Chapter 14: Proxy Passion
The king’s office was a sanctum of oppressive stillness. Moonlight streamed through the open balcony doors, laying cold silver bars across the intricate parquet floor and glinting off the edges of a massive, carved mahogany desk. It smelled of old paper, lemon polish, and a faint, stale hint of brandy. Hannah, Kiara, and Camila stood in a line before the desk, their forms stiff as starched linen. The king, a broad-shouldered man with a close-cropped beard silvered like his temple, did not sit. He stood with his back to them, looking out at the storm-cleared night.
The queen, a slender woman with hair the color of winter wheat, sat in a high-backed chair beside the hearth, her hands folded in her lap. Her expression was unreadable, a portrait of quiet observation.
“Six,” the king said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to emanate from the stone walls themselves. He turned. His eyes, the same hazel-green as Briana’s but hardened by decades of rule, swept over them. “You’ve chosen your six. A competent, if unsurprising, slate.” He paused, letting the judgment hang. “The question now is one of final disposition. Do you intend to marry any of them?”
The question landed like a stone in still water. Marry. The word was a contract, a permanence they had all avoided examining directly. Their selections had been about power, punishment, survival—not matrimony.
“No,” Camila answered first, her voice clear and cold. “Marriage is a state matter. These selections are for… personal retinue. Consolidation of influence.” She was reciting a line from some political primer, her face a mask.
The king nodded slowly, as if he’d expected nothing else. “Consorts, then. A shared household. A delicate balance to maintain.” His gaze settled on Hannah. “And you, Hannah? Does the idea of a wife hold any appeal? Or a husband, for that matter? The option remains open.”
Hannah’s tongue felt like velvet. She thought of Isolde’s detached skill, of the hollow eyes of the poet Lillian. She thought of the feel of Briana’s lips, the taste of her, the rightness of her weight. “No, Your Majesty,” she whispered, then found a stronger voice. “Consorts will suffice.”
“Fine,” the king said, a finality in the word. He walked to the sideboard and poured a measure of amber liquid into a crystal glass. “Then it is settled. Your six will be installed in the west wing apartments. Their roles and privileges will be clearly defined by the chamberlain. You may do with them as you please.” He took a sip. “They are yours.”
Kiara shifted her weight, the only sign of her tension. “And… Briana?” The name hung in the room, charged and dangerous.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched the queen’s lips before vanishing.
The king set his glass down with a soft click. “Briana,” he said, the name a different sound in his mouth—softer, weighted with a history they didn’t know. “Is my daughter.”
The air left the room. Hannah’s vision tunneled. The moonlight seemed to bleach the color from everything.
“Your…?” Camila’s mask cracked, pure shock showing through.
“A youthful indiscretion, long before my marriage, acknowledged and provided for,” the king said, his tone shifting into something rehearsed, diplomatic. “Her mother chose secrecy. Recent events necessitated a… correction. She is a princess of Cordonia. She will be treated as such at all times. Her position here is not as a servant, nor a contestant. It is her birthright.”
Hannah’s mind spun, a whirlpool of fragmented images: Briana in her uniform, Briana defiant in the solar, Briana naked and powerful in the pool. A princess. Their equal. The impossibility of it took her breath away.
“Therefore,” the king continued, his businesslike tone returning, “her situation must also be regularized. She will have two consorts of her own, chosen by me.” He glanced at a paper on his desk. “Luna of the Southern Isles, for her political acumen and stabilizing nature. And Alyson, the tech heiress, for her modern perspective. They have been informed.”
Kiara made a choked sound. Alyson. The woman she’d taken roughly against the wall just nights before, who was now to be Briana’s. The violation of it felt cosmic.
“There is, however, one absolute rule,” the king said, and now his voice held the iron weight of command. He looked at each of them in turn. “Briana’s virginity is not to be taken. It is hers to bestow, in whatever context she sees fit, be it marriage or otherwise. That is not your domain to trespass upon. Is that understood?”
Hannah’s blood turned to ice. The memory of her own mouth on Briana, of Kiara’s tongue, of Camila’s fingers—it was a secret that now felt like a damning crime. They had already trespassed. Profoundly.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” they murmured in unison, the lie tasting of ash.
“Good,” he said, satisfied. “Your Aunt Tamia arrives tomorrow. She will be regent in our stead for the coming year. Your mother and I have pressing state business on the continent. Tamia will manage the palace, the staff, the tedious machinery of state. You…” He waved a hand. “You will have no official duties. No rules, aside from the one I have just made explicitly clear. Consider it a year of… personal exploration. A sabbatical.”
