Billionaire Dragons' Fated: BBW Paranormal Dragon Shifter Menage Romance (2 page)

Alexander

Alexander closed his eyes as Apollo dove into the verse alongside him, taking the crowd with them. Every word they uttered, every note they strung, the fans were right there with them. It was hard to tell where the teeming mass of people ended and where the rest of the world started, and frankly, Alexander didn’t care to know the difference. His dragon basked in the unfaltering love and devotion the crowd bathed them in, the golden giant within him yearning to break loose, but subdued enough by their adoration to remain dormant.

Whenever you need me,

I’ll be there

Whenever you want me,

I’ll be there

Alexander opened his eyes, his voice joining Apollo’s and garnering an excited scream from the first row of fans – mostly women in their twenties, pretty and more than willing to go to the ends of the Earth if the Goldplains brothers asked them to. And often, they would. The guitar strings underneath Alexander’s fingers felt like home, like he could talk better through them than without.

With Apollo’s voice as the current in his ocean of sound, Alexander watched with quiet pleasure as an invisible golden shroud spread across the arena, taking everyone underneath its protective shade.

It was what the Gold Dragons were known for – not only their ghostly, almost ethereal rock, but the fantastic shows they put on. Countless rivals had tried to poach their lighting and special effects guys over the years, believing that it was they, who accounted for the brothers’ insane success. But it was hard to steal dragon magic. Alexander smiled to himself as he saw a sullen looking man perk up as the wave hit him, bathing him in the healing rays.

He knew what it felt like, to be taken by the ancient dragon powers without even understanding what they were. It felt like being lost in a sea of sound, taken and elevated by the music and the crowd to the highest state of concert nirvana. Sure, it was a bit unfair to their competition, but hell, he wasn’t about to care.

Casting his gaze over the packed arena, Alexander’s smile faltered just slightly. In the far corners of the crowd, he could see the golden wave of light flicker and stop, not reaching the very last rows. His face hardened slightly, and he stepped closer to Apollo, still lost in the song and giving the crowd the show they had known to expect.

“Reel it in,” Alexander murmured, motioning towards the far end with his head.

Apollo’s light blue, gold-flaked eyes met Alexander’s and then took in the sight before them, his expression unchanged.

“If you say so,” Apollo said under his breath.

Alexander could feel the way his brother tensed, even if his body language and expression betrayed nothing. The joys of being dragon twins – one’s feelings were rarely lost on the other.

Alexander leant towards the crowd, letting his fingers play the strings for the finale – a roaring, fast solo that was only backed by the drums. Alexander’s keen ears heard the bassist struggle and falter, and his mood fell further.

Another thing to deal with, getting a new bassist,
he thought darkly, casting a look at the replacement bass they’d had to drag along with them on the tour.

Their original bassist had had some family troubles even the Goldplains couldn’t solve, and the aftermath wasn’t particularly pleasing.

When the music quieted with the last chords echoing over the crowd, Apollo raised his hands in a good-bye wave that was met with pleading cries and ranting cheers. Alexander couldn’t help but smile. Underneath all the problems, at least their fans remained true.

“Good night, San Antonio! You’ve been a fucking awesome crowd!” Apollo screamed.

“Good night,” Alexander added, his deeper voice mixing with the cheers.

With a heavy heart, Alexander took off his guitar and set it next to one of the speakers, giving one last wave and seeing the golden wave flicker and then disappear as he and Apollo stepped off the stage.

***

“You’ve got to relax,” Apollo said sullenly, sinking into one of the big leather chairs that waited for them in their green room.

The younger Goldplains dragon reached for a beer in one of the several ice buckets set at strategic intervals in the room, uncapping it and taking a long swig. Alexander was half-surprised Apollo didn’t already have some crazed fangirl all over him. He must have been having a slow day.

“That’s not good for your vocal chords,” Alexander added mirthlessly, getting a singeing look from Apollo as he toweled off his messy wheaten hair.

His black wifebeater clung to his sweaty, muscled body like a second skin, outlining every hard ridge and dip. Thin gold chains hung around his neck and double gold cuffs were locked around his wrists – just a tiny offering of the Goldplains hoard, but enough to make him feel close to it.

Apollo propped his combat-booted feet up on a small table, leaning back on the couch and taking a long, luxuriating sip of the ice-cold drink – doubtlessly to piss Alexander off. He only smirked. Apollo was always the rebellious one. Though that was a lot to say about a duo of brothers making their vast fortune as some of the most beloved rock stars in the world.

“I’m sure that’s our biggest problem,” Apollo murmured in reply as the green room door opened with a bang, making way for a disheveled and annoyed Michelle, her red hair as a crown of thorns around her head.

The forty-something manager and also the only person on their crew, who knew the brothers’ secret, hesitated for a moment at the door, her gaze locked on Apollo. Alexander glanced in the direction she was staring, and he and his brother shared a private smirk. Yes, a shirtless, sweaty, gold-covered Apollo was enough to make any woman stumble, even one as used to their random bouts of nakedness as Michelle was.

“You two have some nerve,” Michelle started finally, regaining her iron composure and slamming the door behind her. “Where do you two get off on leaving almost a hundred thousand people screaming for an encore and then not giving it to them? What the fuck?”

Alexander picked up a beer from a nearby bucket and slung it to her, Michelle catching and uncapping it in one smooth move. She had the striking, unnerved gray eyes of a hawk hunting for its prey, never missing a single thing, and her demeanor was almost always that of extreme efficiency. Alexander liked her, even if she was a bit overbearing at times. Dragons above, he and Apollo both knew they needed a bit of reining in and herding around at times. And, being the heir of a fairly impressive record label, Imprint Records, there was literally nothing Apollo and Alexander could do that would shock her – even if they were dragons.

