With his hand on my mid-back and my hand on his shoulder, he began unfamiliar steps. It only took a moment to orient myself as there was still a haze of confusion clouding my mind. His gentle smile allowed me to forget the leering gaze of the rest of the room. Though, forgetting the heat didn't come quite so easily.
I was among the freshly dead offerings hand-picked across time, it would seem. There were so many from which to choose, but he'd come to me immediately. My burial dress lay tattered by the ornately carved stone entrance, torn from my frame as soon as I stepped through. This gala rejected all modesty for its guests, but I didn't mind.
Perhaps that was why he chose me before all others?
Many more beautiful men and women walked through, their burial garments undone as though imaginary whips shredded the cloth as soon as they crossed that threshold. Each new guest to the party covered their form upon exposure. Shock and shame settled on their faces with faint disbelief at the sheer audacity of disrobing them so violently. I had stood taller, raised my chin, and pushed my shoulders back. There was no shame to feel as I was a sight to behold.
It was only he and I in a sea of flame, dancing in rhythm to a song that didn't reach my ears. Though, I felt I knew it by rote. The steps drilled into me under threat of a vine slapping across my back upon a wrong move many years before.
My first taste of pleasure blending with pain came at the hands of my former governess, tasked with training me up into a proper noblewoman. My penchant for being in control meant the harder she pushed me, the deeper my vengeance would eventually cut. I could play the long game, allowing temporary setbacks for overall success.
Her job was to see me married to a higher nobility than my own family was, and she did that well.
So, it seemed fitting to take my pound of flesh by tainting her family line with deviant desires. I had her daughter in my bed the night before I was to be wed.
My delighted thank-you to the cruel mistress who took great pleasure in my pain was a hedonistic fuck-fest that defiled the girl she'd intended for service in a local convent. The girl pledged to forsake all others in favor of loyalty to me in her cries of ecstasy.
My governess wept as I wiped my bloody fingers on her daughter's white chemise. Her daughter wasn't even a year older than me at nineteen. She was due to report to the convent on her 20th birthday, but she couldn't bow to a god she no longer believed in and feared her mother's wrath. The girl's loyalty to me... No, Katherine's loyalty to me was unwavering.
Oddly, I found myself missing her companionship as I danced across the hot floor with my new suitor. I could lead her with little more than my fingertip beneath her chin and the promise of a kiss if she followed my rhythm. But on this dance floor, I was the one being led.
I was the only goddess Katherine cared to bow before after that night in my bed, so I took great care to arrange her employment within my castle, ensuring she stayed nearby so I could enjoy her at my leisure and ensure her loyalty remained true. And with those gestures, my former governess was forced to watch her fairest, gentlest, most demure daughter sink to a depth of depravity even a common whore couldn't fathom. All because the bitch had whipped me as I learned my wedding dance, lest I be less than perfect for my future husband. Because that was my only worth, right?
The steps my ember-skinned partner led me in were the same ones I danced beneath that woman's stern hand and, following the vows forced upon me, my husband's unwanted and wandering hand. The song that played in my head and the rhythm we fell into seemed to match that which I'd danced to with my ill-fated husband.
The beat of the demon's heart beneath my palm ignited that memory of my wedding night. My own heart had raced with the excitement of a new kind of first. An experience I never fathomed before but couldn't wish away the desire for after. It was an unexpected moment of clarity where I fully, for the first time, felt like my own person.
It's important to know that laying with a man didn't disgust me, but the very idea of laying with
that
man had left me fuming. He'd embarrassed me. Tarnished my reputation and made a mockery of our wedding by being a louse that very night.
Barely an hour had passed after our vows when I'd caught him in a dark corner accosting a maid. Then he dared slap me for pushing him away from her. How dare I interfere with his disgusting assault. How dare I deny him pleasure at the expense of my staff. I would learn my place that night. He swore it to me.
My husband didn't understand me. Hell, he didn't even know me; I'm not even certain he knew my name. He split my lip with that slap, and I laughed. The taste of my blood was salty and metallic as I licked it away. And then I smiled. "Dearest husband," I'd said because I didn't care to know his name, either. "If you have needs to be met, it is my responsibility to meet them, so please let me try. I may be inexperienced, but I will do my best to serve you, sir."
I smiled as my dance partner did. He wasn't privy to my thoughts, and I could reminisce and grieve over the highlights of my life in a private moment as we twirled about the black-floored room. I had such a sense of familiarity with him. His touch ignited something in me, and I felt myself warm and tense as his clawed thumb slipped across my lower lip, just where my husband had once split it. The scar remained even in death, and I flushed at the attention drawn to it. It was as if he were pushing me to remember a moment he couldn't be aware of.