The queen finally spoke, her voice like chimes. “Do try not to burn the place down, darlings.”
Dismissed, they walked back through the silent palace corridors like ghosts. The news swirled around them, a toxic fog. Briana, a princess. Briana, with her own consorts. Briana, forbidden.
They ended up in Hannah’s chambers, the door locked against the world. For a long moment, they just stood there in the dim light of a single lamp.
“A fucking princess,” Kiara finally exploded, pacing the length of the rug. “All that time. Was she laughing at us? Playing a part?”
“No,” Hannah said, her own voice distant. “She didn’t know. She couldn’t have.” She remembered the raw honesty in Briana’s eyes, the pain of her confession. That had been real.
“It doesn’t matter,” Camila said, pouring three glasses of wine with a steady hand. “What matters is the rule. Her virginity. We… we already…”
“We already fucked that rule into the ground,” Kiara finished, grabbing a glass and draining half of it. “If he finds out…”
“He won’t,” Camila said sharply. “She won’t tell him. It would implicate her as well.” She drank, her throat working. “But it changes the calculus. Entirely. She’s not a waitress we can tumble in a solar. She’s a rival. With her own power base. With consorts we selected.”
The word ‘consorts’ sparked something dark and frantic in the air. The king’s decree—you may do with them as you please—echoed alongside the memory of their debauched night. The frustration, the longing, the sheer, untenable pressure of the situation coalesced into a single, desperate need.
Hannah looked at Kiara, whose eyes were wide with a wild, frightened heat. She looked at Camila, whose cool composure was fissuring at the edges. The silent understanding that passed between them was immediate and absolute. They needed to feel something, anything, other than this collapsing reality. They needed to assert a control they did not have.
Without a word, Hannah turned and left her own chambers. Kiara and Camila followed. Their footsteps were swift, purposeful on the cold stone. They didn’t speak as they descended to the west wing, to the corridor where their six chosen now resided.
Hannah didn’t hesitate. She pushed open the door to Isolde’s apartment without knocking.
The mountaineer was standing by the window, still dressed in her day clothes, staring out at the moonlit grounds. She turned, surprise flickering across her face, then settling into a wary readiness. “Your Highness.”
“Undress,” Hannah said, her voice flat.
Isolde’s eyes narrowed, but after a beat, she complied. She was efficient, unselfconscious. She peeled off her tunic, her trousers, her underwear, until she stood naked in the silver light, her body a landscape of lean muscle and scars.
Hannah approached her. The need in her was not for Isolde, but for oblivion. She grabbed Isolde’s face, her fingers digging into the woman’s jaw, and kissed her. It was nothing like the kiss with Briana. It was possession without desire, a claim staking. She bit Isolde’s lower lip, hard, and tasted blood.
Kiara and Camila had followed her in. Kiara went to the bed, pulling the covers back with a violent jerk. “On the bed,” she ordered, her voice trembling with a furious energy.
Isolde broke the kiss, a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth. She looked at the three princesses, at their fractured, hungry expressions, and a grim understanding dawned in her eyes. She was a tool, a release valve. She nodded once, a soldier accepting a mission, and walked to the bed, lying back on the sheets.
Hannah followed, shedding her own clothes in a heap on the floor. She didn’t look at Kiara or Camila. Her world narrowed to the body beneath her. She climbed onto the bed, straddling Isolde’s hips. “You’re strong,” Hannah muttered, more to herself than to the woman. “You can take it.”
She reached between Isolde’s legs, finding her dry. Hannah spat into her own hand, slicked herself roughly, and then shoved two fingers inside her. Isolde gasped, her back arching off the bed, her muscles coiling. Hannah worked her fingers in and out, a harsh, punishing rhythm. She used her other hand to pinch and twist Isolde’s nipples, watching the woman’s face contort not with passion, but with strained endurance.
“Like that?” Hannah whispered, leaning down, her hair a curtain around their faces. “Does it feel real?”
Isolde met her gaze, her breath coming in short gasps. “It feels like you’re trying to fuck someone else.”
The truth of it was a slap. Hannah snarled, removing her fingers. “Turn over.”
