Page 1 of Savage Temptation (Savage Reign #2)

EMILIA

I shiver as the icy chills of regret engulf me. My pulse quickens as the curtain falls and I leave the stage. Glitter clings to everything. My hair, skin, and I think I have some on the back of my throat. I can’t seem to shake it off any better than the remorse filling my heart.

I grab a water bottle and down it in a few gulps. It helps.

That was our last show for the evening. Echoes of cheers and whistles reverberate off the theater’s walls. Calls for an encore would normally call me back on stage, but I’m done. I can’t take another minute in these shoes or feathers, much less ten.

I dodge around stagehands all aiming to pull me back on stage for a crowd calling for an encore, but I keep my head down. If I’m quick, I can shed the feathers before Oliver bursts in to berate me for not milking the crowd.

I can already hear his snarky and snide tone calling me ungrateful for all he’s done for me the second he barges into my dressing room. By my count, I have about three minutes until that happens.

I spot the yellow door with my name stenciled across the center. I slip inside, finally alone. Cool air washes over my heated, balmy skin and I sigh with relief.

The scent of roses and the muted glow of the flatscreen on the wall greet me. There’s some kind of music video playing with soothing tones that Oliver swears helps “his girls” relax after a show.

Ugh. My stomach gurgles at being part of that man’s “girls”.

I used to be someone’s girl. Until I told Oliver no. Then he did every underhanded thing in the book to own me. I either agreed, or my younger sister would pay. I couldn’t let that happen.

But before that, Jagger Malone owned my heart and soul.

The scent of his cologne and the feel of his thick black hair through my fingers is a memory I will carry with me forever.

Jagger is every bit the ruthless biker badass you see in all the T.V.

shows, but that man treated me like his queen. And then my dreams shattered.

Wanna know a shameful secret? Of course you do. We love to know the misery of others. It makes us feel better about our own lives. No judgment from me. We are all the same. We all do it.

I lower myself in the chair in front of the dressing mirror, my gaze coming up to meet my own. Water swims along the rims of my eyes and I blink quickly, forcing the tears back.

I should be fat and happy with our third or fourth kid by now.

But another person’s greed ruined that.

How is that, you wonder?

Well, I fell in love as about every fucking story in the universe starts out. Wait, I know. That’s not the shameful part. What breaks my heart to even say out loud is this… I found a man who loved me from the tips of my hair to the very ends of my toes and then I walked out on our wedding day.

I had my reasons, but yeah. After falling for him and him for me, I walked away before he could slip his ring on my finger and put a baby inside me.

Something we both professed to want with all our souls.

He was the one. I didn’t care that he was fifteen years older, or that I was barely drinking age. We loved each other.

Walking away broke both our hearts, but I never gave him my reason. I couldn’t.

What kind of monster does that make me?

A cruel one.

But it was that or a swampy grave for him.

I couldn’t have another person die for me. Not that I was given a lot of choice in the matter.

My lip quivers despite me wrangling my emotions back into their tight box in the back of my mind. Exhaustion makes it hard to keep my regrets from festering into a crying fest, but deep down I know it’s more than just shoulda-couldas coming back to haunt me.

I want out so bad I can taste the sweetness of freedom. I unfasten the large feather headdress and toss it on the nearby couch.

I grab a brush and run it through my hair.

Jagger and I ended five years ago, and I swore I would never come back to this city, as if I ever had any control over my life.

Not a chance. Oliver calls the shots. Still, I never wanted to set foot in the place that brought Jagger and me together, or feel the magic that pulses through the darker undercurrents of the Big Easy. I always knew this city could break me, and right now, I’m balanced right on the edge.

So, guess where fate has me. Yep. New Orleans. Home sweet home, I guess.

Of course, he doesn’t know it, but I’m only three streets over from the man I nearly married. I had the white gown, all the lilies a girl could want and the pretty little cake.

His biker brothers must all hate me, too. They probably use a picture of me for dart practice over rounds of beer and bourbon.

I grimace at the thought. I wish it had turned out differently for us, but my father’s actions sealed my fate.

Now I’m burned out, overworked and want nothing more than to fall into Jagger’s arms and ask him to take me back. The worst part is, I’m stuck. My father is dead, but my younger sister is very much alive. I stay because I’m the only person keeping her safe.

