Chapter 22: Madeline's back arches as Hannah's tongue fucks her ass while Kiara's thick strap-on pistons in and out of her dripping pussy, their combined assault making her scream - a poor substitute for the sweet noises they'll rip from their untouched bride.
The midnight air in the royal gardens was cool and thick with the perfume of jasmine and night-blooming cereus. It did nothing to calm the restless heat in Hannah’s blood. The rules were a cage. The sight of Briana through the window each day, a tantalizing ghost in silk, was a constant ache. The knowledge that Liam—stoic, loyal Liam—had been the one to breach the walls of her isolation first was a bitter, erotic barb.
Madeline stood before them on the flagstone path, a willing offering in pale blue silk. Her family, one of the top five, had pushed her toward the princesses for favor. She was pretty, pliable, and utterly transparent in her ambitions. Tonight, she was not a person, but a vessel.
“You’re sure you’re not cold?” Kiara asked, her voice a low murmur. Her playful tone was gone, replaced by a focused intensity that matched Hannah’s.
“I’m fine, Your Highness,” Madeline breathed, her eyes wide. She knew her role. To be used. To be a conduit for a desire she didn’t understand.
Hannah stepped forward. The moon silvered Madeline’s exposed shoulders. Hannah didn’t speak. She pushed the silk of Madeline’s dress down, baring her breasts to the cool air. They peaked instantly, from chill or anticipation. Hannah leaned in, her mouth hovering over the pale skin.
She didn’t kiss. She bit.
A sharp, possessive bite right above the nipple. Madeline gasped, a short, startled sound that was swallowed by the garden’s darkness. Hannah sucked the hurt flesh into her mouth, her tongue lapping, her teeth grazing. A dark red mark bloomed under her lips. She moved to the other breast, repeating the act, harder. She imagined it was Briana’s caramel skin under her mouth, Briana’s gasp in her ear, Briana’s back arching not in surprise, but in want.
“You taste like duty and rosewater,” Hannah muttered against the swollen flesh, her voice thick. “I want to taste rebellion. I want to taste salt.”
Kiara moved behind Madeline, her hands slipping around the other woman’s waist. She pressed her body against Madeline’s back, her lips finding the sensitive spot beneath her ear. “You’re going to be good for us, aren’t you?” Kiara whispered, her hands sliding down over Madeline’s hips. “You’re going to let us pretend.”
“Yes,” Madeline whimpered, her head falling back onto Kiara’s shoulder.
Kiara’s fingers deftly gathered Madeline’s skirts, pushing the layers of silk up around her waist. The cool night air kissed the bare skin of her thighs. Kiara’s hand slid between them from behind, her fingers finding the damp cleft of Madeline’s sex through her flimsy underwear.
“So wet already,” Kiara observed, her voice clinical, hungry. “Do you like being our toy? Do you like being bitten and touched while we think of someone else?”
Hannah watched, her own core clenching violently, as Kiara hooked her fingers into the lace and tore the underwear aside. The rip was obscenely loud. Kiara’s fingers, slick from Madeline’s arousal, found her clit and began to rub in slow, tight circles.
Madeline moaned, a genuine sound of pleasure now, her body undulating between the two princesses. Hannah lowered her head again, sucking a bruise into the soft flesh of Madeline’s stomach, marking a trail downward. She dropped to her knees on the cold cobblestones.
The view was explicit, illuminated by a nearby lantern’s flicker. Madeline’s sex, glistening, exposed. Kiara’s fingers working her with a ruthless expertise. Hannah looked up, meeting Kiara’s gaze over Madeline’s trembling body. In Kiara’s eyes, she saw the same furious longing, the same image superimposed over reality: Briana, here, like this.
Hannah leaned forward and licked a long, slow stripe through Madeline’s folds.
“Fuck,” Kiara breathed, her rhythm faltering for a second.
Hannah didn’t just taste. She devoured. She ate Madeline with a ferocity that had nothing to do with the woman shaking above her. She fucked Madeline with her tongue, imagining the muffled cries Briana had made into a pillow, the taste Liam had described in the dark. She slid two fingers deep inside, curving them, and Madeline came apart with a shattered cry, her juices coating Hannah’s chin.
Kiara didn’t let her stop. As Madeline’s body quaked through the climax, Kiara’s hands tightened on her hips. “Again,” Kiara commanded, her own need sharp in her voice. “Make her come again. I want to feel her shake. I want to pretend it’s her.”
