Rose
The potion was precisely what the witch claimed it to be, according to the mages in the little elven district in Luminé, who were hopefully trustworthy. But elves were not known for tricks; quite the opposite. And so, our next night in the Lady’s Treat, I slipped the bottle into Augustus’ drink. I watched him drink, my heart pounding. And then I whispered into his ear, “If your heart is mine, now your cock is mine. Obey my will to have a child of thine.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry, Augustus. But we have to try. I put a potion in your drink to help us conceive.”
“What kind of potion?”
“You’ll find out,” Axel said, giving Augustus a pat on the cheek that almost seemed threatening.
For a moment, I held my breath. I expected Augustus to be angry, but his cheeks took on more color and he looked at me now. “Where did you get this spell, Rose?”
“Axel made sure it was safe,” I said.
“Did it come from the witch?”
I shut my eyes. “Yes.”
“You know this is a trick. A trick in plain sight.”
“A trick, maybe, but we’ve already been tricked, haven’t we?” I said. “The rumors and the lies can hardly get worse. At least the spell is genuine. Maybe you really are holding something back, and maybe it is keeping us from having a baby.”
“This witch…” Augustus chuckled dryly. “She has given me everything I want. First you, then Axel, and now this. And as soon as I take what I want, she uses it against me. No…no. I will not bed you tonight. You’ve fallen right into her trap.”
“We’re safe here,” I said. “This is our home. Even the servants here have never betrayed us. The rumors about this place are never accurate and I know they come from those jealous old ladies who aren’t invited.”
“We’re never safe.”
“Then what do we do?” I hissed. “How do we stop what is happening?” I swallowed. It was time to test how far this spell would go. “You will bed me tonight, Augustus.”
He grimaced. “Damn it. Damn it all.” He pulled me onto his lap and kissed me, the lingering taste of red wine on his lips. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s time to break the rules that bind us and see what happens.”
“Yes.” I delighted at the glow that came into his beautiful eyes, and I immediately started to unfasten the buttons of his clothes, spreading my hands across the bare skin of his broad chest. I kissed him now, drinking in the taste of him, feeling his thigh muscles tighten under me. I reached down and brushed my hand over his cock, teasing him.
“I need to finish my meal,” he said.
“No, my lord. You don’t. It will be a long night so it’s best if we retire early.”
His smile was pained and pleased. “This spell of yours is quite insidious. As soon as you suggest something, it’s all I want.” He stood up, putting me on my feet. “How long can you torture me?”
“I think you have trained me to have a great deal of endurance, my lord.” I took his hand and led him up the stairs, where I shut all the curtains. “You have teased and tormented me when I yearn for a release, and forced me to release at other times. But you have learned to have instant gratification. Now, the pleasure is all mine.”
He gripped my shoulders. “I had no idea how frightening you can be.”
“And I didn’t know that I wanted revenge, until this very moment.” I smiled wickedly. “Take off all of your clothes, get in the bed, and don’t struggle. Axel, would you do the honors?”
This time, I didn’t have to use my stockings. I handed Axel four good lengths of silken cord I had hidden in my skirts. Axel tied him down, tightening the bonds until Augustus could hardly move an inch. His cock was already stiff with arousal.
“Gods, this feels wrong,” Augustus murmured. “Worse than the last time. But then, last time I ordered you to do it. How much do you resent me for all the things I’ve done to you?”
“That’s an impossible question. I knew you had to do it. But I also know how much you enjoyed it.” I wrapped my hand around his cock and slowly squeezed and worked up and down. By now, beads of desire should have appeared there, but there was nothing. He groaned. I kept working my hand until my arm muscles began to ache, and then I glanced at Axel. He was standing by one corner of the bed, patient like a soldier at his post.
“My lady,” Axel said. “Your eyes are dancing with temptations. Perhaps you would like me to satisfy you?”
“Yes…I would.”
In fact, the last thing I had truly expected was how drunk I felt on this power over Augustus. Even when I knew his fantasies, I had tried to tamp down my own desire to fulfill them. I knew it was one of the court’s great taboos, but beyond that, even in Osteria women were supposed to be demure and let their husbands take the lead. To hold the key to his own fufillment in my own words was such a rush. It reminded me of my earliest hunts, the first time I rode out with my brothers and I almost felt like one of them. Yes, Mother used to say I was like a boy and frown with disapproval.
She was wrong. I had never been like a boy. But maybe we had more in common than we realized. She loved to rule the kingdom, and in this moment, I wanted nothing more than to rule the king.
Axel slowly peeled away my clothes, and then he brushed his hand between my legs, teasing at my desire. We kissed, tangling into an embrace that soon led me to fall back across Augustus as Axel spread my legs and worked his tongue deep within my folds as I sighed. Augustus’s chest rose and fell under my head, his breath quick. As I grew more aroused I reached for his cock and took it in my mouth, giving him a taste of what I was feeling. As Axel’s mouth worked on me, so I stroked Augustus.
He was beginning to groan. He still held onto some control.
My bud pulsed with pleasure and I fell back, moaning and sighing.
