Chapter 1

I'd spent my entire life thinking my father had up and left after I was born, not wanting to raise a child at such a young age. I was wrong, or at least my mother was. Ever since I was a little boy my mother had answered any and all questions about my father with a usual string of curses and insults, drilling into me that he was a bastard that left his family. I'd believed her without question, right up until the day she died.

My mother had been battling and suffering through lung cancer for the last decade, beating it multiple times only to have it come back with a vengeance until finally she gave up, deciding to just let it take her instead of wasting more energy on something she saw as futile. I still remember her telling me that if death wanted her so bad, she'd let him have her. But that wasn't the only thing she'd told me as she lay there in her final moments. She also told me the truth about my father, who he was, and about my family.

My father hadn't abandoned my mother and I when I was born, for he didn't even know she was pregnant when she left. She had left him, not the other way around. From what my mother had told me the relationship between my father and her was fleeting, since he was already seeing someone.

They'd met at a local alternate rock concert in Sydney Australia and hit it off immediately. The fling lasted a few weeks before my mother found out she was pregnant with me and knowing what they had was only a short-term thing she decided to leave the country and go live with her grandparents in London, where I was born.

She cried as she told me the story. Apologizing for the lies she'd fed me my whole life, saying she only wanted to keep me to herself because she loved me so much. She was afraid if I knew the truth, I would go looking for my father and leave her all alone. Whilst it hurt to know I had been lied to my whole life; I understood her fears. I would have wanted to meet my father if I had known he was out there and didn't leave me. But the news about my father wasn't the only thing that shocked me, it was that he had died close to a decade earlier.

He'd been killed in a hit and run by a drunk driver on his way home from work one evening. My mother had printed out the newspaper report and kept it in her diary, alongside a photo of him. I'd found the clipping and photo when I cleaned out her belongings before selling the small London apartment that had been my grandparents. The photo was of my mother and father together, looking incredibly happy. I could see where my features and looks had come from just by looking at the man in the photo, he would have been about my age when the photo was taken and it was like looking into a mirror, although he had blonde hair whilst I got my darker hair colour from my mother.

I still had the photo of them in my jacket pocket, the only thing I had of them as a couple. My deceased parents.

But the news didn't stop there, my mother always said things come in three's. I had sister's, four of them. Amanda was the eldest, only a few months younger than myself and was my father's first child to the woman he'd been seeing when he met my mother. Then there was Erica, at twenty-one she was a couple of years younger than her older sister. Lastly was the youngest, Emily and Mel, twins at eighteen years old. I didn't know anything about my half siblings except that their ages and that they were all the daughters of the man I thought had abandoned me.

Not for the first time I began to wonder what it would have been like if my mother hadn't left the country when she fell pregnant with me. Could I have had a simple, loving life that my sister's had with a functional family? Or would I have turned out the same? Would my sister's even be alive today if my mother hadn't left? Surely my father would have stayed with her if she had stayed, and then I could have had that family life. But then they wouldn't have been born. Even though I didn't know a thing about them I could never wish, nor hope for a different past if it meant that my siblings would never have been born.

Especially now I was on my way to visit them.

I was standing in the crowded London international airport with my guitar case in one hand and my luggage bag beside me. My backpack held a few personal belongings like my passport, phone charger, headphones, laptop and some books for the long flight. I'd never been on a plane before let alone left the country and I was feeling the mixed emotions of anxiety and excitement as my plane was beginning to board. The long string of people was a mix of businessmen in suits, families with whining children and clusters of young couples and single travellers such as me. Everyone wanted to visit the exotic country of Australia today. But I doubted any of them were making the trip for such a reason as I had.

Once aboard the plane I found my window seat easily enough and settled in for a long twenty-one-hour flight to the city of Melbourne, where my sisters were now living. I'd purchased a second ticket for the seat beside me so I could bring my guitar on board. It wasn't a super expensive instrument, but it was the only one I had, and I'd heard enough horror stories about airline staff destroying guitars through negligence. I wasn't exactly sure on the living situation with my siblings since I hadn't spoken to any of them apart from Amanda, and that was only via email. I wasn't too tech savvy and an email account was about the only online footprint I had, I didn't even have a Facebook account. At first, I thought Amanda would think I was some kind of creep on the internet, but to my surprise she had been expecting to hear from me.

