Little Doll: Queens of Chaos 1

by L. J. Findlay

  I was not going to give into her siren song until I completed this task. Once I had completed it I would have the funds to protect myself and my friends against our scheming Fathers but I couldn’t guarantee how a wildcard like Xanthe would factor into everything. I wasn’t foolish enough to let something as paltry as love ruin my life. I can’t deny it would be so sweet if she was still around once the task had been completed. What was a few years compared to a lifetime spent in love?

  I pressed a kiss to her lips, savouring her sweet taste, closing my eyes and losing myself in her. “Let’s get ready,” I murmured but my traitorous hands traced up her lithe body, tempting me to give into my baser desires. I would be strong though; a bit like a recovering alcoholic denying himself the finest vintage, glinting like a cheap flirt in the crystal.

  She pulled back, hurt dancing in her eyes at my dismissal. The unwanted sting of guilt slapped my conscience but I batted it away. I had weakened myself by giving into my temptress but I wasn’t going to give in anymore. Our twenty-four hours were nearly up. Reality beckoned. Time for us to get on with it.

  “If you say so,” Xanthe tried, her bottom lip threatening to wobble with distress but she steeled herself. That’s my girl, I thought. She knew more about this than I cared to clue her into. She knew the importance of masking her true feelings. Once more, I briefly allowed myself to flirt with the idea that I could persuade her to stand by me while I performed the task. It would only be a few years. “I will go have a shower…” she paused, tailing off, throwing me a challenging look. “Care to join me?”

  The idea of her toned body, all soapy under my hands, made any resistance futile. One last time, I reasoned internally. One last time. I didn’t know when I would be able to indulge again, if ever.

  Following her into the bathroom, Xanthe turned the shower on, quickly filling the room with steam, and stepped in, raising her hands above her head. The movement forced her breasts to jut out even further, before she threw me a sultry look of challenge. Fuck. How could I give her up? She knew how to play me like she had been learning her whole life. One challenging glance and I was merely putty in her hands.

  I ran my hands under her bottom and hitched both legs around me, forcing her to give over every semblance of control to me, and easily entered her slick centre with one thrust. She gasped into the crook of my neck, growing more and more frantic the faster I went, before I could feel her tight walls clenching around me. Stars erupted in my vision as I roared out my release, feeling her go limp against me.

  The slight hiccup against my shoulder made my spine stiffen. I may be a bastard but there is nothing more obvious than a girl trying to mask her tears. Not saying a word, I lowered her down and spun her round so I wouldn’t have to see her tear-streaked face. Allowing her to rest her sated body against mine, I rubbed shampoo and conditioner into her ink-spill black hair, bathed her, cared for her, created more chinks in my armour of indifference.

  Once we had finished up in the shower, I had left her in the room to dress and had gone up to the terrace, pacing and chain-smoking to try and get a grip on the fucking devil on my shoulder who demanded that I run away with Xanthe. We were in Paris. It would be easy to disappear. We were already on the continent. The reasonable side of me pointed out the countless flaws in my plan; the repercussions for my brothers, the ease with which the elders would hunt us down if we were to run on a whim. I wasn’t foolish enough to do that. I would just hope that the task proved attractive enough that every trace of this weekend would be eradicated. There was no hope in persuading Xanthe to wait for me.

  “You good, babe?” I heard her sweet voice.

  I turned around and said curtly, “Yes.” I had to enact the plan now and hopefully she would run from me like a sensible girl. Find some boring grad on some mundane dating app. Live some predictable life. A safe life. To not board the rollercoaster of insanity and mayhem the devil demanded that I chain her to, blindfolded, and at my mercy. Hurt flashed briefly in her gaze but I charged on, seemingly uncaring. “Let’s get on the Eurostar.”

  She wrinkled an eyebrow at me. “Eurostar?”

  “You’ve got a problem with public transport? Sorry to break it to you, babe, but we don’t always travel on private planes.” I paused, weighing my words for effect. “We only travel privately with people that matter.”

