After dinner,
Musicians took their places on a raised platform, instruments tuning with a soft, discordant sound that soon resolved into a beautiful, complex melody.
Couples began to move onto the floor—nobles and courtiers waiting for the king to open the dance floor.
Henry stood and approached Lorenzo with the confidence of a man accustomed to having his wishes obeyed without question.
"The opening dance,"he said, not asked. "Your lady and I. It is tradition."
Lorenzo's expression did not change, though Marie felt her entire body tense beside her.
"Of course, Your Majesty,"Lorenzo replied, inclining her head. "It would be our honor."
She leaned close to Marie, close enough that only Marie could hear her words.
"I am sorry," Lorenzo whispered, her breath warm against Marie's ear. "For now, we have to play along."
Marie nodded, her throat suddenly dry, and stood to curtsy to her husband before Lorenzo led her to the dance floor and surrendered her to the King.
Henry's hand settled on Marie's waist with possessive familiarity. His other hand took hers, and he pulled her close—closer than was strictly proper, close enough that Marie could feel his arousal pressed against her lower belly.
The music began, and they moved together through the steps of the dance.
Around them, the court watched with undisguised interest.
"Did you hear what happened on the way to court?" one voice hissed. "They say the Prince killed a man who was her lover..."
"No, worse than that. They say she killed dozens of men to keep him. Some say she's not entirely human... He may be a demon "
"I heard she was compromised on the journey. That she is damaged goods..."
"Beautiful though, despite the rumors. That hair, those eyes... did you see how the king looked at her during dinner? Do you think she bewitched him as well"
Marcello, standing at the periphery of the hall, listened to every word. His expression remained neutral, but his dark eyes were collecting information, cataloging the lies and distortions, understanding how the narrative was being shaped and by whom.
As the dance continued, Henry leaned closer to Marie's neck, his breath hot against her skin.
"I am going through a lot of trouble to free you,"he murmured, his voice low and intimate in a way that made her skin crawl. "A woman like you should not be bound to a foreign prince. You should be appreciated. Treasured."
He inhaled deeply, breathing her in as though he had the right to that intimacy.
Marie's entire body went rigid with revulsion and fear.
"If you were more pliant," Henry continued, his lips nearly touching her ear, "more helpful to me, I could free you from this arrangement. We could come to a much more... satisfactory agreement."
He licked his lips, and Marie felt bile rise in her throat.
She stopped moving, drawing back slightly from him.
"Your Majesty,"she said, her voice louder now, carrying across the dance floor so that people would hear. "I fear I am still weak from my travels. The journey has exhausted me more than I anticipated. I would like to retire, if you would permit it."
It was not a request. It was a statement, a plea, a desperate escape route.
Henry's expression darkened, but he could not deny her in public without appearing ungracious.
"Of course," he said, though his jaw was clenched with obvious displeasure. "Rest well, Lady Marie."
Marie curtsied deeply, her entire body trembling with relief and disgust, and withdrew from the dance floor.
She made her way back to Lorenzo, who was standing with Marcello, watching the proceedings with eyes that had turned a shade darker than usual.
"I would like to retire," Marie said quietly to Lorenzo.
Lorenzo nodded immediately, reading everything that had transpired in Marie's expression, in the tension radiating from her body.
"Of course," Lorenzo replied, and offered her arm.
Together, they left the hall.
Much later, deep in the night, Marie lay in her bed on her side of the spacious chamber.
Lorenzo sat in a chair across the room, far enough away that there was no possibility of accidental contact, reviewing documents by candlelight, maintaining the distance Marie had demanded.
Sleep came fitfully for Marie.
And when it came, it brought nightmares.
She began to thrash, her breathing becoming rapid and panicked, small whimpers escaping her throat as her mind dragged her through horrors both remembered and imagined.
Henry's hands on her waist.
Ann's smile of betrayal.
Blood soaking into grass.
Red eyes and fangs and—
Lorenzo heard every sound.
She stood silently, moving with the grace of a predator, and approached Marie's bed.
She reached down and placed a gentle hand on Marie's shoulder.
"Marie," she said softly. "Wake up. It is only a nightmare."
Marie's eyes snapped open, and she surged upward with a gasp, about to scream—
Lorenzo moved quickly, placing her hand over Marie's mouth before any sound could escape and alert the guards or servants outside their door.
Marie bit down hard.
Lorenzo made a soft sound that might have been pain or laughter, removing her hand.
"Aouch! What a way to show gratitude! I saw you struggling," Lorenzo said gently. "I was only trying to help."
"You are the cause of my nightmares,"Marie said, her voice shaking, her breathing still rapid with panic. "And I want you away from me. Now."