Isolde obeyed, rolling onto her stomach. Hannah didn’t wait. She guided herself against Isolde’s entrance, and with a single, brutal thrust, buried herself inside her. Isolde cried out, her face mashed into the pillow. Hannah held herself there, deep, feeling the woman’s internal muscles clench in shock and pain. Then she began to move, setting a hard, driving pace. Each thrust was an expulsion of fury—at the king, at the rules, at Briana’s unattainable new status, at her own treacherous heart.
Kiara watched for a moment, a feverish glaze in her eyes. Then she turned to Camila. “Fuck me,” she said, the words raw. “I don’t care how. Just make me feel anything else.”
Camila pushed her against the nearest wall, her usual precision gone, replaced by a ragged hunger. She yanked Kiara’s pants down, didn’t bother with her own. She spit into her palm, coated herself, and entered Kiara from behind in one brutal movement. Kiara’s head thumped back against the wall, a cry torn from her throat. Camila set a vicious rhythm, her hips slamming Kiara into the plaster with each thrust. She reached around, her hand rough on Kiara’s clit, grinding against it as she fucked her. It was not pleasure; it was a brutal contest against feeling.
The room filled with the sounds of their chaos: the slap of skin on skin, strained grunts, the creak of the bed, ragged breathing. Hannah rode Isolde like a punishment, her fingers digging bruises into the woman’s hips. She closed her eyes, but all she saw was Briana rising from the pool, water sluicing down her skin, a goddess out of reach.
Isolde came first, a sharp, choked-off cry into the pillow, her body shuddering beneath Hannah’s from the sheer physical overstimulation. Hannah followed soon after, her orgasm a sharp, dry spike of pain that left her empty and shaking. She collapsed onto Isolde’s sweaty back, spent.
At the wall, Camila’s thrusts became erratic, frantic. She buried her face in Kiara’s neck, a ragged moan escaping her as she came. Kiara’s own climax was silent, a violent shudder that wracked her whole body, her teeth sinking into her own forearm to stifle a scream.
Silence descended, broken only by their harsh, uneven breathing. The scent of sex and sweat and despair was thick in the air.
Hannah rolled off Isolde, who lay still, face down on the bed. Camila and Kiara disentangled themselves, pulling their clothes back on with clumsy, exhausted motions.
No one looked at each other. No one spoke. They had taken what they needed from Isolde’s body, a vessel for their rage and fear, and it had given them nothing but a deeper hollow.
They left her there, a bruised and bleeding monument to their own collapse. As they walked back to their own wing in the dead of night, the only sound was the whisper of their robes on the stone. The moon watched, cold and impartial. They had no rules now, except one.
And they had already broken it in the one way that could destroy everything. Briana was a princess. And they had defiled her. The knowledge sat inside them, a sleeping poison, as the palace, and their new, rule-less year, waited for dawn.
The knowledge sat inside them, a sleeping poison, as the palace, and their new, rule-less year, waited for dawn.
Briana’s apartments were in the east wing, a mirror to their own but flooded with morning light that felt accusatory in its cheer. She stood in the center of the receiving room, wearing simple linen trousers and a worn cotton shirt, the uniform of her old life clinging to her new one. Luna of the Southern Isles and Alyson, the tech heiress, stood before her, their postures a blend of deference and sharp curiosity.
“So,” Briana began, her voice cutting through the quiet. She crossed her arms, leaning back against a heavy oak desk. “You’ve been assigned to me. Like furniture.”
Luna, serene and observant, offered a small, diplomatic smile. Alyson’s eyes were harder, more calculating. “We were informed of the… unique nature of the arrangement,” Alyson said.
“I’ll bet you were.” Briana pushed off the desk and walked a slow circle around them. “Let’s be completely fucking clear, right now. You are here because my father wills it. You are political assets. Companions. That’s the job.”
She stopped in front of them, her gaze unflinching. “There is one non-negotiable rule. You will never, under any circumstances, penetrate me. That is not your privilege. It is not your right. Do you understand?”
Luna nodded smoothly. Alyson’s lips pressed into a thin line, but she assented. “Understood.”
“Good.” Briana’s tone softened, but only a fraction. “The truth is, there are only three people who have that particular privilege. Who have earned it. That is their business and mine.” She let the implication hang, a ghost of Hannah, Kiara, and Camila hovering in the sunlit space between them. “What I want from you is companionship. Discretion. Loyalty. You may share my bed for warmth, or conversation. You may touch me, if I allow it, within my stated limits.”
She paused, watching their faces absorb the parameters of their cage. “As for your own needs,” she continued, a pragmatic edge returning to her voice. “What you do with each other is your own affair. Fuck each other senseless if you like. Find relief where you can. You may even, if the opportunity arises and it is mutually desired, fuck them. The other princesses.”