It turns out my father did know about me, but he had no idea how to get in contact with me or my mother, since we lived so far off the grid and stayed away from most social media and online platforms. In the few emails we shared she told me that about twelve years ago he heard rumours that my mother was pregnant before she left. Amanda didn't know how my father found out, but she said when he did he tried his best to find out where she went to see if the child was his, even to the point of causing a rift in his marriage and eventually ending in a divorce.

I expected Amanda to be bitter about my existence causing such harm in her family home, but she didn't seem to resent me at all and when I asked she said I'd had it worse than her, and me being alive was no excuse for how her mother acted. The girls had lived with their mother when she won the custody battle but none of them were thrilled about it, causing the siblings to move out of home as soon as they were old enough. Now they all lived together and rarely spoke to their mother.

I mulled over all the fresh information I'd gained from Amanda regarding my father and siblings while I waited for the plane to taxi onto the runway, hoping to keep my mind off the impending take off which had my nerves on edge. I wasn't afraid of flying—since I'd never done it before—but the thought of hurtling down a runway and then lifting into the air in a steel tube was both terrifying and exciting at the same time. I just hoped I could keep my breakfast down during take-off.

I fastened my seat belt when the stewardess came by and pulled my headphones out of my bag. Once I was comfortable, I pulled out my MP3 player—I hadn't gone to smart phones yet—and pressed the shuffle button. The blasting double-kick intro filled my ears and I felt myself relax immediately as the dissonant, distorted guitar riffs filled my ears and the growling howls of the vocalist take me away to another world, a world of my own.

My taste in music was mostly influenced by my mother, but it had evolved over the years as I'd found darker, heavier bands. Whilst she listened to bands such as Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Wasp and Metallica which were bands I enjoyed, I had grown accustomed to music far heavier from bands such as Lamb of God, Behemoth and Dimmu Borgir to name a few. My mother used to refer to my music as "cookie monster" metal since she could never understand the lyrics, but she never once tried to convince me to like anything else and unlike some of my friends, she knew it wasn't just a phase.

I skipped my train of thought to the friends I was leaving behind in London, mostly to keep my mind off the plane since it had stopped on the designated runway and was bound to hurtle forward, propelling me into the air. I didn't have a great deal of friends here, but the ones I had I trusted and would miss. Trevor and Nathan were my best mates and we'd even been planning on starting a band together, but we rarely got passed the jamming in Nathan's dad's garage and drinking beer. I'd miss them, but they understood my need to go to Australia and find my family. I'd sold the apartment I'd inherited, and I had plenty of expendable money I could use to come home if things didn't work out. I might even be able to convince them to come to the land of Oz to visit me and my siblings. Although I'd have to warn them to stay away from my sisters.

It felt a little strange having that line of thought towards people I'd never met before. I grew up thinking I was an only child, and suddenly I was the eldest brother in a family of four siblings, step siblings, but still siblings. I'd have a lot to learn about being a brother, but I would put in the time if they did. They had offered to let me stay with them after all. I just wondered if they were as nervous about meeting me as I was about meeting them. I hoped they didn't think I was a freak.

Freak was a word used to describe me plenty of times during high school and even after. Most football loving chavs around London didn't have a lot of tolerance for anyone who wasn't exactly like them. If you dressed in black, had long hair—as a guy—and didn't follow the same football team as them, you were weird. Some would even take it so far as to go out of their way to start fights with people they didn't accept into their narrow-minded little world. I'd heard Australians were more accepting, I just hoped my sisters were.

In my head they were four gorgeous blonde haired, tanned, surfer girls who spent their days down at the beach among the perfect white sand and ocean waves crashing in the background. It wouldn't really be a place for my pasty arse, but I'd accept them no matter what.

Thoughts of my estranged siblings shot out of my mind as the force of the planes take off pushed me into my seat, taking me by surprise. I gripped the armrest on my chair tightly as my heart started slamming in my chest. I knew this was normal for a take-off, but my body didn't, and it was freaking out just a little. The moment the front of the plane lifted I felt my stomach drop and my body went cold, then we were lifting off the ground.

"First time?" the older man beside me asked.

"Yeah, can you tell?" I asked with a laugh.

"It gets easier," he replied with a smile. "The names Scott."

"Nick," I said, shaking his offered hand.

"What's got you flying today Nick?" he asked with a friendly smile.

"Going to visit family," I answered vaguely.