“Eight hours is a very long time,” Axel said. “Do your arms ache?” He ran a hand down one of Augustus’ biceps.
“Don’t push it, elf.”
“I know they do. You have also taken advantage of me, I must remind you,” Axel said. “All I ever did to deserve all of this was share a pleasant hour talking—“
“Two hours,” Augustus said.
“Talking with your wife. And for that, the witch has used me as a tool and…so have you, in your own way. I am not without some resentment. I can never go home. From the moment you saw me, you never wanted me to go home. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” Augustus said. “I never had the slightest intention of lifting your curse. And—I still don’t.”
Axel grabbed Augustus’ cock and jerked on it roughly until he let out a full throated scream. A thrill went down my spine.
“Nice try,” Augustus panted. “One night will never be enough to punish me as I have punished you. More’s the pity.”
“I wonder why you decided to trust me that night when I was flirting with your wife?”
“I didn’t want to,” Augustus said. “But I don’t know that moths want to fly toward the flames, either.”
Axel still wore his uniform, including a sword and dagger. He now drew the latter and held it up. “I swore to protect you,” he said, slowly lowering the dagger to Augustus’ neck. “You have trusted me with more than your body. You have trusted me with your secret desires.”
“Axel?” My eyes locked on the blade.
He traced the tip of the blade down Augustus’ bare skin, so close that a thin white line appeared in its wake, but he didn’t draw blood. Augustus’ cock twitched with excitement.
“Hand the blade to Rose,” he said.
“Oh no, I might hurt you!” I shook my head.
Axel pointed the hilt of the dagger toward me, holding it carefully. I knew he kept it well sharpened. “He has a taste for putting his life in your hands.”
I was somewhat confused by my feelings. Some heated emotion tore through me that almost felt like pent hatred, finally being set free…only hatred was toxic, and this was more of a torturous
pleasure. It was catharsis, I thought, for my life in the Sun Palace, everything that had been done to me by Augustus’ hands and mind.
One would think I had no inhibitions left, but as I took the dagger and traced Augustus’ skin, I felt something in me shatter. I pressed the edge to his neck and kissed his lips. He didn’t dare move, barely responded to the kiss, but his eyes were desperate with desire.
I don’t think he wanted me to hurt him. But I think he liked how close I was.
I don’t know why, but I understood perfectly.
What he did to me sometimes felt like this, more like torture than love, but laced with such excitement and intimacy that over time one craved it. And then the things I once wished for, a boy to give me kisses and flowers and tell me I was beautiful, seemed like the desires of a child.
I tickled the blade through the little curling hairs around his cock, and the edge was no joke. The hairs severed. One slip and I would have cut him badly. He didn’t breathe. I remembered the tiny magical blade that Noria used to shave my pussy as he watched, and now this seemed a sort of initiation to me. Besides that, unlike mine, I knew it would grow back because this was no magical knife, but I rather liked the way it looked without hair in the way of his most vulnerable places. I started working purposefully and used the knife to cut all of his pubic hair close. Then I took his cock in my mouth and went so deep that I made him beg for me.
“Rose—gods—please—“
“Hmm?”
“Say the words. Say the words. Let me come!” He tried to suppress his screams, but could hardly bear it. My tongue had never taken him with this much vigor.
I took my mouth off him long enough to say, “Axel…muffle his screams.”
His fair lashes hooded his eyes. “As you wish, my lady.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Augustus
I finally knew what it was to lose control.
All the burdens of the crown that had followed me since the day my father and eldest brother died fell away. The whole world was Rose, and Rose possessed me. Every little moment of defiance she had ever displayed had now bloomed into this magnificent woman. I had not broken her after all. The spirited girl I married was still there, and more confident than ever.
This was the queen I desired. The Queen Who Would Not Bow. The queen who would ride and rule at my side. And having seen her in all her true glory, I never wanted to let her go.
She was giving me the best damn oral pleasure I’d ever experienced until my skin was burning and my cock felt ready to explode. I rode the brink, my whole body aching with need, but instead of reaching a climax the pleasure seemed to slowly retreat back like waves on the shore, and I could already feel it slowly starting to build again.
And then there was Axel, standing over me with a look of casual regard and lowering his hand to my mouth. I turned my head, resisting automatically. I had given both of them plenty of reason to be angry at me. But like Rose, Axel seemed to understand me to a degree that almost made me cringe.
It is a strange thing to find people who understand the parts of your own self that you have tried to hide.
“If you scream again, I’ll put my cock in your mouth,” Axel said, lifting one eyebrow.
Now I jerked with some genuine defiance. “That’s too far,” I snapped. “I don’t care for you that way.”
Axel chuckled. “I don’t either. But I believe it would please the queen to watch.”
Rose lifted her head, licking her lips. “It would,” she said. “And I don’t believe either of you.”
Yes. She knew me too well. There was no hiding in this moment. I could not have felt more raw if she skinned me alive. The very thought seemed to spur her on to make me scream, and my reserves were already draining away. I tried to hold back, but there was no way I could resist. Axel took his cock out of his trousers, watching me try to whisper out my pleas, knowing it couldn’t last.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I realized we should never have dared to take this night to break every rule of our positions, and we would never be able to do it again. This night would produce a child, or else it wouldn’t, but either way, Rose and Axel were fools to accept such a potion even once.