Alyson’s eyebrows lifted almost imperceptibly. Luna remained still.
“They are... tangled up in this, same as we all are,” Briana said, and for the first time, a crack of something weary showed in her demeanor. “Just remember the hierarchy. Remember the one rule. Break it, and you will find out exactly whose daughter I am.”
She walked to the balcony doors, looking out at the gardens where everything had begun to unravel. “We’ll have dinners. We’ll talk. You’ll tell me about your families, your ambitions. We’ll build something that looks like a unit. But that line,” she said, turning back, her silhouette outlined by the bright sky, “does not get crossed. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” they said in unison, their voices merging into a single chord of acceptance.
Briana gave a single, firm nod. The meeting was over. The boundaries were set. The year stretched before them, a vast and uncertain terrain, mapped by a single, immutable law.
The year stretched before them, a vast and uncertain terrain, mapped by a single, immutable law.
Briana’s unit found its rhythm not through grand design, but through the quiet, unforced mechanics of coexistence. It was surprisingly simple. Luna possessed a calm, strategic mind, and Alyson had a dry, pragmatic wit. There were no declarations of devotion, no tortured confessions. Instead, there was space.
They took breakfast on her sun-drenched balcony, discussing inconsequential things. The strange hybridization of roses in the garden below. The inefficiency of the palace’s archaic internal messaging system. Alyson would tap codes into a sleek tablet, Luna would offer a historical precedent, and Briana would listen, absorbing the simple comfort of company without expectation.
The physical boundaries held, but within them, a quiet intimacy grew. It was not the consuming fire she shared with the princesses. It was a sustainable warmth. One evening, a week in, Briana lay on her side in the expansive bed, a book propped on her elbow. Luna was already asleep, her breathing deep and even. Alyson, working on her tablet, finally set it aside with a sigh.
“Your father’s firewalls are a nightmare,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes.
“So bypass them,” Briana said, not looking up from her page.
Alyson stared at her. “Seriously?”
“You’re my tech consort. Technically, the palace systems are part of your domain. Just don’t crash the power grid.” Briana turned a page. “And order us some decent coffee while you’re in there. The stuff they serve tastes like ground regrets.”
A slow, genuine smile spread across Alyson’s face. It was the first real one Briana had seen from her. “You’re a strange kind of princess.”
“I’m the only kind I know how to be.”
Later that night, Briana awoke to the faint sound of movement. Moonlight painted the room. Alyson and Luna were a tangle of limbs in the center of the bed, moving together in a slow, hushed rhythm. Alyson was atop Luna, their mouths fused in a deep, quiet kiss. Luna’s hands gripped Alyson’s hips, guiding the subtle rock of their bodies. It was silent, efficient, and utterly mutual. Briana watched the muscles in Alyson’s back flex, saw Luna’s heel dig into the mattress for leverage. A soft, stifled moan escaped Luna’s throat as she peaked, her body bowing upwards. Alyson followed, her forehead dropping to Luna’s shoulder, her own release a series of sharp, shuddering breaths.
After, they stilled. Alyson rolled off, and without a word, Luna shifted, draping an arm over her waist from behind. They fell back asleep, a solved equation. Briana closed her eyes. It worked. It wasn’t love, not as she knew it. It was a pact. A shared understanding of their utility and their limits. It was peace. And in the cavernous silence of the palace, peace felt like a superpower.
The princesses’ first day of no supervision dawned with the subtlety of a landslide. Hannah woke alone in her cold bed, the ghost of Isolde’s pained gasp echoing in her skull. The memory was a greasy film on her skin. She scrubbed until her flesh was raw, but it stuck.
They gathered in Camila’s sitting room, a silent trio wrapped in silk robes and mutual disgust. The air was stale with yesterday’s failures.
“What now?” Kiara asked, picking at a thread on the armchair. Her voice was hollow. “Do we just… exist?”
“We have six consorts,” Camila stated, staring blankly at the cold fireplace. “We have a palace without overseers. We have a year.” She finally turned her head, her gray eyes glassy. “The calculus has not changed. Only the variables have shifted.”
“Fuck your calculus,” Kiara snapped, the hollow filling with a sudden, sharp rage. “My variable is trying to drink her coffee across the courtyard with her two new best friends. My variable is forbidden. My variable is a fucking princess.” She stood up, pacing. “And what are we doing? We’re sitting here, rotting.”