"First time flying, but going to see family in Australia, with an Australian accent," he mused.

I'd been told many times when I was growing up that I sounded like a foreigner, even to the point of being told to go home. It had gotten me in trouble more than a few times when I was in school. My mother's accent was the same and I guessed I just never picked up the local London accent. Which I was thankful for. For a place where the English language came from, they definitely enjoyed butchering their own language.

"My mother lived in Australia her whole life, I guess I picked up her accent," I said finally.

"Beautiful country it is, just be careful of the drop bears," he replied with an amused smile.

I chuckled at his obvious jest. My mother had told me about the tale of drop bears when I was a kid. Then years later told me the truth when I made an idiot of myself telling tales of vicious Koala's that would drop from low hanging tree branches and latch onto hikers, tearing them to pieces. I was ten.

"I'll be sure to keep some Vegemite on me at all times," I replied with a knowing grin.

Scott chuckled, then turned back to his laptop. The discussion was obviously over for now, but I was glad to be seated beside someone who seemed friendly. The long flight would be a little more bearable knowing I had someone to talk to and not some screaming child or old fart. I put my headphones back on and settled into my seat, letting the blasting metal sooth my nerves as I hurtled through earth's atmosphere towards my new life with my new family.

The rest of the trip was fairly boring. I slept as much as I could, but the seat was cramped, and it was difficult to get comfortable. Scott had taken a lengthy nap at one point, leaving me with no one to talk to, but I still had my music to keep me occupied. I dreaded the first time I needed to use the bathroom, about four hours into the flight. The toilets were occupied and there was a line of about a dozen people waiting to use them.

Forty-five minutes later I was trying to squeeze my 6'2, 90kg ass into the tiny closet of a toilet. I wasn't one of the biggest guys at my local gym, but years of being bullied through high school had given me a determination to be bigger and stronger than the would-be bullies. But at this moment I wished I was my skinny teenager self again so I could take a shit without feeling like I was sitting in a cardboard box.

The event left me more than a little exhausted and I understood now why the people before me had taken so long to do their business, you needed to be a contortionist to use these bathrooms. I vowed to now drink or eat anything for the remainder of the flight, to avoid having to use the coffin toilet again.

I did have to use the bathroom again during the flight, but I was well aware of what I was getting myself into this time, and it wasn't so bad. By the end of the twenty-one-hour flight I was ready to climb the walls out of boredom, anxiety and exhaustion. I'd grab a few hours' sleep here and there, but it was never a restful sleep and most just me closing my eyes and willing the plane to fly faster.

To my disappointment, it never did.

The landing was almost as nerve wracking as the take-off had been, my anxiety at hitting the tarmac was only lessened by my eagerness to get off the plane and my excitement at finally being able to meet my sisters. I was meeting Amanda at the airport, but my plane touched down early afternoon and she'd emailed me saying she couldn't get the day off work to pick me up straight away, so I'd have to entertain myself in the meantime.

I said my goodbyes too Scott once we collected our luggage and we parted as friends who'd probably never see one another again. He wasn't the type of guy I usually would have made friends with, but he was an agreeable travel companion and the light conversation we shared on the plane had been one of the only things too keep me from going stir crazy. I never was very good at being cooped up in one place for very long.

I had a few hours to kill in the airport terminal, so I grabbed a lunch of burger and fries before finding a seat by a power outlet and plugging my phone in. The charger I had was only power-point and as a result, my phone had died on the plane. I wasn't joined to my phone like it was my lifeline, but I had always kept it fully charged and on me in case of an emergency. I pulled the battery out of my phone and fished the sim card out before replacing it with one I'd bought in the airport in London. I'd have to learn my new number which would be tough considering I wasn't familiar with Australian telephone numbers and I'd had the same contact number since I was old enough to get my first phone. But if I was here for the long term then it wouldn't be so bad

I spent the next two hours by the power outlet listening to music on my mp3 player while I waited for my phone to charge to one hundred percent. I watched people come and go either in a mad rush to catch their already boarded plane or strolling along at a leisurely pace as they took in their surroundings. The babble of hundreds of conversations, voice overs of the airport speakers and digital advertisements were a bit overwhelming and not for the first time I was glad to have my music to block out the world as I waited for my life to change forever.

