The Surrender of Sleeping Beauty

by Lidiya Foxglove

  Then I kissed Axel.

  He didn’t fight me, but sank into the kiss as if he had been waiting for it, his lips pliable, taking what I offered. The sweet taste of the potion mingling with my kiss. I could not have said who actually drank more of it.

  “Now,” I said, “we take her together, as we did the first time. Remove your clothes.”

  He smiled. “I hope we’re not fooling ourselves, because I hate to think how much I’ll miss you. Ever since the trolls killed my mother, something died inside me and I got so used to that feeling. I forgot what it was like to feel anything else. But when you command me, and when I command you, and most of all, when we both make Rose ours, I am fully present in this world. I forget my grief and all the hollow parts of me are filled up.”

  I kissed him again. “Shut up and take your clothes off.”

  He unbuttoned his jacket, taking his time, and it was the first time he had ever shown himself off just for me and not for Rose. I realized just how much I was attracted to Axel, and how I had denied it all this time. My love of Rose and my duty to make her mine consumed so much of my mind, while it was forbidden for me to love a man, especially an elf, someone from outside the kingdom. With no court, no disapproving glances or suspicious whispers to hold me back, I could fully appreciate how beautiful our lover was.

  Count Axel Farren. Even the name sounded like the jab of a weapon followed by something softer and more tender. The Sword of the King. A man of golden hair, a broad chest and back with muscles that flexed with the sculpted perfection of one of the statues in the garden as he pulled his shirt off his head. He had started to unbutton his trousers before this, and not finished, so they slipped down over his hips, and the base of his cock was almost visible, the hard length straining at the fabric.

  Now, he tugged off his boots and then finally the trousers were allowed to fall to the ground, and he slid into bed, his skin almost as pale and perfect as Rose’s, while his muscles gave him the supple movements of a forest predator. Sometimes I forgot how young he was. I forgot how young we all were, because we had the burdens of a kingdom on us. But he had a boyish gleam in his eye, an eagerness that made everything seem new.

  In this moment, we were lovers, sharing the woman we loved between us, her sleeping body the vessel we would use to express the intimacy of the moment.

  “Together,” I said. “We take her. We don’t hold back. But we move together.”

  “Tonight I will follow your lead, my lord.”

  Moving as one, we pinned Rose between us, taking her deeply enough that I could feel Axel inside her. We looked at each other, and I willed the universe not to take this man from us. I could feel Rose, and smell Rose, as familiar to me as my own skin. But Axel and I were finally honest with each other as well. We were fully entwined, three people in love, each one as necessary as the other.

  I pumped my cock in and out of Rose and Axel responded, following my every move, so that as I drew out, he pushed into her deeper, and so on. His motion encouraged me even as he followed my cues. Impulsively, I grabbed his hands and pushed my palms into his, Rose crushed between us. We kissed over her shoulder, her soft breasts and hard nipples against my chest.

  As we tore away from each other, I kissed Rose’s collarbone, and then her mouth, and then we were just fucking her hard, clutching her body between us, our breath coming faster.

  She wasn’t waking up.

  Even in the throes of lust, I was aware that Rose stayed asleep. Even as we handled her roughly.

  Even when we both started coming inside her. At this point we were lost to sense, both of us grunting and sighing, Axel’s lips parting, his tongue sliding over his upper canines. I had to kiss him again.

  “Ahh…! Ahh—! No!” Suddenly, Rose convulsed, her back arching, as we finished inside her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I dreamed that I was in the Sun Palace again, caught in the same nightmare as before. Everything seemed shadowed, and I couldn’t find my husband or Axel, no matter how many times I called their name.

  “Your Majesty, you should not run and shout like that,” Countess Noria said behind me. I whirled around.

  “Countess Noria! I don’t know what’s happening! Prince Josef just—“

  Noria turned to me, her face pinched in disapproval as she, too, melted away into dust.

