Shadows and Sorcery: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Adkins, Heather Marie

  “We’ve been here for a year, we’re from Canada. I am Liz and this is my boyfriend, Wayne.” The girl introduced them. “How nice to meet you. Are you enjoying your stay out here in Thailand?”

  “Well this is our first day so...” Marine was instant to get into some sort of a talk with Liz, and Elora couldn’t help but snort. She knew how much Marine liked to talk and to chat, it was one habit of hers that she couldn’t help but find endearing. Looking at the fond expression in Bram’s face, he also found that very endearing as well. Kameron simply didn’t react and waited for breakfast. They were sitting there for quite some time, pondering over what the day would be like.

  It was Elora who had finished first. She was not a heavy eater, not at all. She was a very light eater when it came to breakfasts and didn’t want to over-eat, especially because they were going to be going all around the caves and didn’t want to fall sick.

  “You should eat more.” Kameron prompted her. “You’ll be tired soon if you don’t.”

  “I won’t.” Elora shook her head. “I am not a heavy eater, I can only eat so much without being sick. Besides, if I am sick then we’ll all be in trouble.”

  “Listen to her Mr. Kameron,” Bram prompted. “She’s got the stomach of a rat.”

  “Does she now?” Kameron muttered, looking at Elora. “Well that’s cool, to say the least, but I don’t mind then. Let’s just finish the breakfast first and then we can talk, and think, about anything else that happens, shall we?”

  Elora didn’t react, she simply sipped on her cup of tea while Marine and Bram finished eating. She was now getting really excited to go to the caves and temples to start the sightseeing. And that is what they did. As soon as Bram finished his last piece of chicken, they called for the bill and hastily said their goodbyes to Liz and Wayne.

  “Have a safe trip!” Liz waved as they got up. They were going to be here for a while, it would seem. “And don’t get lost!

  “We will try not to,” Elora called back as the group got onto another boat. It was getting late as well. They had left at seven thirty in the morning and it was already nine. “We’re already losing time.”

  The guilty looks that Marine and Bram sent her didn’t do anything to curb down her irritation against them for being so late.

  * * *

  However, Elora soon forgot all her irritation as they truly started their exploration and journey around Chaing Mai.

  For Elora, the sights of the large temples made out of rock and stone with beautifully carved walls and paintings, along with the beautiful looking temples really brought out the archaeologist in her. She was unable to keep her mouth shut as her mouth would be always open slightly in awe at the sights that she had seen all day.

  From large temples to small rope bridges over rivers, heading to other temples, she loved everything about what she was seeing, and Kameron also knew what he was doing.

  “This temple is made for the respect and honor of King Pho Dunk. He was a very, very kind king that had introduced the first ever bank in the kingdom of Thailand.” Kameron said as they entered another temple. “Provided, this is also the second to last temple that there is in the entire area of Chaing Mai. The next temple we’re going to, the Temple of the Queen is the last of the hidden temples and that temple is the most mysterious one as well.”

  “Mysterious?” Elora asked as a chill travelled up her spine. “As in like those that you talked about?”

  “Not as bad as those, mysterious in the case that no one has ever stepped foot into the temples.” Kameron said. As Marine and Bram went on to take pictures, Elora was ‘vlogging’ the entire temple via video from the side. She didn’t need any intricate pictures, as she could easily use her vlogs to understand better. She wasn’t talking, but she did click the snapshot buttons a few times. As they moved to the end of the temple and back outside after thoroughly exploring it, Kameron lead them off towards the side through a very dirty path, a very dirty and eroded path. She could see the wilderness on one side and the temples in the distance from the other as they were slowly rising up in height until they were considerably high up from sea-level.

  “Wow, if you look at it from here you can even see the sea!” Marine said, pointing off to the vast body of water in the distance. Elora nodded, looking ahead at the temple that was literally carved into the mountain.

  “This is the temple of the Queen. For years this temple has remained unopened, no one knowing what is inside there,” Kameron said, looking pretty...strange as he looked at the temple. “Rumors are that there are untold treasures inside this temple, rumors are that there is something so powerful and so knowledgeable inside this temple that everyone craves it, yet no one has been able to open it for hundreds of years. The official name of this temple is the Queen of Legends, as it is in the honor of an unknown queen.”

  Elora nodded, not listening to Kameron properly. Instead she was looking at the temple, and at the lock on the temple. She didn’t know why, she didn’t know for what, but the temple was singing for her. It was singing to her, beckoning her to come closer and to try and open it. Beckoning her to try and explore the deepest parts of the temple, and she didn’t know why, it was actually working.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Kameron, who surprisingly had a satellite phone. Bram had wondered as to where did he get it from and if it was possible for him to get one as well, but Marine had stomped any urges to get more useless technology that he would only use once in a while or something.

  But once Kameron was gone, Elora could properly take a look at the door. She could see that there was a lock, but upon closer inspection, it was actually a handle. There was no door lock to the temple’s door, and it was the handle that was calling out to her.

  “Elora?” Marine asked her, but Elora didn’t hear it. She was slowly walking to the handle, and had then put her hand on it. “What are you doing? Didn’t you hear Kameron? The door hasn’t been opened for years!”

