Prisoner of Dreams: Queen of the Sun Palace Book Three Read online

  I wondered if he would let me come during the meal at all. Maybe he would wait until I was tied up in my bed. The torture! I needed a release after such a day.

  To think that you would ever pray for him to let you release during dinner, I thought. Bit by bit I had somehow gotten used to being exhibited. On a night like tonight it was almost cleansing, comforting. This was my purpose in life, and as long as I could do whatever Augustus demanded of me, all was right with the world.

  Especially when Axel could watch.

  As dinner ended, one of the guards broke into song from a popular opera. “Oh my faery king, the whole world forsakes you…” Other guards joined in, and court musicians quickly followed. The half-drunk friends at our table came in with more gusto than tune, all of them making a spontaneous show of loyalty to Augustus. “Oh, but you are the true faery king…!”

  Now he was the one with a faint blush on his cheeks. The voices joined together, the violins dancing in the warm acoustics of the dining room, growing louder. Their true emotions were betrayed as they sang. Fear—defiance—and at least in this haven, loyalty to us.

  “You may come, my queen,” Augustus whispered to me as the final stirring notes rose up. He clutched my hand, but he stood to toast.

  The hot sensation that I had been fighting against for the past hour or more crashed into me and, under the cover of music, I couldn’t help but cry out. “Mm…ahh!” I was allowed to spread my legs now, the toes of my shoes pressing against the floor as my hot little center pulsed madly. My breasts heaved, my eyelids fluttered, and then it was over and I had done a particularly terrible job of hiding it.

  The guard who had started the song dropped to his knees and swept off his hat before Augustus as the song ended. The room broke into applause. Augustus lifted me to my feet and the musicians kept playing. We went straight from dining to dancing.

  All of this was a dramatic break from protocol and I enjoyed it very much, but it was disturbing too. There was never a break from protocol at the Palace of the Sun. Some part of me wondered if an end was near, and everyone sensed it.

  As I danced in Augustus’ arms, a guard tore into the room, his face scratched, his clothes torn, gasping for breath. “They’re almost here—!”

  Chapter Four

  “The witch. The mob. Hungry—peasants—crying for bread, and—” He looked at me. “For you, Your Majesties. The witch wants to kidnap the queen, and once she has her, I think she wants to destroy the palace. They’re mad, all of them. They’ve stormed the prison in Lumine and let dissenters free.”

  My hand drifted to my stomach. “Does she still want to curse me? I’m pregnant! What will happen to the child?”

  “The child will sleep with you,” one of the older ladies of the court said. “That is what she wants.”

  “We don’t have time,” the guard said. “They aren’t far behind me. You should flee. These people are not thinking straight and they have some sorcerers on their side.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” said Lafiel, head of the King’s Guard. “Maybe the guard in town can’t take care of it, but no mob can stand up to my men. Your Majesties, this is beneath you. Go to bed and get some rest.”

  I looked to Augustus first. He was the king and would make the decision, and I wasn’t actually sure what to do in any case. I was afraid of the witch, but I hated to be run out of my own home by a mob. My mother would never have stood for such a thing.

  “I have faith in your men,” Augustus said, as Axel stood near us, protective as always.

  I looked over the court. I knew some of them didn’t like us very much, but now it had become nobles versus common people led by a witch, and they all looked to us to lead their side. I hesitated over my friends. “Julia and Louisa…I think you should depart. You have been…particularly targeted.”

  They took each other’s hands, and Julia’s husband said, “I will usher your friends to safety, my queen.”

  Well, there was a complicated situation. Julia loved her husband but she was also the lover of Lord Merdon. Even though her husband accepted the arrangement, they didn’t dare go as far as to acknowledge it openly. Julia hugged me but she looked at Merdon tearfully.

  “Go take residence in the northern palace,” Augustus said. “They won’t bother you there.”

  “We’ll come back as soon as it’s all calmed down,” Louisa said, surprisingly pragmatic. She was usually quick to tears, but now, under pressure, she seemed to stand straighter.