Hannah watched a shaft of sunlight cut through the room, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. The freedom was a cage. “He said we could do as we please.”
Kiara stopped pacing. “What pleases you, Hannah? Right now. Tell me one true thing that would please you.”
The answer was immediate and absolute: Briana. The feel of her, the taste, the sound she made when Hannah’s tongue was inside her. But that was the forbidden country. Saying it aloud would be treason against the king’s law and their own shattered sanity. So she said the second true thing. “I want to not feel this.”
Camila stood. “Then we won’t.” It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command. A survival protocol. “We have instruments for that.”
They went to the west wing again. This time, they didn’t separate. They moved as a pack, a single organism driven by a hungry despair. They entered the shared salon where their consorts often gathered in the late morning.
Madeline and Tasha were playing chess. Sofia was reading. Lillian, the poet, was staring out the window. Isolde was doing push-ups in a corner, her body a testament to disciplined endurance. Elara, the violinist who’d been cut, was not present.
The door swung open. The princesses stood there, dressed but disheveled, their eyes dark.
“Out,” Camila said, her gaze landing on Sofia and Lillian. Her two. They left without a word, ghosts slipping past them.
That left Madeline, Tasha, and Isolde. The financier, the soldier, the mountaineer. Three women of action. They looked at the entering princesses, and a silent recognition passed through the room. This was the currency now. This was the purpose.
Kiara walked straight to Madeline, gripped the collar of her crisp blouse, and kissed her. It was all teeth and domination. “You like transactions,” Kiara breathed against her mouth. “Let’s transact.”
She pushed Madeline backwards over the chess table, sending pieces clattering to the floor. The board upturned, kings and queens scattering. Kiara didn’t bother with clothes. She wrenched Madeline’s trousers and underwear down in one violent pull. She spat into her hand, slicked herself, and entered Madeline in a single, brutal thrust. Madeline’s head snapped back, a sharp gasp ripped from her. She didn’t fight. Her hands gripped the edges of the table, her knuckles white, her eyes screwed shut. Kiara fucked her with a short, punishing rhythm, the table legs screeching against the floor with every drive.
“This the ROI you wanted?” Kiara grunted, her hands pinning Madeline’s shoulders.
Across the room, Camila approached Tasha. The soldier stood at attention, her face a mask. “You follow orders,” Camila stated.
“Yes, my lady.”
“Assume the position against that wall.”
Tasha turned, placed her palms flat against the deep red wallpaper, and spread her feet. Camila moved behind her, one hand snaking around to unfasten Tasha’s trousers, the other clamping over her mouth. She entered her dry, a tight, punishing fit. Tasha stiffened, a muffled groan vibrating against Camila’s palm. Camila set a relentless, metronomic pace, her hips hammering Tasha into the wall. She stared at the back of Tasha’s head, but in the rhythmic impact, she was chasing the ghost of a different woman’s heat, a phantom warmth she was forbidden to claim.
Hannah was left with Isolde. The mountaineer had stopped her push-ups and now stood, watching, her chest rising and falling steadily. A faint bruise, shaped like fingers, still marked her hip from Hannah’s grip days before. Hannah walked to her. She didn’t speak. She reached out and traced the bruise, then moved her hand up, palming Isolde’s breast through her thin workout top, squeezing hard. Isolde’s breath hitched.
“On your knees,” Hannah said, her voice thin.
Isolde sank down. Hannah unfastened her own trousers, pushed them down just enough. She fisted a hand in Isolde’s short, sweat-damp hair and guided her face forward. “You know what to do.”
Isolde did. She had learned the topography of Hannah’s body through instruction and punishment. Her mouth was a precise, dedicated instrument. Her tongue worked with a focused intensity, lapping at Hannah’s clit, delving inside her. It was technically proficient. It was completely empty. Hannah stared at the ceiling, her jaw clenched, as Isolde serviced her. She heard the wet, rhythmic slap of Kiara taking Madeline on the table, the thud of Camila’s body driving into Tasha against the wall. She felt the pull of an orgasm building, a mechanical response to skilled stimulation. It rose, it crested, it crashed over her in a wave that left her knees weak. A thin, desperate sound escaped her. It wasn’t pleasure. It was a release of pressure, nothing more.
When Isolde pulled back, her mouth glistening, Hannah looked down at her. There was no triumph in Isolde’s eyes this time. Only a deep, resigned comprehension. She was a well-used tool, knowing its purpose.