I step out of Johnny’s dressing room, smiling when I see Gemini. He’s in charge of Johnny’s security, something he insisted upon when I insisted on going.

Johnny wants me with him, and whether we say it or not, I think this is our last goodbye.

“Hi, babe,” I say, laughing when his scowl remains firmly in place. “What’s wrong?” I hang tight to my phone and turn slowly, causing the skirt of my strapless pink chiffon dress to flutter. “I’m wearing practical shoes and everything.”

It’s true. I ditched the dagger pumps I’d planned to wear for sparkly ballerina flats.

He pulls me against him. Oh, and there’s that smile I like. “I’d rather have you alone with me, and far away from here.”

I wrap my arms around his neck when he bends to kiss me. “Ever have hot sex backstage at a concert?” I ask. He shakes his head slowly, his face warming with desire. “Do you want to?”

“Very much,” he replies, grazing his teeth along my neck. He stops at my ear, giving the lobe a tug. “But not until I’m sure we’re safe.”

My impish demeanor dissolves. “Do you think the shifters will come for him?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Chatter surrounding the neophytes has been minimal and limited to the countries within South America. That doesn’t mean we can assume they won’t appear. Stay alert so we can wake up safe in each other’s arms.”

He kisses me again, easing away only when the local pack approaches. “We’ll be outside, guarding the perimeter. If there’s any trouble, or even if you suspect there might be, call me.”

“I will,” I promise.

I watch him march down the corridor that leads toward the exit and away from the screaming crowd shouting Johnny’s name. It didn’t take long for the vamps to organize the show, a week tops, I think. And it took less than twenty minutes for every seat to sell out. It’s one hell of a way to go out, but I suppose this is what Johnny needed.

This arena was erected in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. It’s a massive colosseum with several elevated tiers and where the newly formed football team will play their first game come fall. The farmer who owned the land must have made out like a king. And from what the local pack told us, he still has the potential to make more. More builders are bidding on the wooded acres surrounding the arena, hoping to put in a mall, and possibly erect a small town to bring more businesses to the area.

I consider how much the area residents will make with just Johnny’s show alone when the door to his dressing room cracks open.

My smile appears when the man of the hour steps out, wearing black leather pants, boots, and a vest. His long bleached hair, on top of his head, drapes over the side against his cheek. He looks almost exactly as he did when I first saw him, except for the little bit of innocence he seemed to lose along the way.

“Ready?” I ask.

“I guess I have to be,” he says, forcing a smile I wish he didn’t have to.

All at once, he’s surrounded by his people, a brand-new set of sharks dying to get a piece of him. They don’t yet realize that it’s those with real fangs who get to keep him.

The weres assigned to him follow, close enough to guard all the while trying to shield themselves from the loud obnoxious intro Johnny’s new band delivers.

When we’re almost to the stage they disperse, rushing to guard the entrances and spare their sensitive hearing.

A woman with a headset approaches, like the rest of the human staff, they seemed to want to keep their distance from the weres. “Johnny wants to talk to you before he takes the stage,” she tells me.

“Sure.”

She clutches my arm when I start forward, gripping me hard and meeting me with a nasty glower. “You need to hurry,” she insists. “We have a schedule to keep and thirty-thousand people to please.”

I shrug her off. “And you need to keep your hands off me.”

“You obviously don’t know who I am,” she informs me.

“No, sweetheart, you don’t know who I am.” I motion to where the weres vanished. “You might be afraid of them, but trust me when I say they’re a lot nicer than me.”

I push past her, maybe a little too harshly seeing how she staggers back. If this is the kind of people Johnny surrounds himself with, is it a wonder he was ready for a break? The thought makes me sad, so does his future. I worry what will happen to him, and hope he’s strong enough to face what’s coming.

Unlike Destiny.

Shayna, Emme, and I stopped in to see her before we left Tahoe. If I thought she looked bad before, nothing compared to how we found her. She looked dead. I thought she was by how Tye openly wept at her side. But then she opened her eyes and thanked us for being her friends.