"No," Lorenzo replied simply, and there was something in her voice that made Marie pause.
"It is time you faced your fears," Lorenzo continued. "I am going to show you that I am not what you think. That what happened in that grove does not define everything I am."
Before Marie could protest further, Lorenzo closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, the transformation was underway.
Her pupils and irises turned crimson. Red veins spread across her face like cracks in porcelain. Her skin seemed to pale drastically, as though shadow was being drawn beneath it. And her teeth—
Her teeth elongated and sharpened, fangs extending from her upper jaw.
Marie's eyes went wide, and she closed them again, her breathing becoming panicked.
"Look at me," Lorenzo said, but her voice had changed. It carried heaviness now, undertones that seemed to resonate in Marie's very bones. "Please, Marie. Look at me."
Marie shook her head violently, unable to face this transformation.
Lorenzo grabbed her hand gently but firmly and placed it on her own chest—directly over her heart.
"Feel that," Lorenzo said softly. "Feel my heartbeat. It is still me. Still the same person you have been learning to know. Just... more honest about what I am."
Marie took a shaky breath and focused on the feeling beneath her palm.
A steady rhythm. Beating with clear, consistent purpose. Alive. Real.
Human, in the ways that mattered.
Lorenzo removed her hand from Marie's and placed it on her face.
"Now feel my face," Lorenzo said. "You called me pretty once. I think it not bold to assume you do like my face. You stared quite a lot today."
Marie took a deep breath and then opened her eyes , bracing herself for panic, for revulsion, for the overwhelming fear she had experienced before.
But something was different now.
Seeing Lorenzo's transformed face with her own eyes open, knowing that the steady heartbeat she had felt beneath her palm was still the person she was beginning to understand—
The panic receded slightly.
Then she started noticing details.
Her skin was cooler than usual—cold, almost, to the touch. Her jaw was sharper, more defined, the bones seeming more pronounced beneath the skin.
"Your skin feels colder," Marie whispered.
"Yes," Lorenzo replied. "That happens when I change. The curse causes the blood to withdraw from the surface, concentrate deeper. It is uncomfortable."
She guided Marie's hand to her lips.
She moaned slightly as Marie's fingers brushed across her mouth.
"It has been a while since i wanted to be this open with you. I does fill me with excitement." Lorenzo said, her voice carrying a note of hunger that made Marie shiver. "You should forgive me if I am not entirely steady."
Marie nodded without thinking, her blushing deepening as she realized what she was doing, what she was feeling.
Lorenzo opened her mouth and guided Marie's finger inside.
Marie felt the fangs—with the sharpest, extending from her gums.
"They are quite sharp," Marie said, her voice trembling. "Do they not harm you? The inside of your mouth?"
Lorenzo chuckled—a sound that seemed to echo strangely in her transformed state.
"They seem to be the perfect size for my mouth," she replied. " They dig their way around. I heal almost immediately"
She then placed her forehead gently against Marie's, and they stood that way for a long moment, breathing the same air.
Marie could smell her—that distinctive scent that was purely Lorenzo. Something warm and spiced.
And somehow, breathing that scent, feeling the gentle contact of Lorenzo's forehead against her own, Marie felt herself relax slightly.
"Does it hurt?" Marie asked quietly. "Being in such a state?"
Lorenzo smirked, and the expression was somehow more unsettling on her transformed face—more openly predatory, more honest about the hunger that lived beneath her skin.
"It is like being hungry but not being able to eat,"Lorenzo replied, her voice low and intimate. "Being thirsty but not being able to quench your thirst. It is a constant ache, waiting, building."
She paused, and when she continued, her tone carried a weight of confession that made the air between them feel suddenly charged.
"It gets worse when I am with you."
"Why?" Marie whispered, breathless.
"Because you arouse me."
As she spoke those words, images flashed through Marie's mind—fragments that felt both foreign and deeply familiar, as though they belonged to someone else's memories yet resonated in her bones as absolute truth.
Lorenzo's eyes flashing crimson red as they kissed in darkness, her body pressing Marie back into soft fabric and the warmth of her bed.
Lorenzo's fangs extending as Marie arched beneath her, gasping, her hands tangling in Lorenzo's hair as pleasure and terror twisted together in her veins.
The feeling of Lorenzo's teeth scraping across the curve of her shoulder. The sharp pain followed immediately by exquisite pleasure. The taste of her own blood mixing with Lorenzo's mouth, Lorenzo's hunger, Lorenzo's desperate pounding.
Heat flooded through Marie's entire body. Her cheeks flushed deep crimson with embarrassment and something far more primal, far more demanding.