  “I’ll keep guard outside your bedroom,” Axel said.

  We went to our bed as if everything was normal. Augustus removed my clothes in loving silence, his dark eyes flicking up to meet mine now and then. I stood still in the candlelight. I wondered if he would still want me tie me to the bed.

  “Damned if I will let that crowd deny me my duty,” he said, tangling a hand in my hair. “I want Axel to hear every gasp and scream. If the crowd are crazy enough to fight their way to the bedchamber and try to kill me, let them find the King of the Sun Palace and not someone easily cowed.”

  He pushed me onto the bed and pulled my arms and legs out so he could lock the golden cuffs around my wrists and ankles. He fastened each one tight, spreading me out. I heard a distant roar of voices, chanting. I couldn’t make it out. My body tensed in fear, but Augustus slowly arranged my hair around my face and trailed a hand down me, as if he had all the time in the world to admire me.

  “It is only you…and me…and the man who protects us with his life,” he said. “I’m here, Rose, and I’ll never let you go.”

  He filled me with his mouth and cock, his motions still slow and deep, and even as I heard shouting and all sorts of commotion outside growing louder and louder, I shut my eyes and surrendered to him. His adoration was thorough. As he took his pleasure, he gave as well. He caught my imprisoned hands in his and massaged my palms, his hair shone under the candlelight as he sucked my nipples, and the king’s vine teased at my bud, enhancing the sensations of his cock inside me.

  Soon I had forgotten the world. I was screaming for him, my head tousling the pillow as I bucked with the sweet sensation rolling through me.

  He growled out his climax like he was thinking of fighting and then he collapsed beside me in grim satisfaction. “They hate us just as we’re becoming very good at what we do…”

  “They don’t know that,” I said. “Even though anyone can come to the palace, the poorest people could never afford it, could they? We are a mystery to them as much as they are to us.”

  “That’s true.” He loosened my bonds for sleep before settling in beside me, staring at the canopy of our bed. “It’s true, really. I’m not the king they need. I wish I could have been a mage king, and then I could have done something about it.”

  We heard a man’s scream and he sat up straight. There was thumping and voices somewhere in the palace.

  I struggled against my bonds. “Augustus…”

  He held up a hand. “No. You’re kept safe there for a reason.”

  “Kept safe from spindles. Not mobs!”

  Axel pounded on the door. “Your Majesty!”

  Augustus let him in, shutting it quickly behind him.

  Axel looked at me, my face still no doubt flushed. He had heard every sound I made, of course. I knew things were bad when he didn’t linger on me. “One of the guards was stabbed to death in the courtyard,” he said. “A few of them broke in after that. We need to get you out of here.”

  Outside, the chanting went on. “Give us bread! Give us bread!”

  “Let me free,” I said insistently. “I want to see them.”

  “It’s not safe,” Axel said.

  “I want them to see me.” I swallowed down a lump of fear.

  The slander that had been used against me was about how I didn’t submit to my role. They implied that I controlled the king instead of the other way around. That I took whatever lovers I wished, male or female; I was some untamed creature instead of the disciplin
ed doll that the queen was meant to be.

  There is some truth in their anger, I thought, with a faint smile. But it isn’t like they think. Is Augustus mine? Or am I his?

  The answer was never so simple, but the people would never understand.

  “The Queen of the Sun Palace has everything she wants because she gives everything of herself,” I said. “But how do they ever know how much I’m willing to give?”

  Augustus understood. He unlocked my bonds as Axel said,

  “No…!”

  Augustus picked up a lace robe and slid it over my shoulders.

  “No.” Axel grabbed him. “Don’t. It’s dangerous, and if something happened to her— They’ve already killed soldiers. If they hurt her—“

  “These are our people,” Augustus said.

  I walked up to the tall doors to the balcony. The glass doors were covered by heavy curtains. Augustus held one aside for me as I opened the door. The noise of the crowd immediately grew louder, but as I stepped out and they noticed me on the balcony, they started to quiet down. I walked to the banister, naked and bare-footed, into the cold. They could see all of me. My naked breasts, my sex, the king’s vine twined around my waist and thighs.