I kick off the tight, open-toed heels—high enough to stake a vampire—and toss them onto the growing pile with the feathered headdress. The mirror in front of me reflects a girl who looks put together, but frankly it’s all a mask and a ton of makeup hiding the dark circles under my eyes.

My heart hurts and I don’t know what to do about it.

I sure as hell don’t deserve any kind of rekindling with Jagger.

Even thinking about it is ludicrous. Besides, Oliver has his hooks so deep in me, my soul feels the bite of the piercing metal.

The last time I checked, I have another five years on a contract with him.

If I don’t honor it, he’ll put me in the bayou as lunch for the gators.

I’ve seen the monster do it, so I know what I’m talking about. And then he’ll go after my sister.

My head has a lot to say about my current situation, but my heart softly hums another truth that is hard to ignore. Twenty minutes is all it would take and I could set my eyes on the deliciously tattooed temptation and no one would have to know.

Yeah, right.

Jagger would probably put a bullet between my eyes before he ever swung the door open and welcomed me back into his life.

Tonight is my last night in New Orleans, anyway. Two weeks of gluing my feet to the boundaries of this theatre has kept me out of trouble. I only need to make it another sixteen hours, and we are off to New York.

I have one more show to perform tomorrow and then…

I sigh deeply. “And then what, Emilia?” I ask myself.

Another show, another city. My brain says go and search out the one man in this town I should never go looking for.

I grab the remote and change the fucking gothic music playing on screen.

No wonder I’m depressed as hell. I flick the channel to anything and immediately get pulled into a sight I never expected.

A whoosh of air jolts me out of my pity party.

“Hey girl! Great show tonight. You slayed out there. I think all the girls wanna be you and the men want to be in you. If you know what I mean.”

My friend, and fellow burlesque artist, as she likes to call us, waltzes her tall, feminine frame into our shared dressing room.

She looks every bit the sexy siren she sounds like, draped in red feathers and glittering with every sequin you could possibly fit onto two seashells and a barely there bottom piece.

We’re basically wearing the same thing, only she looks a million times better.

“Me?” I quip, running my eyes up and down her figure. “You’re a walking sex announcement.”

Her ruby red lips form a broad smile. “You know it, baby girl. You know it.” She grabs a tube of the same lipstick and reapplies. That’s when my eyes fall to the roses on the dressing table.

I’ve told Oliver a hundred times not to let the audience back here. That’s how showgirls get plastered on the evening news as some stalker’s hacked up victim.

I grab the bundle of roses still wrapped in decorated paper with one destination in mind.

“Hey where are you going lookin’ like you want to murder the flower boy?”

I get to the door and turn to Jada. “To give these back.” I pluck the little note card from its holder and flip it over with a sigh of irritation. “They’re not even for me.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, they are for Oliver of all people.”

Jada’s lips quirk into a half smile. “He’s not happy with you, by the way. Don’t think he didn’t see you duck out before the encore.” I meet Jada’s green eyes through the reflection of the mirror.

I lift a shoulder in defiance. “Everything makes that man mad.”

Over Jada’s shoulder I catch the flash of red and blue lights filling the flatscreen, but it's the glowing neon sign in the distance that has my heart seizing and my feet glued to the floor.

I wave a hand at Jada. “Hey, turn that up.” I don’t believe what I’m seeing…

“Good evening. We’re live in New Orleans tonight with breaking news from the French Quarter, where tragedy struck at the popular Voodoo Lounge late last night.

Authorities confirm three college-aged patrons were found unresponsive inside the club.

While the official cause of death has not yet been released, law enforcement sources tell us that the dangerous synthetic known as ‘Euphoria’ may have been involved. The drug…”

My stomach churns with disgust and horror. Once a long time ago the Voodoo Lounge meant something to me.

The reporter goes on but the words turn into a dull murmur when a man with long raven hair and eyes the color of smoky obsidian comes into view.

There he is. Jagger.

My heart stutters. Six and half feet tall of sin poured into leather. His scent, long ago buried in my psyche, moves over my scenes as if he’s standing in the same room with me.

“Oh. Hey! The Voodoo Lounge? Isn’t that where that man hunk biker you love hangs out? Is that him? The biker dude you talk about in your sleep?”

Jada’s eyes latch onto mine through the mirror.