Little Doll (Blackmoth House #1)

Chapter 17

Chapter 1 7

Nova

My spine straightened and instantly my spirits lifted. Fane and I shifted toward each other so that both of us could look behind us. Ren Ripley stood just beyond the gate, having let herself in.

“I lost track of time again,” she said, blushing. “I apologize for missing the dinner that you were so kind to invite me to. Could you ever forgive me?”

I bounced to my feet and practically frolicked around the bench to where Ren stood and threw my arms around her. She returned the embrace, and we laughed and spun in a circle. “Of course, my darling girl,” I assured her.

We separated, and she gave me the sweetest of smiles, reaching out to whisk a loose curl of my hair out of my face. The brush of her fingers on my cool skin sent a thrill of invigoration down my limbs and I shivered.

Fane had come up beside us and observed us with the interest of a cat in his eyes. “And you must be the mysterious Ren Ripley, I presume?” he asked, extending his hand, palm up.

Ren’s smile cooled slightly, but still she showed her affection. She placed her small hand into his and he kneeled regally, placing his lips upon her flesh. I noticed her eyelids flutter as she peered down at him from beneath her rich fringe of lashes. She retrieved her hand when he lingered a little too long. “Yes, that’s me. Apologies again, for my tardiness. And you are?”

“Fane Westminster,” he said with a dramatic bow. He placed his hands on my shoulders, giving me a squeeze and a little shake. “Older brother to this little minx.”

I rolled my eyes. “Minx, hardly!” I chuckled.

Fane observed us mutely for another brief point in time and bade us farewell, making some excuse for taking his leave and leaving the two of us alone in the moonlight. As soon as he was gone, Ren offered me her hand, and I took it. We strolled the garden paths together.

Right from the beginning, something deep within Ren called out to something deep within me. We spoke like old friends. Confidants. People who had never been strangers. We found we shared many of the same interests. The same books, the same music. In looks, we were opposites. She with her small lithe body, tan and freckled and her wild flaming red locks. Me with my tall slim figure, pale as porcelain with a sea of black curls. I mostly wore black gowns, as was customary in my family. But that night, Ren wore another lively dress and overcoat, this time made of some sort of purple iridescent shimmering material that sparkled underneath the ghostly light of the moon.

We strolled through the fog that gathered along the ground and it swirled around our feet as the fabric of our skirts and the clicks of our boots disturbed it, giving the whole experience an even more ethereal quality.

It was like Ren was an angel. That is how I would come to remember her when I thought back on that evening.

Soon we found ourselves in a distant garden, one that had become overgrown and forgotten. But through the rolling vegetation and twining vines, the garden housed a gigantic, gnarled tree with massive low hanging branches. This was my favorite place as a child. I’d all but forgotten it until Ren and I wandered down the path and there it stood in the moonlight, reaching up into a sky that was so beautiful that it didn’t even look real.

“Oh, how I used to love to climb this tree when I was a child,” I exclaimed.

“Really? Wonderful!” Ren said. “Let’s climb it together!”

We exchanged a grin and then we were off and running, making fast work of hoisting ourselves up onto a limb more than wide enough to hold us both with room to spare.

Ren perched herself with her feet dangling off the edge, waist slightly twisted, and her back leaning up against the trunk of the old tree. I found a seat next to her, but as we settled into a slow and sleepy rhythm of conversation, somehow my head drifted down until I was laying with it in her lap. She stroked my hair and traced her finger down my ear, soft as the touch of a spider’s leg.

“I was watching you for a second with your brother Fane,” Ren whispered. My eyes drooped as the soft melody of her voice lulled me into another space in my head. “I saw you crying. Why were you crying, Nova?”

“I was crying because I thought you weren’t coming,” I admitted without hesitation.

“I’m sorry,” she said, cupping my cheek in her palm.

“You don’t have to keep apologizing,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here now, and it would have been fine if you didn’t come at all. It’s not as though you owe me anything.”

“Yes but, I feel as though I’ve known you for a very long time,” Ren said.

I nodded dreamily, enjoying the way my face shifted against the softness of her lap beneath the silky fabric of her dress. “I feel that way too,” I agreed.

“And I would never want to hurt you.”

My eyes drifted closed, and I smiled. Her hand stroked my face once more, and I reached up to grab it and press it to my lips. “That’s sweet of you, darling,” I said.

“Is there anything else that was upsetting to you?” Ren prodded. “Any other reason you might have been crying? Any reason that you might be so in need of a friend?”

My eyes popped open, and I peered up into her lovely face, which looked down at me intently. The rational part of my mind, the part that had once been a regular girl who did not drink blood, who’d enjoyed the touch of sunlight on her skin, who had danced and wished and made love… That girl realized she was peering up into the face of a veritable stranger.

But the new Nova, the one with an unquenchable thirst, unfathomable sadness and an endless night, that Nova… Wanted desperately to share with Ren Ripley.

“I’m afraid I can’t say,” I said.

She stared straight into my eyes. Hers glittered with tears. “Nova, I promise you… You can tell me anything. I won’t judge you. I won’t leave you. ”

On the refrain of Ren’s promise, my heart shattered. The tears came again, spilling down my cheeks. “I’m sick, Ren,” I choked out.

She shifted and coaxed me into a sitting up position and then pulled me into her arms. I buried my face in her shoulder and wept.

“Sick?” she exclaimed. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I… I thirst for something. Something terrible. It’s a curse. A curse that I nearly escaped but fell victim to in the eleventh hour,” I babbled, nearly incoherently.

Ren separated from me just far enough to once again place her palm against my cheek. “Nova, slow down. I can hardly make sense of what you’re saying. What is your illness? What is your curse?”

I wanted to look away from her, but I could not pull away from the intense gaze of her blue eyes. Everything within me screamed to keep quiet, not to reveal our secrets. It was my family’s one and most important rule for me. But that thing in Ren, that special thing, called out to me too, overshadowing all my fear and my better judgement.

“I’m a vampire, Ren.”

I expected her to gasp, to draw back her hand in fear. To cower away from me. But she did none of that. Instead, she smiled, and she slid her thumb softly against my cheek, to and fro. “Is that all?” she whispered. “I thought it might be something like that.”

“You… You aren’t afraid of me? How on earth did you suspect?”

She giggled like a little imp. “Regular girls don’t normally play in their garden late at night, now do they? And no, I am not afraid,” she purred.

My tears had calmed, and my emotions simmered down. But now another sort of heat seeped through me. “How? How are you not afraid?” I asked.

“I know you could never hurt me,” Ren breathed, leaning close and pressing her forehead against mine.