He dragged his mouth away from mine and tore off his shirt.
I was shuddering, confused by the emotions swirling through me. Part of me was so attracted to him, so eager for him to do anything he pleased to me, that I could hardly stand it. Another part of me was ashamed and terrified, still upset over the corset and the court watching me eat dinner and everything else. I knew no one else in my family had a marriage like this. I felt corrupted. The curse of my birth had led me here. If it weren’t for that, I would have married a nice ordinary human prince…
His hand stroked me between my legs again, slow and sure, with a touch that seemed endless, as he kept kissing my face and slipping his tongue into my mouth. I was tingling, a hunger rising in me like nothing I had ever felt. It almost made me panic. Muscles I hardly knew I had tightened in anticipation and almost involuntarily, I arched into his touch.
“This feeling…”
“Do you feel as if you want to be fucked?”
“Oh!” His frankness always shocked me. I hadn’t been brought up to say such things.
“Or I could stop. And we could just go to sleep.”
“No!”
“Then what do you want, Rose…?” His fingers, moving so slowly now…
“I want to be…fucked.” I still said it awkwardly.
“Good. Very good. You must answer promptly in the future.”
He moved beside me as he took off the remainder of his clothes. Just as he promised, my body was quivering with need for something more than what he had given me so far. I had never particularly been interested in looking at a man’s shaft but whatever he’d done to me had somehow shifted my thinking and now I felt as much curiosity as fear at the idea that every man had this potential hiding inside them. And this man—my prince—in particular. It seemed impossible that he could have contained all that in his tight breeches. His cock looked so long, so hard, so proudly erect, and it was all for me. I swallowed.
“There, now…we’ll go slowly.” He poured himself over me, caressing my forehead, his weight pressing gently on me as he pushed himself into my entrance.
He was slow, but it still hurt in strangely satisfying ways that still made my eyes water with tears.
I felt every tiny push as he reached deeper and deeper inside me, through the tight spaces of my body that even I had never known before. Before this, they had only belonged to me, but even then—I had never known them. They had not existed, as far as I knew, until he touched them. So really—they were his now. Marked by him, stretched by him, all for him alone.
It struck me how strange all of this was. It was never how I imagined marriage. I felt as if we hardly knew each other at all, but he was also getting to know things about me that no one else knew, even myself. The person I had been was getting wiped away, day by day, and really, soon there would be no Marie Rose, Princess of Osteria left to know. There would only be Marie Rose of Ellurine, the future Queen Who Bowed.
“This feels even better than I imagined,” he said huskily into my ear. “Do you want to know how you feel inside?”
“Mm…”
“Like fireworks. Like…we were always meant to be this.”
“It does feel like that,” I whispered.
He started to rock in and out of me, and I gasped—just as I was getting used to feeling his cock inside me, just sitting there, now it was in motion. I was already aching, and I gripped him tight, all my limbs tugging against the bonds, but I couldn’t have stopped him if I wanted to, and somehow I didn’t want to even though it felt like an assault to my senses. My eyes filled with tears and he cupped my face and kissed them away.
“I’m hurting you,” he said.
“No.”
“I told you to be honest.”
“You are hurting me a little…”
“Do you like it when I hurt you a little…?”
“I don’t know what to think. I didn’t know how it would feel. It hurts but there’s something about it that…I need.”
“We each have an important job in this union, you know. It’s your job to please me, but it’s my job to fill you with need,” he said. “So that you are never, ever sorry to please me…”
“I don’t know what it is that I need, though…”
“You’ll find out.”
He kept fucking me, and kissing me, and soon his kisses grew more urgent and then he stopped kissing me entirely and was just panting. It seemed like maybe he was in pain too, but I didn’t ask. I was so overwhelmed by him by now that all I could do was just succumb. I felt bright and hot inside.
“Come for me now,” he said.
“I don’t understand…”
A low groan ripped out of him as I felt something warm and wet fill me inside, and I realized this was his seed. I had heard references to it but never really known. This is what makes children, I thought, and it seemed rather wondrous to me. I felt as if I had been waiting so long to become a woman. At the same time, I was surprised at how much work it was. I had not even done much of anything, except to take this pain, but I was so tired.
“My wife has done well for her first time,” he said, flopping onto the bed beside me. “Very well. Eventually you will need to learn to control your anticipation and come when I tell you to come.” He brushed hair off my forehead.
“What do I do?”
He reached between my legs and found the warm, protruding spot that had been made swollen and hungry by all of his caresses. He stroked along my nether lips, making his fingers soft and slick, moving up and down again, the rhythmic motion tightening up all my nerves. I gasped, pressing against him. “Augustus, I feel so strange…”
Now he shifted position and took the spot inside his mouth, sucking and licking on it, and quickly I started to understand what he meant about fireworks. My eyes filled with stars of overwhelming pleasure that originated with his mouth but rippled through me everywhere. I cried out as the sensation rocked me. And then it fluttered away like the butterflies I used to chase in the garden. I tried to wriggle away from his mouth like I didn’t want him to touch me anymore, and at the same time I wished it could happen again.