Lorenzo chuckled—a low, rumbling sound that seemed to vibrate through the space between them, carrying genuine amusement
"Come on now," Lorenzo said, her voice dripping with teasing intimacy. "You know I often try not to give in to that need to taste your blood. But it is still very hard not to."
Marie's eyes widened slightly as fragments continued to surface—a sharp pain followed by pleasure, the feeling of Lorenzo's mouth on her skin, the taste of her own blood mingling with other sensations that made her entire body flush with heat.
"Have you bitten me before?" Marie asked, her voice breathless, an eyebrow arching with a mixture of indignation and something that looked suspiciously like desire.
Lorenzo nodded slowly, her transformed eyes never leaving Marie's face.
"I did,"Lorenzo confirmed. "Twice. The first time I laid with you. And the second time in the bath. When we were together in the water."
Marie pouted, though there was no real anger in the gesture
"How disgraceful," Marie said, but her voice wavered. "The marks around my body make sense now. I am sure in hindsight I would never have allowed it if I had known the truth."
"Liar,"Lorenzo said softly, and there was a smile in her voice that was almost cruel in its accuracy. "You knew. Or at least some part of you knew. You felt my fangs. You tasted your own bloodon my lips and never stopped me."
She stepped back slightly, just enough that she could take in all of Marie with her glowing red eyes.
"One of the advantages of this power is smell," Lorenzo said, and her voice had shifted into something lower, something that made Marie's skin prickle with awareness. "And I can smell that you are aroused, cara mia."
Marie's breath caught in her throat, and she opened her mouth to protest, to deny—
"I do think," Lorenzo continued, her tone dripping with teasing that somehow made the words more devastating rather than less, "That you did indeed enjoy the biting"
She leaned closer, and despite everything—despite her fear, despite her confusion, Marie did not pull away.
Lorenzo's voice dropped to barely above a whisper, intimate and charged with undeniable hunger.
"And I dare say,"Lorenzo breathed, close enough now that Marie could feel the coolness radiating from her transformed skin, "that now that you know, now that you understand what I truly am, you seem even more aroused by the danger."
It was true.
Marie could feel it—the heat pooling low in her belly, the way her breath had become shallow, the way her inner thigh was getting slick with her own release.
"Your heart is racing," Lorenzo said, confirming Marie's suspicion. Her red eyes seemed to glow brighter in the candlelight. " And that scent—Madonna, your essence is intoxicating."
She leaned closer, inhaling deeply against the curve of Marie's neck. Marie's hands came up to push but instinctively gripped Lorenzo's shoulders, seeking stability. Her body swayed toward this woman she could not remember but whose touch seemed to awaken primal need deep within her.
"You want me to taste you," Lorenzo said, not a question but a statement of absolute certainty. Her voice was rough now, barely controlled. "You want to feel my fangs in your flesh as I ravage your body."
Marie moaned, and she shoved Lorenzo away from her with more force than necessary.
"I am grateful for this," Marie said, her voice flustered and slightly angry. "For you showing me. For helping me understand. But I want to rest now."
Lorenzo stepped back, her expression shifting back to something almost human
Her transformation began to recede. The red faded from her eyes. The fangs retracted. The cold that had emanated from her skin warmed slightly.
"Of course," Lorenzo said, her voice returning to its normal register. "Sleep well, Marie."
She returned to her chair across the room, leaving Marie in her bed, trembling with a need she could not name and did not want to acknowledge.
Marie pulled the blankets up to her chin and squeezed her eyes shut, but her body was on fire.
In the darkness, she could still smell Lorenzo, making every breath a reminder of what she had just refused.
Could still hear the hunger in Lorenzo's voice as she had leaned close and breathed in the scent of Marie's arousal.
Could still remember—or rather, could still feel the phantom memory of—the way Lorenzo's teeth had sunk into her shoulder, the way pain had transformed into something like ecstasy, the way she had arched and gasped and begged for more.
Sleep, when it finally came, was anything but restful.
Her dreams were filled with red eyes and sharp teeth and the feeling of Lorenzo's hands gripping her hips, pulling her closer, thrusting deeper, harder inside
Lorenzo's mouth on her throat, her shoulder, her collarbone.
Lorenzo's voice whispering things.
And when Marie woke in the grey hours before dawn, her sheets were soaked with sweat and something more, her body still aching with unfulfilled desire for a woman she could not remember but whose touch her body remembered with perfect, devastating clarity.
She looked across the chamber to where Lorenzo slept innocently.
And Marie understood, with a clarity that she had to be careful and no fall for this trap.