Clockwork Doll Novels & Stories

I was a Huxx myself. He tilted his head at me, running his tattooed hand through his hair before he raised an eyebrow, "oh, then what is your name, sweetheart?" "Doll." "Your real name." "That is my real name." "Your real name is Doll? I don't know what to tell you, sweetheart, but Doll isn't a name, a doll is a toy. Which is exactly what you are to them." My fingers tightened around the fork as my gaze sharpened on him, "sweetheart isn't my name," I told him in a stern yet meek voice. I could never raise my voice, "doll is my name."

My name is Elora and I reside at the Blue Mountain Packhouse. I have a slim figure, long curly blonde hair which I usually wear up in a bun so it is out of my face. My eyes are a deep blue which I love. I am not a normal girl though. You see I am a shewolf, my rank at the packhouse is an omega. I don’t know my parents because they passed away when I was just a tiny baby, so I don’t have any memories of them. The only thing I have is a necklace locket from my mother. I have never taken it off because it makes me feel close to her spirit.

This night had little to do with Minnow becoming an adult and everything to do with her parents building connections for the Venandi empire. "Hurry up, people. I am not paying you to stand around with your hands in your pockets!" Dovie barked in the background, making the people scurry around the room to please her mother. Minnow sighed, annoyed at her mother's sharp voice threatening to give her a migraine. She desperately wished she could sink through the floorboards and escape this madness. Next to her, the make-up artist, a middle-aged woman with shoulder-length silky black hair and a perfectly styled face, was busy rummaging through her large make-up case for the right application tools

Instead, a hidden latch hidden behind the carved wooden crown of the clock released with a dull thud. Vikram reached out, his fingers brushing against the cold, aged wood. The entire face of the grandfather clock swung open like a narrow door, revealing not the intricate gears and brass weights of a standard timepiece, but a dark, hollow shaft leading straight down into the foundations of the old house.

Dana opened the door of the clock, her jacket sliding up to reveal a tattoo along her lower back. "I, um..." Where had that clock come from? He couldn't concentrate, staring at Dana's exposed ass. "I'll be right back." He ran into the kitchen. Tink was busy staring at his laptop computer, which she had unlocked again. "Don't touch anything on there," he told her, setting the pizza down on the table. Grabbing his wallet, he walked back out to the main room to find Dana giving the pendulum inside the clock a push. The entryway filled with the soft sounds of moving gears. The old clock's second hand started moving around the face of the clock. Dana's face lit up in excitement. "That is so cool!

But as Ivy reached out to take the child, she stopped. The baby wasn't crying. It wasn't breathing. Silas looked down, his face going pale. He slowly unwrapped the blanket. Inside wasn't a baby. It was a perfectly crafted, silver-and-flesh clockwork doll—a masterpiece of the Trust. And held in the doll’s tiny, cold hand was a note, written in Dante’s precise, aristocratic handwriting. "The loop has eighteen layers, Ivy. You just reached the third. Don't look for me. I'm already behind you."

And from within came another whisper: “The game begins.” The walls trembled, and a sound rang through the silence—a deep, dragging tick. On the opposite wall, a large clock appeared. Its hands were long, sharp, and black. It ticked once more, sending a rattling sound through their bones. Camela breathes hitch. “What…what happens when it strikes?” she asked. The double’s voice purred again. “When the clock makes one full turn, one of you will disappear…unless the bride obeys.”

“That’s the thing. You won’t have to teach me anything. The clock’s already ticking.” He flicked his chin toward his cuffed wrist, and for a second I thought he meant to show off the timepiece: something Swiss that believed in timeless value. The right-hand guard stripped it and passed it to Elky with two fingers like it was contagious. The face wasn’t ticking—it was counting down. 04:59:27. I felt the numbers in the back of my teeth. “Dead-switch,” Andros said cheerfully.