“I was in the area.” Axton finally answered my originally question. “Actually I was bored as hell in California and thought I would see what kind of trouble I could get into with your dumb ass friends.”

“By all means, get into all the trouble your little heart desires. But we have a plane to catch first thing in the morning. Make me late for my vacation and they will be scraping your entrails from the sidewalk.”

His arm wrapped around my waist and I leaned into him. “Ah, come on beautiful. You know you want to cause some trouble with me.” He rubbed his nose with mine making me giggle. “You love me. Admit it.”

I snorted. “I hate you.” But I had to admit that even with my feelings for Nik, Axton Cage could make me breathless. So I let him kiss me. He tasted of mint and a hint of coffee. My lips tingled and I opened my mouth just a little to let him taste me. I couldn’t honestly say that I was unaffected, but I wasn’t rushing to get him naked. When he stepped back a little I sighed. “Okay, so I’m not immune.” But then I doubted that any woman with a working libido was.

He chuckled and released me. “Touring with you is going to be so much fun.”

I grimaced. “Is the bitch troll coming?”

“It is a big possibility. Depends on how things are going with her family though. Alexis is having a hard time right now.”

My heart clenched a little at the thought of Gabriella’s cousin Alexis. The woman had been through a lot over the past year or so. She had been in a car wreck that had nearly destroyed her. But she was tough. She had fought to walk again. Then gone through a huge ordeal with her boyfriend, which the tabloids had gone crazy over because of Jared Giordano and his past relationship with his brother’s wife. “How is she?” I asked, because while I hated Gabriella, I had connected with Alexis the few times I had met her.

“She’s pregnant.”

To say I was shocked would have been an understatement. After the accident doctors had told Alexis that she would never have a baby. “How is that even possible?”

Axton shrugged. “I’m not really sure. But Brie said that they did an ultrasound and it seems like they only took out part of her uterus. You can imagine how happy and stressed the girl is. Her doctors have her on bed rest because she started bleeding a little last week. Brie doesn’t want to leave her.”

“Well give her my best. I’m really happy for her.” Out on stage the crowd was quieting down and I turned to find Nik sitting on a stool. Drake pulled up one too and pulled out his acoustic guitar.

“Okay. Like promised this is the song I have been slaving over for the last few weeks. Hope you guys like it.” Was it me or did he seem a little nervous? That was crazy though. Nik had been singing his own songs since Demon’s Wings second album when he had written every song and it went platinum in less than a week. The record company had given him carte blanche ever since. There was no reason for him to be nervous about his songs.

Demon’s Wings were not known for love songs. That wasn’t to say that some of their hits wasn’t about love, but normally those songs were more about sex than real love. So you can understand how surprised I was when Nik started singing.

I thought my heart was going to shatter. Nik wrote from experience. There was a lot of his childhood in his songs. His, the guys, mine. His music has always been close to us all. The dark, the pain, the drugs, and even the beatings. But when Nik sang about how his heart had been cold for so long, but now there was an ember burning there catching fire, bringing him back to life I thought I was going to die.

Nik was in love? I don’t think I could handle that. No. No, I know that I can’t handle that. He can screw around all he wants. He can have all the one-night stands, the meaningless sexy with random strangers. I was able to deal with that…Okay, so I was hanging on by my finger nails trying to deal with that.

But if Nik was in love it would destroy me. I couldn’t handle him with some skank all the time. And knowing that his heart belonged to that skank?

I swayed. Axton’s arms came around me, steading me. “Easy there, babe.”

The bile was rising in the back of my throat. Turning I ran. I knew I wasn’t going to make it to a bathroom, so I desperately looked for a trashcan. Thankfully one was close or I would have had to clean up after myself again. I emptied my stomach, not that there was much in there anyway. Thankfully my hair was pulled into a ponytail.

A warm hand rubbed my back soothingly. Tears streamed down my cheeks. Up until now I had thought that I was dying. Now…Now I hoped I would!

“Jesus Christ!” Axton muttered. “You okay, babe?”

“I just want to lay down.” I whispered. “I haven’t been feeling well lately.”

“Come on.” He urged. “I’ll take you back to your hotel.”

--

The world was spinning. As soon as the car pulled up in front of the hotel where we were staying I knew I was in trouble. Big trouble. I threw open the door and retched until I thought my stomach was going to come out my mouth. My body was soaked in sweat and I don’t know if I could walk without falling on my face.

Axton muttered a string of vile curses and barked something at the doorman who was holding the door open for me. It took me a second to register that the poor guy was pushing me back into Axton’s rental and shutting the door. I barely had the energy to open my eyes as I watched the rocker punch in something on the GPS and then he was hauling ass.

The tires screeched as he pulled into traffic. Horns honked angrily behind us, but I didn’t look back. At the speed we were going I was sure that he was going to get pulled over, but he just hit the hazard lights and pushed down on the horn as he weaved in and out of traffic. “Hold on, Em.” He muttered.

I couldn’t answer. The world was blurry now. By the time he slammed to a stop in front of the ER I could barely function. I felt him lift me out of the car, knew that he was practically running with me in his arms. I felt his chest rumbled when he shouted, but couldn’t focus enough to make out what he was saying.

The coolness of a bed against my back roused me enough to open my eyes for just a moment. I saw bright lights, the smell of antiseptic. “Severe dehydration.” A male voice said. “How long has she been throwing up?”

“No idea.” Axton sounded stressed.

“Wait here.” The voice commanded. I felt myself floating, assumed it was the medical team pushing the bed away. A needle was stabbed into my arm, but I didn’t have the energy to so much as whimper. “Emmie?” The voice said my name in a commanding tone. “We’re giving you fluids.”