Dark Dream (Love in Illyria Book 1) Read online

  "Shh," Marvin said. "Use the inside voice."

  "Or better, use the we're-sneaking-in-the-kitchen-after-hours voice," Vy said.

  "We should do something to celebrate."

  "We could jump in the pool completely dressed," Bryce said.

  "Yeah, but Vy already did that," Marvin said.

  She reached into her empty back pocket and took a step toward the boys. "Do you guys want to smell of French perfume again?"

  They both put their hands up shaking their heads.

  "No, really, I'm fine," Marvin said. "Sorry I brought it up"

  "Please, please don't," Bryce begged. "King was nice about it that time with Marvin, but I just know he'd hate if I show up smelling like you in the morning. He was so annoyed after you showed up during our practice on the stage."

  That was rich! He was referring to the incident when she had heroically thrown herself over the unexploded grenade of his love letter. And Bryce made it sound like King was annoyed because she had interrupted their practice! She tried to be annoyed about that, not to allow any butterflies to swarm inside her thinking of the shock in King's eyes when she had taken the letter.

  "What did he say?" she asked.

  "Nothing. He just turned up the ice."

  Marvin shivered. "Oh, good, I thought it was just me," he said. "King is so patient and never gets angry when we mess up, but lately it's like the temperature drops whenever he's around."

  Vy held her tongue. In her experience, the temperature shot up whenever Andrew King was nearby.

  #

  She knew that day had to come. Every season of Sing they showed the contestants singing at an event organized by IBC for Illyria's Unification Day.

  The part of the trip to Orsino Great Union Square that she hadn't prepared herself for was Helen glaring at her from Lauren and Ford's bus, when she saw her sitting next to Bryce. As if she didn't know they had to pretend to be together for her sake!

  Even TC raised an eyebrow when he walked between the two rows to make sure all his team was on the minibus. Did he expect her to sit with Claire or what?

  Bryce was squirming in his seat, and she tried to find something else to focus on so that she could stop herself from elbowing him in the ribs. As it happened more and more frequently, her thoughts turned to Andrew King.

  Happily married rock star.

  She whipped herself with those words. She kept saying them, like a mantra, because whenever he was around, she seemed to forget.

  She was not some ditsy groupie. She was there to drool over a star. She was most certainly having naughty thoughts about a man closer to her father's age than her own. Not that close. She pushed away the treacherous thought saying her mantra.

  Happily married rock star.

  Whenever she caught his gaze, King's face turned to stone. The harshness around his eyes grated on her soul. He must have picked up on her… whatever the hell it was.

  Crush.

  Severe crush.

  Fever-inducing, sleep-depriving, fantasy-causing crush.

  Stop it!

  The hormones were taking over again.

  "Stop it," she said in a harsh whisper to Bryce whose fidgeting was getting on her nerves.

  "Sorry," he whispered back. "How far is it? It feels like we've been cooped up in here for weeks."

  She pointed to the window. "We're stuck in traffic. You'll have to get used to it if you're going to stay here."

  He turned to look at her with his eyebrows raised. She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

  "What? Don't you want to stay here with me?" She stressed the word "me" to make him hear "Helen".

  "I, umm, didn't think..."

  "No kidding," she said, referring to the letter incident.

  It wasn't like she was doing much sound thinking lately herself.

  Happily married rock star.

  They got off the bus after the longest hour of her life. They soon found themselves stuck in the middle of a crowd.

  At the head of their group, TC started to cut a path through the crowd. She struggled to accept the invasion of her personal space. She stayed back, to let the others move toward the stage, wishing she could breathe freely again.

  Breathing became impossible when she found herself crushed against King's body. The movement of the crowd pushed her into him, her shoulder digging into his chest. She wanted to feel his hand on her body, to pull her close or to push her away. Anything to make that moment become real. His hand landed on her hip by accident. He rested it there for a few heartbeats, steadying her, giving her time to find her bearing.