Hannah, her jaw aching, obeyed. She focused on Madeline’s swollen clit, sucking it between her lips, flicking it with her tongue while her fingers pumped steadily. Madeline’s second orgasm was quieter, a deep, internal pulsing that made her legs buckle. Kiara held her upright.
Spent, Madeline sagged between them. Hannah stood, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. The taste was foreign. It was not the citrus and salt of her fantasy. It was just a girl. A useful, empty girl.
“Thank you, Madeline,” Hannah said, her voice returning to its regal coolness even as her heart hammered against her ribs. “You may retire. Speak of this to no one.”
Madeline, dazed and stumbling, gathered her torn clothing and vanished into the shadows of the topiary maze.
Silence descended, broken only by the rustle of leaves. The act had done nothing but sharpen the hunger.
“It didn’t help,” Kiara said, voicing the hollow truth. She leaned against a stone bench, her knuckles white where she gripped the edge.
“It was a rehearsal,” Hannah replied, staring at the moon. “And a message. To ourselves. We are not… passive. Not anymore.”
“Camilla has the tapes,” Kiara said, changing the subject, though their arousal still hung thick in the air between them. “She’s in the old broadcasting room now. The equipment still works.”
Hannah nodded. The fragile, illicit peace they’d carved out with Briana was under threat from two fronts: their own desperate want, and their aunt’s proven malice. “Then let’s go see what our inheritance looks like.”
The old broadcasting room was a tomb of dead technology. The air smelled of ozone and dust. Camilla stood before an ancient reel-to-reel machine, its spools turning with a soft, whirring click. The black-and-white image on the small monitor was grainy, shaky, but horrifically clear.
It showed a younger Tamia, her beauty even more sharp and cruel. She was in a sumptuous sitting room—her own. A young man in a guard’s uniform, handsome and clearly terrified, was backed against a divan. Tamia advanced, a glass of wine in one hand, the other tracing the buttons of his tunic.
“You understand discretion is its own reward,” Tamia’s voice, slightly distorted by the old tape, stated. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, my lady,” the guard stammered.
“Good.” She sipped her wine, then poured the remainder slowly over his head. The dark liquid soaked his blond hair, dripped down his face. He flinched but didn’t move. “Now. Get on your knees and show me your gratitude for my… attention.”
The scene cut. The next showed the guard, nude, bent over the same divan. Tamia stood behind him, not touching him, just watching with a cold, evaluative smile as he trembled. The footage jump-cut again. The guard was gone. Tamia was alone, smoothing her skirt, a look of bored satisfaction on her face.
The second reel was worse. A maid, sobbing silently as Tamia used a pearl-handled hairbrush on the backs of her thighs, leaving angry red welts. The third showed another maid, forced to eat from a dog’s bowl on the floor while Tamia laughed.
Kiara turned away, gagging. Hannah felt ice form in her veins, colder than any desire.
“He disappeared,” Camilla said, her finger hovering over the stop button. Her face was pale but set. “The maids were paid off and exiled to remote provinces. Their families were told they shamed the Crown. This is her pattern. She breaks beautiful things and throws away the pieces.”
“And she wants Briana next,” Hannah whispered.
“She’s been patient. Watching. The King’s warning and Liam’s presence have forced her to be cautious. But her appetite is growing. I see it in her eyes at dinner.” Camilla ejected the reels, holding the small metal boxes like live grenades. “This is our leverage. But we must wait for her to make a move. The threat is only potent if she’s in the act of reaching for what she wants.”
“I can’t stand this waiting,” Kiara snarled, pacing the small room. “Briana is just down the hall, and we’re trading notes on trade agreements while a monster licks its chops.”
“Liam is with her,” Hannah said, the words tasting strange. He was both their protector and a new, complicated thread in the knot.
“Liam is fucking her,” Camilla corrected bluntly. “Which changes his calculus. It makes him more vigilant, but also more volatile. It’s a risk. But for now, it’s a risk that works in our favor. His obsession is a sharper weapon than his duty ever was.”
The three sisters stood in the gloom, bound by blood, fear, and a shared, ferocious need to protect what was theirs. The tapes were a weapon, but they were also a promise: they would not end up as grainy images in a box. They would not be Tamia’s next souvenirs.
In Briana’s suite, the pretence of sleep was impossible. The memory of Liam’s possession was a brand. She rose, wrapping a shawl around her nightdress, and paced. The palace was too quiet. It was the quiet of a held breath.
A soft, rhythmic scraping sound came from the direction of her balcony.
Not the door. The balcony.
Her blood went cold. She moved silently, grabbing the heavy crystal decanter from the sidebar. The scraping came again, methodical. Someone was climbing up.
