Howling For Love (Rock Star Alpha, #1)

R
aging Passions Books

Howling For Love
© June 2016 by Jane Perky

All rights reserved:
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.

Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.

HOWLING FOR LOVE

Could a rock star Alpha and a nerd bridge their two worlds together?

Mick Badder is the lead guitarist and singer of the rock band Dominance. He’s also a rock star Alpha who’s had enough of sleeping with groupies and one-night stands. Once Mick catches a whiff of something amazing in the crowd, he nearly loses it.

Mick’s mate, the one man he’s been searching for all his life, is nearby. With his wolf howling for love, Mick can’t resist the strange magnetic pull towards Stefano Reyes. How long can the feisty human put up a fight, before admitting they’re meant to be?

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Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Howling For Love

By Jane Perky

“S
ounds like a wild crowd,” Korey Strong remarked, tuning his bass.

The bass player of their rock group, Dominance, strummed his instrument, nodding at the deep sound it produced with approval. Korey was the rock of the group, the heart and voice of logic when their ship turned to dangerous waters.

“Good. An amped-up audience is easy enough to please,” said their drummer, Josiah Kirsch.

He was universally known as ‘Steel’ to the majority of their fans, which comprised of screaming beautiful women and pliant young men eager to please him. The countless men and women who fell right into Steel’s bed appropriately christened Josiah the name because none of them could walk straight the next morning. Not that anyone complained.

God, Mick loved their job and wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world. When the news caught wind of three lone Alpha werewolves who wanted to form a rock band, they made bets when Dominance would flop. It never happened.

The critics never accounted for their musical talent and sheer dumb luck. One hit song led to a hit album that turned platinum. From there, Dominance’s only natural course was to go forward and never look back. 

“Smells like a fucking orgy out there. Fuck, I’m getting hard already,” remarked their appropriately-named Steel, who took a whiff.

Steel didn’t need werewolf senses to make his point. Even Mick could smell the eager crowd from their room backstage. He could see them in his mind’s eye, the sweat-soaked and scantily-clad bodies, shouting out their name and the smell of their excitement.

“Save it for the after party,” Korey reminded Steel.

“No harm sifting through the masses and eyeing the best ones,” Steel said with a grin, shooting Mick a look.

Steel had always been competitive, ever since they were kids but Mick wasn’t worried. Every member of Dominance picked from the cream of the crop, could have whoever and whatever they wanted. Yet, all that wealth and popularity didn’t quite soothe Mick’s soul or his temperamental beast. Like the others, Mick used music to take the brunt of the more intense emotions his wolf harbored.

That was why most shifters joined a pack. A pack wasn’t just extended family that had a shifter’s back. They anchored them back to reality. Well, the three of them grew up together in a small backward shit town that didn’t accept the supernatural, so no support from them. Besides, a pack wouldn’t accept three wolves, three powerful Alphas, for fear of disrupting their power structure.

It hadn’t been an easy journey for each of them.

Once their family and friends found out they had been bitten by a rabid werewolf during summer break, everyone cut ties to all of them. Unlike the rest of the world that had long embraced the existence of the paranormal, they lived in constant terror.

In their world, the weak perished and the strong moved on.  Fine with Mick.

Mick was a firm believer that what couldn’t kill them made them stronger. He adapted, learned to control his beast with Korey and Steel, and to hunt safely. They learned to watch out for each other and fend for themselves.

Fuck that town and the people who lived in it. He’d always known there was a bigger world out there, a world that would embrace them and their music. Steel had been the dreamer, Korey the doubter, but never for a second did Mick doubt they could carve a place for themselves in the world.

The moment they all turned eighteen, Mick convinced the others to move away and never return from that miserable hell hole.

Jesus.
Why the hell was Mick thinking of the past now, of all times?

As lead singer and guitarist, the pressure and spotlight was always on him. He needed to focus, make sure everyone had their game face on. The concert didn’t bother Mick as much as what would happen after. Performing felt like second nature to him, something as easy as trading his human form for his wolf.

The high of their live performance wouldn’t fade away easily. Mick would fall into the same damn trap all over again. Some desperate female or horny young man, human or other, would toss themselves at him, begging Mick for a taste of a rock god.

Naturally, Mick wouldn’t refuse a gift. That would be sheer fucking rudeness. He’d take two or three, even four nubile and eager bodies on their offer. Mick would end up in a messy pile back at his pricey penthouse suite uptown, caught up in a tangle of bodies, the smell of musk and sweat.

Mick loved sex like any man. Hell, aside from making music, fucking came next on the list, but Mick wasn’t getting any younger. At twenty-seven, most humans wouldn’t call him old, but shifters took mates early.