  All of the shame I would have felt once was gone now. This seemed like a dream. The people—they weren’t real. There were so many of them that they became anonymous. A sea of faces, torches, hoisted weapons and tools.

  Where was the Cobblestone Witch? I would never find her in the shadows and flickering flames.

  Augustus came up beside me.

  Now they were almost completely quiet.

  “This is your queen,” Augustus said. “My queen.” He wrapped an arm around me and fondled my breast.

  It was hard to say if they were angry or awed. I felt Augustus’ mood turning fiercer as he saw how many people had gathered to defy him and kill his guards.

  “Bow for me,” he said, his voice carrying over the entire crowd.

  I knew this was how it had to be, and I moved mechanically, lowering my hands to the cold banister, bowing my head to all the people.

  Behind me, Augustus snapped open two buttons on his trousers. He had just satisfied himself not long ago but I felt that he was hard again. Something about this had managed to rouse him. We were both under a spell. His cock sank deep into me as he pulled up my thighs, hoisting me up in his strong arms. He fucked me so hard that the whole crowd could see me shaken, rocked, claimed deep and hard, while the king’s vine slithered over the lips of my wet sex, teasing and spreading and making sure no part of me was left unexposed and unstimulated.

  “Come for me,” he snapped so they all could hear him.

  I came through sheer force of will, letting out a shriek that sounded even more tortured than I expected it would.

  But I was screaming at them, as if to say, See, there! I’m not the queen you make me out to be, I am the king’s possession that you want me to be. All the pleasures and indulgences I have taken for myself are nothing compared to what I have to give you. So take it, you fiends.

  As I collapsed against the banister and Augustus let me go, they shouted, “Praise the king! Praise the king!”

  My feet were numb and my nails dug into the stone.

  Augustus lifted me into his arms and carried me back to the bed. Axel took one of my hands. “How cold she is!”

  “It needed to be done,” I said. “Listen…it’s gotten quiet.”

  Axel straightened, staring down Augustus. “You both could have been harmed. We need to seize this moment and escape.”

  Outside, one voice called, “If the king and queen devote themselves to the people, then they must go to Lumine. Shut the doors of this gilded cage forever and live among those you serve!”

  Augustus walked back to the balcony. I saw the curtains stirring around him as the cold air blasted in around his body as he stood between the tall glass doors. He bowed in silent acquiescence.

  “My queen,” Axel said, rubbing my feet between his hands to warm them. “I’ll be damned if you’re torn to pieces by those trolls. Or cast into a century of sleep. Even elves don’t live that long.”

  “There is no escape,” I said. “They’ve surrounded the palace…where could I go?”

  “I’ll find a way,” he said. “But when I find it, you will both have to trust me.”

  “I do trust you,” I said, my heart pounding.

  “We will go to Lumine,” Augustus said. “I have spent my life in this gilded cage, and some part of me is relieved to be forced out.” But the look on his handsome face was that of a man who would miss the palace that was his home, the palace of which he had been the master.

  Chapter Five

  Augustus

  Rose fell asleep in the carriage, clearly exhausted by her ordeal. I smoothed my hand through her hair, her face so beautiful in sleep, more girlish as if she was sixteen and not a woman who had been my wife for years now, and would soon be a mother.

  We left on our own terms, as best we could, but I knew what this was— a coup.

  Outside, I heard people jeering, “We’ve caught the baker, we’ve caught the baker’s wife, we’ve caught the baker’s lover and we’ll have all the bread we like!”

  I was being forced from my home. I had grown up behind those walls. Now it was left to the rabble, and I thought of all the paintings and tapestries and vases and trinkets, the adornments on the fireplace mantles. No one could defend them against hungry, grasping hands. I imagined that peasant women were probably snatching Rose’s dresses from the wardrobes.

