Little Doll (Blackmoth House #1)

Chapter 22

Nova

Ren came to me in the middle of the night. I was in my room, my old room. While missing Cleo and reliving memories of her in my mind, I wanted to be in the room where I’d spent my girlhood. Listening to her stories and sitting while she plated my hair into long braids. I sat at my desk near the door, sifting through a book of poems scrawled in Cleo’s elaborate script. Tears streamed my cheeks as I read one beautiful poem after another. She’d commemorated so many of her life’s events, both happy and sad with her beautiful rhyming thoughts. Her words sent me on a roller coaster of emotion until I came to one that chilled me.

When the clock strikes twelve, the veil is thin ,

A world of shadows creeping in.

Whispers weave through night’s embrace.

Phantom fingers brush my face.

Candles flicker, shadows dance,

In the moonlight’s silver glance.

Silent steps upon the floor,

Echoes of those here no more.

In the garden, whispers grow,

From the graves of those below.

Roses blackened by the night.

Tell of sorrow, hidden plight.

Midnight’s veil reveals the past,

Ghostly visions, fleeting, fast.

In the silence, hear the call ,

Of the unseen, through the hall.

Eyes unseen, yet ever near,

Fill the heart with chilling fear.

Secrets held in ancient stone,

Stories whispered, softly moan.

Through the night, till break of day,

Haunted echoes fade away.

Yet their presence lingers still,

In the shadows, cold and chill.

The eerie poem had just settled over my psyche when Ren drifted into my room and scared the life out of me.

I gasped and clutched my chest, then peered up at her, panting and chest heaving.

She giggled and darted to me, bending to hug me. “I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t mean to startle you!” When she straightened and looked down at me, her face fell. She placed both her hands on my face and gently swiped my tears with the pads of her thumbs. “Why, Nova! What’s wrong, Little Doll?” she worried.

“It’s my grandmother. Cleo. She’s passed away.”

Ren’s jaw dropped, and she sank to her knees before me, clasping both my hands on my lap and staring up at me with her lip trembling. “Oh, my darling, darling girl. I am so sorry.”

I hung my head and nodded sadly. “Thank you, love. I wish you could’ve met her.”

She nodded. “I wish that too. She sounded positively lovely.”

“She was lovely,” I whispered.

Ren stood back up and walked behind me to look over my shoulder. “What’s that you’re reading?”

“It’s a book of poems that Cleo wrote.”

“Aw, how wonderful! Read me one,” she suggested.

In the garden where the lilies bloom,

I find my heart’s eternal room,

With every petal, every leaf,

A story told, a memory brief.

In laughter’s echo, in children’s play,

My love for you finds its way,

In every smile, in every tear ,

My family’s joy, forever dear.

Through time’s embrace, through days and nights,

In tender moments, soft delights,

My heart beats strong with endless grace,

For each kind word, each sweet embrace.

In golden fields where dreams reside,

I walk with you, close by my side,

For family’s bond, so pure, so true,

Is where my love will always bloom.

By the time I finished the poem, we were both quietly sobbing. Ren massaged one of my shoulders. But then we heard a messy stumbling sound and before I knew what was happening, my father Costel had blustered into my room, drunk and disheveled, and yelling something.

But as soon as he crashed through the doorway, he stopped dead in his tracks.

The color drained from his face in an instant and his mouth dropped open.

“No, it isn’t possible,” Costel said in a strangled whisper. Then he began stumbling backwards, back out the door he’d just come in.

I leaped to my feet, full of terrible anxiety. “Father! Be careful!” I cried, darting after him.

The stairway was just outside and across from my bedroom door.

Costel was raving drunk. Sloppy. Clumsy.

Even in the dimly candlelit dark, I caught sight of his face. Panicked. Shocked.

Terrified.

I caught sight of it just as he tipped backwards at the top of the stairs.

