Dark Dream (Love in Illyria Book 1) Read online

  DARK DREAM

  Book 1, part 1 in "Love in Illyria" Series

  by Adalind White

  Copyright © June 2018 by Adalind White

  This book is part of Dreams Duet set in the "Love in Illyria" series. It ends on a cliffhanger. The love story has a happily ever after at the end of the duet.

  The following story contains mature themes and occasional bad language. It is intended for adult readers.

  This story is set in a fictional European country created by the author. Illyria does not exist. Please read the Author's notes for more information

  All characters, names, events, brands, companies, and locations are created by the author. Any resemblance to actual persons, organizations, and settings is purely coincidental.

  If you'd like to use any part of the book in any way, please email [email protected] to ask for permission.

  Chapter 1

  Vy

  Heart pounding, hand clenched tightly around the microphone, Vy stepped onto the stage of the Summer Festival. After watching it in other people's videos for so many years, they were actually playing on that stage.

  They were a warm-up act, and everybody knew that the big names came out at night, but she didn't care. They were there! On the same stage where her favorite bands had launched their careers.

  "Hello, Viaverde!" she said into the mic. "We are Vanilla Velvet and we're here to rock you!"

  A few lukewarm cheers came from the small crowd gathered in front of the stage. Hard core rock fans didn't show up until the sun set, but Vy and her friends counted themselves lucky to be there at all. The early viewers were the Viaverde generation who had grown up and now they took their kids to the Summer Festival. She hoped those kids appreciated how lucky they were.

  "We're going to start with one of my all-time favorite songs. I'm sure you all know and love Sixteen-year-old heart, by the Waves."

  Maybe opening with such a well-known and beloved song was cheeky, but it worked. The audience warmed up and sang along with her. She went through the chorus several times, each time departing from the way TC sang it with the Waves, making the song more her own.

  "Thank you," she said, smiling broadly at the cheers and whistles. "There's nothing like the Waves to heat up Viaverde. Now let us take you on a ride."

  They went through their set, and to Vy's delight, their own songs got almost as much applause as the classic rock songs they performed. Half an hour later, she was exhausted, yet so high on adrenaline, she felt she could fly.

  Beads of sweat trickled down the side of her face and on her back. Not even the breeze of the Mediterranean made up for the heat of mid July.

  "Before we say good bye, let me introduce the band. Lead guitar – James Castellano. Bass guitar – Alice Lewis. Keyboards – Bruno Dieudonné. Drums Sebastian Cesara. And I am Vy. Thank you for your support tonight. We're going to say good bye with my favorite song. We all love visiting Viaverde, but sooner or later, we all get the lust to wander off. Wanderlust will be here tomorrow night, and I for one hope they never hear this version of their Dark Dream. So, let's keep this between ourselves."

  She was only half-joking. Wanderlust's weird goth ballad was her favorite song in the world, but she couldn't help feeling guilty for changing it so much. She loved how Andrew King sang every song of the Wanderlust repertoire, except this one. She adored the song, and watching King half naked in the video more than made up for the way he chose to sing the vampire song. She sang it from the point of view of the spellbound victim. The vampire's slave.

  When she heard the first notes, she closed her eyes, and opened her heart. In that old video, King's lightly muscled chest made her stomach clench tight and her fingers burn with the desire to brush them over his pale skin. I kneel at your feet, and I'm watching you. That dusting of dark hair going from his navel down toward his leather pants made her dizzy. The ripple of desire colored her voice. The image of the intricate tattoos on his upper arms when he wrapped the slave girl in his embrace. I sleep on the sand and I dream of you.

  The audience grew quiet as she sang, or maybe she couldn't hear them over the roaring of her blood and the hammering of her heart. When the song ended, the noise of crowd rushed into her ears. The cheers and whistles were louder than ever and when she opened her eyes, Vy shivered at the sight of the man in the front row.

  Andrew King.

  She stared for a few seconds into the apparition's dark, hypnotic eyes, until her brother's voice broke the spell.

  "Vy," Sebastian called out. "Take a bow. We have to run."

  She shook her head, took a bow and rushed off the stage.

  "You were amazing," Alice said, while they were dashing toward their cars.

  Vy smiled warmly at her best friend. "You weren't too bad yourself, Miss Lewis."

  "Come on," Alice said panting. "We must get out before the weekenders jam the traffic."

  Right. People from all over Illyria were going flock to Viaverde for the Summer Festival. She wished they could stay, but the deal with her parents was that they could play at the Festival on Friday if they got back to Orsino the same evening.

  Alice put her guitar on the backseat of her Mini Cooper and secured it in place, then jumped at the wheel while James, Sebastian and Bruno arranged the rest of the instruments between the two sports cars.

  Before getting into her car, a tingling sensation made her turn her head toward the backstage entrance. She could swear she saw Andrew King, dressed in black leather staring at her. The sound of Sebastian slamming the passenger door jolted her out of the trance. She climbed in and rushed after Alice's car toward the exit.

  As they expected, dozens of cars and bikes poured into Viaverde, slowing down the traffic in the small Mediterranean resort.