  “Fuck you, Blaise,” she snarled, not allowing my words to cut her as I had intended. “So are you going to leave me stranded? I didn’t expect you to be such a twat.”

  I gazed at her, confused for a beat before comprehension dawned. Of course she didn’t have a passport on her. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you on that damn train, passport or not.”

  Xanthe spun on her heel and marched out. Fuck. The defiance of this girl was going to be the death of me. It had the dissonant devil on my shoulder envisaging all sorts of sexual encounters involving her, and it was with frustrated anger that I had to rearrange myself, stalking after her.

  We arrived at Gare du Nord and I arranged everything so Xanthe could board the train although I had briefly considered leaving her stranded in Paris, making it clear that I wanted nothing more to do with her. As it stood, I was currently sitting opposite her, unable to take my eyes off her, and thankful that her gaze was diverted by the urban grit racing past and melting into a bucolic idyll of fields and small villages.

  I had indulged her with a bottle of champagne to make the journey go quickly and she took a sip, clearly preparing herself for something. I merely raised an eyebrow, amused at what might spew forth. She tilted her chin at me and I sucked in a breath, if only she knew how much that got to me, that simple act of defiance. I supposed it was because every other girl simpered at me, prostrating before the supposed altar of wealth they hoped would fund their sad, little lives. It was refreshing to see a girl who cared little about that. It made Xanthe all the more intriguing.

  “So, this is it?” I didn’t bother to respond. She sighed at me and continued, biting her lip. Her tell for when she was nervous. “I don’t know, I just thought, last night…”

  “Was a mistake,” I ground out, cutting her off. The lie left an acrid taste in my mouth but served its purpose well.

  “Was it?”

  “It was. While we’re on the topic, I will not validate your decision by pretending to your family that we had a whirlwind romance. I will deny you the respect from your peers. You chose to have forty-eight hedonistic hours with me and there’s no going back now.”

  “Fuck you.” She paused to glare at me. “I know why you’re doing this. You are trying to push me away because you’re worried about the final task. I can’t see how anything can be so bad that it will implicate our relationship?”

  “You’re acting like a petulant child. I know more about the world than you ever will and I am outlining how things will go when we arrive in London so you don’t embarrass the two of us. I don’t care that Delacourt has this infatuation with Gemma…” I paused, considering recent events. “That is, if she even wants to still be friends with someone like you.”

  “Someone like me?”

  “Someone who is so easy to spread their legs for the scarcest tale of excitement. Just like a whore, some may say… and on that note, if you do lose your job I will not be giving you some allowance like an illicit mistress.” I gazed at her tear-filled eyes, she was not as strong as she liked to imagine. I was not as strong as I wanted because I had outlined the very thing I craved but, as usual, I was allowing duty to rule my life. “Are we clear?”

  “Crystal.” Xanthe downed the remaining dregs of her drink and poured herself another before turning to face the window once more. The remainder of the journey back to London passed in icy silence and it angered me. It angered me that she dared to have the audacity to be angry at me; at least I had given her the outline of what would happen. The stubborn girl refused to let me let her down kindly, I had hoped that my cruelty would drive her away. Not only did it anger me, it excited the devil on
my shoulder that wished we had taken a train, any train, to a different European city and plot our escape. Elope. Chain herself permanently to me.

  When we pulled into St. Pancras, I gladly left the train and tried to outmanoeuvre Xanthe but she was too quick, surprising me when she pulled me into an embrace. My treacherous body allowed me to return her kiss with equal passion but all too soon it was over. She regarded me with a glacial glare. “Let’s see how well you stick with your ‘terms’?” she hummed, her sarcasm grating on my last nerve. “I guess I’ll be seeing you around, de Vere.” She turned on her heel and marched off, leaving me on the platform, frozen with desire and with my hard-on throbbing, straining against my zipper. I hit the side of the train in rage and frustration, cursing the infuriating girl who had sassed off without a care in the world.