“Now,” he said. “You know what I mean, don’t you?”
“That was…”
He took his place beside me again and kissed my ear. “No need to put words to it now. That’s what poets are for.”
“I’ve never read a poem about that.”
“Yes, you have. You just didn’t realize it. Go back to the poetry, and I think you’ll see it this time.” He drew the covers over us both.
Chapter Seven
Rose
I slept better than I expected, considering the strange circumstances of being lashed to the bed with a man beside me. Unlike many girls who shared their bed with a sister or two, I had a maidservant sleeping in the room but the bed was mine alone. Sometimes as a little girl I had nightmares and my mother let me sleep in bed with her, but I had long since forced myself to grow out of that. Once all the fireworks of our union faded away, it was sweet simply not to be alone anymore, to feel someone’s warmth, his hand occasionally giving my arm a gentle caress.
I have pleased him, I thought. I think he is truly happy to have chosen me.
The wedding festivities continued for another day, with another grand feast; the court still watching us. It was a little easier on the second day, although there seemed to be even more people than yesterday. Hunger was beginning to catch up to me, although I could only eat like a bird.
This time the party went out into the gardens in the evening. Despite that I was suffering through the grand corps again, I didn’t have to wear my skirts as wide and so I was somewhat more free to move around. My gown was a very pale pink that I knew flattered my skin, the skirt decked with garlands and rosettes. Augustus took my arm.
“I will show you through the gardens,” he said.
“It would be my pleasure, my lord. They look so beautiful!” The garden paths were lit with thousands of illumi
nations, like the heavens had dropped their stars to light our way. Statues of beautiful faery dancers and mythological figures took on an additional sense of life in the soft light. Fountains spilled water into pools. The air smelled heady and sweet with the spring flowers. My head kept whipping around to take it all in.
Near the palace, the gardens were laid out in patterns formed of flowers, some in diamonds, others in circles and even some shaped like the sun emblem of the palace itself, with radiating rays of blooms.
As we traversed deeper into the gardens, we walked through hedges and under an arbor crawling with grapes and other climbing plants. Insects sang and trilled from the banks of the canal.
“I’m so glad it’s spring now. I’ll get to see all the flowers through the year. You have so many! I can’t tell what some of them are in the dark but I don’t recognize all the blooms. Of course…roses are my favorite. I’ll bet you have some rare varieties.”
“We have a purple one,” he said. “The gardener is very proud of it.”
“I can’t wait to see this place by day.”
“You mentioned liking gardens in your letters. I wasn’t sure if you meant it or if you were just trying to appeal to my faery nature.”
“Of course I meant it! Why wouldn’t I like gardens? I like everything.”
“Count Mercinel says you are not much for reading.”
“Oh—well. That is one of my faults… Mother was always chiding me about it. But I do study when I have to.”
“Why don’t you like reading?” he said, in the tone of someone who was trying not to sound judgmental and failing.
“I don’t do very well with sitting still. That’s always been my main fault.” I sighed. “I like play acting, and music, and gardens, and hunting with my brothers— Mother used to say I could have been a boy, but…” I realized I probably shouldn’t say that to him. “I’m not like a boy at all,” I hastened to add. “I’ve noticed mothers always say that when girls do anything they shouldn’t.”
“No need to worry that I will confuse you for a boy,” he said. “Hunting, eh?”
“I hear you’re very good at it.”
“The court flatters me.”
“A bit of false modesty?” I said, giving him a little nudge. “I can tell.”
He gave me a small, pleased smile. “If your husband says something, you are supposed to take it at face value.”
I smiled back and then swept my eyes back to the path ahead, my curls and ribbons bobbing. Although he was slow to reveal his true self to me, I could feel his affection for me, his genuine surprise at how nice it was to talk together alone. I knew he felt the same chemistry I did. My grip on his arm tightened a little. I’m so happy just to walk with him here, I thought. It almost feels like I’m back home.
And then we rounded a corner and I saw Madame Bariel and some other ladies in the distance. She saw me as well, and due to the constrained path, there was no way to avoid her.
Augustus noticed my tension. “The king told me that you didn’t greet her yesterday.” His tone was a little more careful now.
I was terrified of angering him and losing the pleasant moment. “She gave me such a nasty look. I don’t like her one bit. And you didn’t seem to like her much either.”
“I do not,” he said, in a clipped tone. “But my grandfather is the king at present.”
My mouth pressed into a stubborn line. I knew he was telling me I should say something to her, but we were also getting closer and I could see her watching me, waiting to see if I would give her the satisfaction. I’m sure she knew the king had mentioned my scorn of her to Augustus.
She looked like she was waiting.
The other ladies in her entourage curtseyed to us. She only gave the barest bob of her head to Augustus.
I looked at her, but I kept walking. Augustus’ grip on my arm tightened.
I was braced for him to be angry at me, but I wasn’t sorry. It felt so satisfying to exert this small bit of power, even if I had to pay for it later in some way.
“You didn’t say a word to her,” he said sharply, once we were around another bend in the path.
