In the moonlit village of Starwick, where secrets slipped between shuttered doors and the well water tasted faintly of iron and longing, Cinderella toiled in her stepmother’s grim kitchen. Her sharp wit pierced the drudgery, and her smile—a slow, knowing curve that could unravel a priest—masked a heart kindled by hunger: not for safety, but for freedom.

Lady Tremaine’s daughters, Drusilla and Anastasia, minced through the manor in fabrics bright enough to blind a bishop and rustling like scandal. Drusilla favored chartreuse and cleavage; Anastasia preferred ruffles, ideally cascading in numbers that defied both physics and taste.

“You’re welcome,” Drusilla would coo to passing mirrors.

“You’re jealous,” Anastasia would snap at furniture.

Meanwhile, Cinderella—barefoot, soot-smudged, and criminally underdressed—stitched their gowns with deft fingers and eyes that said try me.

Then came the royal decree.

Prince Cedric’s ball—less an evening of courtship than a plunge into decadent spectacle—summoned Starwick’s boldest. Drusilla plotted her conquest of the prince by memorizing every recipe from Seduction by Sideboob. Anastasia practiced smiling without showing teeth, convinced it made her look “more demure, like a duchess or a snake.”

Their laughter clattered off the walls like dropped forks as Cinderella scrubbed the hearth, quietly hoping one of them would fall in.

Cinderella didn’t want to be chosen. She wanted to choose. To burn.

As Tremaine’s carriage rattled off—Drusilla dangling out the window yelling “He’s mine, you trollops!”—a shadow unfolded from the alley: tall, androgynous, wrapped in velvet and moonlight. The seamstress’s eyes gleamed like moonstones as she crossed the threshold.

“I’m no fairy,” she said, voice husky with laughter. “But I know how to conjure power.”

Cinderella’s breath caught as the needle danced. From gossamer threads and whispered spells, the seamstress spun a gown that clung like memory—transparent where it teased, scandalous where it shimmered. The fabric breathed against her nipples, kissed her thighs with every shift.

“Midnight is your limit,” the seamstress said, fastening the final clasp. “If you’re still wearing this after that, the spell won’t break. You will.”

Glass slippers—cool, defiant—caught the starlight as Cinderella stepped into the night.

At the palace, chandeliers winked down at a hall ripe with perfume, plotting, and far too many feathers. Nobles shimmered in jewels and sweat. Prince Cedric—lean, roguish, crowned with dark curls and darker eyes—watched the floor like a wolf in velvet.

When Cinderella arrived, every gaze followed her flame-red silhouette. She moved not like a debutante, but like a dare. A challenge.

Cedric cut through the crowd, his grin wicked. “You walk like you just rewrote the ending.”

“I do edits on the fly,” she quipped, slipping her fingers into his. “Chapter one: the prince begs.”

Their dance began as courtly tradition, then bloomed into something primal. His fingers gripped her waist, her hip, the small of her back. Through the whisper-thin fabric, she felt the length of him—hard, restrained, wanting. Her breath hitched. She met his gaze, bold and burning.

“You want me,” she said softly, “but not more than I want this.”

“Prove it,” he whispered.

All around them, the room unraveled. Dresses fell. Hands wandered. Kisses turned ravenous. The ball had become a bacchanal—bodies writhing in rhythm, laughter dissolving into gasps and groans. On the marble floor, silk tangled with limbs—backs arched, mouths gasped, fingers plunged. Nobles knelt with flushed cheeks and dripping chins, sucking wine—and pleasure—off skin and cock alike.

Cinderella dropped to her knees in the eye of the storm.