sense Johnny and his sadness. He’s crying too. I don’t hear him, or see him right away. I feel him.

The same melancholy pull that first drew me tugs at my heartstrings. I suppose Johnny doesn’t have to create anything to be heard. He simply has to be.

I find him near the small section of woods where the highway loops around. He looks from side to side, appearing torn over which way to go.

“Right takes you back where you came, left takes you down the mountain. Straight takes you across the road and into deeper woods.” He starts to head straight. “Uh-uh. That’s not someplace you want to be, even during the day.”

He looks at me, his eyes red and swollen. “Are there demons in there? Creatures or some other shit?”

“Probably,” I admit, taking a seat on a large boulder. “But I was referring to the black bears and rattlers. Either way, something’s going to take a bite.”

He looks down at the dirt and edges away. Maybe he sees something. Maybe he doesn’t. Regardless, escaping into the throes of Squaw Valley doesn’t sound as promising as it once did.

He walks toward me and takes a seat, the way the boulder slants putting us at almost eye level. He reaches into his back pocket for his cigarettes, but quickly changes his mind.

“He hates me,” he says. “They all do.”

The wolves, he means.

I put my left hand over his and give it a squeeze. Between his palpable sadness and the amount of empathy he inspires, I can’t help myself. “It’s not that they hate you. Weres just perceive strangers as a threat or prey until they get to know you and their beasts decide for them.”

“Are you saying your boyfriend will like me once he gets to know me?” He rolls his eyes. “I doubt that.”

I doubt it, too, but I don’t admit it aloud. Despite all his tears and fragility, Gemini considers Johnny a predator and recognizes the harm he can potentially cause. I recognize it, too. I just don’t have an inner beast prowling within me, constantly toying with the notion of gnawing Johnny’s limbs off.

“I had a plan,” Johnny says. “Go back to my people and back to my life.” He looks out toward the highway. “But that was before.”

He releases my hand. I think he’s ready to bolt. But too many thoughts appear to race through his mind. “What’s going to happen to me, Taran? If Destiny dies, will the witches claim me as their new Messiah?”

“It looks that way,” I reply. I stretch out my foot and roll the ankle. “As much as she didn’t look the part, Destiny was queen in the witch world. But where most queens are admired, most saw her as strange. They respected the position more than they ever respected her.”

“Do you think they’ll respect me? If the time comes and they absorb me into their covens or whatever, do you think it will be okay?”

“I think you have the potential to become the rock star of your kind, just as you were in the world you created for yourself.”

He doesn’t smile. Probably because I’m not smiling either. “Is that such a bad thing?” he asks.

“Johnny, your life may have been glamour and glitz on the surface, but it came with a lot of shit few saw. Your manager, your fans, someone always wanted something from you. That won’t change if you take Destiny’s place.”

“You think the witches will use me?”

I shake my head. “No. I know they will.”

He releases a long, defeated breath.

“Genevieve isn’t so bad,” I say, trying to add a little light to all the gloom I painted. “We’re not friends, but she’s tried to rule her best according to witch law and ultimately sides with the greater good.”

“Can I trust her?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “She and Ines lead the strongest covens. But their loyalty isn’t to their Lessers or any of their kind. It’s to their ways.” I sigh. “And their ways may not necessarily be in your best interest.”

“Am I getting another Drake?”

“No, you’re getting another two,” I answer him truthfully.

I lick my lips, they’re dry and taste salty. Having not slept and barely eating is taking its toll. That doesn’t stop me from telling Johnny what he needs to hear. “Gemini told me weres have always warred with those who threaten the earth. Yet despite the light they cast, evil continues to lurk in the shadows, growing fiercer and more formidable.” He watches me, paying close attention. “The witches and vamps sense it, too, and all agree matters have worsened over these past two decades.”

“Because of me being born?” He huffs. “That’s not my fault. I didn’t choose to come into the world, and I sure as hell didn’t cause all this darkness.”

“I know.”

It’s all I say. Although it wasn’t his intent, his presence caused a shift in the mystical world, and ultimately in the world itself. I almost had a heart-attack when I learned Johnny’s birthday. It was the exact day my sister was inflicted with a magical illness, and mere days from the first time she assumed her tigress form. Now look at her, pregnant with the first child destined to change the world. I can’t dismiss it as a coincidence. Not with all the subsequent turmoil surrounding Johnny’s presence.

“Things are bad,” I say, trying to spare him to some extent. “But it’s because they are that we need all the help we can get.” I motion behind me. “You may not be a were, but you are a witch. When . . . if Destiny dies, you’ll take her place and inherit her stardom.”

“But you don’t want me to,” he concludes.

“That’s not true. What I want is for you to keep your eyes open and realize there’s always a price for fame and glory.”

He slumps forward, weighed down with all the stress he feels. “What happens to me now?”

“If you’d like, we can summon the witches and let them know you wish to join them. But after the attack against Ines, it might be some time before they can come for you and ensure your safety.”

“Then where will I go in the meantime?” he asks. “I don’t want to go back to the cave.”

“Den,” I correct, the reference lifting my mood only slightly.

“Whatever. They hate me, Taran, and I’m not exactly crazy about them.”

A thought occurs to me. It’s not perfect but . . . “I know where you can go,” I say, reaching for my phone.

A small avalanche of rocks rolls a few feet away. I glance up to find Gemini and Bren looking none-too-pleased as I send my final text to confirm our arrival.

“I spoke with our Elders,” Gemini says. “Our Pack has acquired a suite for you at the Falcon Lodge. For your safety, you’ll be watched at all times.”

Johnny beams, but it’s not because of Gemini’s offer.

He flings his arm around me. It’s then I know we’re both in trouble. “Thanks, but no thanks,” he says. “Taran just hooked me up with the vampires . . .”