Chapter 29: Twins' Triumphant Feast
The heavy ledger felt like a block of ice against Teresa’s chest, even through her jacket. The proof of her uncle’s treachery was a physical weight, but the memory of Amberley’s mouth on her, of Nate’s silent, stormy judgment, was a fever in her blood. She needed to burn it out.
The cacophony of the Great Hall faded as she climbed a narrower, cleaner staircase to the Officers’ Quarters. Here, the stone was scrubbed, the sconces burned with expensive beeswax candles, and the air carried a trace of lavender over gun oil. Polished brass fittings gleamed. It was a world apart from the animalistic frenzy below, a veneer of order over the same rot.
She heard them before she saw them. A low, rhythmic groan, the slick sound of wet flesh, a breathy, punctuating gasp. The sounds came from behind a door left slightly ajar. A slice of warm light cut across the dim corridor.
She pushed the door open. It creaked on its hinges.
The room was a strategy chamber, dominated by a large, polished oak table upon which a detailed map of the eastern borders was spread, weighted with crystal decanters and small lead figurines of cavalry and infantry. Lucien Perkins was sprawled across it, his back against the map of the Wrymwood Pass, his shirt hanging open. His breeches were pulled down to his thighs, and his cock, thick and rigid, was buried to the hilt in Maeve’s throat.
Maeve knelt on the table before him, straddling his legs, her bare back arched, her willowy form a pale curve in the candlelight. Her gown was pooled around her waist. Lucien’s hands were gripping her hips, guiding her movements, his fingers digging into her flesh. Her head bobbed in his lap, a low, choked humming sound vibrating around his shaft.
As Teresa watched, frozen on the threshold, Lucien’s head rolled back, his eyes closed in ecstasy. Then they snapped open. He saw her. A wicked, unsurprised smile spread across his face. He didn’t stop Maeve’s movements. He simply watched Teresa watch them.
Maeve sensed the shift. She pulled back, Lucien’s cock slipping from her lips with a soft, wet pop. A string of saliva connected her mouth to the glistening tip. She turned, her honey-brown eyes dazed, then bright with recognition. “Teresa!” she breathed, her voice husky. “Don’t just stand there. The floor is drafty.”
Lucien chuckled, a deep, rasping sound. “Come to deliver a royal decree, Your Highness? Or just to admire the tactics?” He gestured vaguely at the scattered war figurines.
Teresa stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind her. The click of the latch was final. The room was close, warm, thick with the scent of sex and spilled brandy. “I came to thank you for the distraction,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. She held up the ledger. “It was effective.”
“I aim to please,” Lucien drawled. His hand slid from Maeve’s hip to the inside of her thigh, his fingers seeking the slick heat between her legs. Maeve gasped, her head falling forward for a moment.
“He does,” Maeve sighed, then lifted herself up, turning on the table. She swung a leg over Lucien’s face, lowering her cunt onto his mouth without ceremony. Lucien’s tongue delved into her immediately, his hands coming up to grip her buttocks, pulling her down against him. Maeve cried out, a sharp, pleasure-soaked sound, and threw a look over her shoulder at Teresa. Her fingers, glistening with her own wetness, beckoned. “Come taste. He’s an absolute fiend with his tongue.”
Teresa’s feet carried her forward of their own volition. The ledger slipped from her numb fingers, thudding onto a velvet-upholstered chair. The political scheming, the danger, the weight of the crown—it all receded, drowned out by the raw, simple hunger in the room. She reached the table. Maeve was grinding herself against Lucien’s face, her body shuddering. Lucien was devouring her, his eyes open, locked on Teresa.
Maeve reached back, her hand finding Teresa’s arm, pulling her closer. “Kiss him,” Maeve demanded, her voice a breathless pant. “Taste me on him.”
Teresa leaned down, over the map of the kingdom she was supposed to inherit. She placed her hands on the polished oak on either side of Lucien’s head. He tilted his face up, breaking his feast for a moment. His lips and chin were slick, shining. His breath was hot.
She kissed him.
It was a violation of every boundary, a profanity. The taste was musky, salty, unmistakably female. The flavor of Maeve, of abandon, flooded her mouth. Lucien kissed her back with a lazy, confident aggression, his tongue pushing past her lips to share the taste. He was still hard beneath her, his cock bobbing against her stomach through her clothes.
Maeve moaned above them, her movements becoming more frantic. “Yes… fuck, both of you…”
Teresa pulled back, her breath coming in short gasps. Lucien’s brown eyes held a challenge, a dark amusement. Maeve lifted herself off his face, turning clumsily on the table. She was flushed, beautiful, and utterly wanton. She slid down Lucien’s body, her hand wrapping around his length, guiding him to her entrance. She sank onto him in one smooth, practiced motion, her head falling back with a throaty cry.
“Gods, Lucien,” she breathed, beginning to ride him, her breasts swaying.
Lucien’s gaze never left Teresa. “Your turn,” he said, his voice thick. “Clothes off. Now.”