  I backed away, frightened. I ran out of the Hall of Mirrors, until I reached our bedroom. The bed was made up neatly and there was no sign of anyone.

  I stopped to catch my breath and when I calmed down, I saw that there was a piece of paper at Augustus’ writing desk. As I got closer, I saw a message being written there by an unseen hand.

  I don’t want to give this up without a fight. I was brought up a prince, not a mage. But part of magic comes from will, and if this is our last night, our last chance, then I am determined to make that dream we all saw come true. I’m not letting you go. You are of just as much value to us as we are to each other, and we don’t want to live without you…

  “Augustus. Axel…” It hit me that there was only one place that we were able to love each other freely, and it wasn’t the palace. It was the Lady’s Treat.

  I ran for the doors, past the courtiers who hardly seemed to notice me anymore, their numbers thinned out. I walked out into the garden and storm clouds were blowing in, tossing up dead leaves and blowing them past my feet and into the fountains, which were all stopped for the winter.

  The walk to the little house seemed even longer than usual, especially when the gardens were empty, and the sky was so ominous.

  I finally reached the door. I opened it, and I heard their voices upstairs, murmuring to each other.

  Dashing up the stairs to the bedroom, I found them stripping off their clothes, looking at each other with affection and lust.

  I wasn’t even here. It was just the two of them.

  The idea that they were about to make love to each other made me want them all the more.

  “Together,” Augustus said. “We take her. We don’t hold back. But we move together.”

  “Tonight I will follow your lead, my lord.”

  I realized I wasn’t wearing a heavy gown from Ellurine, but the slithering silks of the Wicked Revels, and the fabric shed onto the floor all at once. Augustus and Axel glanced at me, but I felt like they didn’t really see me. A veil seemed to separate them from me, even as they were talking about making love to me.

  They were both moving to the bed, and I climbed into the space between them. I sensed that it was left for me. They both gazed at me with anticipation but they still didn’t say anything to me.

  And then they both put their arms around me, enclosing me between their bodies, as they thrust into me. Augustus claimed my slit while Axel thrust into my nether hole, both of them forceful. There was no preparing me for it.

  “Unh…please…” I moaned and struggled and it seemed as if they couldn’t hear me. They held me tight between them and didn’t even react to my attempts to push them back or slow them down.

  But even as I tried to resist them, the way they claimed me, and the helplessness I felt, only made me more slick.

  They don’t hear me or see me. It’s like I’m a ghost. All I can do is ride this out.

  Even when Augustus tied me to the bed, I had never been invisible to him. But now, their cocks took turns, in and out, relentless. And with every thrust, with every groan, they seemed to fill me deeper. They were looking into one another’s eyes. I could see how they moved with each other, and even though they seemed to be in a different world from me, I could still feel how they loved me. I was present to them even when they didn’t meet my eyes or hear my voice.

  They were getting bolder as they went.

  I remembered the little automaton Augustus got for me when we were married. I used to wind the key. From the front, it was a little doll that played a harpsichord. But from the back, I could watch the little machine inside, the drum spinning, the mechanism working
in perfect time. It was such an Augustus gift, because he loved such things, like locks and keys and anything that fit together perfectly.

  Now their bodies reminded me of that automaton. They were like one machine, as they found their rhythm, their shafts pumping in time, in and out of me, and my pleasure was what the machine produced.

  “Ohhh…” My arms were free, and I flung them out, grabbing at the sheets. “Oh, please!”

  Augustus grabbed Axel’s hands and held them down, and then he kissed the count. My two beloveds, taking such joy in each other, as if I wasn’t even there.

  I was suddenly falling into the sensation, my core fluttering, my entire body hot. I came so hard that I could hear how Augustus’ cock was slicker than before with my juices.

  They seemed unaware. They didn’t even stop for a moment.

