Doren was born with a powerful gift -- a gift he's managed to use to put him well on his way to becoming a star. But there is more to that gift than just musical talent, and as careful as Doren is to hide that fact, there are some who know of the power behind the sound, and all the ways they could abuse it.<br><br>August's goal in life is simple: make an impact in the music industry. An opportunity to work as the personal assistant to Doren seems to be exactly the kind of break he needs to accomplish that goal.<br><br>But all too often in life, simple becomes just another complication, especially when there are people whose goal is even simpler: destroy and dominate.

The Gift

Doren laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “You want to talk about it?”


“No,” Cooper said, quickly. That was an easy answer. Talking about what he did with the smoke was the last thing Cooper wanted to do. A person shouldn’t talk about some things. One definitely didn’t tell his new boss, a rising king in the industry that one wanted—no, needed—to be part of, that half the time you walked around thinking you were crazy. One sure didn’t tell him that one had spent his childhood listening to voices that weren’t really there. You didn’t tell him that the only way to quiet the mumblings in your head was to numb them out with weed or drown them out with music.


Chapter 71