Once my phone was charged, I stored the charger in my bag and gathered my rubbish, chucking it in a nearby bin before making my way outside. It was still about fifteen minutes before Amanda was due to arrive, and if the traffic in the city of Melbourne was anything like back home in London, she'd be late.

Once outside I pulled my packet of smokes out and found a secluded spot away from passer-byers to enjoy a long-needed cigarette. I'd always swore to myself I'd never touch the things—especially when my mother caught cancer—but after everything that had happened lately, I'd ended up picking up the habit anyway. I didn't smoke a lot, but at the moment I found myself chain smoking to help calm my nerves. It felt like I was here to see a long distant girlfriend for the first time, and I was hoping to make a good first impression. Although I feel like this was more important to me, since it was my family. I never had siblings before and if I fucked this up, I couldn't get more.

Then I spotted her, just as I stubbed out my third cigarette.

She wore tight black jeans tucked into a pair of knee-high doc martins. The jeans hugged her perfectly long legs like a second skin, leaving very little to my overactive imagination. A small sliver of pale skin flashed her exposed stomach where her jeans stopped, and the hem of her black t-shirt began. She had small, perky breasts; the logo of a band I wasn't familiar with was displayed over her perfect assets. But the delicate, beautiful features of her flawless face was what make me forget to breathe for a few seconds.

Her long neck looked as smooth as butter milk and her bright blue eyes seemed to glow under her perfectly plucked eyebrows. Her dark mane of jet-black hair made her pale skin glow even more in the bright Australian sunlight. She was the girl of my dreams, the girl I'd never known I needed until the moment I saw her. But that was when I saw her looking straight at me, a friendly smile on her face. That was when I realized who this goddess of a woman really was.

She was my sister, and I'd fallen in love with her at first sight.

"Nick?" the beauty said when she stepped closer. Each movement of her body made my heart thump a little harder. Made my palms sweat just a little more, and made my crotch stir with feelings no man should have for a blood relative.

"Yeah, that's me," I said, running my hand through my hair.

"Wow, you really look like him," she said with a smile.

"Like who?" I asked.

"Dad," she replied with a sad smile.

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so instead of say something stupid—which was usually my plan A—I said nothing. A long moment passed as we regarded each other in silence, then Amanda stepped into my personal space, and wrapped her arms around my neck, drawing me into a hug. I instinctively circled her small waist with my arms but made sure to keep my now straining erection from pressing into her. That would definitely not be a great first impression.

"It's so good to finally meet you," Amanda said after a dozen seconds. "Everyone's so excited to meet you."

"They are?" I asked, a little surprised.

"Of course! It's going to be great having a big brother, I've always wanted one," Amanda pulled back from our hug to smile at me, and we stood there for a long moment before I realized my hands were still resting on her hips. I pulled them away like I'd burnt myself and ran my fingers through my long hair again.

"At least I know we'll have some stuff in common," Amanda said with a grin, pointing to my band t shirt.

"Yeah," I laughed, then pointed to her shirt. "I've never heard of those guys before."

"It's my boyfriend's band, they're pretty small time, but they're not bad," she said with a shrug.

"You'll have to take me to one of their shows," I smiled.

"Oh, definitely," she returned my smile.

Getting to see the Australian local music scene excited me nearly as much as the prospect of having siblings—although I didn't know my sister would be so gorgeous—and being able to go see live bands with Amanda would be a great way for us to bond and get to know one another. The news of her having a boyfriend really shouldn't have been a shock to me.

She was a complete babe and would have had every guy in the pub drooling over her back home, but the news still made me feel a little jealous for the guy lucky enough to have such a beauty, even if she was my sister. I guess it was probably a good thing she was taken, then I could get over this silly infatuation and attraction to my sibling. I bet I wouldn't have felt this way if I'd seen a photo of her before coming.

Maybe.

Amanda lead me to her car—a beat up Honda civic—and I dumped my bags in the back before climbing into the passenger seat. She offered to let me drive, but I declined. I had my own car back home—which I sold before coming here—and loved driving, but I would prefer to be a passenger atm since I didn't have an Australian driver's license permit and wasn't familiar with the road rules. Maybe I could get Amanda to teach me.

The drive home was fairly silent when it came to conversation. The car was nowhere near silent though. Amanda had her phone plugged into the auxiliary port and was blasting what I suspected was her boyfriend's band. They really were quite good, definitely something I would have listened to if I found them on my own. We talked in patches as she drove, and I found out her boyfriend played lead guitar.

