Illusions, p.1
Illusions, page 1
Illusions
Order of the Dragon - Book I
Allison A. Andrews
AAW Publishing
Copyright © 2023 by Allison A. Andrews
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 as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact AAW Publishing.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
First edition 2023
For Krystal, Shannon, Melinda and Jammi-Lee, for being my test audience and loving these characters as much as I do.
For my husband, Andrew and my daughter, Evelyn, who were patient while these characters and their story consumed my every waking moment!
Without you all, this wouldn’t have been possible.
Contents
Song List
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
If you have a moment
About the Author
Song List
Hold On - Chord Overstreet
Without You - Ursine Vulpinr, Annaca
Ghost Town - Benson Boone
Take On The World - You and Me at Six
On The Rise - Generdyn, Bellsaint
Unsteady - X Ambassadors
Sanctuary - Welshly Arms
Not Your Baby - Cadmium, Jex
I Guess I’m in Love - Clinton Kane
Warriors - League of Legends, 2WEI, Edda Hayes
Survivor - 2 WEI, Edda Hayes
Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Lorde
Prologue
I sat in my car, staring ahead momentarily, my mind racing and my heart beating a hundred miles an hour. These things just did not exist in real life. Yet, here I sat, staring at the scene before me. They moved so quickly, almost as if they were dancing with each other. Yet the end of the dance would culminate in one of their deaths. One protected me from the other, yet I still did not understand why. Why me? Why had I been chosen? Why was I the one who had to discover that the reality that so many others lived with was an illusion? To find out that the actual truth was so terrifying that it made me wish that my ignorance still protected me?
And most importantly… Why was I still sitting in this car when I could be gone by now? Surely normal, sane people did not wait to see who was about to win in a battle to the death when their own death would surely follow…
I guess I should start from the beginning…
Chapter One
“Happy Birthday Isolde.” My identical twin sister, Aurora, said as she walked into my bedroom, and I woke groggily with a groan. Being reminded that I had just turned a quarter of a century old was not my ideal way to be woken up. I had once vowed that I would refuse to tell people how old I was after I turned twenty-one, and well… Twenty-five felt like a death sentence.
“Hey. Thanks. And happy birthday to you too.” I managed to respond through the haze of the hangover that was currently holding me hostage. My head felt as though it had been invaded by a hive of bees, and I looked around, half expecting to see the bus that I was certain had hit me in the middle of the night.
“Big night?” Aurora grinned evilly at me, and I threw a cushion at her from where I had swept it onto the floor next to my bed the night before.
“Maybe just a little. A girl only turns twenty-five once, right?” I reached for the bottle of water that I had remembered putting next to my bed, wishing I had thought to take Panadol before falling asleep. I had long ago learned that alcohol and I were not a good mix, but my best friend Ainslie Wilson had insisted on taking me out for a girl’s night before I turned twenty-five, and it had somehow turned into an alcohol-binging session. I was struggling to remember the activities of the night before, but all I could remember were random images that didn’t make much sense to me.
Swearing never to drink again, I crept slowly out of bed, attempting to avoid the rush of blood to my head, and headed for the bathroom. One glimpse at myself in the mirror and I knew I resembled the Bride of Frankenstein. Or maybe the monster himself. Usually, my reflection was one that I was happy with. With green eyes, long dark reddish-brown hair, tanned skin, and a curvy figure, I knew I was attractive, and I normally took great pride in my appearance. However, I appeared to have forgotten to remove my make-up the night before, and my face looked more like the Joker from Batman than my usual clear-skinned, bright-eyed self.
“Wow… babe, you’re a mess!” My boyfriend, Will Blake, entered the bathroom behind me and caught a look at my reflection as I gasped at it in horror. He seemed to realise it was the wrong thing to say as I glared at him through eyes that were ringed with smudged mascara.
“You think?! Remind me not to go out with Ainslie for a girl’s night ever again,” I grumbled as I turned the hot water on and stripped my pyjamas off. Will just shook his head, laughing, as he closed the door behind him, and I stepped under the steaming hot water.
As I washed the makeup off my face, I again struggled to make sense of the images from last night that flashed through my mind. I remembered having dinner with Ainslie, Will, and Ainslie’s boyfriend, Alex. Then the rest of the night consisted of flashes of light, dancing, singing into a microphone drunkenly (I seriously hoped that was a nightmare and not something that I had actually done), then being in an alley with a man who seemed familiar to me, before being in the back of a taxi.
It was the image of the man that had me worried the most. What on earth had I been doing in an alley with a guy who wasn’t Will? The man’s incredibly handsome face was not one that I recognised, yet there was something familiar about him. Like I was meant to know him. And that he knew me very well.