Costel Westminster let out a gurgling, quick scream that was soon swallowed and silenced by the sound of his big body tumbling violently down the massive stairway.

Until there was silence when he came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs.

“FATHER!” I shrieked.

I raced down the stairs and found my worst nightmare unfurling before me. My father crumpled and bent at the bottom of the steps. His body contorted into impossible shapes, his mouth slack and open, his eyes foggy and dead.

My screams brought others running, the first of which was Arcane. She reached us in a heartbeat and shoved me back so that she could drop to her knees before her husband. She beat her small fists against his chest, her pretty face consumed with hysteria. “Costel? COSTEL! WAKE UP COSTEL! GET UP!” She slapped his face and shook him with surprising violence for such a small woman.

Others gathered. A sense of ominous dread crept over the group. I dashed back up the steps, desperate to be embraced by Ren once again, and to see to it that she was protected from seeing the terrible accident at the bottom of the stairs.

But when I ran back into my bedroom, Ren was gone.

It was like a nightmare. Two deaths in our family, in our house, in under one week. It was as though the foundation of our entire family had crumbled overnight.

Mother was despondent. Inconsolable. When she wasn’t out of her mind on opium or sleeping, then she paced the halls in a rage. Fane and I stayed away from her entirely, lest we become the targets of her fury. Draven was still reeling from Cleo’s death; whom he had, for all practical purposes, been closer to than our father. So, by the time Costel’s untimely demise rolled around, Draven was in a trancelike state. He took the brunt of handling Costel’s funeral arrangements. But Fane reminded him of my “migraine problem,” and asked him to once again schedule something to protect me from the painful daylight.

So, Draven set up the funeral for the nighttime.

Neither Fane nor I saw Ren again in the flurry of days leading up to the funeral. He took off numerous times in a carriage, attempting to find her and where she might be staying. We thought she must be terrified over the tragic events she’d had the misfortune to witness. It pained us both to think of her in parts unknown, frightened and lonely, feeling terrible.

After all, for some reason, it had seemed that Costel had been startled by Ren. It had been as though he recognized her. But he’d been in a blind drunk, who knows what he thought he saw that ultimately got him killed. The thought of Ren feeling guilty over it drove Fane and me both mad as well.

The night of the funeral came and went. Once again, Fane and I were sequestered to a back row seat, this time in the garden. More people came to see Costel off into the great hereafter, many of them strangers to me. I suspected most of them were busy bodies wanting to catch one last glimpse of the supposed murderer, Costel Westminster, before seeing him off to Hell.

My head throbbed. The sound of blood rushing in the veins of all the people around me grew to be deafening. I squinted my eyes and massaged my temples. Even the soft starlight was enough to spark a sharp pain behind my eyes. The priest droned on and on, even as my pain mounted.

When I closed my eyes, all I saw was a river of blood flowing through my mind.

I wanted to murder every single person at Costel’s funeral.

The service wasn’t even over yet when I slipped away. As soon as I was through the gate and behind the hedge, I took off at a run for the carriage house.

The driver was sacked out on a hay bale, smoking, when I dashed into the barn. He startled and scrambled to his feet, looking for some way to extinguish his smoke without burning everything to the ground.

“I don’t care if you smoke,” I said, wincing at the pain that accompanied speaking in the tiniest of voices. “Just get me out of here.”

The driver smiled. “As you wish, Miss,” he said, offering me an elbow. He helped into the nearby carriage. He must’ve sensed my urgency as he made fast work of hitching the horse to the carriage and soon, we were pulling out into the night and winding down the driveway out of Blackmoth House.

“Where to, Miss?” he asked, yelling to be heard over the beat of the horse’s hooves and the spinning wheels.

“London. I don’t care where.”

In the carriage, I wept on the way to the city. Everything had come undone. Our family was left floundering. My mother seemed to hate me. I had a little sister who was kept hidden away like an embarrassment. My best friend and the person I loved the most was missing, possibly never to return. My skin tingled with need to a point that was maddening.

