Wandering Read online

  Wandering

  By

  Daniela Jackson

  A Rock Star Suspense Romance Novella

  Copyright © 2017 by Daniela Jackson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Intended for mature audiences. Explicit and dark content that may not be suitable for some readers. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 1

  Eavan

  I’m not allowed to be among crowds, yet here I am, plastered to the metal fence separating me and the group of more than one hundred teenagers from him. The girls are waving their hands, squealing, and waking an urge of murder inside me.

  Sweat, hormones, and the fever of anticipation create a unique environment. It suffocates me, seeps into me, and kills me. I can’t breathe.

  Ruby, my sister, loves his songs. I have no opinion on his music. I’m too exhausted to have an opinion on anything. My insomnia and my job are stripping me of energy entirely, making my life nothing more than an agonising, breathless blur.

  He walks slowly along the fence, his movements springy, steady, perfect muscles bulging under his pale skin. He must work out every day. Two bodyguards are supervising him. Their massive frames look as threatening as two mountain peaks. Sunglasses cover their square faces and veins pop out on their arms.

  The upper railing of the fence digs into my stomach, causing nausea to waft through me. Slim bodies slap me on the back, one, two, two more. Hands slap my arms. I steel myself. This is for Ruby.

  My hands sweat. Thin streams of moisture trickle down my back. An elbow nudges my back; another elbow nudges my hip. This is for Ruby. I can do it. Focus.

  I run the back of my hand across my forehead, praying for this torture to end. I really can’t breathe. My heart races desperately as though I’m a scared bird. The crazy teenagers around me are going to crush me. Their shouts and squeals drill into my brain like thick long needles.

  I feel old among them. I will be twenty years old in six months, but I feel like I’m forty. Ruby turned eighteen three months ago. She is young again. She has recovered. I haven’t.

  The A4 photo rustles in my hand as the wind sweeps past me. Ominous clouds start to gather in the sky like the ghastly reflection of my soul.

  “What’s your name?” a husky voice asks.

  I raise my eyes to meet his dangerous glance. His eyes are shining. No—

  They’re blazing like the fire in hell and shining alternately, an eerie dance of fury and the broodiness of a deep blue colour tinted with grey, endless like the ocean touched by the summer sunshine and the shade of an occasional dark cloud. His shoulder-length hair is black with a blue tinge resembling a crow’s wing. With his unshaven face, asymmetric lips and eyeliner, he must make all those teenagers’ hearts race.

  I have no opinion. I’ve slept six hours in total this week. I’m too numb to have an opinion on his looks.

  “This is for my sister, Ruby,” I mumble, passing the photo on to him.

  “What’s your name?” he asks as though he’s having fun at my expense.

  He looks twenty-five at most and is the lead vocalist of ‘Red Asylum’, a rock band. Seafra, they call him.

  “Who cares,” I growl. “My sister’s name is Ruby.”

  I stare at him and my mind goes blank. He says something to me, a blurry disjointed echo, autographing the photo for me, but I’m unable to process anything at the moment. There is no oxygen in my lungs. A cold sweat floods my back even though it’s late spring and the air is warm.

  I blink a few times in a row and my brain switches on, but to a shaky wavering mode, as Seafra passes the photo back to me, grabbing my wrist. My eyes trail a line along the tattoo adorning his forearm-it’s a cobra with five small skulls surrounding it. Then my glance shifts to his.

  “Fuck off,” I explode and tear my wrist away from his hand, backing up, elbowing my way through soft bodies.

  For fuck’s sake. He’s just violated my personal space. I hate it. Nobody is allowed to touch me, except Ruby. It’s been like this since I got sick one fatal night. Jack can sometimes touch me too.

  White flashes dance in front of my eyes. Breathe. Breathe, for fuck’s sake.

  The squeals of the girls gyrating around me hurt my brain like that dreadful sound from my past, the sound I fear every night, and will never forget. I teeter on the edge of collapse. Fuck. I can’t move. Red flashes appear in front of my eyes along with black patches then a veil of blackness covers my vision entirely for a second or two. I don’t feel my limbs. Blood pumps inside my ears. My surroundings waver around me, foggy, distorted, as the noise comes to my ears like echoes from a distance.

  Somebody shouts. Somebody squeals. I’m weightless like the surface of a sea is carrying me to my end, to my peace. I descend into a numb greyness.

  Somebody growls, a sharp masculine voice. Two masculine voices rumble.

  “I’ve got you, baby,” a husky voice says into my ear as the intriguing scent of cologne and sweat settles in my nostrils, earth after summer rain, spice and musk.

  “You’re irresponsible,” a deep male voice roars.

  “She’s collapsed, Tony, can’t you see?”

  I recognise Seafra’s voice, tearing its way through the grey fog in my head.

  “So fucking what?” Tony rumbles.

  My body sways. I realise somebody’s arms are digging into my back and outer thighs.

  “The autograph,” I murmur.

  “I will give you five of them,” Seafra says.