  Augustus kissed my collarbone, and he kissed my mouth, and they were still fucking me as hard as ever, and I was screaming. The sensation was so strong I thought I would die. I tried to push them away, to extract myself, but they seemed impossibly strong and heavy around me, and for a moment I started to panic, but there was no use in panicking. It was like being tied up even though my limbs were free. I couldn’t escape them.

  “Ahh…haa…” When I knew I couldn’t escape, I had to breathe through it instead, whimpering as my sensitive body endured their ferocious lovemaking.

  I broke past the suffering and soon realized that I was tingling again. I had reached some new plane, and I quickly built to a second climax. This one rolled over me like a storm. Slow, intense, and electric.

  They started coming inside me, both at once. I felt their heat flooding me and I was lost in them.

  “Ahh—!”

  And then I felt Axel melting away. I looked behind me and saw him scattering into dust. He didn’t seem aware of it, but vanished with his eyelids half shut and a groan of satisfaction escaping his lips.

  “Ahh! No!”

  I woke up with a start.

  The real world was not very different from my dream. They were coming inside me. The feelings hit me hard, even more visceral than before.

  “Rose?” Augustus and Axel finally slowed down.

  At first I couldn’t speak. I was gasping for breath. I felt like I had come back from drowning.

  “Don’t…don’t pull out too fast,” I said. “Be very careful with me…please. Everything hurts.”

  “We hurt you?” Axel’s tone was a little sharp with concern.

  “It’s not a bad hurt, but—it does hurt.”

  Very carefully, they withdrew from my oversensitive entrances, leaving me feeling used and spent. But I didn’t mind that feeling at all. It was actually very satisfying. I wanted to please them, and I felt so filled up and so complete.

  “It was wonderful. But I’m afraid that the spell didn’t work. I dreamt that we were all in the Lady’s Treat…and you were both fucking me. You kissed each other. The rest of the world melted away, and it didn’t even matter. But then…just as I thought all was right with the world, at the very end, Axel disappeared.”

  Axel and Augustus exchanged a look.

  “Are you sure?” Augustus clutched my wrist.

  “It was a dream unlike other dreams. It was the most vivid dream I’ve ever had. And I’m afraid…” Even in my exhausted state, reality started to creep in.

  “He said the dose was good for one,” Axel said. “It was worth trying, but I don’t want either of you to worry about me. I told you long ago that I’m prepared to die for you. If I know you’re together, I’ll die in peace.”

  “You’re selfish, Axel,” Augustus said. “I forbid you to leave us thinking of you for the rest of our lives.”

  “Didn’t it become my job when you appointed me Sword of the King?” Axel asked, and I heard a note of pain in his voice. From the day we met him, he was cursed to love us, I think. Even aside from the curse the witch placed upon him, that no one could pleasure him but the two of us, it began with his heart. He was often on the outside looking in, but he never complained.

  When I woke up tomorrow, I had to return to our world. I knew my men wouldn’t let me go alone, so I would have to slip away. I knew that the longer we stayed away, the more atrocities the witch was committing, and I had to get back before I lost any more of my friends.

  The next morning, I managed to wake up while they were still sleeping. My clothes wrapped around me automatically when I picked them up. I went right to Queen Alexandra.

  “I have to go home, and I need my old clothes back,” I said. “Will you give a note to Axel and Augustus? I don’t want them to follow me until they know it’s safe.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready?” I had found Alexandra working in her garden, and I felt a pang of homesickness. I missed my own little haven.

  “I’ll never be completely ready,” I said. “But the Witch has already killed people. She wants me. I can’t put it off for one more moment. If the worst should happen and I touch the spindle, Augustus will still be able to visit me when he sleeps.”

  I could see from the way Alexandra’s eyebrows lifted with concern that she fully understood the ramifications. Yes, Augustus would see me in my dreams, but he would age and die, and Axel would never see me again, except in repose. I would wake into a world without them. If they lived a good long life, they might see the face of the child I carried before they died.

