Never Ending

Never Ending

The Never Knights #3

kailin
gow

A
NOTE FROM THE  AUTHOR

This is the last book
in the Never Knights Trilogy, which I hope you have enjoyed. 

But life is full of
surprises. You never know what can happen. Never Say Never to new experiences,
new surprises, and new adventures. 

Thank you for taking
the journey with Never and the boys from the Never Knights Band.  

This is a New Adult novel (a sexy rock and roll contemporary/fantasy
romance) which may contain scenes not suitable for younger teens. Recommended
age of reading is 18 years and up.

Never
Ending

Published by THE EDGE

THE EDGE is an imprint of
Sparklesoup Inc.

Copyright © 2013 Kailin Gow

All Rights Reserved. No part of
this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping
or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in
writing from the publisher except in case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.

For information, please
contact:

THE EDGE at Sparklesoup

14252 Culver Dr., A732

Irvine, CA 92604

www.theEDGEbooks.com

First Edition.

Printed in the United States of
America.

ISBN:
9781597480727

For
anyone who dares to dream.

Prologue

O
utside, it was a cool spring night, balmy and breeze-filled.
The palm trees rustled with the mild winds of twilight; the pink and golden
lights of the setting sun casting their rosy-fingered glow across the waters.
But inside, it was boiling.

There were
people…more people, it seemed, than I had ever seen… all crammed into a single
space, their numbers doubled and tripled in appearance by the mirrors hanging
on the walls. But even without the benefit of illusion, I knew, this club was
packed to bursting. And in West Hollywood, where clubs open and shut so quickly
that it was impossible for even the most devoted night owl to learn all their
names, that could only mean one thing.

           
This was the
place to be.

           
I
swallowed, hard, as I tried to catch my breath. Not that I could breathe at all
in this space. Bodies, beautiful, toned, tanned, West Hollywood bodies, were
rubbing up against me on all sides; long arms clad in Cartier raised in
applause at my sides; just as many Louboutin heels narrowly missing trodding on
my toes.

            And all of them
here for one thing, and one thing only.

           
Dusk Riders.

           
I
whispered the name to myself through gritted teeth as I watched them up there
on the stage. They weren't bad – that was the worst part. In fact, they were
pretty good. The guitar licks were full of erotic thrill; the drum beats loud
and savage, like the beating of a heart in the throes of passion. And the
singer...

           
She's
beautiful, Neve. You can't deny it.
She could have been on the cover of
Sports Illustrated; she could have sashayed down the catwalk with the rest of
the Victoria's Secret Angels. She was tall – a few inches taller than I was –
with enormous breasts that threatened to escape from her tight corset top. Her
legs, endless beneath her leather miniskirt, looked like the product of several
years spent locked in an LA fitness club. Her hair was long and dark, like
mine, with chocolate highlights glimmering in the frenetic glow of the stage
lights. And her eyes were hazel, piercing, full of joy.

            Of course she
was happy, I thought to myself. She had every right to be. She was singing her
heart out, sending the crowd into raptures with every note, with every word
that passed through her pouting, red-lined lips. She was the frontwoman of the
Dusk Riders, the hottest rock band in LA, if not the whole world, the band that
legendary record label RRR had plucked out of obscurity and overnight
transformed them into singing's biggest sensation. She had looks, money,
talent, fame, adoring fans, a whole nightclub of writhing bodies moving to the
sound of her voice. She had it all.

            And she had the
handsome man next to her, the debonair sex god with rippling muscles and
artfully smudged eyeliner, his biceps tightening as he clutched at the
microphone, whispering in his hoarse, throaty voice the words that were sending
every heterosexual girl, homosexual man, and a whole lot of people in between
into ecstasies.

           
Show me how
you want me to want you

            Tell me what
you want me to do

            But I'm
warning – what you want

            Is what
you'll get before we're through.

           
He
smiled as he sang those words, his eyes meeting his partner's, and as they
smiled at one another a shiver passed through me. I recognized that smile – it
was the smile of two people who shared more than just a musical connection. It
was the smile of two people who had touched and kissed and tasted every inch of
one another's bodies, who had experienced every single variety and variation of
pleasure, who had discovered joy in every gesture – and who were still as crazy
with desire for one another as they were the first day they met.

            Yes, I knew
that look, I thought bitterly, as I watched them sing, as I watched the crowd
grow wild. It was the look I had shared with Danny so many times. When
we
were
the ones up there. When
we
were the ones who were making the crowd go
wild. When we were on top.

            That's what
they say about Hollywood. Nobody's ever on top for long. It was a lesson my dad
tried to teach me when I was a child. His own fame, he said, was hardly
something to aspire to. He'd gone through periods when he was the most famous
rock star on the West Coast – and periods when nobody even knew his name –
highs and lows that less legal highs had made less bearable, not more. “That's
the thing about this industry,” my father said to me. “They'll chew you up and
spit you out. They'll tell you that you're worth everything because people love
you, because people want to listen to you. But, Neve, what happens when they
stop?”

