Twelve

Once upon a time, twelve princesses lived beneath the velvet fist of their father, the King.

He gave them everything—except freedom.

Every night, they vanished into shadow, feet grinding into the dance floor, bodies moving in unspoken promises.

This is the original fairy tale.

Now imagine another King—whose gaze is bondage.

And twelve women who dance to very, very different tunes.

This is the Underground.

This is another tale.

Now, read on.

Genevieve

In the world above, my name bends men to its will. Boardrooms. Bedrooms. Places where wealth is power, where control is a second skin.

But, down here, I am nothing but his.

A slave to a world that breathes in flesh and exhales desire.

The King’s hand crawls through my hair, slow, possessive, absolute.

"Mine."

The word is a brand. A chain wrapped in velvet and diamonds.

I shudder. The surrender is reflex now—deep, familiar—as I lower myself, tongue tracing the champagne from his boots. The taste is a contradiction: luxury and ruin, worship and humiliation.

The club pulses around me, a temple to the obscene. Here, masks are discarded, the darkest whispers find breath, and no hunger goes unfed.

I sense her gaze.

Linet.

Wide-eyed. Innocent. Aching with curiosity.

She doesn’t understand—not yet.

She hasn’t felt what it means to surrender, to be unmade and remade in the image of someone else’s desire.

But she will.

She will belong.

Just as I do.

Léonore

Down here, I am not a doctor. Not a keeper of measured breaths and careful sutures.

Down here, pain is not a thing to be treated—it is a thing to be craved.

A harrowing scream splits the air—spilling past the walls like living fire. It is not just agony. It is deeper.

My muscles tighten, instincts flaring, the part of me that was trained to respond surging forward—only for the golden chains to drag me back.

They bite deep. Wrapping, pulling, sinking into flesh—rending, stretching, teasing. My nipples burn where the metal grips.

The pain is instant, sharp, intoxicating.

Something that digs into my bones and whispers: surrender.

And I do.

Linet runs past. Eyes wide. Fear-stricken. A rabbit in the wolf’s den.

But is she running from something?

Or toward it?

I inhale, body shuddering, the chains tightening, deepening, owning.

A laugh slithers through the dark—low, throaty, thick with satisfaction.

The King understands.

Of course he does.

Ava

Down here, I am not a woman of political standing. Not the whispered force behind a man who bends the world with a glance.

Down here, I am a plaything. A pet. A farce wrapped in satin and submission.

Tonight, I crawl. Purring. Obedient. The pussycat.

And there—there is the Purple Door. A thing that does not belong anywhere, yet remains. Unspoken. Untouched.

Until Linet.

New. Unspoiled. She shouldn’t be here. But she lingers - eyes dragging over that door like fingers over bare skin. Curious. Tempted. Wrong.

The King sees her. Amusement flickers in his gaze, sharp as a blade.

A pang cuts through me. How dare she?

This is my world. My stage. My skin bearing the marks of his favor.

I press against him, arching, rubbing, desperate to make him feel me—remember me.

A pat on my head, careless. His interest barely brushes me now, drawn instead to the flame creeping too close to the forbidden.

I purr louder. Press harder.

His eyes stay on her.

Sophie

I shouldn’t want him, but I do.

The man in the too real boar costume, all sweat and musk, his breath hot on my neck. I feel his paws—too rough, too strong—pin me against the Purple Door.

His meaty, throbbing corkscrew drills into me hard, writhing deep inside, spiralling alive.

Yes, yes, don’t stop—

Then—something shifts.

The door groans. The frame splinters.

Wait—no—not so fast.

The wood gives way beneath me.

He squeals—a sound not human, not entirely beast—then bolts. Hooves scrambling, claws raking, gone like an animal that knows.

Knows what?

I don’t have time to wonder.

I am sucked in.

It’s wet. Cold. Moving.

Something slick slithers around my ankle, my thighs, my throat—fuck, no—

I claw at the threshold.

"Linet?" My voice is a whisper, hoarser, smaller than I remember it being.

She’s nearby—wide-eyed, frozen.

I see her take a step forward—then hesitate.

Don’t. Don’t hesitate.

The dark pulls.

Slam!

Delphine

I should have shut this place down years ago.

Should have walked in with a badge and a warrant, not just a knowing smirk and a taste for ruin.

But The Underground doesn’t work like that. It isn’t a place you raid, isn’t a place you expose.

I told myself I was only here to understand.

But understanding turned to hunger.

And hunger… into something else entirely.

So when Linet comes to me, eyes wide, voice trembling, pleading, she thinks she’s come to a cop. A lifeline. A way out.

She doesn’t understand.

I strike before I even think.

The slap lands hard, clean, the sound cutting through the low hum of the club. Linet staggers, her breath catching, hand flying to her cheek.