  I open my eyes and fix them on his face above mine. “Fuck.”

  “Yes, fuck,” Seafra says and one corner of his lips crooks up.

  He’s carrying me in his arms like I’m a kitten and he’s a giant. The guy is tall and beautifully built, I must admit. I feel his hard muscles working against my body, evoking my yearning for something I can’t name.

  I wiggle. “Get off me.”

  “Whoa, easy,” he says and tightens the embrace around me. “Don’t move or we’ll fall down together.”

  It’s dark around me; the cool air circles around me like I’m in catacombs. I was once there with Ruby. The cold air there carried the scent of earth and that of rainwater lingering in the shallow holes of the ground under our feet. It was tinged with a subtle deadness as though I was able to sense the decay in the niches, as though I was able to smell the naked bones and the past. Yet I wanted to turn into a bat and stay there forever. I felt safe there.

  We enter a room and the brightness of artificial light makes me squeeze my eyes shut. The all-pervasive smell of male sweat whips my nostrils.

  My body lands in a soft seat and somebody’s knuckles run up and down my cheek.r />
  “Don’t fucking touch me,” I hiss.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Seafra growls. “I’m just trying to be nice. I don’t bite.”

  Seafra

  She opens her eyes, her irises like two black chasms, but one mystery, never-ending, deep, perfectly dark like the universe. Her full seductive lips form an ‘o’ and I stifle my urge to kiss those moist berry lips of hers.

  Coyote, my cousin and our guitarist, walks in, his green eyes sliding over the girl, fingers threading through his short brown hair, and he whistles. “Tony is really pissed off. You’ve broken the rules again. He said he would quit.”

  “He won’t,” I say. “He loves this job.” I pat the front of my black t-shirt with my hand.

  Tony has been my bodyguard since the very beginning. He has three kids around my age and treats my band as he would treat them.

  “Who is that pretty princess?” Coyote asks, moving closer to the girl and I stifle my urge to shove him away from her.

  She’s not pretty.

  She’s stunningly beautiful, but not like all the other chicks I’ve met.

  There’s something ghost-like about her appearance. The dark circles under her eyes and the whiteness of her skin bring an image of a white lady in a medieval castle to my mind. Her black hair covers her fragile body like a cape, like a piece of midnight sky. I think about moths, about their allure and the beauty of death those creatures symbolise. The girl reminds me of them as though she doesn’t belong to the world of the living. Yeah, I could definitely fall in love with a beautiful ghost and maybe that’s why she’s so intriguing to me.

  She’s short and slim, but her black wrap top and skinny jeans show off her nice tits and round ass. Not to mention that her voice sends heat to my dick each time she speaks. It’s lower than I expected, tinged with a subtle raspiness, the voice of a temptress.

  “Get her a glass of water,” I say and sit on my heels on the floor in front of her.

  The sounds of the people gathering up the equipment to pack it into two vans come to my ears in scrunches, screeches, swear words, bangs, and clinks.

  The girl curls into the armchair and shoots bullets of anger towards me with her eyes. Her thick black eyebrows arch like a seagull’s wings and her long eyelashes flutter. She has no make-up on. She doesn’t need it. She’s absolute perfection.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “None of your fucking business,” she growls.

  Coyote chuckles behind me.

  I’m intrigued.

  Women love me. They love to spread their legs for me even more. They suck my dick with just one encouraging glance from me.

  This chick hates me at first sight. Unexpected.

  No—

  That actually pisses me off.

  “If you want the autograph,” I say, “tell me your name.”

  “I need this fucking autograph,” she growls as Coyote hands her a glass of water and guards his stomach to stifle his laughter.

  “Aren’t you busy, Coyote?” I ask in a bit of a sharp voice.

  “I’m hungry,” he says, jutting his chin towards the table in the corner of the room.

  “So grab a sandwich and get lost,” I say.

  Coyote grins at me, but follows my suggestion. I’m two years older than him and he admires me like I’m his older brother not his cousin. He sends a smirk towards the girl then walks off with a plate piled with food in his hand.

  “Tell me your name,” I insist and lock my eyes on the girl’s.

  She takes a sharp breath. “Eavan. My name is Eavan. Happy?”

  Of course, it must be Eavan. It suits her perfectly, plasters her like skin, belongs to her; it’s unique and mysterious like her.

  “I will drop you to your place,” I say.

  “No.” She empties the glass and raises herself. There is fear in her eyes as though she’s a wild animal caught in a trap. “I need this autograph,” she says in a softer voice. “I can pay.” She puts the glass on the armrest and pulls back and forth.

  I rise to my feet and stand in front of her, blocking her between the armchair and my body. Her chin trembles as I raise my hand, urged by some dark force and stroke her hair. It’s sleek to touch, thick and straight. Wonderful.

  “So kiss me and we’re even,” I say.

  “Get off me,” she says as her lips part, a pink flush painting her white cheeks.

  I take my hand off her as her tantalising smell of green tea and her own mask hits me. She smells of something else, it’s wild like the wind in the mountains, pristine and irresistible.