           
This
...I
whispered to myself, trying not to let the hot tears sting at my eyes.
This
is what happens when they stop.

           
But all
my father's fatalism, all his stoic warnings, couldn't have prepared me for my
feelings of anger, of rage, of unfairness.

           
It
should have been us.

            It should have
been us up there on the stage, playing our hearts out, making people scream
with joy and desire and love for the world we were creating for them. It should
have been us singing into those microphones, yes, me and Danny, starting into
each other's eyes, making each other shudder just by looking at one another.
It
should have been us.

           
And it
could have been, too, if it hadn't been for Veronica Taylor.

           
Hell hath no
fury...
That was another thing my father had taught me – when he was
remembering the groupies and the girls of another age, of the decades before he
met my mother. Now, Veronica Taylor, Danny's stepmother, was that woman – and
it was on us she was getting her revenge. Danny had turned her down, for my
sake as much as for that of his father, her husband, but that refusal was something
she could never forgive. Veronica, it was clear, was not about to take
rejection lying down. She'd taken control of RRR records from Danny's father;
overnight, the Never Knights had vanished from the radio waves, from the
touring circuit, from the nightclubs and the arenas.

            And the Dusk
Riders were here to take our place.

            It wouldn't
have been so bad, I thought, if they had been different from us – a different
look, a different style,
something
to make it easier. But no. Roni had
planned her revenge well. The Dusk Riders were just like us in every way. And
they were almost as good, too.

           
Almost.

           
I raged
inwardly.
We should be up there
, I thought.
We'd be doing a better
job, I'm sure of it.
Their passion, their charisma – what was it compared
with the Never Knights at our best, when we'd made every barfly in every back
room in Hollywood swoon? Before RRR, we'd worked our way up the old-fashioned
way  – I was so afraid of my father finding out that I wanted that same
unhealthy career he so decried that I could never bring myself to use the
connections my parentage had brought within my reach. But not the Dusk Riders.
They'd been chosen
to be famous.
They'd been manufactured,
packaged
,
to sell to the adoring fans of the Never Knights, the band that RRR had dropped
like a hot potato.

            To torment me.

            “Had enough,
Neve?” A soft voice was whispering in my ear, and the low, throaty sound sent
shivers down my spine.

            Danny put his
arm around my shoulders. “Come on, Never, honey, let's go. You've been
torturing yourself enough over this. Let's go...”

            “Just five more
minutes!” I was sharp with Danny in spite of myself, overcompensating to hide
the tears that were starting to trickle, unbidden, down my cheeks. “Five
minutes and then we'll go, I promise.”

            “We could go
practice...or go to the jazz club, come on, Neve, you like jazz...it'll cheer
you up.”

            “You mean,
going to see music that
isn't
our clones?”

            “Neve...”

            He gathered me
into his arms. “Or my place? How about that – let's just go home, go to bed...”

            But not even
the promise of sex, however mind-blowing, could stop me from staring at the
Dusk Riders in all their glitzy, pre-packaged glory.

            “I just don't
get it...” I'd said it at least a hundred times, I knew – I was sick of hearing
it myself – but I couldn't bring myself to stop. “They're
just like us.
Just.
I don't even know how she was able to get them? I mean – was that the
casting call? Neve Knight Lookalikes? Is that how she picked them?”

            Danny shook his
head in exasperation. “I know...” he said roughly, and although I knew his
anger was not directed at me, I still gasped at the fury in his eyes. “I know.  She
did. I wouldn't put it past Roni, you know. To do something like – something so
cruel, so mean, just for spit. Just to stick it in our faces. To kick us when
we're down. Then back over us with a car.” He smiled grimly. “For a former
Victoria's Secret Angel, she's sure got a diabolical streak in her.” He sighed.
“But – we've been over this, Neve. Talking about it again and again isn't going
to get us anywhere. As much as we might wish it could...”

            “If wishes were
horses...” I started to laugh. I reached out to touch Danny, to feel his soft
skin against mine. But as I reached out, I lurched forward, my fingers grasping
empty air.

            “Neve? Neve – are
you okay?”

            “I...I...” I
looked around. Suddenly, I wasn't so okay. The air seemed hotter than before –
so hot that I could hardly scarf down air. There were people everywhere; their
sweat seemed to be everywhere, too – getting in my eyes, in my nostrils, in my
nose, so loud and thick and hot that I could not breathe. The lights began to
blur. “Danny...” I whispered, my voice shaking. “I don't feel so good...”

            He pressed his
hand to my cheeks. It burned like ice. “Neve, you're...I think you'd better go home.
You've got a temperature.” He kissed my forehead. “Let's get you out of here.”

            I opened my
mouth to reply. But before the words could come out, I began to sway more violently,
my feet buckling under me. My body felt heavy, so heavy, like a magnet being
sucked towards the floor.

            My knees hit
the ground first, but by then it was too late for me to break the rest of the
fall. Everything went black.