She looks at me then—really looks at me. And I see it in her face. Recognition.

I should feel shame. Should feel something other than the deep, curling thrill of watching her flinch, of feeling that brief moment of power before she pulls away.

"You don’t come to me."

My voice is low, rough. Final.

Linet stares one second longer, eyes dark with something I can’t name—then she runs.

I let her.

I don’t chase. That’s not my role anymore.

Instead, I exhale slow, turn on my heel, and find the nearest set of watching eyes.

"Inform the King."

Hëloïse

I am on my knees when he brings Linet in.

He wants me here.

And what the King wants—happens.

She sways where she stands, her breath slow, her eyes glassy. Drugged.

I shudder, my own body already soft, already yielding.

"Observe," he commands.

And I do.

The Purple Door looms, pulsing, thrumming, a thing that lives. A thing that hungers. Then… its maw opens.

He shoves her forward—into the void.

The darkness beyond reaches for her—coiling, frigid, slick and breathing.

I see them. Just for a second.

Huge, scaled limbs. Not arms, not hands—something else. Serpentine. Writhing. Wrapping.

She comes to.

I see the shift in her body, the snap of awareness, the moment she realizes.

And then—her scream—raw.

Cut short.

The door swings closed.

A final glimpse of her—small, struggling—before the darkness devours her whole.

I suck in a breath, my body taut, my mind reeling—

He turns to me.

His robes shift. Part.

And I see him.

Not just a man.

Something else.

Flesh that twists, reforms. A shadow of what he once was, of what he still pretends to be.

And between his legs—

I choke on a moan.

He grips my chin.

"Indulge me."

The word slams into me like a commandment, like God speaking fire into the bones of the world.

And I do.

I forget everything but his presence. His power.

And me—willing.

His toy. His pet.

I open my mouth.

I submit.

Bianca

The hay clings to my skin, damp with sweat, spilled liquor, and things fouler still.

I kneel in the pit, bare, open, expectant.

The crowd swirls above me, passing, laughing, taking their turns.

A splash of wine stings my cheek.

A chunk of bread, soggy and sour, lands in the filth before me.

A trickle of something warmer follows.

I moan as I lower myself, my lips parting, my tongue meeting the filth-streaked floor. The taste of it—salt, musk, rot—exquisite.

They love this.

The crowd jeers, taunts curling around me like smoke. Some encourage. Some curse. All of them watch.

But he watches most of all.

The King.

I live for that gaze.

For the way he sits—poised, ravenous, his amusement flickering like candlelight behind his eyes.

His approval is everything.

So when I look up, tongue still thick with degradation, and see his expression shift—see something tighten in his jaw—something in me stills.

He is not looking at me.

He is looking beyond.

I follow his gaze.

And then—I see her.

Linet?

Standing just beyond the pit.

Not sneering. Not laughing.

Just—appraising.

The King’s grip tenses against the armrest. A flicker of something unreadable in his eyes.

Concern? Apprehension? Doubt?

I start to turn back—to see if Linet is still there—

But then—warmth splashes against my face.

The acrid sting floods my senses.

Laughter erupts.

My world drowns in the heat, in the scent, in the glory of filth.

And when I finally open my eyes, gasping, licking my lips—

Linet is gone.

Isabeau

I know I’m being watched even as I watch.

But I can’t help myself.

The cameras are my pulse, my breath, my fix.

My fingers flick through feeds—luxurious cages, velvet nooses, flesh pressed against cold marble. Bodies breaking, bodies begging, bodies belonging.

Then—her.

A flicker of movement, a face I know shouldn’t be there.

Linet.

Lost, months ago.

But here she is.

Moving through the halls, past the hungry, the desperate, the willing.

I follow her. Camera to camera. Feed to feed.

Until—nothing.

She’s gone.

I curse, flick through angles, switch to another view—

And stop cold.

She’s staring right at me.

The ladies’ spa.

Steam clings to the mirrors. The glass is damp, but not clean.

Letters in the mist.

A name?

Anabelle Halbent.

The one who got out.

Linet’s finger points to it, deliberate. Her skin is slick, pale—too pale. Lips almost blue.

Her body is bare, but there’s no seduction, no offering. Just emptiness.

She knows I see her.

She’s letting me.

And then—

The feed cuts to black.

Marguerite

The Underground was never meant to be understood.

But, I am not afraid of seeking answers.

Isabeau knew that when she came to me—flushed with the thrill of discovery, whispering Linet’s name like a ghost story.

She slipped me the footage. The name traced in mist.

Anabelle Halbent.

She who escaped.

Finding her proves hard, but I manage to.

She picks up the video call.