She flattened herself against the wall beside the French doors, her heart a frantic drum. The lock was engaged, but how flimsy would it prove against determination?
The scraping stopped. A shadow blocked the moonlight through the sheer curtain. A figure stood on the other side of the glass, looking in.
It wasn’t Liam’s broad silhouette. It was slimmer. Taller.
The handle jiggled, once, twice. Then a pause. Briana held her breath, the decanter raised.
A low, familiar chuckle seeped through the glass. “Resourceful little thing, aren’t you? I can see your shadow. Put the weapon down, darling. I just want to talk.”
Tamia.
Briana’s muscles locked. Every instinct screamed to call for Liam, but his patrol had taken him to the west wing. He wouldn’t be back for ten minutes.
“Open the door, Briana. Or I’ll have to be… louder. And my dear brother would be so disappointed to learn his precious asset was entertaining his sister on her balcony. It would raise such questions about your loyalties.”
The smooth, venomous voice was worse than a shout. It coiled through the crack in the door. Briana thought of the princesses, of Camilla’s sharp eyes, of Liam’s fractured control. She thought of the box in the basement.
Slowly, she lowered the decanter. Her hand trembled as she turned the key in the lock and opened the door a few inches.
Tamia swept in, bringing with her the scent of night air and an expensive, cloying perfume that smelled like decay. She was dressed in black, a elegant pantsuit that seemed to drink the light. Her eyes scanned the room, the rumpled bed, before landing on Briana with predatory interest.
“Cozy,” Tamia purred. “And so alone. Where’s your faithful guard dog? Off marking his territory elsewhere?”
“What do you want?” Briana’s voice didn’t shake. She was surprised.
“I wanted to see you. Without the audience.” Tamia took a step closer. Briana stood her ground. “I’ve been watching you. You have fire. I like fire. It’s so much more fun to smother than dull obedience.”
“Get out.”
“Or what?” Tamia reached out, a single, manicured finger tracing the line of Briana’s jaw. Briana jerked back as if burned. “You’ll tell? My word against yours. The erratic, ambitious commoner versus the King’s beloved sister. We both know how that ends.” Her finger dropped, hovering near the neckline of Briana’s nightdress. “I can offer you things my nieces cannot. Freedom from this gilded cage. Real power. All it requires is a… shift in allegiance. And a certain openness to more… private tutelage.”
Briana saw it then, in the woman’s gaze. The same look she’d seen on the grainy tape. The hungry, bored look of a collector assessing a new piece. Rage, hot and clean, burned through her fear.
“Your tutelage looks like broken people and hidden tapes,” Briana said, the words leaving her lips before she could think.
Tamia’s face froze. The mask of amused seduction slipped, revealing something ancient and vicious beneath. “What did you say?”
The door to the suite burst open.
Liam stood there, his chest heaving slightly from the run, his hand on his sidearm. His eyes took in the scene: Tamia close, Briana pale but defiant. The air crackled.
“Aunt Tamia,” he said, his voice lethally calm. “The King’s orders were explicit. You are not to approach this suite.”
Tamia’s smile returned, a brittle thing. “I was just welcoming our guest to the family, Liam. Sharing some… courtly wisdom.” Her eyes slid back to Briana, promising unfinished business. “We’ll continue our chat soon, darling. When there are fewer… interruptions.”
She glided past Liam, who stood rigidly, allowing her exit only because drawing a weapon on the King’s sister was a line even he couldn’t cross. Yet.
The door closed. The silence was immediate and deafening.
Liam crossed the room in three strides. His hands came up, not to hold her, but to frame her face, his thumbs brushing her cheeks as if checking for damage. “Did she touch you?”
“Just my face.”
His jaw worked. “What did you say to her? About tapes?”
“I saw a shadow in Camilla’s eyes. I took a guess.” Briana’s knees began to shake, the adrenaline bleeding away. “She’s making her move, Liam.”
“I know.” He pulled her to him, his embrace hard, almost painful. “It changes nothing. And everything.” He looked toward the balcony, then back at the door. “She won’t try the balcony again. She knows I’ll be listening for it. She’ll use a different tool. Bribery. Blackmail. A poisoned gift.”
“What do we do?”
“We follow Camilla’s plan. We wait. We let her commit.” He breathed in the scent of her hair. “And we stay ready.”
Down the hall, in the princesses’ sitting room, Camilla watched a small monitor—a live feed from a discreet camera she’d installed in the corridor. She saw Tamia exit, saw Liam arrive moments later. She saw the fury on her aunt’s face before she smoothed it away.