A need to be touched.

And a need for blood.

The driver took me to the same dance house where Fane had taken me on the fateful night of my curse. I lingered in the carriage in the alley outside the door for a moment, contemplating just going back home. I was in no shape for a place like this. Not only was I disheveled with grief and in excessive pain, but I wanted to kill as much as I wanted to feed. I had little doubt that I would not be able to control myself if I sunk my teeth into an unwitting soul tonight and they would end in a flutter of black moth’s wings.

But the faint sound of the music drifting out from inside, the sound of laughter, the sound of voices, it drew me inside.

After telling the carriage driver to return to Blackmoth House; that I would find my way home when I pleased, I stole into the dance hall. The place was packed with people in beautiful attire and masks. I felt out of place without a mask, but I was mainly imagining snapping bones and spurting blood as I went on a murderous rampage and hardly thought a mask would matter.

I wondered if my masked stranger was here among the revelers. I didn’t know if I would recognize him. No matter, I would likely just kill him, anyway. Perhaps after letting him give me a good fucking first.

I found my way to a small table on the outskirts of the dancefloor and sunk into a seat. With my spine straight and my hands tucked primly in my lap, I watched the dancers with a stony, impassive face. I was still as a statue. No one would’ve ever guessed I was imagining violently ending their lives, feasting on their blood, and letting the music of their screams make me come. Chaos, pain and hatred boiled inside me and sent my mind into a psychotic frenzy while I looked on, ever stoic and quiet.

“Nova?”

It hurt to turn my head and face the voice. But when I saw it was Ren, relief filled me. I launched to my feet and rushed to embrace her.

“Oh Ren! Where have you been? We’ve been so worried about you!” I cried, clinging to her.

“I’ve just been busy. I thought… Your family might need private time.”

I burst into tears.

She backed away from me and frowned, although she was wearing a mask like the one Fane had made me wear here, that partially obscured her pretty face. She wore a lovely purple gown. It was the first I’d ever seen her in anything without long sleeves and a high neck. This instead had a neckline that plunged between her perky breasts. I realized her flawless skin was covered in tattoos. All over her arms, her chest and up her neck; hardly an inch of bare skin was visible.

“Little Doll? What’s wrong, darling?” she asked.

“I didn’t need private time. My family is in shambles. I needed you, Ren!” I cried, wincing with the pain of raising my voice.

“I’m sorry, Nova. I misread the situation.”

“And what about Fane? Did you not think of him? You abandoned us both. You broke our hearts.”

She clasped her hands and took a deep breath. “First of all, Nova… I thought of Fane. But I thought of you more. It’s always you. Fane is merely a good time, and he knows that. But you…” She reached out and brushed the back of her hand down my tear-soaked face. “I love you.”

I released a sorrowful moan at her words.

“Are you hurting, Little Doll?” she asked. “Your head, I mean?”

“Yes,” I choked.

Ren took my hand. “Come with me, darling. Let’s go where it is darker and quieter.”

She led me through the throng of people. Every time someone brushed or shoved into me, it sparked another thrill of pain in my head. We came to the plain white door, and Ren ushered me inside.

The large dark room was mostly empty now save a group in the corner of one woman with three men pleasuring her. The quiet sounds of their pleasure soothed my pain. A ghostly memory of my brother with the big bosomed woman riding him right in front of the door and right in front of me returned to me and the pain eased a little more.

I became aware of Ren’s icy hand in mine. Her hands were always so cold. Her touch excited me and the pain diminished a tiny bit more.

She led us to a chaise lounge along a wall papered with black floral paper with a golden filigree design woven amongst the flowers and leaves. I glanced at the luscious fabric that upholstered the seat of the chaise and wondered how many people had come in that spot. How many people had whimpered, moaned, and screamed in that spot? How many vampires in this place had come here to fuck and feast in that spot?