Not a dancer anymore. Not a disciple of flesh and surrender either. Just an old woman—bones mended but never good enough to pirouette again.

She knows why I have come.

"The Underground has always been," she croaks.

And her hands move—instinctive, haunted—to her warped legs.

Tracing the deep scars that run like old fault lines.

"There was a Queen," she murmurs, voice fraying at the edges.

"She was—"

Her breath hitches.

“—gone. One day, without warning. No one spoke of her again. The King took her place. And The Underground went on.”

I watch her carefully, my voice patient, measured. Relentless.

"What happened to her, Anabelle?"

Her breathing shakes.

Her fingers tighten over ruined flesh.

"What did she do to you?"

Anabelle breaks.

Sobs—ugly, raw, uncontrollable—rip from her throat.

Her screen goes black.

And she never picks up again.

Orianna

The Sanguine Dungeon smells like copper and heat.

Blood pools in the low places, sinks into the seams of the red linoleum, licks the edges of the plastic-draped walls. The color deepens here, shifts in gradations—a symphony of scarlet, designed to saturate.

I have seen men plead for their lives here—in voices slick with iron and terror.

And I have taken them anyway.

Tonight is different.

Linet steps from the shadows, silent, unshaken.

She shouldn’t be here. She should be dead.

Instead, she places something in my hand.

A silver knife.

Not ceremonial. Not delicate.

A tool meant for work.

Then—the storm.

The King.

He seizes her, slamming her into the plastic-covered wall.

She doesn’t resist.

She just looks at me.

Wordless. Unwavering.

A summons.

A command.

And I obey.

The blade sinks into flesh—deep, effortless, into the King’s back.

He stiffens. Tries to turn on me.

I carve. I unmake.

His body jerks, spasms. Blood sings against the walls, against my hands, against my thighs as I work.

The art of it—muscle peeling, tendon snapping, the slow, wet parting of flesh—rapturous.

He makes a sound.

A growl. A curse. A final, gurgling breath.

Then—nothing.

I don’t know when the shudder overtakes me.

When the wet heat between my thighs erupts in time with the last, perfect stroke of my knife.

The King—reduced to pieces.

Linet is silent.

Intense.

And I wonder—

Did I kill him?

Or did she?

Linet

The drugs are wearing off.

My limbs are weak, but my mind is sharpening. Awareness creeps in, slow and invasive, peeling back the fog…. To reveal endless void.

And then I feel their first touch—slick, scaled, coiling against my bare thigh.

Then more.

I scream.

And the tendrils rush into my throat.

The King stands at the threshold, silhouetted in dim violet light. He doesn’t reach for me.

His gaze moves over to someone else—a girl.

Héloïse.

Her face a mask of shock.

Then—the door closes on me.

Then—pressure.

The things creep deeper into me.

Snakeskin and muscle, flexing. My throat closes.

I thrash.

They love that.

Pressure pulses through me, bursting beneath my skin.

I feel full inside.

With bile—with visions.

Primordial seas. The first things that crawled from the depths, slick and starving.

Colossal saurians. Teeth like mountains, skin like armor, fucking, killing, consuming.

Humans.

All of them.

Ages stacked atop ages, writhing, devouring, shuddering through pleasure so sharp it becomes pain.

Desire. Damnation.

Back, back, back—before time, before form, before the first scream was ever uttered in the first throat.

The Underground was then.

The Underground is now.

My body and mind grow thick. I suffocate.

Something in me is devoured. Something else takes its place.

When we step forward, the Purple Door obeys—it swings open.

We return.

Pale as moonlight, cold as marble, beautiful as death.

The Underground knows.

The King is finished.

We are what comes next.

Cassandra

The Underground smells like heat and honeyed decay. Like things that have been buried and dug up again and again, never allowed to rest.

I shouldn’t be here.

But she died for this place.

My mother—her wrists open in the bathtub, the water turned pink, her diaries spread on the floor, stained.

She never spoke of it. Never warned me.

But the pages did.

The Underground. The things that were done to her.

The things she loved.

I needed to know.

So I followed the ink-stained breadcrumbs—here.

The door slides open. “Cassandra, Halbent,” the leather-clad enforcer intones.

“Queen Linet is expecting you.”

Escorted across a throbbing neon night club—to a throne of ebony leather.

Surrounded by bodies lost in their own universes.

And her, seated before me.

The Queen.

Pale as the dead, beautiful as something that shouldn’t exist.

She smiles.

"We knew your mother."

Her voice is soft—inviting, patient, absolute.

I swallow, my breath shallow, my hands trembling. We?

She reads my unease, and then leans forward.

"We have such wonders to show you."

A pause. A smile that sees too much.

"You shall—enjoy them—profoundly."

There is no leaving now.

And I don’t think I want to.