“That’s what I was saying,” Apollo grumbled darkly, bottoming out his beer and reaching for another.

Clad in his ripped jeans and larger, thicker gold chains and countless strings of gleaming gold bracelets, the younger Goldplains twin looked exactly the part of a Class A rock god.

His longish blonde hair fell in tangles on his neck and reached his shoulders, some strands sticking to his face and curling around the gold studs he wore in his ears. Next to the more subdued Alexander, Apollo looked and acted the part of lead vocalist with unerring confidence. It was no skin off of Alexander’s back – he preferred to remain slightly in the background, directing things while his brother got to play the big rock genius.

“I wasn’t feeling it anymore,” Alexander said noncommittally, unscrewing the cap off of a water bottle and taking a long sip.

He wasn’t fooling Michelle, though, that much he could see from the way she arched her brow and pursed her lips.

“So it had nothing to do with the light not reaching the entire crowd?” she asked, her voice softer than the words she was delivering.

Alexander didn’t say anything.              

“Well, it
is
one of the biggest arenas we’ve ever played,” Apollo said.

That was true enough. But Alexander knew it couldn’t just be that. For the longest time, he’d expected it to start happening as they grew older, but a piece of him had hoped it wouldn’t. There were far too many reasons to count as to why he had hoped that, but the fact was that they were losing their powers, and it was getting faster and more noticeable by the day.

The Goldplains were an old dragon family and the fourth remaining kin in Treasure Lane. Historically, the firstborn sons of the Alpha mother were always twins and always healing dragons, as were Alexander and Apollo. Their ability was to soothe and fix, to right a wrong, both physical and mental.

Dragons had rarely lent their help to humans in the old days, but the 21
st
century came with its own demands. To keep the family fortune from dwindling, Alexander and Apollo had started a band when they were just teenagers, and it had exploded into a global phenomenon, commanding billions in revenue and keeping the Goldplains’ coffers happy and healthy.

It wasn’t just the music they played that got them the attention and adoration of their fans. While both Alexander and Apollo were brilliantly musical and could play countless instruments, it was a healthy dose of their dragon magic that really pushed them into stardom. Their presence alone was healing, but when they played, the whole crowd felt it. It was the tiniest sliver of their power spread out over everyone in the crowd, elating them, bringing them higher than anything else they could have experienced.

Like a hit of pure acid, the Gold Dragons’ music changed what the listener could take from the experience, warping their entire worldview for the duration of that one concert. A slice of heaven, as one reviewer had called it. But lately, not all was good in heaven.

“It’s not just that, and you know it,” Alexander grumbled, falling into a chair near Apollo’s.

Sharing a look with his brother, Alexander was struck again by how similar and how very different they were at the same time. Near identical gold dragon twins, they were far stronger together than they were apart, but something had never quite clicked right between them.

Though they worked as an unfaltering team, Alexander had always felt a slight disconnect with his boisterous, wild brother. Where Alexander wanted to plot and plan, Apollo wanted to dive in headfirst. Where Alexander wanted to hang back and let things unfold at their own pace, Apollo wanted to grab the situation by the reins and direct it himself.              

“I was wondering if you two were having problems,” Michelle said with a sigh, sitting on the armrest of Alexander’s couch. “I saw that the wave didn’t go to the end. I didn’t know if I should say something about it,” she said with a tight, worried smile.

Alexander nodded. He knew what it was, and so did Apollo, but neither of them had wanted to face it.

“Same thing happened in Chicago. And New York. Every big arena we play, it becomes more obvious. We’re losing it,” Alexander said gloomily.

His dragon stirred within him but didn’t fight his assessment. How could he, the evidence was plain to see. While they were still plenty powerful, judging by the way they had recently patched up both Devon Bluewing and Cillian Greenmeadow, things were taking a sharp turn for the worse.

“And why is that?” Michelle queried. A silence fell between the brothers, Apollo and Alexander eyeing each other quietly.

Say it,
Alexander urged Apollo wordlessly. Their dragons could communicate well enough, but it wasn’t quite as easy as humans. In fact, they didn’t strictly even want to – one thing both of them agreed on was that their minds should remain their own.

“It’s because we’re getting old,” Apollo said with a smirk, and Alexander chuckled. Sure, that was one way of looking at it.

“He’s not completely wrong.”

Michelle quirked a brow again, obviously not satisfied with the explanation. With a sigh, Apollo resigned himself to elaborating on the matter.

“Alpha twins aren’t whole before they find their third.”

“A third?” Michelle queried.

Both of the Goldplains nodded, and in a fit of uncharacteristic sullenness, Alexander plucked a beer out of the ice bucket and cracked it open. Dragons above, just listening to what he knew to be the truth made him want to drink.

“Yes, a third. We have what is called an Alpha triad. Essentially, we need to find a mate to complete us, to help our powers reach their full potential. Otherwise, if we do not marry, if we do not find a mate, our powers will slowly grow weaker and weaker until there’s nothing left.”

“So all we need to do is get you two laid?” Michelle scoffed, looking incredulous.

In her tight dark blue jeans and Gold Dragons tee, she looked like the fairy godmother of rock, ready to solve their every problem.

Not so easy,
Alexander thought to himself, shaking his head.

“Not just laid,” Apollo said with a grin. “Get laid by a woman we both want equally and could share for the rest of our lives.”

Michelle fell quiet again, her mouth slightly agape. When she finally closed it, she let out a long, drawn-out sigh that perfectly mimicked Alexander’s feelings on the whole thing.

“Well, that’s pretty much impossible, then,” she said.

Alexander was almost certain that their manager was right on the money. What kind of a magical creature of a woman would be perfect for both him
and
Apollo?