Page 1 of The Encore’s Crown

Chapter 1

Happy New Year

Natalia

My martini arcs through the air in a perfect, glittering sheet, splashing across Ryder’s arrogant face. He blinks, sputters, tries to remain charming while a single olive bounces off his cheek. I smile, satisfied.

Then the room rushes back in, music, laughter, the clink of glasses and the drink is still in my hand. The fantasy is so vivid my fingers curl around the stem.

God, just shut up.

Ryder has the kind of mouth that’s only attractive when it’s closed. Unfortunately, it never is. I’m pretending to listen as he leans in, his breath reeks of overpriced tequila and misplaced confidence. I stare, considering the shape of his lips. Pouty and visibly... wet. Nothing but pure smugness, a mouth built for social media, not kissing.

I toss my hair, adjust the tiny black dress that is single-handedly keeping this VIP section visually interesting, and try to hide the fact that Ryder is boring me into a coma. Then my phone vibrates.

bomos_tra liked your photo.

My heart does that humiliating thud it still hasn’t grown out of. A year, a whole year of silence except for this, likes. Breadcrumbs from a man who never gave himself permission to want me but couldn’t stop watching. Couldn’t stop reminding me he still existed somewhere, my name on his mind.

We’ve never even met. Never had a real phone call. Just stupid little DM crumbs between us, pictures, voice messages, the kind of almost-too-far flirting that made my pulse trip but somehow we always reeled ourselves back in. It was nothing and everything at the same time.

Bomos, huh?

Just seeing it irritates me, the name he hides behind onstage. They all have one, pulled from the same old ritual language that built the mythology of The Riven Altar. Rafe is Obelus, the sacrifice, standing at the center with the microphone and offering up every lyric like something torn from him. Rithy is Haima, the blood, his guitar running wild through the songs like something alive beneath the skin. Ronan is Threnos, the lament, pounding grief and fury into the drums until the whole room feels it in their bones.

And then there’s Bomos.

The altar.

Of course the bassist would be the thing everything else is built on.

But I know him as the man underneath it.

Kiri.

You’d think someone who tours the world and stands in sold-out stadiums, under lights with thousands of fans, showing off tattoos that make him look like the bouncer you pray you don’t piss off, wouldn’t be the kind to fold the instant his “boss” opened his mouth. But apparently, because Rafe’s dating my sister, suddenly I’m his responsibility. Now I’m “too young,” and this will “end in heartbreak,” and at twenty-three I’m still an infant who can’t choose what or who I want.

So Kiri listened, because everyone listens to Rafe. He’s the star, the front man, the leader without ever needing to say it. After four months of messages, voice notes, and making plans for a future we apparently weren’t ever going to have, Kiri wrapped the whole thing up in one sad little goodbye message. That cowardly, corporate-speak type of closure. Then nothing. Thirty-six. International star. His body built as wide as his ex Radhika Malhotra’s stunning smile on Instagram, but still too scared to speak to me unless someone else tells him he’s allowed.

Ugh. Tell me that’s not pathetic.

Ryder slides an arm around my waist, jerking me back to the present moment. To this New Year’s Eve in a glossy club, with a man I don’t want. Seattle’s resident rich fuckboy with more money than anything appealing about his personality. He’s attractive in the same way that plastic knives are still knives. The right shape, but not the real thing.

“You look insane tonight,” he purrs. “Like the whole room is just—” he gestures vaguely “—watching you. You know how to work a room, Natalia. That’s hot as fuck.”

I sigh. “Tell me something I don't know, Ry.”

He laughs because he thinks I’m flirting. My phone lights again.

bomos_tra liked your story.

My chest tightens as the lights dim. The countdown starts, the room swelling with bodies, bass and heat.

Ryder grabs my chin, tilting my face toward his. “Ready for midnight, babe?”

His mouth is coming toward mine, a mouth I feel absolutely nothing for, and right as the crowd screams:

THREE! TWO! ONE!