Ren stood before me, so close that the front of her touched the front of me.

“Nova, I’m sorry,” Ren whispered. “Please forgive me. I had to stay away. I have my reasons. Someday I will share them with you. I just have to ask you to be patient with me… And… To believe in me.”

“I believe in you,” I breathed.

“Does your headache feel a little better in here?” she asked me, her warm breath on my lips.

I nodded. “Yes, a little,” I replied.

“May I try something to help you more?”

I nodded again.

Ren stepped up onto her toes and pressed her lips to mine. I moaned and the need within me exploded as I realized precisely what I had been needing. Stars of pain and arousal flashed behind my eyes, and I raised my hands to grip her upper arms and yank her even closer to me.

She sighed into my mouth and pushed her tongue between my lips. Her mouth was hot and demanding on mine.

I whimpered as she probed me with her tongue. Then she paused her kiss breathlessly to whisper. “Does it ease your pain, Little Doll?”

“Yeeeessss,” I hissed, pulling her back into the kiss.

“I love you, Nova,” she sighed into the kiss.

My eyes brimmed again with urgent, needful tears. “I love you, Ren.” Admitting it out loud brought me both relief and an intense pooling of heat in my core. I squeezed my thighs together even as she kneaded my tongue with hers and panted into my mouth.

Ren stepped back and sunk to a seated position on the chaise. She grabbed my hips and positioned me, still standing in front of her. Her face hovered in front of my waist.

“Let me heal your pain, Little Doll,” she whispered. “Let me take it away.”

I looked down at her with smoldering eyes beneath heavy eyelids, drunk on her.

I nodded.

She reached down and yanked up my skirts. Clutching them up, she gasped and beheld my naked flesh with big eyes. She had not been expecting me to be free of any undergarments and her eyes greedily drank in my pale, delicate skin and curly black pussy hair.

“God,” she said, rosy color racing to her cheeks.

I smiled, feeling my fangs extend. “God is not here, Willow Wisp,” I informed her.

Ren groaned and reached behind me to place a hand on my thigh. Her fingers gripped the soft flesh of my ass, then returned to the thigh. She pulled my leg up, bent at the knee and directed me to prop my foot on the chaise next to her. This created a hook to hold back my skirts, so that she didn’t have to. It also opened my snatch to her, and she didn’t hesitate to plunge her face into my folds.

My pain evaporated, and I dropped my head back. Her skilled hands worked their way back up my thighs to knead my ass and to pull me against her. She swirled her tongue on my clit, dipped it inside my dark heat, then did it all again.

My release began to build, turning my thighs into blazing, trembling fire. She slurped and lapped noisily, all the while letting out little happy sighs as she buried her face in my pussy.

Then she lifted one arm. She never paused in her sensual assault on my clit and my pussy, but she placed her wrist, vein side up, next to my lips.

I could see, hear, and smell the blood in her veins, rushing as feverish and fast as mine.

“Drink,” she demanded, her voice muffled against the soft folds of me.

With a hiss, I grabbed her wrist with both hands and gently sank my fangs into her.

The jolt of arousal was violent. I stiffened, which drove my pussy hard into her face. She stiffened too, her tongue growing hard and still inside me. She mewled against me, and then I began to suck. My lips massaging her skin while my teeth and mouth sucked her blood from her veins brought her tongue back to life and she lapped at me furiously while grunting the rhythm of her desire into me.

Our undoing was fast and explosive.

She was driven over the edge by the mere act of me taking her blood. The warm liquid and the energy of her feral release coursed over my tongue, and I spasmed and convulsed in her face as my own orgasm flooded every nerve ending.

I released her wrist and allowed her to fall back against the chaise lounge, sinking down onto it next to her. Her head lulled backwards, and eyes were closed, but she reached for me and dragged me against her to cuddle lazily in the dark and watch the woman across the room get utterly fucked by a group of masked men.