Page 1 of Little Doll

Chapter 1

Nova

“Shall I eathim for you, dear sister?”

My wretched sobs stopped. My head snapped up, and I turned my attention to my brother, Fane. He lingered in my bedroom doorway.

I’d been weeping loudly with my face in my hands. Alone in my chambers, lit by a lone candle and pale moonlight streaming in the tall window which I left open to the night.

Therefore, I’d failed to hear Fane arrive in the doorway. Though we shared the same home, I had not seen Fane in over a year. Occasionally I might’ve imagined his sinister laughter in some empty corridor, or thought I heard his voice whisper upon waking from a nightmare. But we had not actually crossed paths in many months.

We kept different hours, I supposed.

Fane always had the peculiar way of appearing out of nowhere. Everyone knew himfor frightening people. I saw that had not changed. I regarded him anxiously after his bizarre remark. From someone else, an offer to eat someone might be a macabre joke. But with Fane, it seemed entirely possible.

I was surprised to see how much he had changed since last I saw him. My older brother must’ve been twenty-five years and some months old. Yet, he remained somehow boyish in his dark looks, long silky hair and shadowy black eyes.

“Fane!” I exclaimed, swiping at my teary face, and blushing furiously over being caught coming undone. “What are you doing here?”

His flawless face broke into a wide grin that some might find charming. But I found it unsettling.

He had such big, gleaming white teeth.

“I was drawn to the sound of your sorrow, little Nova,” Fane replied. He strode into the room, the black silks of his clothing rustling like the whispering wings of butterflies. He took it upon himself to perch next to me on the side of my bed. My feet dangled several inches off the floor, while Fane’s long legs easily reached it.

He stroked my cheek, and I shivered from the ice of his touch. A long black strand of my hair had escaped my updo, and he tucked it behind my ear. I imagined with his placid expression he was trying to appear loving. Yet, his deep, penetratingeyes seemed to intrude on my innermost thoughts.

I shoved off my bed and dusted down my full black skirt, then fidgeted and fooled with the lacy scarf tied round my long, thin neck as I made way across the room.

Away from Fane.

“I’m perfectly fine, dear brother,” I replied, proud that I had managed to fully compose myself. In truth, I was anything but fine, but I wasn’t about to share my trials with Fane.

It was the eve of my eighteenth birthday. Actually, I glanced at the big black clock ticking on the wall and discovered it had passed the hour of midnight. So, it was my eighteenth birthday. I’d quarreled bitterly with my father, who had informed me he had selected a husband for me.

News to me.

My father nor mother had ever so much as mentioned marriage for me. Nor were either of my brothers, Fane and Draven Westminster, married. And they were both well past my age. But my father abruptly burdened me with the news that the very next day after my 18th birthday passed, I would be wed, and I would leave our home, Blackmoth House, to live with my new husband.

I had never fought with my father, Costel, as I did that night. I hardly knew the man. He was always in town tending to some business or other.It was my mother, Arcane, with whom I held the dearest of relationships. But during my fight with Father, she had sat slumped in a needlepoint seat, crying mercilessly.

But saying nothing.

I begged to stay in the only home I've ever known. The manor that my mother could never leave because of her… Illnesses… The manor where my older unmarried brothers still lived. I begged to know why. Why was he casting me out? Why had they never mentioned such an arrangement before? Why did it appear I was suddenly unwelcome here in the home that I loved? Why was I not allowed to choose whom I wanted to love, or not to love at all?

He offered no answers, and he responded to my pleas with fury and shouting. Although Costel was a distant and cold man, he was not normally the type to shout or punish.

So, when he reared back and backhanded me across the face, sending me sprawling backwards, it stunned me into silence. I’d peered up into his dark shadowy face, full of rage, and felt I was looking upon a stranger. I was missing something. Some key bit of knowledge or information. Some hidden truth. Some secret going on, happening in the background of my home that I’d never been aware of.

After a long breathless moment staring into his piercing black eyes, I’d turned and run to myroom, up three flights of stairs in the tower of the west wing.

Which is how Fane and I got to the moment we were in.

I wondered how he knew what was going on. Had he been lurking in the shadows somewhere nearby? Listening to the unfurling of my life and all that I’d ever known or expected for myself? I could only imagine him somewhere in the dark, smiling at my pleas, gleaning entertainment from our father’s wrath. That would be like Fane.

Fane hopped from the bed too and offered me his elbow. “M’lady,” Fane said dramatically, “would you do me the honor of coming out with me? I shall take you out on the town. Help you get your mind off all that awaits you.”

I grimaced and stared at his arm as though there was a disgusting spider on it. I glanced at the clock again. “Fane, it’s the middle of the night. Don’t be absurd!”

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