Mate.
That word was a curse, something average shifters threw around like it meant nothing. According to the shifter dating manual given to all shifters who reached their maturity, they had one man or woman waiting out there for them, ready to complete the missing half of their souls. Werewolves picked one mate and stuck with that chosen person for the rest of their lives.

Steel called the mating concept ‘boring’. Korey always had a wistful look on his face, but then, among the three of them, Korey never hid the fact he was a romantic. However, Korey had been hurt once before, and didn’t trust easily.

Mick considered falling in love bullshit...until recently anyway. Waking up next to strangers whose names he couldn’t remember, strangers who gauged his worth by the money he made—what sort of life was that?

To the nineteen-year-old Mick, that kind of living sounded like heaven, a thing to aspire to, but not his twenty-seven-year-old self. Times change and so did Mick, or so he’d hoped. Fuck. He wasn’t even sure what the hell he was searching for.

He wanted to keep playing music with Korey and Steel until the day he died, but he didn’t want to come home to an empty home. In his mind’s eye, Mick imagined a smiling and gorgeous sexy slender man waiting for him every time he came home, wearing an apron, jeans and nothing else. That mystery lover would pull Mick into his arms for a kiss and make any shitty day better.

Woah. Wait. Mick was heading into dangerous domestic territory.

While their career couldn’t have been better—they were at the top of their game— Mick’s personal life took a nose dive. Something was missing in his life, something vital...but was having a mate the answer?

Being a mate to a rock star wasn’t easy, because that individual had to content with their busy schedules and screaming fans everyday.

Hell, where would Mick even begin to look?

According to shifter custom, a shifter’s animal could pinpoint their mate the moment they saw them. Sounded easy enough, until one realized the world’s population numbered more than seven, close to eight billion according to Korey.
The nerd.
 

“Guys, you’re on in ten,” an assistant said, knocking on the door.

Mick plucked his own guitar from the stand. He’d tuned it before coming here, so he wasn’t worried.

“Let’s do this,” he told his brothers.

The three of them might not be brothers in the biological sense, but their bonds were thicker than blood.

Steel let out a laugh.

“Mick, where’s the enthusiasm? You sound like this gig’s a fucking chore. Cheer up. Korey and I will find some sexy young thing for you to play with, several twinks if that’s what you want.”

Mick couldn’t tell Steel that was the exact opposite of what he wanted. After this show, would the after party be like all the rest? His need for a warm body sleeping next to him would end up with him taking some random stranger home. His wolf, his soul longed for more.

Why the hell was he mooning over this now anyway, when he should focus on their songs?

Besides, he couldn’t ask for more. Free from the shackles of that hickville town and creating music with Steel and Korey, they were worshipped like gods by throngs of adoring fans. What more could he ask for?

“I don’t think the offer of an orgy is going to improve his mood,” Korey said.

Steel snorted. “Sex cures everything.”

“You’ve been saying that for years,” Korey said, shaking his head.

The familiar banter made Mick smile. They did everything together. Mick tried again. “Time to bring this fucking place down.”

“Much better,” Steel amended.

He emptied his head out of anything useless. This time, it was the lyrics to the song they all took turns writing that filled his mind. One song, the instrumental version of
Angel on His Knees
, played in his head. Mick wrote that one piece alone. The words poured right out of his heart and soul. Mick spent the whole night getting the lyrics right, stunning Korey and Steel the next morning.

“I didn’t know you were so deep,”
said Steel.

Mick didn’t know either, but the awful loneliness swamped him that day. It was fucking crazy. They were surrounded constantly by people in their work and he had his brothers, but occasionally, loneliness hit him like a deep punch to the gut. Mick didn’t want an eager body, sometimes a hug would do.

Grinning at the memory, Mick looped the guitar strap over his neck. Tonight, they’d debut
Angel on His Knees
. He could already see it being a hit. Most of the songs that came out of the soul were chart toppers, don’t ask Mick why.

They walked out of the lounge cum dressing room cum bar and right on to the stage. Steel was right. Mick could practically feel the stage floor vibrating under his feet. Even before the curtain rose, the crowd stomped their feet and made noises. He caught a delectable whiff then, a unique scent different from the screaming fans, the smell of something wonderful. No. Not something... someone.

Mick’s wolf woke from its deep sleep and he started sniffing the air. This never happened to him before. Usually, the beast didn’t care about live performances, but it came alive when Mick brought someone or a couple of people to bed.

“Mick, you alright?” Korey asked.

“Yeah, bro. You look like you’ve been out of it since just now,” Steel asked.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about a thing.”

What was wrong with him? He couldn’t afford to be distracted now. Still, he couldn’t get rid of that scent. It was faint, but despite the Red and Blue Room being able to sit thousands, Mick knew he’d be able to pinpoint the exact juicy piece of tidbit with that wonderful scent.