All Chapters of The Devil's Broken Doll: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

(Adelaide)Adelaide froze. The room seemed to tilt. The word called echoed in her mind, dragging up flashes she’d never quite managed to explain—dreams of bells that rang without sound, of her own name whispered through trees that had no mouths.“You never…” Lyra’s voice shook. “You never told us—”“I came back,” their mother said. “That is all that matters.”“No,” Adelaide said, her heart pounding. “It isn’t all that matters.”Her mother’s hand tightened on the iron charm until the edge dug into her skin. “What matters is that you do not go.” Her gaze pinned Lyra first, then Adelaide. “Either of you.”Lyra’s shoulders curled inward. “We don’t choose, Mama.”“Sometimes we do,” their mother said. “With the way we walk. The way we speak. With the way we stare down men who think they own the world.”Her eyes flicked back to Adelaide. The message was clear.Adelaide’s jaw clenched. “So this is my fault already? For having eyes?”“For having pride,” her mother said quietly. “The Devil like

(Adelaide)By the time the last sliver of sunlight vanished behind the crooked line of pines, the entire village felt wrong. The colours of the world had drained away with it; roofs and fields and faces all flattened into shades of ash and charcoal, as if someone had smeared night over the edges of everything.The air—usually cold this time of year—had turned thin, metallic, almost sharp. Every breath scraped down Adelaide’s throat like cold iron. She could taste it on her tongue, that faint tang of blood and rain and something older, like the inside of a long-sealed tomb. The sky overhead held no stars, only a heavy, rolling darkness that seemed to press down on Fire’s Peak, suffocating in its weight. The torches lining the paths flickered restlessly, strained by a wind that didn’t move the trees. Their flames leaned and bowed to an invisible rhythm, shuddering as though something walked past them that no one could see.When the chapel bell began to toll, slow and resonant, Adelaide

(Adelaide)Adelaide stared at Thane with open contempt. He didn’t even glance at her. She wondered if that was deliberate—if ignoring her would make it easier later, when people spoke of her in the past tense.“Tradition speaks,” he continued. “The Devil will appear when the moon crests silver at its highest point. He will take form from shadow and flame. He will call forth the hunt.”A tremor rippled through the girls to her left. Someone whimpered quietly.Thane’s voice deepened. “You will run. Not into the village, but into the forest. This is the sacred boundary. Do not attempt to cross back until dawn. He cannot leave the woods while the hunt is underway.”Adelaide’s brows knit. So that’s the rule. He does not hunt inside the village—only in the wilderness. Only where no one can hear you scream. The thought made bile rise in her throat. It also sparked something coldly calculating; boundaries could be bent, edges tested. Even monsters had rules.Thane continued, “If you survive u

(The Devil)“What…” he murmured under his breath, “…are you?” The question was not literal. He knew what she was—a mortal girl, offered to him like all the others. But she radiated a force that made his skin prickle. Power? No. Not yet. But the echo of it. The promise. A seed with teeth.She was supposed to fear him.Yet she looked like she wanted to fight him. He almost smiled. He stepped closer, and the forest bent with him—shadows stretching, branches bowing, air thickening with power. The girls whimpered. One sobbed. Another fainted. But she didn’t flinch. Her shoulders squared as though bracing for a blow she refused to run from. Her fire-lit hair whipped around her in the cold wind, thick waves sticking to her damp lashes, and her tall, slender frame stood rigid against the pressure rolling off him. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, but her chin stayed up, jaw clenched, eyes locked on his like she refused to be the one to break.A thrill shot through him. He hadn’t felt this a

(Adelaide)The beast passed girl after girl—barely noticing the ones trembling in puddles of their own terror.Then he reached Calia. The thin girl whimpered, tears streaking down her face. For one horrifying heartbeat, Adelaide thought he would take her—take this fragile doe and crush her without a thought.But the Devil sniffed the air around Calia—one deep inhale—then moved on.Straight toward Adelaide.Her stomach dropped. Her knees threatened to give. But she locked her spine, forcing her chin up.If he expects me to bow, he’ll be disappointed. If he wants me broken, he can do it in the dark with no witnesses—but he will not have it here.The beast neared her and stopped.Right. In. Front. Of. Her.His chest was a wall of fur and heat. His breath blasted down over her like a furnace, reeking of smoke and iron and something older—something primal. There was a note in it she couldn’t name, like burned cedar and storm-charged air, the scent of things that existed long before village