Kiara, watching over her shoulder, let out a shaking breath. “She’s started.”
Hannah, her lips still tingling with the ghost of another woman’s skin, her mind seared with the images from the tapes, felt a new resolve crystallize. It was no longer about stolen moments or secret rehearsals. It was war.
“Good,” Hannah said, her voice as cold as the moon on the garden stones. “Now we finish it.”
“Now we finish it,” Hannah said, the moonlit bite marks on her mind sharper than the garden chill.
The machinery of the palace shifted the next morning, grim and efficient. Camilla delivered her edited tape—just twenty seconds of Tamia’s cold command to the guard—directly to the King’s private study. She gave no context, no threat. She simply said, “This is a sample of Aunt Tamia’s idea of discretion. We have more. We will use them if she forces us.”
The King, aged a decade in five minutes, watched the grainy footage in silence. When it ended, he switched off the monitor with a final-sounding click. He did not ask for the other tapes. He did not defend his sister. His voice was stripped bare when he spoke. “Her visiting rights are revoked. She leaves for her country estate at sunset. Permanently.”
The victory was hollow, ashes in their mouths. There was no celebration, only a heavy, waiting silence as the sun bled out behind the western turrets. They watched from Hannah’s window as Tamia’s motorcade slid like a black serpent down the palace drive. She did not look back.
Two days later, the wedding was a surreal pantomime of pomp and sealed fates. Briana stood between Hannah and Kiara at the altar, a vision in cream and gold, her hands trembling slightly in theirs as the archaic vows bound them together before god and country. The weight of the ceremonial crowns was less than the weight of the stares. Liam, standing rigid at the King’s shoulder, did not look at her once. His face was a mask of carved stone.
That night, the wedding feast was a torment of endless courses and false smiles. Briana picked at her food, the elaborate gown a suffocating cage. Her skin still remembered the library, the violent claiming on her bed. Now, formality had erected an uncrossable moat.
The day after the wedding, everything changed.
Briana was moved into the wives’ suite, an opulent, interconnected set of rooms adjoined to Hannah and Kiara’s own. Her belongings—few as they were—were transferred with silent efficiency. The door that had once been locked now stood open, a visible promise and a terrifying new reality.
In a private ceremony in the throne room, stripped of spectators, the King placed a heavy, ancient key in Hannah’s palm. “The palace is yours,” he said, his voice echoing in the vast space. “Your reign begins. Guard it better than I did.” The Queen, her eyes red MSGS but dry, kissed each of her daughters on the forehead, a silent goodbye.
By noon, the royal motorcade was packed. Liam, in full dress uniform, gave his final report to Hannah on the south steps. His eyes, finally, flickered to Briana where she stood framed in the doorway of the suite. The look was a physical blow—a raw, unguarded slash of hunger and loss—before it was shuttered away. He turned on his heel, descended the steps, and entered the lead car without a backward glance. He left with the King and Queen.
The sudden quiet was absolute. The palace, now theirs, felt like a cavernous shell. The trio stood in the grand foyer, listening to the distant gates clang shut. The strings that had bound them—Liam’s protection, the King’s rule, Tamia’s menace—were all severed at once. They were alone. They were free. The weight of it was paralyzing.
It lasted until dusk.
They found themselves in the center of the wives’ suite, a sprawling living area of low couches and thick rugs. The tension wasn’t born of fear now, but of a terrifying, unchecked possibility. The rehearsals were over.
Kiara broke the silence. She walked to Briana, who stood by the cold fireplace, and without a word, took her face in her hands. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was a claiming, deep and searching, a week of pent-up frustration given form. Briana gasped into her mouth, her hands coming up to clutch at Kiara’s arms.
Hannah watched, a fierce heat pooling low in her belly. She saw the marks she’d imagined on Madeline—she wanted to see them on Briana.For real. She moved behind Briana as Kiara’s mouth traveled down her neck. Hannah pressed against her back, her hands sliding around to undo the fastenings of the simple day dress Briana wore.
“We’ve waited so long,” Hannah murmured against her ear, her fingers fumbling with the buttons. “I watched you through windows. I bit another woman just to pretend.”
The dress fell open. Hannah pushed it from Briana’s shoulders, letting it pool at her feet. She was wearing only delicate lace underneath. Hannah’s mouth found the junction of her neck and shoulder, and she bit down, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to brand. Briana cried out, a sharp, pleasured sound, her head falling back against Hannah.