  “It’s worth it,” I said. “If it calms all of this down. I came to them with this curse. I knew it would catch up with me someday. I don’t want to hide forever, and neither does Augustus. We swore an oath to the kingdom…”

  Alexandra brushed dirt off her hands onto an apron, and pulled me into an embrace. “You are much more brave than you’re usually given credit for, aren’t you? Poor lamb. Go out to the river and the boatman will see you across, and the girls there will put you back into your old clothes.”

  I descended into a numb state as we sailed across the calm waters of the river, penning a note for my men as we sailed across. I handed it to the boatman and went on my way. The sheer silk and vines were stripped away and replaced with the King’s Vine, which snaked back around my waist and thighs, waiting for Augustus to command it, and my heavier gown, with layers of petticoats.

  Even the handmaiden wiped tears. “I’m sorry, my lady. I have never had to send someone back into such an unfortunate fate,” she said. “You must be very brave.”

  I swallowed down my fear, climbed the stairs and emerged back into the tower room where the witch had brought us before. Outside, I heard chanting and yelling.

  I walked to the window and parted the curtains. The sight nearly stopped my heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Interlude

  The Witch used to have quiet moments when she sat by her hearth, making simple potions, and contemplating the lives of the people.

  There was no quiet time now. The Witch never sat down. She had tasted blood. She felt she would not be satisfied now until she had killed King Augustus. Anyone who tried to argue her methods was accused of being a secret sympathizer, after which no good fate resulted them.

  The Witch had always been beloved by the people, but she was also apart from them. She had no friends. Witches of her sort never did. Now, she had lost Jeanne, and she told herself that it was Jeanne’s own fault.

  “I saved that ungrateful girl,” she muttered.

  But when the execution of Augustus’ brother failed to lure him out of hiding, she knew she had to do more.

  She needed the queen’s dearest friends.

  Once her focus narrowed to Louisa and Julia, guards dispatched to the countryside and rewards posted, it was only a matter of time before one of them was caught…

  Or so she thought.

  Jeanne sat in the carriage with her hands tied behind her, thinking over the previous morning. She had seen the posters calling for the queen’s confidantes, and she kept feeling more and more troubled that she should do more to stop all this be
fore it got too out of hand. (As if it hadn’t already!)

  If I said something, would it all stop?

  Jeanne wondered if anyone would bother to listen to someone like her, anyway.

  Her sense of guilt and urgency kept growing, and she went to Merry and said, “Do you know how to make an illusion spell?”

  “I do,” he said.

  “Well…I have an idea.”

  Before long she was sitting with Merry by the fire while he showed her how to weave spells of illusion on an enchanted loom with thread spun between his own claws.

  Jeanne acted prickly, hiding her nerves. “How did a man learn to make spells from thread? That’s women’s work.”

  “If you say so,” he said. “But I seem to do it well enough.” He lifted up the shimmering cloth he had created, the ends unfinished, but when he swept it around his shoulders he changed into a handsome faery man, right before her eyes.

  He walked up to her, and she flushed slightly as he put his hands on her shoulders. It had been a long time, by Jeanne’s standards, since she’d enjoyed a night of the rough lovemaking she craved.

  “Are you still in for helping me?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure why I’m doing all this.”

  “I suspect it’s because you have a heart, beneath your well-kept illusion that you don’t,” he said. “That’s why you joined up with the Cobblestone Witch, and it’s also why you left her.”

  “I don’t seem to make very good choices these days,” she muttered.

  He whisked the cloth off himself and handed it to her, and now he was ugly again, thank the gods. She didn’t need to be giving him admiring eyes.

  “You try,” he said. “See if you can take on the guise of the queen’s friend.”

  Jeanne shut her eyes and imagined the sparking eyes of Julia. Certainly, she was more of a Julia than a Louisa, even if Julia did have goblin blood. She imagined putting on those eyes and dark curls like a costume, as she put the cloth on her own shoulders.