Page 48 of Vengeful Melodies

The idea settles over me like smoke curling around a flame.

Because it’s not just Alix I want.

There’s Bash—the wild fire that could consume or save me.

Kaiser—the steady shadow holding all the chaos together.

And Takoa—quiet, patient, watching like he’s waiting for me to catch up.

I swallow hard, the weight of it all pressing down.

“What if I want them all?” I whisper, barely daring to speak it.

Takoa’s eyes don’t flicker.

“Then you don’t have to choose.”

The truth hums between us, fierce and raw.

The music from the living room bleeds through the cracked studio doors—the haunting rhythm of drums, the scrape of strings—telling stories of broken kings and the beauty brave enough to hold them all.

I’m standing in the fire, surrounded by beasts, knowing that sometimes the greatest power lies in burning every rule.

Chapter Twenty

Takoa

She looks at me like I’ve given her something she doesn’t know how to hold.

And maybe I have.

Maybe I’m just as reckless as she is—offering steadiness I don’t always feel, pretending the fire under my skin isn’t raging every time she steps too close. Since my hand brushed hers on that stage, and our eyes locked—like I was seeing a woman I shouldn’t want, but can’t stop wanting, even though I barely know anything about her.

It could be a disaster.

And yet, I welcome it. Foolishly, like a moth to flame.

I stay where I am—elbows on my knees, voice low, because she doesn’t need another man trying to own her pain. She needs someone willing to stay inside it with her.

So I do.

Even when my chest aches with all the words I swallow instead.

When she whispers,“I don’t want to be a mistake,”something inside me fucking snaps.

She doesn’t see what I see.

Doesn’t see how she’s calm amid chaos—the thread stitching together the broken edges of this band, tying us to something we didn’t know we were missing until she showed up.

She’s scared.

And, fuck, so am I.

I’ve lived inside fear my whole life.

Fear of losing the music.

Fear of losing myself.