  Andrew

  Andrew King was relieved that the dark glasses and the newly grown beard were enough of a change from his iconic look that they made it to the edge of the stage without any fans approaching him. It probably helped that his fourteen-year-old daughter dragging him along was wearing bright colors that no one would ever associate with Wanderlust's dark themed look.

  Diane was going to America the next day with her mother, so when she asked to see the early acts of the Summer Festival, he had jumped at the chance to spend time with her. He didn't know any of the warm-up bands, and he was always eager to listen to new musicians.

  With a name like Vanilla Velvet, he expected the first band to be light and breezy. He watched the band set up their instruments, wondering if this was their first major gig. They seemed so very young.

  When the vocalist came on stage, for a moment the whole world faded away. The tight leather pants made her legs seem to go on forever. A loose and ripped Deep Purple t-shirt hid her curves, teasing his imagination. An unruly mane of dark blond hair fell in waves down her shoulders. Her voice plucked at a chord near his heart when she spoke. Everything in her posture spelled rockstar.

  She had his full attention, and he couldn't even begrudge her choice to start with one of TC's trademark songs. Especially not when he noticed how the Vanilla Velvet kids breathed new life in the old Waves hit song.

  Diane sang along with every song she knew, from Sixteen-year-old heart through Led Zeppelin and Metallica. His teenage daughter was dressed like a flower power hippie but rock was in embedded in her bones and flowed through her veins.

  He was paying more attention to the other songs. Their original creations intrigued him, and he was pleased to notice the crowd's approving reaction. It also helped him shift his attention from the girl singing her heart out on the stage.

  Between songs, Diane was bouncing on the balls of her feet.

 
"Oh em gee, they are freaking amazing!" she said grabbing his hand and shaking him as if she wanted to make him agree with her by physical force.

  "They're very good," he agreed with a smile.

  His daughter's excitement dragged him from his strategically chosen position at the corner of the stage, toward the middle, and by the end of the set, he was right in front of the singer he was trying to ignore.

  His heart skipped a beat when she mentioned his band. He was disappointed to find out that her favorite song was Dark Dream. That song wouldn't make it in his top fifty songs he ever wrote. The melody wasn't particularly exciting, and he counted the lyrics as a failed experiment, like most of his gothic rock phase.

  Dark Dream had never sounded like that. He vibrated with emotion while her voice took him into a darkness he hadn't thought he conveyed in that song. The girl's eyes closed while she sang, and the crowd fell strangely quiet, following her into that darkness.

  When the song ended, the crowd exploded. He stood frozen in front of that strange girl, looking up at her, unable to believe he had just heard his song come to live like that. When she finally opened her eyes, she looked down, straight at him. He captured her gaze and held it as if he wanted to pull her off the stage. He wanted to be the vampire who ensnared her.

  And suddenly, she was gone. She ran off the stage and he heard his daughter's voice.

  "I wanna meet them," Diane said.

  "Don't you want to listen to the next band?" he asked, resisting his daughter's attempts to drag him away.

  "We can hear them from backstage. Come on, dad. Let's go. "

  He followed Diane, and they hurried to the backstage entrance. He took off his sunglasses and the security guy waved him in as soon as he recognized him.

  "Where are the kids from Vanilla Velvet?" he asked a stage assistant he knew by sight.

  "Hey, King, good to see you," the man said. "They're pretty good, aren't they?"

  "Yeah, Mickey, they were good," he said having remembered his name.

  Mickey Spencer pointed to a door without waiting. "They used that changing room. But I think they already left."

  Diane was already knocking on the dressing room door before he could thank Mickey for his help. She looked back at him expectantly when no answer came. He cracked the door open, waiting for a reaction. No sounds. He opened it all the way and they could see the room was empty.

  His heart shrunk to see the sadness on Diane's face. He knew they layout of the backstage, so he took her hand and rushed to the other exit, which would take them to the parking lot. Diane ran to keep up with him. They got out in time to see a black Mini Cooper leave the yard.

  Vy stopped next to a red sports car. She turned her head and they locked gazes again. A strange energy vibrated between them, and he missed it the moment the connection broke. He watched her get into her car and drive away.

  He sat down on the edge of the sidewalk, and Diane nestled next to him. He put his arm over his daughter's shoulders and held her tight while her own arms snuck under his leather jacket and tried to wrap around his waist.

  "You can meet them when you visit," he said soothingly. "I'll look for them and maybe I'll sign them for an album."

  The tension in his daughter's body told him she was fighting back tears.

  "I'm gonna miss you so much," she said.

  "I'll miss you, too, baby."

  She sniffled, and he felt his t-shirt getting wet where she pressed her face into him.

  "Don't be sad," he said. "You'll be here again at Christmas. And you're going to see me on TV a lot. Every week once Sing starts."

  She sat up and kissed his cheek. Her smile reminded him why he accepted to go back into television after his experience as a teenage star. He had to hope that things had changed in the fifteen years he had stayed away from that world.