We were all fools, and I loved them.
My pulse was quick, my desire building again, and I screamed to the rafters before I was silenced.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rose
Watching Axel fuck Augustus’ mouth made me quiver with a mixture of lust and defiance. A part of me wanted to separate them. No, no. You are both mine, not each other’s.
But this was not the wild lust that consumed Augustus and made him find me in the garden, hold me in his embrace and kiss my lips. This was merely a balancing of scales, of Axel taking back a little of all he’d given.
Have I gone too far?
But I had long since lost the strict morals I had been raised with. What was it to go another step farther, and then another?
I must admit I had long since forgotten the original purpose of the night. The last thing I was thinking of was having a child.
I thought Augustus must truly be in pain now, to have been tied up for so long, straining against unrelieved pleasure. My mouth was getting tired, so I lifted my head and watched for a moment as Axel fucked his mouth, and then I shook my head.
“That’s enough, now. Save some for me, dear Count Farren.”
Axel drew back, with a brief bow that seemed a little hilarious in this context.
I slid my hands up Augustus’ arms and my tongue along his bare skin, tasting the salt of his sweat. My teeth tugged his nipples before my mouth traced the valley between his pectoral muscles and then his collarbones. My hands slid down his arms and sides all the way to his hips. All the while I felt him trembling in silence.
When I looked at him, his grin was a slash of pain and his eyes were wicked. My hand tore through his hair, and I wanted him so much I could hardly bear it.
“You should have been Queen of the Wicked Revels,” he breathed.
I straddled him, taking his rigid cock in one stroke, relishing every inch of him deep inside me. “You taught me everything,” I said. “When I met you I was just an innocent girl and you turned me inside out. I’ve just shown you how it feels.”
“I have always been curious to know.”
“What do you think?”
“My curiosity has been well satisfied.” He laughed. “Rose—I would never have—“
“Don’t apologize for the things you’ve done,” I said.
“I wasn’t,” Augustus said. “It’s just…I would never have had the authority to be king in other ways, if it was not for you, and for Axel.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re a very strong person, just not always in the way this place demands.” I started to untie him now. “I’ve had enough of all this for now. I want to do something else that is equally forbidden. I want to make love without restrictions. I want to feel you both. I don’t want any masters. I want to taste something pure.”
Axel untied Augustus’ feet, and he was a little shaky as he sat up, but he put his hand on the King’s Vine and it unwrapped from my skin and went around his arm instead. He let it wrap around one of the bed posts, and then he ran the back of his hand over my totally naked skin like he had never seen it before.
I climbed into his lap. We moved together, neither of us asking permission, kissing each other before looking at Axel. The elf took my breasts in his large, slender hands. His fingers started circling my nipples, and he nipped at my shoulders.
I took Augustus’ cock in my hand, feeling its eager thickness before I positioned my slick sex over it and took the length deep inside, as I broke away from Augustus’ mouth and reached back to kiss Axel.
Their hands left no inch of me untouched, un-worshipped. I slowly rode Augustus as he twined his hands with mine, as Axel bent me back and Augustus sucked on my nipples while Axel’s tongue drove into my mouth. I moaned w
ith pleasure. The actions were not so very different from other times. But all of us were free. We hardly said a word, but followed one another’s eyes and hands and the little quickening breaths that say yes and no.
They wrung so many orgasms out of me that I lost count. But still we didn’t last the eight hours the spell recommended. Nowhere near it, I’m afraid. At some point I knew I was too spent to continue and all I wanted was to feel Augustus come inside me. I was not thinking about children; I was not thinking about fishwives jeering at me on the street for my lack of an heir. I was only thinking of my love for these two men.
“Take me one more time,” I whispered in Augustus’ ear. “Come for me.”
He grabbed me against him and I straddled his hips again as he thrust deep into me. “Gods, yes.”
Holding my knees, he picked me up off the bed and walked me into Axel’s arms. I was caught between them, both of them standing as equals. I moaned as Axel’s cock took me from behind. I was so ready for this that no matter how much they gave, I wanted more, finding their rhythm as they pumped in and out of me. I rocked with them, feeling the deepest satisfaction of my life. I could feel every inch of them tingling along my passages. Of course Augustus was hitting a climax in no time at all, and I pushed myself to let go one last time. I felt both of them clutch me as I gripped Augustus and arched back into Axel.
We fell back into bed, utterly exhausted. Their arms wrapped around me and before I knew it, I realized I had already fallen asleep for a time. I woke with the light of a full moon streaming in, and both of them breathing slowly. One of them had drawn up the covers. Their hands were just an inch apart, draped over my arm protectively, Augustus’ with a wedding ring and a ring with a court seal and his fingers calloused from the outdoor labors no one asked him to do, while Axel’s was bare, his fair elven skin particularly beautiful in this light.
I smiled with perfect contentment and trailed my fingers over their hands.
Augustus stirred, eyes blinking half open.
The Surrender of Sleeping Beauty Page 28