After an eternity in the shower, I stepped out, feeling marginally better, and dried myself off. I wrapped the towel around myself securely and returned to the bedroom I shared with Will. My clothes from the night before were strewn across the room, something that was usually unheard of. Both Aurora and Will constantly joked about my almost manic cleanliness.
“Oh, so you are going to work today?” Will asked, walking up behind me as I reached for the hideous uniform I was forced to wear to my job as a duty manager of Opalescence, a bar in the city. The uniform was for day shifts when the bar was respectable. Night shifts were less formal, and I could wear jeans and a singlet top. Showing the appropriate amount of cleavage, of course. By day, we served alcohol and pub meals to business people attending meetings, and by night, we served alcohol to those same business people, but they were different kinds of meetings they were attending then. Many a clandestine affair had both started and ended at Opalescence.
“Of course I’m going to work… Unless you have a better offer?” I smiled coyly as Will wrapped his arm around my bare waist.
“Oh, I have a better offer.” He nuzzled my neck. “Happy birthday, by the way.” I allowed myself to briefly close my eyes and lean back into him as he slowly kissed his way down my neck. A brief flicker of déjà vu that was gone too soon made me wish that I could stay standing there for longer. However, I knew I couldn’t afford to miss work, and my boss wouldn’t accept a hangover as a good enough excuse to call in sick, especially on my birthday.
“How about we pick this up tonight? I’m working until seven, and then I’m all yours.” I gently pulled away from him and he sighed, knowing that there was no use. He was used to spending half of every weekend keeping himself amused. It was part of the reason we had moved in together in the first place.
“Sounds good. Want me to pick you up?” Will went to sit on the edge of the bed as I continued getting ready.
“No, I’ll catch the ferry. You can cook dinner, though.” I grinned at him, knowing that I would come home to pizza but not caring much. The idea of working with this hangover was scary enough without the thought of coming home to cook dinner.
I eventually made it out the door and drove to the City Cat ferry terminal. Grabbing my handbag, I headed to wait for the ferry, scrolling mindlessly through all my various social media apps while I stood behind several other commuters waiting on the gangway.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a rush of images hit me, and I must have looked crazy as I struggled to stay upright. I had never experienced anything like this before, almost like psychic visions that you see people having in movies. I thought I must have been losing my mind. Or my imagination was running away with me, which was more than likely.
I was remembering more from my time in the alley with the mystery man, but the images I saw could not be right… He was whisp ering in my ear, trying to tell me something important. I could hear his voice in my ear, low and urgent, but it was as though the sound was down very low, and his words were nothing more than a low murmur… I could not for the life of me remember anything he said.
I had led what you would call a fairly normal, even boring, existence up until now. My mother swore that I was born mature and grew even wiser than her every day. My father said I had an old soul, that I had lived before. My sisters just thought I was boring and never had any fun. Of the opinions expressed, I was inclined to believe the latter above all the others. I had always done exactly what was expected of me. I had graduated high school with good grades, went to university, had a good job, and was in a relationship with the perfect guy… The only rebellious thing I ever did was to drop out of uni to travel to the UK and work. And that only ended up lasting four months because I missed Will too much, so I’d come back home and worked for a few years before going back to uni to finish my degree. So, that didn’t explain the bizarre images in my mind right now.
I shook my head to clear it as I looked around to find myself already sitting on the City Cat, halfway to the city, the river winding away in front of me…
How on earth did that happen?
My apparent sleepwalking puzzled me as my mobile buzzed in my handbag. I pulled it out absentmindedly and read the text message from Ainslie, wishing me a happy birthday. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that it was my birthday since I’d left home, and I suddenly realised that I had not received any presents yet. I was instantly ashamed that the thought had entered my mind. That was not what birthdays were about… Well, it shouldn’t be what birthdays were about, at the very least.
But something had to make up for the fact that I was ageing, without my consent, I might add. Presents were just compensation for the ageing process once you turned twenty, and the next milestone birthday was thirty… Or even worse… Fifty. I shuddered at that thought.
I was pulled from my musings as a nearby tour guide started pointing out places of interest around us, and I found myself listening in with a small smile.
“So, welcome to Brisbane, Queensland’s thriving capital city. It’s the third biggest city in Australia, and it was built on either side of the river we are now on, the very originally named Brisbane River, which winds from beautiful Moreton Bay behind us, right up into the mountains you can see over there.” She pointed with her little stick topped with a flag, and all the tourists nodded and smiled. “This river is a big part of the lives of all who live here, and we even have a festival once a year that is all about the river called the River Festival. We do love coming up with original-sounding names here, as you can tell.” She tittered, and the tourists all laughed politely. I covered my snort with a cough.