  I couldn’t decide how I felt about it. I hated that my home and my most personal possessions could be touched and smelled and stolen by strangers.

  Yet, I was not surprised. My world is crumbling to dust after all. But I have her. I have this beautiful, fragile creature of flesh and bone, laughter and spirit. As long as I can find a way to keep her…

  Axel was avoiding my eyes, his expression as severe as I had ever seen it, that elven superiority on full display in the lift of his chin.

  “Jealousy is a surprisingly good look on you,” I finally said.

  “Jealous? No, no, I’m— You put her in danger,” he said.

  “She wanted to do it.”

  “But for the love of the gods, why?” He frowned at me. “That was too shameful for words.”

  “She was right. They needed to see her. It might have saved our lives.”

  “They needed to see her shamed?”

  “I don’t know if that’s the right word,” I said. “I don’t think she was shamed. I think she was in control of everything, and…” I was getting hard again just thinking of it. “She was like the sacrifice one gives to make the harvest. She’s done it all before behind closed doors, in secret…and today she claimed her role, and I claimed mine. I feel like a king tonight, Axel. Just as I’m saying goodbye…but, that seems fitting too.”

  “What if I could arrange to take you back to my kingdom?” Axel said. “Would you go? I could offer you a sanctuary. Freedom. Of course, I could never offer you this kind of splendor. It would be…just the three of us, there.”

  Axel looked like he was ready to tear down mountains to protect us. “We don’t even deserve you,” I said. “But…this is the land of my blood, and I can’t…”

  “You would die here?” His nostrils flared. I had never seen him so close to losing his temper. “Do you know what death gets you? It’s final. What we have—it would be over. Spare me platitudes about the afterlife, I want you and I want her and I’ll—I’ll kidnap you if I must.”

  I chuckled. “Your will against mine, I suppose. We’ll see.”

  Chapter Six

  When I stirred, it was some wee hour of the morning before sunrise, and the carriage came into the courtyard of the old palace, occupied by King Enri before the Palace of the Sun was built. No one had lived in it for a long time.

  We were surrounded by a rebel guard now, and shown to our new quarters, a cavernous bed
room with dusty, dark curtains hanging over the windows. There was a grand canopy bed but the linens had black spots of mildew and smelled terrible; I wouldn’t be surprised to find mice nests in the mattress, but I wasn’t about to look.

  The head of this rebel guard was a goblin, thick-set, with a sickly pallor and gray eyes that seemed too big while his toothy grin suggested more of an urge to eat us than friendliness. His black hair was coarse, a ribbon at the back of his neck doing nothing to tame it, with slightly curved black horns on his head.

  I was immediately nervous.

  “Do you have everything you need, Your Majesties?” he asked us, his voice infinitely more cultured than his unfortunate face.

  “I suppose there are ten ways of answering that question,” Augustus said. “But for now, we appear to be alive and I suppose you wouldn’t have started a fire in the hearth and given us linens if you didn’t intend to keep it that way.”

  He gave Augustus a funny look for a moment before nodding.

  “The Cobblestone Witch will come to see you shortly,” he said. “Please know that she wants to put the queen to sleep.”

  “He was warning us,” Augustus said, when the doors shut behind him.

  “Warning us? Why? He hardly said anything!” I said. “He’s our enemy.”

  “I just have a feeling he was trying to tell us we need a plan. The rebellion was cobbled together hastily enough that it would be easy for one of our allies to infiltrate their ranks. The goblin kingdom were always allies of ours.”

  I was unconvinced, but I said, “How can we put her off?”

  Augustus opened the curtains, sending clouds of dust into the room. I was alarmed to see hundreds of faces looking up to the window, as if they had been waiting for us.

  “We’re surrounded on all sides, I think,” Augustus said. “But there is one way we might escape.”

  “How?”

  “To the Wicked Revels,” he said. “The Wicked Revels exists in another plane, and they can open a door for us. If we took that way, we could never return. We would just be subjects of the Wicked Revels…”