Kiara dropped to her knees, her hands sliding up Briana’s thighs, pushing the lace aside. “God, look at you,” Kiara breathed, her voice husky. She didn’t tease. She leaned forward and drove her tongue straight into Briana’s soaked cunt.
Briana’s legs buckled. Hannah held her upright, one arm wrapped around her stomach, the other hand covering Briana’s breast, squeezing the soft flesh, pinching the nipple through the lace. She watched over Briana’s shoulder as Kiara ate her with a desperate, focused hunger. The wet, filthy sounds filled the quiet room.
“Yes, just like that,” Briana panted, her hips rocking forward into Kiara’s face. “Oh fuck, Kiara, right there.”
Hannah turned Briana’s head and kissed her, swallowing her moans. She could taste the lingering citrus of her perfume, the salt of her skin. Her own need was a frantic drumbeat. She guided Briana down onto the thick carpet, Kiara following, not breaking contact for a second.
“My turn,” Hannah said, her voice thick. She shoved Kiara’s shoulder gently.Not away. Just aside.
Kiara moved up, kissing Briana deeply, letting her taste herself on Kiara’s tongue. Hannah positioned herself between Briana’s spread thighs. The sight was obscenely beautiful: Briana, flushed and wanton, her cunt glistening from Kiara’s mouth. Hannah didn’t hesitate. She plunged two fingers inside, curling them, finding the rough spot that made Briana arch off the floor with a shattered scream.
“She’s so fucking tight,” Hannah groaned, fucking her with her fingers, her thumb rubbing rough circles on Briana’s clit. “I thought about this. Every night. Imagined how you’d feel.”
“More,” Briana begged, her eyes clouded. “I need more. Please.”
Kiara, kneeling by Briana’s head, stripped off her own blouse. She took Briana’s hand and guided it to her own chest, to her nipple. “Touch me,” Kiara demanded. “While she fucks you. I want to feel you come and see your hand on me.”
Briana’s fingers squeezed, rolled. Kiara gasped. Hannah added a third finger, stretching Briana open, the wet sound of it loud and lewd. She could feel the internal muscles fluttering, clenching. “You’re going to come,” Hannah commanded, driving her fingers deeper, faster. “Come on my fingers. Show us.”
The orgasm ripped through Briana, violent and uncontrollable. Her back bowed, a raw, guttural cry tearing from her throat as she pulsed around Hannah’s hand. Kiara captured her mouth, drinking the sound. Hannah rode her through it, fingers pumping until the tremors subsided into shaky aftershocks.
Breathless, Briana looked up at them, her hazel eyes dazed and sated. Then a slow, wicked smile touched her lips. She pushed herself up on her elbows. “Now you,” she said, her gaze sliding from Hannah to Kiara. “I want to taste you. Both of you.”
The next hour was a blur of skin and sighs and exploration. They learned each other’s bodies not as princess and commoner, but as lovers. Briana’s mouth on Hannah, her tongue licking a slow, devastating path that made Hannah sob her name into a cushion. Then Kiara, arching under Briana’s touch, begging for her fingers, then her mouth, coming with a series of sharp, bitten-off cries.
They lay tangled in the twilight, limbs intertwined, the scent of sex and sweat a new perfume in their home. The emptiness of the palace was gone, filled with this fragile, glowing warmth.
The peace was shattered by a polite, insistent knock at the suite’s outer door.
They froze, a tangle of naked limbs. A shared, paranoid glance. No one should be here. The staff had been given the evening off.
Kiara grabbed a robe and went to the door, opening it a crack. A young woman stood in the corridor, maybe nineteen, with Tamia’s same sharp blonde beauty but softened by youth and a practiced, demure smile. She held a small, elegant suitcase.
“Princess Kiara,” the girl said, dipping into a perfect curtsy. “Forgive the intrusion. I am Alissa. My mother, Tamia, sent me. She made an arrangement with the King before she left. He agreed I should serve in the palace, to learn from you.” Her eyes, a crystalline blue, were wide and innocent. “Aunt Tamia trained me for years in the art of gracious hosting. I only wish to be of use.”
Kiara stared, the robe gaping at her chest. She remembered the King’s hollowed-out expression, his guilt. He would have agreed to anything to be rid of his sister. A final, poisoned parting gift.
Alissa’s gaze slipped past Kiara, into the room, taking in the disheveled cushions, the discarded clothing, the flushed faces of Hannah and Briana just visible in the dim light. A flicker of something—knowledge, understanding, calculation—passed through those innocent blue eyes, gone so fast it might have been a trick of the light.
Her smile never wavered. “Where shall I put my things?”