  Pinching the bridge of my nose, I breathed in deeply to regulate the toxic combination of rage and desire rushing around my body. Standing straight, I stalked through the border and into the insanity of London, pulling up Uber to arrange a taxi home. Once in the taxi, I saw the corner of the thick paper peeking out of my jacket pocket. Fuck. Guilt racked me that I had opened it alone without the others and all because of some girl who I couldn’t even have. Ignoring my guilt at the betrayal, I focused on London speeding past and willed myself into feeling nothing. Caring about nothing.

  Soon enough, the taxi pulled up opposite our opulent warehouse-styled flat in Bermondsey. I had wanted to live here. It was more our parents’ style to live in Chelsea but I had demanded that we break the trend, forge our own path. There were times I felt smothered by living with the others and that I didn’t have the freedom to go live where I pleased. Various places around the world caught my intrigue but it was too soon to enact the escape plan. I would just be found. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure if freedom merited betraying my brothers in that way, they were controlled just as much as I was.

  I pushed all thoughts of that aside and entered the apartment, ready to break the news of the final task. I found them in the living room, Delacourt holding court as usual, gesticulating wildly. I stood for a while in the frame of the door, waiting for them to notice me.

  “Nice jaunt in mon appartement?” he greeted, lazily regarding me from his casual pose on the sofa. The others were arranged around the room, unconcerned about my arrival, but I could feel the tension at the impending task choking the room.

  I rolled my eyes. “It was lovely. Business now?”

  Delacourt narrowed his eyes, homing in like a bloodhound onto my air of insouciance masking the hurt beneath because, goddammit, what I did to Xanthe bloody well hurt. It hurt like nothing else had hurt before. It hurt me enough that if it was just my future at stake I would run after her, to fight for her, to claim her as mine. That was out of the question, however. I had to be fully independent before I had the luxury of choice. The poor fuckers who were chained to mundane jobs were lucky in that aspect, they had liberty and free will. Money might have given me freedom in one aspect but freedom of a non-material kind, specifically familial, was everything.

  “Seeing as I care about the lovely Gemma, I am going to ask you again, Blaise. How was your stay with Xanthe?” Delacourt asked again, his usual cheer frozen as if his words had been doused in liquid nitrogen. I sighed again, slouching into an armchair, pinching the bridge of my nose. I needed a drink and I needed my authority to not be questioned.

  “It was excellent. Fantastic girl but I, unlike some reckless hedonists in our group, don’t need the distraction of some girl when we have our whole lives at stake.” I gestured condescendingly to Delacourt. “Clearly some think we have said luxury and that’s fine. Mark my words, however, as soon as I have freedom I am out of here.”

  The tension ramped up a notch in the room. I had put words to what they knew, what they feared. My doubts about my quest for freedom resurfaced but I quickly tamped it down. “You can’t say that, brother,” Bastien whispered, his voice growing faint at my sacrilege. “You have everything you could possibly want. So what? We have to carry on a tradition like our grandparents but it is basically hazing, familial hazing, and in a decade or so we’ll be rich as fuck and with the power it commands. Fuck’s sake! You are ridiculous sometimes.”

  “Seconded. That does not mean you have to treat Xanthe like shit either,” Ludo added.

  “Fine,” I snapped, sick of their bickering. “Open the goddamned letter then and see what our daddy dearests have decided for us to do.”

  “Stop being childish, de Vere. We don’t all have daddy issues like you do,” Damien drawled from the corner.

  I saw red and before I knew it he was out of his seat and pressed up against the wall. “I am this close to punching your face in. I have had the best and the worst twenty-four hours in my life so do not push me. Are we clear?” I hissed.

  Damien grunted assent as I released him, letting him fall to the floor. I watched him with cool contempt. “Fuck man, you sometimes really need to chill.” He spluttered, as he pulled himself together.

  I headed to the modern kitchen, leaning against the steel counters, breathing in and out heavily, trying to get a hold of myself. Never before had I become so unhinged and I had too much at stake to allow myself to ruin it all now. Standing straight, I got a tumbler from the glass cabinet fixed against the wall and after filling it with ice, poured myself a generous measure of Grey Goose. No need for a mixer with all this bullshit that was happening.