  Elora didn’t mind that. She couldn’t hear anything else but the sinful singing, the strange singing that whatever was behind the door was giving her and without a simple thought on her actions, she pressed down on the handle, and opened the door. The door opened up without any hesitation, and Marine gasped. Bram looked up from where he was standing and quickly jogged close to where Elora was.

  “Elora! What are you doing?! That could be dangerous!” Bram exclaimed. But even he was curious, and interested, as to what was on the other side of the door. “This temple hasn’t been opened for hundreds of years!”

  “I know, but I...” Elora muttered, unable to form many words as she gathered up the courage to walk in. It was surprisingly lit up from the inside, as she looked around the temple. She could see that the temple was completely beautiful from the inside. Walls that were looking like they were made out of pure gold went up on the side of the temple and beautiful designs of a strange language that she didn’t understand took place on the pillars. There were small carvings of some people all over the sides of the temple and the walls lead up right to the ceiling, where she could see was a second floor as well.

  But it wasn’t the second floor that she was now interested about but what was in the middle of the temple. It was a tapestry, a large wall with pictures honored to whoever this temple was. She couldn’t see the entire tapestry properly, as she was on the floor and the tapestry could only been seen from up there.

  “Wow...” Bram whispered, awe in his voice. “This is beautiful.”

  “Yeah, how did you open this Elora?” Marine asked her voice equally soft. “This place feels like it is out of this world! Like it was made by aliens or something!?”

  “The tapestry, is it older than the temple?” Elora asked, looking at the tapestry, and only the tapestry. “It is older than anything else in this temple.”

  “Is it?” Bram asked, looking at Elora, who was looking confused at the tapestry. “So what should we do? Should I go and call Kameron?”

  “No.
I need to get up to the second floor.” Looking up, she saw what seemed to be a rope, dangling from a wooden ledge on the second floor. “Guys, can you help me get up there? I need to look at this properly. This is a great find!”

  Bram and Marine looked at each other and shrugged. Bram grabbed Elora by her waist, taking pleasure in the softness and the beauty of her body, and slowly started to push her up. Marine followed up from behind helping push up her legs. Elora quickly grabbed onto the rope and onto the ledge to get up on the second floor so she could get a nice and amazing image.

  As soon as she got up there, she brought out her phone, and started taking pictures of the tapestry. She could see that her memory card was synced with her cloud, as she had made it so. She would go home, develop these pictures and show it to the librarian to see if they could find anything inside of the library, for this was completely mystic and stupefying. She didn’t want to see anything like this, but it was so glorious in sight that she couldn’t believe it.

  The strange ‘singing’ she was hearing had stopped, but she could still feel an attraction to the tapestry. As she was taking pictures, she noticed exactly what was on the tapestry as well.

  First of all was a picture of a queen. The queen who seemed to have a picture of the heart missing. Other than that, she could also see that there was an image of scenery behind her. A Pegasus was in the background of the queen, along with a woman with her mouth covered in some type of armor that Elora didn’t recognize being home to anyone. She could see that the woman had her bow and arrow aimed right at the king. Then there was a tree, which she recognized from previous sights that it was a tree of wisdom, and there was a mysterious woman she couldn’t recognize standing next to it with one hand on the tree. To complete the full description of the tapestry, there was another man in it. He looked really frightened and looked completely out of it, and there was another woman with red hair, in the background of the king with a strange emotion on his face.

  What is this? Elora thought as she looked closer at the tapestry. I’ve never seen anything like this. How did something like this get here and how did no one find it?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by footsteps and a loud cry in the local language.

  “What the-.” Kameron suddenly exclaimed as he came running inside. He looked around and his eyes fell right on the three tourists. “Who opened this temple?! How did you open this temple?! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”

  Marine and Bram were looking at the face that Kameron had on him and couldn’t speak up. Elora was the one that finally caved in, as she innocently raised a hand.

  “I-it was me...” Elora muttered softly and squeakily. “B-But I didn’t know what was wrong! I mean…I could hear strange singing from the temple and I-.”

  And right as she was speaking, the rope suddenly started to break. As it was the only way for her to get down, Elora tried to grab it by her hand, but cut her finger on the rope. If someone would have noticed, they would see one single drop of Elora’s blood that was slowly falling down onto the ground and it landed right on the missing piece of the tapestry.

  The full tapestry started to glow the second the drop of blood landed. Kameron looked shocked and pulled Marine and Bram along with it, as he saw Elora lose her footing and fall down to the ground. Marine and Bram looked in shock and horrified at the sight of their friend, Elora, plummeting towards the ground, towards the glowing tapestry, and then there was bright, bright flash of light.

  All Elora saw was a bright flash of light as well, and then complete and utter darkness. “ELORA!!!!”

  Present Day

  Bram’s eyes closed, clenched shut, as he remembered watching the entire scene, again and again and again. He could remember watching what had happened, and how it seemed for her as Elora, his sweet Elora, had disappeared off into the tapestry, unknown as to where she had gone and why was she not coming back, and what had happened to her. No one knew what was wrong, and no one knew why it had happened. It had just happened, and it was absolutely hellish.

