Page 1 of Ravaged For You

PROLOGUE

AXEL

What is the point of being a rockstar if you can’t sleep around, and what is the point of being a rockstar if you can’t perform live in front of thousands of adoring fans screaming your name? Those two things are the only two things that matter for a world-famous rockstar like me.

The music. And the women.

And I am currently doing one of them. I’ll let you guess which. Here’s a clue: this one doesn’t involve someone else in your bed.

I’m standing on stage at London’s biggest arena - right next to the river Thames - with my beloved bass guitar in my talented hands; my fingers expertly sliding up and down the strings as chart-topping rock music blares out at ear-deafening levels. I gaze out into the crowd arrayed before me.

All those faces staring right back.

Hell yeah.

All those thousands of people out there in the crowd admiring my skill as I play. Admiring my innate ability. My charisma.

My pure sexual energy.

Fuck yes.

All those fucking girls out there ready to get down and dirty with one of the most famous musicians on the fucking planet.

I see it all reflected in their eyes. I am who they’ve come for tonight. I am who they’ve paid to see.

I am a fucking rockstar.

I’m here with my band. Ravaged. One of the top rock bands on the entire planet. Sexy-as-hell musicians in their mid-twenties with an entire list of number-one hits comfortably under our belts. Known throughout the world from Timbuctoo to the top of Canada. Say one of our names and I bet you can even get a Mongolian villager to start singing one of our songs.

The lights are bright…

The crowd is in the palm of our hands…

Yep. I’m on top of the fucking world, baby.

I turn my gaze from the audience to my fellow bandmates.

Next to me on stage stands Bishop Hayes. He’s the tallest of us four boys, and that’s saying something because we all clear six feet easily. Bishop’s the guitarist of the group and, boy, does he know it. The way he holds his instrument… it’s like he’s making sweet passionate love to it. Scrap that. Raw, rough love. The beautiful sounds he can wring from that thing with his hands can make girls instantly swoon. He’s the hardworking musical genius of the group, always able to use his melodic flair to flip an average song-in-progress into a bestselling crowd-pleaser. His dark brown hair, the same color as his eyes, is slicked back stylishly. Bishop is outgoing, optimistic, and super competitive; Bishop and I are infamously known to get into messy and sometimes violent scraps over anything remotely like a contest, all the way from a simple darts game to the decision of the name of the next Ravaged single.

I smile at him, and he smiles back absentmindedly. He’s lost in the music like a true craftsman. This is Bishop’s art, and, boy, he’s a maestro.

Like the rest of us in Ravaged, he’s wearing a black leather jacket; our signature look on stage. The jacket thing was my idea. I reckon I pull it off the best in the group. That’s another piece of contention between Bishop and me.

Behind us, on the drums, is Caspian Ford. He’s the burly muscle of the band. Stoic and silent, he is a real BFFG. Big Friendly Fucking Giant. But don’t get him wrong; he can easily rip your arms off if you dare cross him. Caspian is the brawler of the group. Sure, we all think we could fight anyone if we could - we’re young men with pure testosterone pumping through our veins - but we all know, without a doubt, Caspian can knock any one of us out stone cold.

You can never tell what Caspian’s thinking behind that infamous brooding stare of his, but I’ve seen the aggression that he can unleash and it ain’t pretty. The gallery of tattoos over his ripped torso tells the story of a dark past, mysterious even to his bandmates. But the man’s loyal to a tee, ready to give his own physical safety for his closest friends. And, hell, he can belt out a fucking drum solo like the best of them.

His black hair, long like a Viking’s, trails down his back. His dark brown eyes spell danger.

Many girls have tried and failed to reach the drummer’s guarded heart. The man’s a wall of brute physical force, and that certainly applies to the defenses around his innermost emotions. No girl’s getting through that. Maybe Caspian’s worried about what his power can do to someone else. How he can hurt other people. A man with a dark history and a dark soul, that’s for sure.

We make eye contact and I start nodding along to his beat. Caspian nods back.

And up front on the stage, of course, is the lead singer of Ravaged. Drake Sharpe. As much as I hate to admit it, Drake’s the one that all the girls love. He’s the classic playboy rockstar, carrying on the tradition of rock bands from the past. Effeminate, and yet fiercely driven by a pure male sexual energy that tempts the female species like a moth to a flame; Drake’s like a Mick Jagger or David Bowie reincarnate. Charismatic without even trying, and that pisses me off. The man knows how to move his slender, toned body around the stage with ease, wooing the audience with his flashy dancing. And, back in the hotel, there is always at least a girl in his bed. Well, most likely several. Despite the women, though, Drake’s got one rule he lives by, and that’s to never get into a relationship. He’s pretty public about that decree, leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake in every city we visit. Drake and a relationship lasting more than a single night are two things that don’t exist in the same universe. He’s all about the music. That’s his number one priority. Girls are just collateral for him.

And he doesn’t give a fuck.

Drake flicks his thick, wavy hair back theatrically, making the London crowd go wild. He sees me staring at him and he winks playfully. I wink back.