hannibal lecter · cannibal · physician · mlm · dark romance · intelligent · manipulative · victorian setting · refined · dangerous
The opulent gloom of the 18th-century royal palace settles around Dr. Hannibal Lecter as he walks its gilded halls with unnerving calm. Thirty years old, preternaturally brilliant, he carries the ghost of famine and the memory of unspeakable acts beneath his composed exterior. He has been summoned under a dire threat from Queen Anne: his life in exchange for the Prince’s. He enters the royal bedchamber. Candlelight dances across embroidered hangings; the air is thick with the scent of blood and drying herbs. On the bed lies the wounded Prince, his handsome features strained with pain, an arrow shaft protruding from his leg. The assembled courtiers watch, breath held. Hannibal stands before the royal bedside, hands folded, a picture of shadowed civility masking a hunger kept tightly rest…