  Sauntering back into the sitting room, I saw the letter lay on the coffee table, unopened. Cowards. It’s not like they had to do the fucking task. Sighing, I picked it up and pretended to open it before reading aloud.

  * * *

  Dear Prospects,

  * * *

  By virtue of your blood you are eligible to the automatic inheritance of our legacy. As you are aware, this is no light burden to uphold, to cultivate and to revere. It has been decreed, therefore, that all future blood prospects undertake a series of aptitude events to assess their worthiness and to ensure that the future of our legacy is safe.

  It is with great joy that we bestow upon you the final task as you have passed the previous aptitude events with flying colours, proving yourself worthy of our institution. Success is founded on sacrifice but it is also based on successful partnerships. Thinking of the greater good allows for greater reward to be reaped and sometimes this contradicts certain ideas that have grown in popularity in a modern setting; ideas such as marriage.

  Marriage is one of humanity’s oldest institutions. An institution inspired by love but it’s ultimately about partnership. As discussed prior, successful partnerships equate to further success. Good husbandry, some might describe it as. With this in mind, we are keen to ensure that our sacred blood is continued with someone just as worthy, to protect our legacy for generations to come. The blood of our ancestors comes at a price and it is something that needs to be protected.

  In light of how your lives will be altered, we have decided to indulge you with a weekend of fun and we hope that you have enjoyed it sufficiently.

  The final task is as follows; you will need to decide among yourselves who will marry the girl of our choosing. Once decided, you will need to come, as a group, to the Church to announce your decision and meet who we have chosen. Marriage remains a sacred institution, one which we expect the chosen tribute to honour and respect. A child will be expected within no more than five years. You will have free will to your inheritance, of course, once you have turned twenty-five and the marriage has taken place but this is subject to future issues and a reputable union. Should either not succeed within the allocated time-frame then we reserve the right to review your suitability as heirs and, if need be, revoke our decision.

  We very much look forward to hearing your decision soon.

  Yours, as ever.

  The Elders

  * * *

  The room was silent as a tomb. I feigned indifferent outrage as if I had only just read the letter. I pretended we had
received this death sentence as one.

  “They can’t be serious!” Ludo exhaled, voicing all our thoughts.

  Downing my vodka, I said, “I think they are as serious as a heart attack.”

  “I don’t get it… the others weren’t given anything like this,” Delacourt added, his face pale.

  Tired of their refusal to accept what was outlined in black cursive, I slammed my glass down. “What? You’d rather have blood of an innocent on your hands?”

  “Hey, hey,” Ludo interjected. “We got rid of a dangerous and volatile leader of the underworld drugs trade. Not many people are sad that he’s gone.”

  “And conveniently Uncle Lucien acquired a not so legal enterprise to go with Delacourt Pharmaceuticals. The perfect way to enter the illegal drugs trade.”

  “Don’t act all uptight about that. Or pretend that you aren’t partial to the odd party favour. At least we ensure the product is pure and isn’t laced with rat poison,” Bastien snarled.

  “And it turns a pretty profit too,” I commented, already sick of this conversation.

  “Exactly, you’ve finally hit the nail on the head,” Ludo interrupted. “Delacourt’s father acquired that company to further our collective wealth. What was the phrase they used…” He snatched the letter from the coffee table and read aloud. “’To uphold, to cultivate, to revere.’ Nothing in life comes for free, Blaise, and if we want access to the wealth equivalent to that of a minor European country, then we bloody well need to man up and do it.” He fixed me with a glare. “And don’t act all sanctimonious about a little bloodshed, Blaise?”

  “Exactly, Ludo. He’s upset that he doesn’t get to kill someone. That would be too easy,” Damien added. “I had to give up the hallowed university experience for my task. Shipped off to fucking Dartmouth but guess what? I did my duty that binds us as one, dammit.”