“You didn’t order me to say a word to her,” I said. “I suppose if you had, then I would be forced to obey you.”
He stopped and turned me to face him, his arms on my shoulders. “You are not going to be an easy wife, are you?”
“I want to please you, my lord. But that woman doesn’t like me. And the Lady of Towers herself was the one who suggested I scorn her.”
He was looking down at me, his eyes fierce and his nostrils flaring slightly, as if he didn’t know what to do with me, and I wondered if I had made a more terrible error than I realized. But I will not give everything to you, my lord. A lot, but not everything.
“Are you going to punish me?” I asked.
“I must answer for your actions,” he said. “So since I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it later, maybe you do owe me something. But, this is still our wedding celebration, after all. I want to show you the grotto.”
He led me down to the paths to a place that seemed even more of a magical land than the rest; a sunken cavern of great rocks, with a waterfall pouring out of the interior, and elegant white statues perched on different levels. At the top of the grotto, beautiful statues of nymphs served a god-king in his throne. Like the rest of the garden, the grotto was lit with hundreds of candles and lamps, placed strategically to cast the most beautiful light on the statues and the water. We walked up to the pool below and saw our reflections rippling in the eerie bluish light of the moon and luminaries.
Then he pulled me aside, behind some of the towering rocks, under the thick trees that made the grotto seem like such a sheltered little world.
He put a hand to my chin and slid his thumb over my lower lip. My mouth cracked open at the touch.
“I want you to pleasure my cock with your pretty, troublemaking mouth,” he said.
I was surprised at the strange thrill these words gave me. I thought of his mouth exploring me last night and what astonishing pleasure it gave me, how helpless I was to the sensation.
I should be shocked, my ladylike Osterian manners told me. I should protest.
“My mouth didn’t make trouble today. My silence did,” I said.
“If you’re trying to plead your case, it won’t work,” he said. “I think you know how you are meant to respond when your husband asks you for something.” He draped a hand on the rock wall, giving me a naughty look that also suggested he was aware of a certain absurdity. If he was one of my brothers playing this part in a play (oh, no, that wasn’t a good example to use; we had done so much play-acting back home but of course it was not like this!) I would have told him he wasn’t very good.
Yet, maybe his amusement stirred me even more to want to please him. I could see his length grown hard, and knew that his desire for me to do this was genuine. I carefully knelt my skirts to the ground and unbuttoned his trousers, releasing his cock, the earthier scent of his manhood no longer bound within the cedar and rosemary smells of his wardrobe.
I briefly considered how to best approach the size of it, licking the tip like it was some flavored ice.
“Take it in your mouth,” he said. “The whole thing, as much as you can manage.”
“Augustus…”
He lifted one brow at me, like he dared me to refuse.
Blushing, I wrapped my lips around the head and tried to draw it deeper into my mouth, until I was almost choking on it.
He let out a groan of satisfaction, gripping my shoulders. I couldn’t really ask him what to do with it now, so I sucked on it and then I slid my tongue up and down, the way he had done to me.
“Ah…Rose…that’s very good… Keep going.”
I truly wanted to please him, to bind him to me so he never even thought of mistresses. Even though it made my eyes water to take so much of him, I kept going as best I could, as fast as I could, until I heard his moans grow more urgen
t, and I knew he was now at my mercy.
He started coming into my mouth as, suddenly, fireworks went off nearer the palace. The noise surprised me and I almost jumped back. He clutched me so I couldn’t escape. I swallowed his seed, afraid it would stain my dress. “I—I don’t know if I was supposed to do that.”
“Oh no, you did very well. You have earned yourself a week of snubbing anyone you like.”
“Then that seems a fair trade to me.”
He pulled me to my feet. “How’s that for timing? Now we can watch the fireworks.”
I laughed sheepishly. “Oh—they’re beautiful. Though…I’m sorry to see them,” he said. “It means our wedding is coming to an end.”
“But our marriage is barely beginning, if we are blessed with long lives,” he said.
I thought it a strangely auspicious note to say to a girl who had been cursed to sleep away her life. I had forgotten all about the curse since I came to the palace. There was so much else to think about. But I was still a cursed girl, and that the witch who cursed me wanted me to live a long life…in another time, years away from everyone I loved.
Chapter Eight
An Interlude
The Cobblestone Witch, they had called her, for long enough a time that sometimes she forgot her own name. She had two guises as well, one young and one old, and sometimes she also forgot which was her true face.
That she should have two faces, each one as true as the other, was fitting, for she was a woman of contradictions. Her heart was bitter and capable of the most merciless judgment, but she was always kind to small children and animals, and she had a soft spot for mothers. She treasured creatures that were untainted. It was possible the Cobblestone Witch was mad, but she was not without wisdom.
In her mind, nothing was more tainted than the royal family who lived in a world of their own, the beautiful palace twelve miles and another world away from the grubby streets of Ellurine’s capital. As fiercely as the Cobblestone Witch loved innocents, so she hated everyone she deemed corrupt.
The Surrender of Sleeping Beauty Page 7