  "You ok?" he asked.

  She tried to say yes, but no words came out. She tried to nod and to her surprise, she shook her head.

  "Come on, let's catch up with the others," he said, taking her hand.

  Andrew

  Her little hand burned in his. She held on to him so tightly it hurt. And yet it didn't hurt as much as knowing he would have to let go. He allowed the crowd to slow him down. Carter and the others were already behind the stage while they were still trying to make their way through the crowd.

  She seemed to have trouble advancing between the people already gathered in the square. He felt her slipping away and he squeezed her hand hard enough to feel the bones crunching. He stopped and pulled her toward him. Suddenly she was very close, her chest pressed against his upper arm. He didn't hear the gasp. He felt the hot breath on his neck.

  "Are you ok?" he asked, to have an excuse to look at her.

  Her drowned in her sparkling eyes. The green was nothing but a thin ring around the blackness of her pupils. The confirmation of her desire was the last thing he needed. At least his own black eyes concealed the effect she had on him even if she knew to look for this sign.

  "Vy?"

  She shook her head. "Yeah," she whispered hoarsely. "Fine. I'm fine."

  She sounded as desperate as he was feeling. Neither of them was fine. And the longer they stayed next to each other, holding hands, staring into each other's eyes, the worse it was going to get.

  "Come on," he said. "We're close."

  She squeezed his hand convulsively, and his heart thumped hard against his ribs, as he hurried onward, with his head bowed and his jaw clenched. He couldn't trust himself around her, so he should stop being around her. He shouldered his way through the crowd, dragging her behind him without hesitation.

  He let go of her hand as soon as they got behind the security barrier.

  "Where the hell were you?" TC asked her without as much as a glance at him.

  "I'm here now," Vy said, holding Carter's gaze without flinching.

  There was a clear familiarity in their posture, as if they were used to these arguments, but he was still close enough to see her eyes. It filled him with satisfaction to see her pupils back to normal. The black in her eyes had been for him alone.

  "We're on next," Carter said, and walked away.

  Vy followed her captain, and he went toward his own team, but he couldn't help looking back toward her. Just in time to catch her looking over her shoulder at him.

  Yes. He should definitely stay away from her.

  Chapter 8

  Vy

  After Unification Day, Vy decided that food was less important than avoiding Andrew King.

  Fortunately, he didn't usually stay in the House for dinner, so she stuffed her pockets with any food that would keep and that took care of breakfast. Her friends had noticed that she was in the practice room instead of coming to breakfast and that she skipped lunch, and they blamed TC's punishing schedule. She didn't correct them.

  Whenever TC or Mark were working with other pairs, she tried to find empty rooms in which she could practice on her own.

  The afternoon practices were pretty good. Going to practice hungry seemed to work well. She could sense TC approving of her intensity. After seeing her sit with Bryce on the bus, he was probably under the impression that she was dating him.

  She trudged up
the left spiral staircase that led to the first floor. She was staring longingly toward the common room, when she caught sight of King, Bryce and the guy he was going up against coming down the right staircase. She turned her head away a split second too late. How did he do that? He always caught her staring.

  She rushed up the stairs, forty-five minutes before practice started. Great. She sure needed time to calm down. She couldn't afford to go in pre-disturbed. TC was enough of a disturbance all by himself.

  The closer they got to the second round, the more her captain cranked up the intensity of their training.

  Her stomach growled loudly when she got to antechamber outside their music room. She prayed it wasn't going to do that in TC's presence.

  She walked up and down the large room, paying attention to her feet sinking into the thick carpet. She studied the heavy curtains that hung on either sides of the floor to ceiling windows.

  The dreary October rain almost turned day into night. She focused on the rain drops smashing against the window. She wouldn't mind being in the rain. A cold shower would do her a world of good. The memory of Andrew King in a wet t-shirt clinging to his body popped up in her mind.

