Page 76 of The Forgotten

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she groans. “I don’t know where this can possibly go. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to see me as something other than your cute little sister.”

“You haven’t been that since you turned fifteen,” I growl under my breath. “I don’t know why you think you’re a late bloomer. You’ve always said that. Your tits were bursting from your tops by the time you turned sixteen. We had to warn everyone away from you.”

“Wonderful,” she replies. “That explains a lot.”

“Time out,” Noa says, holding his hands up. “Can we take this one day at a time? We’ll call each other every day, come intoMinneapolis whenever we can, fly you out, and work on what we all broke.”

“You should have said something before now,” Harris complains. “We’ve just been digging ourselves a really deep grave.”

“I was about to start filling it in,” Orla mutters.

“Behave, Pretty Girl,” Noa grins. “What do you say? The bites are permanent, no going back now.”

Her fingers graze over her neck, making Noa palm his dick as he watches her possessively.

“We aren’t asking you to upend your life, but can we get you a nicer place? Please?” I beg.

“No, I can’t leave Kailee behind,” she says, lips pursed. “My roommate isn’t doing so hot. She won’t be able to make the rent alone. I won’t do that to her in this city.”

“Fuck, what does that mean?” Harris groans.

“Nothing. The mafia families are working on it,” Orla says primly.

“What the fuck?—”

“Why do you have any involvement with the mafia?” I ask, talking over Harris.

“Who do you think I work for?” she giggles.

God, I’m going to have so many gray hairs from loving this girl.

Six months later

HARRIS

My drumsticks feel like an extension of my hands as they open the next song. I love the gritty, real feel of it. We’ve recorded some new songs with Orla as our muse in a different way, and our fans don’t seem to mind.

Noa growls out the lyrics about a girl who walked through fire to save her alphas, and the crowd screams as Trick plays the guitar. Orla is standing off stage, watching with wide eyes as her lips move to lyrics. She no longer avoids our music.

Tonight, we’re opening forAngelic Demons,and the stadium is sold out. We coaxed Orla out to Anaheim to spend the weekend with us, and we’re taking things one day at a time. She’s no longer on her heat control, and instead switched to birth control because she said she doesn’t think we’re ready to add a kid to our insanity.

Orla has always held tightly to her grudges. When she was sixteen, she fucked with my food for six months because I made the mistake of telling her that the color purple was pretty. That in itself doesn’t seem like a big deal, but a girl in school started wearing purple exclusively and Orla said that her nose was crooked.

Orla misunderstood the conversation entirely, because she’d been wearing purple shoes during that time, and I was trying to flirt. I just didn’t know how to with her, and I thoroughly fucked that up.

Now, she’s holding tight to our resolve that we figure out how to make this work while she lives in Minnesota. My pack and I love a good challenge, so we have worked out our schedule so that it takes us near Minneapolis at least once a month. Outsideof that, we all video call her, tell her every day that we love her so she won’t forget, and remind her that she’s our world.

Orla won’t let us quit the band. We offered, and she told us that we have too much talent to stop playing. As long as it doesn’t interfere with what she needs, then we’ll continue to tour.

We now have a house in Minneapolis for the time that we spend there, though Orla says she’ll continue to live with her roommate until Kailee moves out. Apparently, she’s dating a pack and it seems like it may be getting hot and heavy. The fierce loyalty she has for others isn’t a surprise. We were basked in that warmth for a long time, and are finally getting it again.

“Thank you, Anaheim!” Noa yells into the microphone. “We’re going to go hang with our girl and watch the rest of the show. Are you ready forAngelic Demonsto blow your mind?”

The cheers follow us as the lights go out and we jog off the stage. Roadies swarm past us as they rush on stage to change out the instruments and set up the projection screen for the next band.

Belial is speaking to Orla as we walk up to them, his mask in place as he leans over her so she can hear his deep, gravel voice. He’s good people, and even though this is the first time we’re opening forAngelic Demons, we’ve run into him at other times.

Belial, Abraxas, Samael, and Haniel are the four band members ofAngelic Demons.They always wear masks, and no one has ever seen their faces. The marketing works for them. All of the gossip around their names extends to guesses as to who they really are, but that’s none of my business.