  “Where is the exit?” Eavan asks.

  “Wait for the autograph,” I say.

  Fucking hell, this chick is driving me mad.

  “I don’t need your fucking autograph. Changed my mind. Sorry.” She passes me and looks around then aims for the black curtain separating the room from the narrow corridor leading to the stage.

  Fuck. Everything inside me screams to stop her. To keep her. Like I’m fucking insane or something. I leap towards her and wrap my arms around her from behind, pulling her to me, sheltering her.

  She emits a desperate sigh as her back rests against my chest, her body wriggling. I immobilise her in my embrace.

  “Wait for the autograph, Eavan.”

  “I don’t want it,” she shrieks.

  “I’m sorry, okay?”

  “I need to go.”

  “Wait for that fucking autograph.”

  She wriggles again, but I tighten my embrace around her, almost certain that I’m causing her pain. It’s madness. A thought wavers on the edge of my consciousness. She will vanish the moment I release her. She will vanish like a ghost. A primal instinct awakes inside me. That instinct wants to keep her. Kiss her. Fuck her.

  Fuck her hard, fast. Fuck her rough like an animal.

  I loosen my embrace and she turns around, her glance meeting mine, her breath ragged, droplets of sweat adorning her forehead like diamonds.

  The air around us thickens and I feel like I’m in the middle of a bad storm throwing snaps of lighting down onto a field, burning the wheat bending with each gust of the wind. Something violent courses through me as Eavan’s eyes widen at me and fill up with tears. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than her in this movement. She’s like a crying saint from a medieval church.

  “Wait for the autograph,” I say gently as my hand travels to the back of her neck and I sink my fingers into her hair. “Or wait. I have a better idea. There is a party later this evening—“

  “I can’t.” She pulls back but I hook the back of her neck and encircle her waist with my arm to immobilise her.

  “No, wait. A very small party. A very private party. In my friend’s house. Just the band and a few more people.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Bring your sister. I’ll sing for her.”

  She sighs and shakes her head.

  “A really small house party,” I insist. “I will give your sister five t-shirts and ten posters. Fifteen autographs. Don’t make me beg you.”

  Eavan chuckles. “Okay.”

  “Alma Avenue 67. At nine.”

  “Okay.”

  “So you’re coming?” Fucking hell, I am begging her. Me? I’ve never begged a chick.

  “Yes,” she says with a breathless exhale.

  The curtain waves and Tony walks in, followed by my manager, Tania. They look pissed off.

  Eavan wiggles out of my embrace and backs up. I step forward, but Tony blocks me with his enormous body. I hear the sound of Eavan’s light footsteps drifting farther and farther away from me.

  “Back off,” I growl.

  “Are you fucked up or what?” Tony rumbles and pushes at my shoulders.

  I push him back and fling myself to the side, but another bodyguard obstructs my way.

  “Back the fuck off,” I rasp and swerve.

  I pull the curtain, and walk into the corridor then onto the stage, but I can’t see Eavan. She’s
vanished like a ghost. Something heavy sits on my chest, crushing me, stripping me of oxygen.

  “We need to talk,” Tania says from behind me. “Seriously.”

  “Where is she?” I say with a high-pitched crack in my voice, my hands spread as I spin.

  “We need to talk,” Tania growls. “Seafra, what the fuck is wrong with you? Look at me. We need to talk.”

  I roll my fingers into fists. “What?”

  “There are rules,” Tania says as I turn to face her. “They must be at the legal age and there must be consent.”

  “What do you want from me?” There is a dense fog in my head and her words stab me like a knife.

  “I just want you to obey a few simple rules.” Tania’s voice drills into my brain.

  She raises her hands like she wants to grab my arms and shake me, sheer anger flickering in her brown eyes. Her palms travel to her generous hips and she tilts her head as her red side bangs reveal her high forehead marked by two thin lines.

  “I always obey the rules,” I say.

  “Really? The girl cried. She was scared.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Okay,” Tania continues. “What about earlier? You put your life at risk.”

  “She collapsed.”

  “I don’t fucking care. I’m here to make sure that you won’t end up in jail or die. Understood?”

  “Fuck off. I know the rules.”

  “So, obey them, okay?”

  I salute her.

  One corner of her thin lips crooks up. “Good.”

  I sweep my hand furiously, rustling the curtain obscuring the stage from the pub and roam my eyes over the tables and chairs by the walls adorned with spray paint and old newspapers in antique frames. My glance travels to the gallery supported by wooden pillars then to the exit. No trace of Eavan left. I move back behind the stage then walk to another room.

  Eavan will come to the party. She wants that fucking autograph. My mind claws at that thought like my life depends on it.

  As I enter the room, I notice Hale, our drummer and my other cousin, shooting his load into a blonde’s mouth. He’s sitting in the armchair and she’s crouching on the floor between his splayed knees. He pulls his dick out of her mouth and zips his leather trousers up. The girl wipes her lips with the back of her hand.