It was only moments after slapping me that my lech of a husband had his hand in my hair, pushing me to my knees before him. I found I quite enjoyed the pull of my hair and forceful display more than I'd anticipated; had it been performed by any other man in that moment, the events would've gone quite differently. But, we were married, and the Marquis had served his purpose to increase my standing. Besides, he had already been caught committing a crime against a woman who would have every reason to end his life that very night. Who was I to deny her that right of self-protection, even against my noble husband.
The poor bastard had given me the exact moment I needed to enact a plan I thought I wouldn't be able to undertake for at least a year after our vows.
While I was on my knees, and before he had managed to do more than loosen his trousers, the thin blade gifted to me by Katherine that very morning slid from its sheath at my ankle. My eyes locked on my husband's, and he looked positively ravenous. His features were strong and angular, and he disgusted me. I brought the blade cleanly through the linen at his inner thigh. He still gripped my hair tight as he grimaced. I believe he thought he'd wet himself until he saw his blood sprayed across my face as I smiled up at him. His grip on me loosened, and he fell quick.
I don't think he even realized what I'd done. He'd been in such a heightened state of arousal and power that he died before his mind had righted itself. I handed the blade to the maid and told her to admit to the deed. To speak plainly on his assault of her and I would assure her safety. She would have a place in my court as apology for my husband's mistreatment of her, so long as she confessed for me.
She did as I asked. The maid pled her case and, while found guilty of a crime against the nobility, was spared death in exchange for servitude within my castle. I brought her into my court as an adviser on feminine protection. It was a scandal, of course, but was quickly swept away as I brought forth many other maids from my grounds who would attest to his lechery in the short span of time he'd been on my family estate. His own family took a payout for their silence in the form of claiming his land rights, glad to be rid of him in the process, it seemed. I maintained my husband's title, but preferred my own; Countess suited me better than Marchioness.
My dance partner's grip on me tightened as he pulled me against his almost unbearably warm body. Sweat began to bead upon my bare skin. Our movement swayed, and I was taken to flow with a rhythm reminiscent of Lucia Quinciani's composition as the words of Guarini's
Udite lagrimosi spirti d'Averno, udite
flitted through my mind.
Or perhaps it was the pulse of his lust guiding my movement and thoughts, for I'm sure his life is filled with a thousand deaths a day and pain was the heart of his story. Maybe that brought that piece to mind, but it was fitting regardless, and I danced with him easily. Willingly.
The red-rimmed gaze of his blackened eyes upon my naked form allowed me to match his steps—whether he heard the same song as myself was unknown but also unimportant—along the warm obsidian floor perfectly. He fed me the timing with a touch and a glance. In a synchronized movement, we were one.
He spun me round a full turn, and I laughed. It carried to his ear, and, for a moment, he closed his eyes as I watched him. His hand grazed my hip, and he blushed so deeply even his flame-toned skin couldn't hide it as his cheeks blackened. Imagine that, a demon of his apparent standing—for they don't hold balls where only one demon dances with a chosen soul before all others if that demon doesn't hold high standing in the realm—blushing at the gentle caress of his fingers upon a woman's skin. It was only then that I realized...
Oh, is that what this is? Am I to be his first?
My smile broadened, and I let him pull me close, his lips so near mine. The smell of sulfur filled the air between us, and while I'm sure most would've shown offense at the unpleasant odor, I welcomed his scent. It reminded me of the whispers 'round the bath. After death had set in, there was always a lingering echo of the darkness the chamber girls could never clean away. I'm sure my skin held more than the metallic hint of the purity I so often stole. Maybe I carried a little of that sulfuric burn in my wake as well. Perhaps that's why its pungent sting didn't deter my smile.
I welcomed the torch of heat upon my skin as his hand slid along my slender flank. His flush rescinded as he seemed to realize I took no offense at his closeness. Oh, how I relished the flame of desire swelling within me at his proximity. The flash of his sharp white teeth, the grin that came too easily as he dipped me toward the ground. It was a move I was not familiar with, but still welcomed the intimacy it offered as it was so near lying me on a soft bed.
He could've laid me on the hot stones beneath us and had his infernal way with me right there. A captive audience equally horrified and aroused by the sight of a hellish prince falling to lust for the flesh of a mere, well, formerly mortal, woman. My thoughts carried to the darkest possibilities he could offer me. His claws rending my skin beneath his mauling grip. His tongue flicking and circling my breast, suckling me when he's meant only to shred my insides while I screamed in pain and fear. Those sharp teeth raking across my firm nipple with a tease of pain and dots of blood rising to the surface of my fair skin.
I cocked my head and smiled at him, yet he dared to glance away, that flush crossing not only his cheeks but his neck, now, too.