I swallow back the memory, and every speck of sadness I felt when we said our goodbyes. I don’t want that same future for Johnny. I want him to live the long life he deserves.

The crew hurries past me as I wipe my eyes and hop up the stairs leading backstage. Each worker speaks fast and moves faster, distracted by their tasks and the last-minute details to make Johnny shine.

From the other side of the stage, Shayna waves. Koda nods, releasing her cautiously and disappearing into the shadows. Like Gemini, Emme, and Bren, he’ll be guarding the perimeter. I hope we don’t need them, but if we do, they’re the team I want to have our backs.

Johnny peeks out to the arena from his spot behind the curtain. I smile, hoping he’ll return it. As he lets the curtain fall back in place, he does. It’s not much of a grin, but it’s there and I’m happy to see it.

He walks to me slowly, pulling me into a tight embrace. “Thanks, Taran,” he says, speaking slowly. “For everything.”

I’m not what anyone would call a “hugger”. I make the exception for my family and my lover. That’s it. Even when Celia and Aric went through what they went through—and I saw how broken Aric seemed, how lost he was without her, I couldn’t bring myself to hug him. For the most part, I wanted to punch him in the nose.

Johnny is different. He’s not family, but I’ll be damned if I want to let him go. He straightens as he carefully releases me, chuckling when he sees my face.

His gaze softens when I stroke the long blond strands away from his eyes. “I’m going to be all right, mama bear,” he tells me. He looks in the direction of the stage. “No matter what comes, I’m ready for it.”

“I know you are,” I tell him.

The guitar soloist currently blasting away reaches a crescendo, his rapid movements across the strings slowing as he scales down the melody. The crowd goes wild, their collective screaming deafening.

They know who’s ready to take the stage.

At once, the lights go out, taking the shrieks and hollers for Johnny up another notch. With a deep breath he squares his shoulders, leaving me and stepping into the darkness.

Thousands of feet stomp at once, rumbling the floor and adding to the cacophony of noise. But the moment the spotlight flashes on, and Johnny lights up like a burst of lava from a dormant volcano, the noise is too much and my hands slam over my ears.

The screams pain me, threatening to burst my eardrums. It’s only temporary, the agony receding as Johnny drags out the note from the first word he sings.

“Angels.

Angels walk among us.

Holding us when we fall.

Protecting against those who maul our bleeding souls.”

Each verse takes a life of its own, breathing air into the wounded crowd, and giving my heartstrings a pull. Be it magic, or simply Johnny, his talent is unmatched.

I wrap my arms around myself and bow my head. He called me mama bear. I’m not his mama, that’s for damn sure. But between the way he fires my need to protect, and how I feel every time I see Celia stroke her pregnant belly, I’m starting to think that maybe being a mama is a fear I should no longer shy away from.

I think of Gemini, and how he held me last night as we slept.

Maybe it’s time to try a new adventure.

My focus returns to Johnny, the light reflecting like a halo against his skin. It’s amazing to see the way the darkness surrounds him while he stands untouched in the light. He turns back to me and offers me a wink. I smile, flattered.

My phone buzzes in my hand. I expect it to be Gemini, only for Tye’s face to encompass the entire screen.

A horrible chill runs down my spine. “Hello?”

Static fills the line.

“Hello?” I repeat, plugging my opposite ear.

Tye speaks fast, but I can’t understand what he’s saying. The line isn’t clear and his speech is garbled.

“Tye, Tye? . . . I can’t hear you. Slow down.”

I make out only a few words, and I hate every one.

“Dead . . . Destiny is . . . Celia’s children . . .”

“Destiny is dead?” I ask. I cover my mouth, waiting for him to clarify, but the call drops.

I ring him back, only for it to go straight to voice mail. My hand is shaking as I phone Gemini, speaking quickly when he answers. “I think Destiny is dead.”