“Brisbane’s inhabitants are split between north-siders and south-siders, depending on which side of the river you hail from. We just got on at Bulimba, which is one of our inner city suburbs on the south side.” I popped my headphones on to sit back and enjoy the ride along the river.
I always loved seeing people visit Brisbane and had heard the spiel given many times by different tour guides when they brought their groups on the ferry. Although I’d travelled some, I still loved my hometown. After heading to London when I was twenty, I knew how lucky I was to live in Australia, with our fantastic weather and laid-back attitude to life. I still enjoyed my time away, but I’d never been so happy to return to the sunshine state and the country of ‘She’ll be right, mate’. Even on a mid-winter day, all that was required was a singlet top and a warm jacket. Sure, we complained of being cold, but we really had nothing to complain about. And with how hot it was today, in the height of summer, I would have happily taken the winter chill over the heat that had me sweating whilst I sat at the back of the ferry.
Moving to slide my phone back into my handbag, I saw a flash of something on the inside of my wrist, something golden, and I turned my arm over to look, but there was nothing there.
Vowing never to drink again, as it now seemed to mean I was seeing things, I closed my eyes and attempted to clear my mind of visions and other weird occurrences before I had to start an eight-hour shift, helping other people become intoxicated instead.
Chapter Two
I arrived home that night, pulled my car into the visitor space next to our townhouse and climbed out of the car, digging around in my handbag to find my house key. As I unlocked the front door, I was surprised to find all the lights out, as Will’s car was still in the driveway.
Moving through the house, turning on lights as I went, I called out to Will without any response. I knew that Aurora wasn’t at home, as she and her boyfriend, Jacob, were out celebrating Aurora’s birthday together, but Will had messaged me ten minutes ago to see how much later I would be, so his absence now was strange. Coming to the top of the stairs, I could see a flickering light shining through the crack at the bottom of our bedroom door, and I moved to open it a little uncertainly, apprehensive of what I might find on the other side. My hand was still on the door handle, and it took me a moment to register what I was seeing before I let out a gasp at the scene before me.
The room was lit entirely by tea-light candles placed all around the room, with rose petals scattered all over the place. And there, lying on the bed on his side, propped up on one elbow, was Will, nervously playing with what looked like a ring box.
The look on my face must have been priceless as I gaped at him in shock. I raised a shaking hand to my mouth, watching as he rose to his feet and moved to stand in front of me, silently dropping to one knee and holding the ring box open in front of me.
“Isolde Smith… I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone. Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?” His voice was thick with emotion that he struggled to hide, and I was momentarily struck by how handsome he was, with his brown hair cut short and his perfect sun-kissed skin. Wearing a fitted t-shirt and jeans, I could appreciate the effect that regular hours in the gym and running had on his body.
Swaying in place for a moment, my heart swelled, and I had to remind myself to breathe. After another stunned moment of silence, I dropped my handbag and flung myself at him as he rose to meet me. I kissed him hard, unable to think straight. We had talked about getting married for a while, but I had no idea he had been planning this. I felt as though the breath had been knocked out of me.
“Is that a yes?” He asked with a grin as he stepped back to look at me. I smiled at him, rapidly blinking to keep the happy tears from escaping my eyes, and simply nodded, unable to speak. I couldn’t imagine marrying anyone else. With a small laugh, he lifted me off the ground and swung me around for a moment before setting me back down and kissing me softly. We looked down together as he slid the most perfect ring onto my finger.
“I had this designed months ago. I hope you like it?” He asked nervously as I stared at the elegant ring that now sat on my left ring finger. Vintage inspired, with a large square diamond set in a white gold band, it was surrounded by multiple little diamonds and garnets, my birthstone.
“It’s gorgeous! I couldn’t have chosen better if I tried.” I held my hand out before me, transfixed, as I turned my hand this way and that, the diamonds catching the light of the candles nearest to me. I could stare at it all night.
“That’s fantastic… Now go get ready ’cause we’re going to your parents for dinner.” He smacked me playfully on the butt, and I was momentarily knocked out of my happy place, looking up into Will’s smirking face in surprise.
“What? You propose to me, then drag me off to my parent’s house to have dinner… What’s so romantic about that?” I asked, attempting to keep the disappointment out of my voice. I thought a romantic dinner at home followed by a mind-blowing love-making session was in order, not a forced visit to my parent’s house.
“Sorry, babe, but they rang today to confirm that we were going there for dinner for your birthday. Did you maybe forget to mention something about that after you last spoke to your mother?” I wracked my brain, trying to remember the details of my previous conversation with my mother last week. She may have mentioned something, but I couldn’t remember saying yes. Knowing my mother, that didn’t matter.