  She didn't much like that particular Wanderlust song, or the video. The band played in a cemetery while the storm raged around them. Andrew King's voice raising up the dead. She pressed her palms against the cold window, and looked out into the grey rain. How had she lied to herself all these years? Sebastian would be disappointed to find out that her love of Wanderlust had less to do with their music than King's charisma.

  Embarrassing.

  She tore herself from the window and tried to fill her mind with details about the room. There was something familiar about that place but she couldn't put her finger on it. Beyond the architectural resemblance to her godparents' mansion.

  She noticed for the first time another curtain at the far end of the room. The same heavy dark red velvet with golden stitching as the ones by the windows, but they hid the entrance into a narrow dark nook. Her phone pinged. Thirty minutes before scheduled practice. She should get in the music room. With everyone still at lunch, she'd have the room to herself for a few minutes.

  Her hopes were dashed as soon as she opened the door. Carter hunched over the small table by the window, putting her in mind of a gargoyle. The comparison cheered her up.

  "Good afternoon," she said brightly.

  "Did you see the episode?" he asked without looking at her.

  "No," she said.

  He turned to look at her and his messy hair and wild eyes reinforced the gargoyle comparison in her mind.

  "They showed the background package about you."

  She had locked herself in the music room the night before, while IBC showed the episode with her duel against Emily, in round one. She closed her eyes and her shoulders slumped.

  "Oh," she said, deflating.

  "Oh, indeed," Carter said. "Spoiled little princess, weren't you?"

  Her eyes snapped open and she lifted her chin defiantly. "I worked my butt off to be here."

  He seemed pleased with the edge of anger in her voice. The wicked smile that crooked his thin lips reached all the way into the blue green ice of his eyes. Why did he always try to get a rise out of her? He could get under her skin far too easily.

  "Your parents can't be too happy with you for being here. You were supposed to be the next generation of Cesara who made a mark on Illyrian politics."

  "That was ages ago," she said, thinking of the rows of Cesaras who had held high positions during Illyria's monarchy days.

  "You actually think so," he said, looking at her with the crazy Macbeth look. "Looks like I know better than you know you who Paul Cesara is."

  "He's a lawyer. We have nothing to do with politics any more."

  "Not from what I know," he said. "He must have had some big plans for you, Viola."

  "Don't call me that."

  "Then stop being Viola Alexandra Cesara. Be Vy. The yet uncrowned Queen of Rock. Accept that you chose to sing. To entertain the masses."

  Part of her knew that her parents expected her to be a champion for justice. Carter was right. She had chosen to be part of the bread and circus in her parents' view of the world. Her rich and accomplished parents who fought for the sort of grand ideals that remain abstract concepts for most people.

  Her parents used their influence to help people. They weren't the type of upper class snobs that think they're better than the rest. Some of their friends though... Like her godmother. Leonie de Montrachet was one of her mother's university friends. She had seen Leonie make a young actress cry during a gala at the Opera when she made fun of her clothes, from Armani's previous year's collection. Her father's best friend had got a parking attendant fired because he found a scratch on his Ferrari after they had lunch at the Mirage.

  Claire walked before she could find a reply for Carter's words.

  It turned out to be one of the worst afternoon practices to date. She was light headed from hunger, and with every new repetition of their song, TC got angrier.

  "What's the matter with you?" he raised his tone. "I said to add more volume in the third chorus, and your voice keeps getting fainter."

  The growl of her stomach bounced off the walls of the music room. Vy's cheeks burst into flame, and Carter's temper flared out of control.

  "You didn't eat!" he said accusingly. "And going by the circles under your eyes, you're not sleeping much either. You can't bring the necessary force to this song if you live off air and love. Go into the common room right now and have a proper lunch. And don't you dare skip any meals from now on. Are we clear?"

  She thought about arguing with him, but he was right. She should be eating and sleeping properly.

  With her eyes glued to the floor, she nodded.