“What?”

I edge away from the curtain. “Tye just called me. He was upset. The connection was bad and I couldn’t make out what he was saying. He said something about Celia’s children and Destiny being dead.”

He shouts orders to his wolves canvasing the perimeter. “Taran, I need you to stay with Johnny, something’s wrong.”

My thoughts become a muddled mess, thinking Destiny’s demise has started a chain of events that no one could have predicted. “What do you see?” I ask him.

“Nothing. But Destiny can’t be dead. None of my weres guarding her have called.”

“Then call them!” I yell.

“We’re trying.” There’s a pause as a slew of voices speak to Gemini at once. He curses and switches back to me. “No one is getting through, Taran, the texts go unanswered. Someone picks up the line, but no one can hear what they’re saying.”

“What if something attacked them—”

“Then they would be fighting, not answering their phones or trying to make calls. Something is happening. I’m coming for you and Johnny now—”

My phone buzzes again, signaling another call. “It’s Tye,” I say to Gemini. “I’ll call you back.”

“All right, just stay with Johnny. I’m on my way.”

I switch over to Tye’s call. Again, nothing but white noise. “I can’t hear you,” I yell into the phone. “Tell me what’s happening.”

My back slams into the wall and I drop my phone, inundated by an onslaught of magic that paralyzes me.

Destiny appears in my line of vision, her voice hollow and echoing from every direction, and her image a staccato of movement.

“Taran, hear me,” she says.

Glimpses of the backstage intermix with glimpses of Destiny. “Taran, hear me,” she says, her voice growing weaker.

“I hear you,” I say, fighting through the overstimulation of imagery.

She’s in her bed, the one in our basement, her long black hair contrasting deeply against her pale white skin and the ivory robe she’s wearing. She’s almost dead, I know she is.

Her breaths are harsh, labored, every word she expresses appearing to rob her of life. “Fate doesn’t get to decide if Celia’s children will rid the world of evil,” she says. “It’s destiny.”

“What?” I ask. I want to presume she’s delirious, and losing herself as she fades into the light. But there’s a reason she’s reaching out to me so close to death, and I’ll be damned if I don’t pay attention.

“Destiny, tell me what’s happening,” I plead.

The barrage of images separating my reality from my connection to her dwindles and I start to see more of the dark curtains swaying in front of me. “Uh-uh, girl,” I tell her, spitting each syllable out through my teeth. “Don’t you leave me now.”

A flash of her face appears and she slowly blinks her eyes open. “That’s it, baby,” I say. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Johnny’s singing fades, as do my surroundings, leaving only Destiny. “Fate doesn’t get to decide if Celia’s children will rid the world of evil,” she repeats. “It’s destiny.”

“Okay, I heard you,” I say carefully. “Now tell me what you mean.”

Tears swim in her eyes, releasing one by one. “Evil has known about you and your sisters since the dawn of creation, and long before it first cursed your family.” More tears fall, her weakness overtaking her, but her anger pushing her forward.

I’m crying, too, for what she’s enduring and how much it hurts her to speak. “What has evil known?” I press.

Almost at once, her tears dry up, her stare determined even as the rest of her body betrays her. “That your children will rise against it.” She swallows hard. “Fate knows it, too . . . He’s been leeching my power in order to kill them all.”

I feel myself rise from the position on the floor, the slow thuds of my heartbeat speeding up and growing pronounced.

“Johnny is leeching your power?” I manage. I turn in the direction of where I think the stage is, but all I see is Destiny.

“Yes,” Destiny says, her remaining strength quickly leaving her. “You have to kill Johnny, Taran. In order for your children to face their destiny, their fate with death must be destroyed.”

I barely believe what she’s saying, my insides sinking into the floor. But I’m listening. God damn it, I have to. “Johnny is their fate with death?” I stammer.

“Yes,” she answers.

And then she’s gone.