It was not a request. It was a command from a man who knew his own power. Teresa obeyed, her fingers fumbling with buttons and laces. The riding habit, the uniform of her duty, fell to the floor in a heap. She stood naked before them, the cool air raising goosebumps on her skin.
Maeve reached for her, pulling her onto the table. The polished wood was cold and hard against Teresa’s back. Maeve leaned down, capturing her mouth in a deep, starving kiss. Teresa could taste herself on Maeve, a trace of Amberley, and the brandy they’d been drinking. It was dizzying.
She felt Lucien shift beneath Maeve. His hands found Teresa’s thighs, pushing them apart. Maeve adjusted her position, still impaled on her brother, leaning forward to take Teresa’s nipple into her mouth, sucking hard.
Then Teresa felt the blunt, hot pressure of Lucien’s cockhead, slick with Maeve’s arousal, pushing against her own entrance. Maeve was a warm, moving weight above her, and Lucien was below, behind, everywhere.
He pushed in.
The stretch was immense, shocking. She was still tender from Nate, from Amberley’s fingers. He filled her completely, a relentless, deep invasion. Teresa cried out, her back arching off the table.
Maeve lifted her head, her lips swollen. “Feel him,” she whispered, her eyes glazed. “Feel us.”
Lucien began to move. A slow, deep withdrawal, then a hard, driving thrust. Teresa gasped, her nails digging into Maeve’s arms. The sensation was overwhelming—the fullness, the friction, the sight of Maeve above her, the knowledge of who was inside her. It was depraved. It was perfect.
His pace quickened, becoming less controlled, more brutal. The war figurines rattled and toppled. A decanter of amber liquid tipped over, soaking into the map of the Wrymwood Pass. Lucien fucked her with a focused, animal intensity, his hips slapping against the backs of her thighs. Each thrust drove a choked sound from her throat.
Maeve was writhing above them, her own rhythm matching her brother’s, her cunt milking his length as he pistoned into Teresa. “Yes… fuck her, Lucien… fuck her for me,” Maeve chanted, her own pleasure mounting.
The pressure in Teresa coiled, tighter and hotter than before. It was compounded by the voyeuristic ecstasy in Maeve’s eyes, by the sheer anonymity of it. She was not a princess here. She was just a body in a slick, sweating tangle of bodies.
Lucien grunted, a raw, guttural sound. “Going to fill you up,” he snarled, his thrusts becoming erratic, desperate. “Going to pump my cum so deep into this royal cunt.”
The vulgarity, the claim, snapped something inside her. Her climax tore through her with a silent, breathless violence. Her body locked, every muscle tensing, her vision whiting out at the edges. She convulsed around him, a pulsing, rhythmic grip.
He shouted, his own control shattering. He slammed into her one last time, hilting himself, and she felt the hot, insistent pulse of his release flooding into her. He shuddered, collapsing forward over her, his weight pressing her into the table, into Maeve.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of ragged breathing and the drip of spilled brandy. The candlelight flickered over their slick, tangled forms.
Lucien was the first to move. He pulled out of Teresa with a soft, wet sound, then slumped back against the table. He looked sated, like a predator after a kill. Maeve rolled off to the side, curling against him, her hand tracing idle patterns on his chest.
Teresa lay on the ruined map, feeling the cold seep into her back, feeling the slow trickle of spent seed between her thighs. The fever was gone, burnt to ash. In its place was a hollow, clear-minded cold.
“My ledger,” she said, her voice flat.
Lucien gestured lazily towards the chair. “Your weapon is safe, Princess.” He studied her, his clever eyes missing nothing. “You got what you needed downstairs. We got what we needed up here. A fair trade.”
Maeve giggled, nuzzling his shoulder. “A most fair trade.”
Teresa pushed herself up, her limbs feeling heavy, used. She retrieved her clothes, dressing with slow, deliberate movements. The fabric felt alien against her skin.
“You know,” Lucien said casually, as if discussing the weather, “your Captain Williamson watched you climb these stairs. He didn’t follow. Just stood there at the bottom, looking like someone pissed in his ale.”
Teresa’s hands stilled on her buttons. She didn’t turn around.
“A loyal dog,” Lucien continued, “always knows when his mistress is getting fucked by someone else. Smells it on the air.”
She finished dressing, picked up the ledger. The cold weight was back, heavier than ever. She turned to face them. The Perkins twins were a picture of decadent repose, a living allegory of corruption.
“The distraction is over,” Teresa stated, her princess voice firmly back in place. “See that the garrison is… presentable by morning. I have a meeting with the Steward at dawn.”
She walked to the door, her stride even. She did not look back.
As the door closed behind her, she heard Maeve’s light, airy laugh. “I like her.”
Lucien’s reply was a low murmur she couldn’t catch. The hallway was silent, cold, empty. She descended the stairs, each step echoing in the quiet. At the bottom, the noise of the hall had dulled to drunken snores and the weeping of a discarded lover.
Nate was gone.
She stood alone, holding the proof of one betrayal, her body aching with the memory of another. The victory tasted of ash and someone else’s cum. Dawn was still hours away.