  Chapter 2

  Vy

  Her hands shook a little when she put spoonfuls of coffee in the filter. The espresso machine gleamed in the corner of the kitchen, but only her father managed to make it work, and he had left for work at the crack of dawn. Her mother was on a campaign for Amnesty International on the other side of the globe. Vy had mentioned the auditions to them weeks earlier, but she was relieved they weren't there the day she was going to the IBC studios.

  She jumped at the sound of Sebastian's muffled voice. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

  Her brother struggled to pull the tight t-shirt over his head.

  "Be careful," she said. "You're going to smudge your mascara."

  His head popped up from the t-shirt and he scowled at her. "You're jealous I look better than you with eyeliner."

  "You do not!"

  "Seriously now, Vy," he said, rummaging through the fridge. "I can live without eyeliner and black nail polish. If you don't want me to-"

  "Chill, dude," she interrupted him. "I really don't mind. I'm freaking out enough about the audition to care if you're makeup is better than mine."

  He punched her shoulder lightly. "The only thing you'll have to worry about today is to choose between King and TC. Choose King," he added immediately.

  "Glad you're so sure they'll both want me on their team," she said.

  "They're not idiots. Of course they will."

  In a few hours, four of the biggest names in Illyrian music were going to hear her sing. Win or lose, that audition would be in the first episodes of Sing and it would be seen by millions of people. She and Sebastian had been among those millions of people from season one.

  All the years of hard work led up to that audition. All the hours of practice in their garage. All the evening, weekends and holidays she took music classes. All of it, a preparation for the few minutes that could change her life.

  She poured coffee in the two travel mugs and handed Sebastian one of them.

  "Come on, let's get Alice," she said.

  In a couple of minutes, they stopped in front of her best friend's house. She was about to honk when Alice ran out, one shoe on her foot and the other in her hand. A scarf trailed after her, sticking out of her open bag.

  "Sorry, sorry," Alice said breathlessly, getting in the back.

  "We're not robbing a bank," she said, and pulled into traffic.

  In the rearview mirror she saw Alice touch up her makeup, and she tried to drive smoothly enough to allow her friend to finish.

  "Cute," Sebastian said, tugging at the corner of the pastel silken fabric, slowly drawing it out of her ridiculous pink bag. "Very Maison Pellerin style."

  Alice yanked the scarf from Sebastian's fingers and folded it neatly before putting it back in the bag. Vy sometimes wondered why her best friend didn't wear more of her famous grandmother's creations. Maison Pellerin was the epitome of high fashion in Illyria and the few times she'd seen Alice wear Pellerin dresses, she was stunning.

  "How do you do this?" Alice said. "Your car looks better than the day you got it."

  She smiled caressing the leather cover of the steering wheel. The red hot Alfa Romeo had been a present from her Volvo-loving parents. Driving age in Illyria was eighteen, but Vy's campaign to get that car had started a whole year before her eighteenth birthday. She loved that car and she took better care of it than any other object in her life.

  Her brother was squirming in the passenger seat. A look in the rearview mirror revealed that Alice was tapping her fingers against her lips. They were so sweet when it came to their common vice.

  "You may smoke," she said regally.

  She didn't smoke, but she liked the smell on her clothes and on the leather seats. It made her beloved Romeo smell even sexier.

  "Did you decide who you're going to choose?" Alice asked.

  Vy took a deep breath, and got ready for the usual argument. The same two choices that battled in her soul, had also battled in her ears. TC versus King had been a matter of contention between Sebastian and Alice for weeks.

  "King," Sebastian said. "She's going to choose King because Wanderlust is the best thing th
at ever happened to rock music."

  "Oh, come on," Alice retorted. "What's the last Wanderlust song you hummed? Face it, they've been in a funk for at least five years."

  "Great argument!" Sebastian said. "She should choose Carter because the Waves have weaseled their way in the public conscience. On that logic, she should go to Ryann freaking Ford because even if we hate his music, we end up humming it along with everyone else."

  Alice smirked at his words. "You just proved my point. Even you are humming Waves songs. When it comes to Wanderlust, you listen and take notes. No one hums their songs."

  "No, you're right, I don't hum them. I love them. I love studying them and I love playing them."

  "Enough!" Vy said. "I'm making use of my prerogative as the Queen of the Romeo to institute Martial Silence in the land."

  "Wha-" Sebastian tried to protest.

  "Queen!"

  She rarely pulled the "Queen" card, but she didn't need their debate to have trouble deciding between TC and King.

  Andrew

  The first day of auditions was almost over and he was exhausted and exhilarated. He had promised himself not to allow the song to influence his decision. Only the voice mattered. It turned out to be an excellent idea because after the first dozen contestants, he started to resent whenever they picked classic rock songs. Even when they didn't screw them up.

  He settled back in his chair after the break. The lights went out and the room fell silent.

  He placed the power ballad within the first two seconds. It was a difficult song, and an unexpected choice for auditions. He already liked the courage of the stranger behind the curtain. The voice came in perfectly and he immediately recognized her. The Vanilla girl from the Festival.

  Diane had shared with him dozens of Vanilla Velvet videos she found online. The band was pretty good, and he intended to look them up, even go see them if they performed anywhere in the next few weeks. His daughter was going to be delighted if he worked with Vy.