Deep Chill

Chapter One - Warm Welcome

Author's note: this is a trial chapter of a new story that I am very excited about. So please, please, please let me know what you thought of it! And if you liked it, please vote and comment (though just reading it makes me happy).

Raven could see very little as she crept up the winding staircase. Her dressing gown caught around her ankles, and she hitched it up in one hand to avoid it tangling with her bare feet.

It was very dark when she reached the top of the stairs, and she wished she had brought a light other than her candle, for the passageway was lit only by the moonlight that pooled on the floor. The deep recesses of the stone hallway were left in an inky shadow.

Raven shivered as the wind hissed through the passage, throwing a tree's shadow into the shape of claws against the wall. Picking up her dressing gown once more, she hurried along the hall. The stone was cold under her soles and she felt chilled nearly to the bone.

She soon reached a door. It was locked. When she laid her hand on the handle, the wind moaned outside and the candle went out without a sound, leaving the smoke curling from the smouldering wick.

She wanted to call out, but found herself struck dumb. All at once, she felt a presence behind her, and it left her skin prickling and her senses crying out. She turned at once and gasped, but felt a hand come forward and hush her.

A man stood before her, and held one hand over her lips. Another rested on her waist. Both were very warm. She could not see his face - his features were obscured by a black carnival mask. But she could see his eyes, dyed silver by the moonlight and dappled by the clouds that scuttled by the window. They were fixed on her more firmly than then hand that held her waist.

After a moment, he lowered his hand from her mouth. She felt him brush his thumb over her lower lip as he dropped it. He said nothing.

"Let go of me," she said, her voice quivering. She let her gaze fall to the ground, where she could see nothing but the shadows cast by the bone-white moon.

The stranger did not loosen his grip. Instead, he gently nudged Raven's chin, drawing her face up so that her eyes met his silver gaze. She made no sound, the gasp she had loosed at his touch stolen away by the wind that whispered through the open window. He cocked his head and there was something in his eyes, something so-

Isabella stopped typing. She rolled her eyes and glared hard at the wall to the sounds of gleeful yelling. Then she glared out the window, the scenery of the blue-grey lake and the surrounding trees in their fall colours doing nothing to distract her. She drummed her fingers against the keyboard as the sounds of hooting, hollering, and thudding got louder.

Giving a sigh, Isabella shouted: "Could you please shut the fuck up?"

"Why?" came the corresponding shout from the next room over. After a moment, the source of the sound - a handsome, blue-eyed, brown-haired man in his early twenties, with a tennis ball in his hand - entered the room and leaned against the doorframe. He scoffed visibly as he went on. "You need to focus? I thought you said what you wrote was total shit."

"I do. And it is," said Isabella. She slammed the lid of her laptop shut, resisting the urge to pitch the whole damn thing out the window. "But it's a very specific form of shit, Isaac."

Isaac snorted in apparent disdain and Isabella glared at him, keen to defend the shit upon which her short - albeit successful - career had been built. "Not everyone can do this, you know," she said, waving her finger at him before gesturing at herself. "It takes a certain talent to produce the exact type of shit that people want. A saccharine, bland kind of shit that is not only palatable, but also relatable. Sweet, sexy, and simple. And that's why I've sold a hundred million copies worldwide. I know the kind of shit people want to read."