The guitar work on the recording was quite good, even if the recording quality wasn't the greatest—which was common in the style of Scandinavian black metal. The drums sounded programmed and the vocals were a little drowned out by everything else, but that was nothing a good sound engineer couldn't fix in a few hours. I was interested to hear how they sounded live.

After about forty-five minutes of hellish city traffic we were on a large six-lane highway heading out of the city itself.

"How come you don't have a British accent?" Amanda asked after she turned the music down.

"I don't know," I shrugged. "Mum had the same accent as me since she lived in Australia her whole life, I guess I just picked it up from her."

"What was she like?" Amanda asked in a carefully neutral tone.

"She was nice," I answered flatly.

I really wasn't open to the idea of speaking about my recently deceased mother with my sister from another mother. Especially when her parents' marriage ended in divorce because our father was hell bent on finding my mother and me. Yeah, that was a bad topic of conversation, at least for now anyway. Amanda must have picked up on my mood and didn't press the subject, choosing instead to turn the music up and changing the playlist. I grinned as the opening to one of my favourite songs kicked in and I looked across to see a satisfied smile on my siblings face.

She really was quite stunning.

The suburb Amanda lived in looked small and quiet. We drove passed a small grocery store in a town square with a butcher shop, pharmacy, post office and a few other small shops. All the essentials for the suburb to survive without having to travel to the city. A train line passed the small-town square which would give commuters an easy trip into the main city if they wanted to avoid the horrendous traffic we'd just dealt with.

The neighbourhood she lived in was equally tranquil and serene. Each house had a perfectly manicured front yard with neatly trimmed hedges offering privacy to some homes, while others were fenced in wrought iron, brick, wood, or a mixture. The homes were also far larger than any I'd seen back home in the city of London, matching the farm and country houses in size.

Once we arrived at the house, I'd now be calling home, Amanda pulled into the driveway beside a much newer blue Holden Barina. The double car garage doors stood closed ahead of us.

"Here we are, home sweet home," Amanda said when the engine shut off, killing the music.

"It's a really nice house," I said with genuine appreciation.

I craned my neck out my window to get a better look at the two-story brick home. There was no fence blocking in the front yard, but there was a three-metre-high hedge that blocked half of the yard from passer-byers on the footpath, leaving enough space for two cars to fit side-by-side down the short driveway. Each window on the front of the house had security shutters installed that were currently rolled up, making me wonder if the area had a crime problem come dark. I'd have to familiarize myself with the area and what to expect.

"Wait till you see the inside, and your place," Amanda said with a grin, the motioned for me to get out.

I climbed out of the passenger seat and grabbed my luggage, guitar case and backpack from the boot of the car. Amanda offered to carry something for me, but my male pride made me decline. It really wasn't all that heavy anyway, plus she had to get the door anyway.

I tried my best to not stare at her backside as I followed her up the four steps to the front door but failed when she wiggled her body as she worked the key into the lock. The lock must have been stiff, because it took her a moment of wiggling and shaking her body that was doing all kinds of devious things to my groin, before getting the front door opened. Once she pulled her key back and stepped aside and gestured dramatically for me to enter.

"Your new home awaits," she said with a presenters voice.

I shook my head and smiled at her playful nature. I was glad she felt so comfortable in my presence, especially since we'd only met a just over an hour earlier.

I stepped into a wide hallway of polished hardwood floors. A shoe rack to my right told me I'd need to remove my boots, but Amanda waved me down the hallway when I stopped to untie the laces. I followed her instructions and she pushed and prodded me into a large sitting room, fitted out with two, three-seater leather couches positioned opposite each other around a long wooden coffee table. The walls were adorned with framed tour posters from a variety of super-star international bands—some signed—to local shows where I didn't recognize a single band logo.

Shelves filled most of the empty space and all sorts of Gothic décor filled the shelves. Hanging bats, spooky skeletons, pop vinyls, band memorabilia and everything from cheap, tacky Halloween decorations to super expensive dragon sculptures and incense burners. It looked just like a few friends places did back home, and I immediately felt welcomed and comfortable. But then I saw the other three women sitting side-by-side.

My brain recognized them immediately as being Amanda's sisters, my own younger sisters. But my dick had a mind of his own.

Each one of them as gorgeous as Amanda.