  Elora had disappeared, and in a way, he felt it was all his fault.

  * * *

  When Elora woke up next, all she could see was the fact that she was no longer inside of the temple where she was last. She remembered everything, she remembered the rope snapping, her grabbing the rope, the tapestry suddenly glowing and now she woke up here, in the middle of some forest. She didn’t even know what sort of a forest this was as it didn’t look like any forest from her home.

  “Uh…hello,” she called out, hoping that there would be someone who would answer. “Marine? Bram? Mr. Kameron? Hello, are you there?”

  She looked around to see that she was all alone. She removed her phone and tried to call Marine who was on speed-dial. There was no answer, or the phone didn’t even ring. Checking her range, she noticed that the range was completely down. There was no way to contact her friends, great.

  What are you thinking Elora? You’re in a strange place! Elora thought furiously as she put her phone back in her pocket and removed her compass, looking at it. The compass was haywire. It wasn’t pointing to any single direction and instead the pointer was moving around everywhere. Elora gulped. W-What the hell? Where am I? What is going on? Why is there no single direction here?!

  Looking around, she didn’t know where she was, so she had no way to find out where her friends were. She didn’t even know if she was in the same world as she was a couple of minutes ago.

  Well, right mess I found myself in, Elora thought dryly as she looked around. She didn’t know where to go and she didn’t have any idea as to what to do. But there was something that did catch her eye.

  In the distance, she could see a sixteen year old girl. And it wasn’t just any sixteen year old girl. It was a sixteen year old girl that was being harassed by some other people. In fact, a group of what seemed to be soldiers was surrounding her and they were pulling on her hair and clothes with really, really lecherous looks on their faces. Elora felt fury rise up in her chest. There was no way she was going to allow these men to continue what they were doing, no way in hell. She ran up to where the scene was and shouted.

  “Hey! Stop!” Elora shouted. “Stop touching her! You have no right to do so!”

  The men suddenly stopped and looked up. Looking at Elora, their attention turned from the girl to Elora. Instead.

  “Well look at this friends! Another bird for us to play with!” One of the men called out, moving towards Elora. Elora got ready for a fight. She didn’t know if she was strong enough to actually fight but she wasn’t afraid. She could easily handle herself enough for her and the girl to escape. “Perhaps we can use her instead!”

  “Yeah!” But before they could even come to them, two of the men cried out. The soldiers turned around to see a hood clad man suddenly fight off the soldiers. He had a sword with him and he was easily going around the lecherous men that were trying to possibly harm her. Elora’s eyes were wide as she noticed the man easily deal with those that were all around her. She looked at how his sword swung around in arches, drawing blood out as if it was nothing and how he dealt with the soldiers like it was an easy task. Finally, two minutes after she was surrounded, the man had already killed all the soldiers, and Elora looked on in pure awe at him.

  She noticed that the man had a hood up, and she couldn’t see his face properly but he looked fairly Indian, like Bram was. Then she saw the wrist and the strange imprint on it. She couldn’t recognize it, but she knew that inside of her mind, she had seen that imprint somewhere.

  “I saved you from them,” the man said confidently, his tone screaming masculinity. “So where is my payment?”

  Elora scowled at his words and glared at him. He looked taken aback at the glare but stood his ground. Elora sighs and rummages around in her pocket and removes some cash. But instead of actually accepting it, the man looks as if she had committed a sin.

  “What is that garbage??! Do you take me for a fool?!” Surprised
by his harsh tone, Elora opens her mouth to reply. “Are you tricking me?!”

  “Wait, can-.” But once again, she was cut off by the man in front of her who scoffs and turns around.

  “I can’t believe I saved you, you are a filthy cheat.” The man called out. “And I don’t help those who take me for fools.”

  And then he walked off, leaving Elora very, very confused and surprised as to why he didn’t take the money. As far as she was concerned she had given him a fifty dollar bill; that was enough for almost everything one would need for a week or so!

  Alright, this is strange. Where the hell am I and why is this so confusing? Why did he not take the fifty bucks and why did he act as if I did him a personal offense. Elora thought as she looked around once again. She could see some houses grouped up in front of her, not big enough to form a village. A Colony maybe? She didn’t know what she would do, so she walked towards the houses. But he looked knowledgeable. Perhaps he can help me out with finding out where my home is, where to go, and where I am in the first place.

  Remembering his attitude, she scowled. At first she thought that he would be a handsome and caring man, a prince, maybe, that wanted to sweep her off her feet. But her desperate heart could only influence her brain so much as she realized he was probably a snob. But he was the only one that would help her out. She didn’t know what to do otherwise as she was all alone and didn’t have any idea as to where to go and what to do. She didn’t want to actually go to him as he would probably be rude and probably be extremely cruel to her, but she had to find out where she was and what did she have to do now.

  Alright...I don’t know what to do, I am stuck and I have no way to go around. That guy is literally the only way that I’ll be able to save myself from this...world. Now sure that there was any way that she was on Earth even, she had to find him. He knew what was going on and she had to get home to her friends. They would be worried sick about her. Well, let’s hope that I can find him in the first place. Or I don’t know what I’d do.