  "Go to lunch," he said. "Now!"

  She flinched under his harsh tone, and scurried out of the room. Damn! Claire was going to have the rest of the practice alone with TC. The hell with Andrew King! She was going to eat.

  She saw him immediately at the Captains' table with Lauren and Ford. With trembling hands, she built a small pyramid of food on her plate and headed to Marvin, Bryce and Helen's table.

  "I thought you had practice with TC now," Helen said.

  Vy shrugged and kept eating. She still managed to make a fool of herself darting glances at King like a schoolgirl with a crush. He always caught her. As if he had a sixth sense, he turned his head toward her whenever she couldn't help herself from glancing at him.

  Andrew

  When they had recorded those videos in the Bracciano Mansion more than ten years earlier, he hadn't imagined that he would ever be back. Let alone that he'd be the one under a spell.

  Vy's rendition of his Dark Dream haunted him. He'd taken the Vanilla Velvet recordings Diane had sent him and remastered them in his studio. He couldn't get enough of her voice. Of her. It hardly mattered that he stayed away, keeping to the Captains' table, keeping as far from her as he could.

  She didn't show up in the common room for a few days. Carter was probably working her into the ground. Jealousy burned through him at the thought of Carter spending so much time with her. He was tempted to check if the secret passage he knew was still there. It led from the east side of the building all the way to the large salon that had been turned into Music Room 1.

  No. He was not going to stalk the girl like some jilted lover. He wasn't going to turn into one of the creatures from his early songs. She loved the monsters from his music but he wasn't going to encourage that. He fought that temptation in the long nights when the memory of darkness in her eyes kept him up.

  That place was getting to him. SHE was getting to him. He couldn't get her out of his mind. Her voice was always with him. Once the season was over, he was going to contact Vanilla Velvet and sign them. An ongoing professional relationship with her would keep her in his life, and completely off limits.

  Lunch hour was over when she showed up.
She looked frailer than ever. What was Carter doing to her? He smiled to himself when he saw the amount of food on her plate when she got to her table. He couldn't help feeling protective toward her. A muscle twitched in his jaw. He should protect her from himself first of all.

  Carter stormed into the room and a few minutes later, his tray clanging on their table.

  "What's up?" Ford asked.

  Carter growled. "Nothing," he said, tearing into his food.

  "It's your girl, isn't it?" Lauren said.

  Andrew's heart skipped a bit. Lauren couldn't possibly refer to Vy as Carter's girl, could she?

  "Oh, yes," Ford said. "Your pet project. She's your pick for the final, isn't she?"

  Carter leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, a vein in his temple visibly throbbing.

  "Who?" Andrew asked.

  "The Cesara girl," Ford answered instead. "Carter's been obsessed with her since day one."

  How did he miss that? He was too busy obsessing with her himself.

  "She is so… impossible," Carter said, as if he was about to explode.

  "The best ones always are," Lauren said, and smiled at Ford.

  She patted Ryann's hand fondly. Andrew knew to look for the signs now, and he read the flash of pain on the younger man's features.

  Lauren had been Ryann's mentor at the beginning of his career. Now that his popularity surpassed hers, she took pride in him and she was happy for his success, but she still saw her as the teenager she had guided. Andrew could see that Ryann's feelings for her went far beyond gratitude. He wondered if Lauren was oblivious or simply didn't reciprocate them.

  An old wound opened under the scar. He'd been nineteen years old. Lilah Morgan was in her mid-thirties and she was a goddess in human form. His crush tore down the barriers of his excessive bashfulness. He'd fumbled his way into her bed. She took advantage of his naivety and his puppy love. He'd been a stupid nineteen-year-old kid who had given his heart to a woman for whom he'd been only a distraction.

  What would have happened to his crush if Lilah hadn't taken him to her bed? Would it have faded away? Ryann Ford was almost thirty and by the look of it, he was no way near over Lauren.