Sir Elizabeth lay naked on a cushioned, inclined bench on one of Heartgarden Castle’s many verandas. A roaring fire in the veranda’s hearth kept it pleasant, even as the sun set and a winter breeze rustled the treetops of the courtyard beyond.

Twelve aspirants were gathered around her, the wide skirts of their gowns competing for space.

Each one held a large silk scarf in his delicate, gloved hands, and fluttered it regularly over Elizabeth’s skin in various pleasing patterns. Christopher was demurely rubbing her thigh as if he were polishing it, keeping his mouth closed around his freshly pierced tongue. It seemed there were no hard feelings between them.

Of course, it was always easiest for Christopher to behave himself in Daisy’s absence, an absence which disappointed Elizabeth slightly. Out of all the unclaimed aspirants in the castle, Daisy was the one she would most have expected to be here for her now.

She shook her head and added Daisy to the list of things to keep out of it, along with everyone and everything else that wasn’t currently within a two-foot radius of her.

The consort standing at her left shoulder, Edgar, held a carafe of wine, and meticulously topped off her glass after nearly every sip she took.

This made him her current favorite.

The warm intoxication already flowing through her blood, muffling her brain and rooting her to her body, was the only thing allowing her to enjoy any of the rest of it.

Another aspirant, David, swept his silk expertly across her collarbone and both breasts. Her nipples hardened in search of more attention, and without being asked, he took them between his fingers with a precise, systematic roll. His gloves were almost as soft as the scarves.

Elizabeth wasn’t sure whether the aspirants had been encouraged to pay her extra attention, to compensate her for having her chosen consort snatched away by Princess Phaedia, or if they were hoping to be picked for his now vacant position.

How anyone could still see her as the lady of their dreams, she didn’t know.

Today, she didn’t care.

Silk caressed her neck, her arms, her breasts, her thighs.

One of the aspirants climbed onto the bench, kneeling between her legs, and spread his scarf over her pelvis.

With a mischievous smile, he lowered his head and licked her through the thin layer of silk. It was technically permitted, not quite an intimate sullying of his bare skin, so long as the silk didn’t slip.

Elizabeth stretched out luxuriously and spread her legs farther apart, inviting him to continue.

The scarf was soon soaked with his saliva and her fluids. She could almost feel the texture of his tastebuds through it, as he licked her clit with abstractly knowledgeable precision.

How curiously balanced these virgins’ training must be.

She hoped he might draw it out, give her time to feel nothing but the scarves on her skin and his warm, wet tongue on her silk-covered cunt. That wouldn’t be such a horrible eternity to live in. But the licking aspirant’s technique was refined enough to bring her to a quick, irresistible orgasm.

Elizabeth moaned and writhed with it, and against it. She clung to the mind-erasing pulses of pleasure, staving off the moment when they would peter out and leave her with an intolerable moment of clarity.

The pulses stopped, and the moment came, full of tears and wretched, mournful gasping. Elizabeth drank the full contents of her generously poured glass, to hurry it past.

When the licking aspirant began to raise his head, she pushed it back down.

#

Daisy sat at her favorite table in the rose garden, enjoying her coffee, paging through a book of poetry and woodcuttings, and watching Sir Elizabeth’s pity party unfold from a safe distance.

There was a lot that Daisy struggled to understand about more traditional women — where the fun was in smashing breakaway sticks into each other’s faces a full gallop, for example, or how they could be so obsessed with the aesthetics of men’s lace and silk and paint without ever wanting to try those things on themselves.

She did know a thing or two, however, about how best to handle ladies who were not currently at their best. They were simple things, things she supposed every consort, husband, or other submissive partner would eventually have to figure out for themselves if they wanted to live peaceful, comfortable lives.

One of them was, when a woman seemed to be carefree at a time when there was no rational explanation for her to be so, it was best to give her space until she started making sense again.

Much as Daisy would have liked to offer Elizabeth comfort, it wasn’t possible for her to be comforted yet, and any interaction that might take place between them while she remained in this condition would not be real.

Daisy turned a page in her book, and a person-shaped shadow cut into the fading sunlight on it.

Immediately, Daisy set her coffee down, stood, and turned toward the presence, sinking into a curtsy in the same motion. She fully expected to look up find herself the latest unlucky recipient of Lady Mary’s ire. Between Sir Elizabeth suddenly making such a show of herself, and Princess Phaedia upending the Heartgarden with her royal presence, Lady Mary was likely to be feeling very small and eager to take her feelings out on any stragglers. Daisy had known the risk when she’d chosen her reading spot.

When Daisy lifted her head, however, she found that the shadow belonged not to Lady Mary, but to a handsome woman she had seen only once before, at the princess’s grand entrance.

“It’s all right, sit,” the woman told her.

Daisy arranged herself cautiously back in her seat, smoothing wrinkles from her skirt.

“Do you mind company?” the woman asked.

Daisy shook her head and silently pulled another porcelain cup from the set she’d brought. She poured a second coffee with a well-practiced flourish.

“Thank you,” said the woman, adjusting her plate armor to sit in the chair across from Daisy. She took a sip of the coffee, not troubling with the cream or sugar. “You’re free to speak, by the way. That is, if I can give you that permission? I haven’t been invited to choose a consort of my own, only to enjoy your hospitality while I tend to her highness on her visit.”

“My duty includes treating all guests with the same respect,” Daisy assured her. “So, yes, you have the authority to permit me to speak.”

“Good,” said the woman. “This would have been a very boring conversation, otherwise.”

Daisy used the access to her voice to reply with a friendly giggle.

“I’m Sir Olivia,” said the woman.

“Daisy,” said Daisy.

Sir Olivia smiled with her lips pressed together, the way people did when they were too polite to point out that Daisy’s reputation preceded her.

Olivia took another slow sip of her coffee without taking her eyes off Daisy, even for a moment.

“You can ask,” Daisy told her. “I don’t mind.”

“Ask what?” said Olivia, with almost convincing innocence.

“Whichever question it is that’s burning the tip of your tongue,” Daisy said lightly. “Why would a woman want to be a lady’s consort? Aren’t men’s dresses horribly uncomfortable? How do I walk in the slippers? Did the Heartgarden have to invent a new type of chastity belt just to fit me?”

“I imagine the answer to all of those questions, minus the last one, is much the same as it is for men,” said Olivia.

Daisy’s shoulders unburdened themselves of the weight of explaining herself to a stranger. It was a weight she was used to, but its absence was euphoric.

“Still, we’ve just blown past the most important question of all,” said Olivia.

“What would that be?” asked Daisy.

“Well, men usually choose to fashion themselves as luxury playthings for one of two reasons,” said Olivia. “Either for the chance to exist adjacent to a life of luxury, or for the love of being played with. Which particular reason drives you?”

Daisy felt herself blush. She had never blushed as easily as the men — one of the many differences that tended to make her feel unattractively tough and unmasculine — but the blood flowed freely to her cheeks now.

“Both,” she answered honestly, “but especially being played with.”

Amusement flickered across Olivia’s lips, without breaking the aura of unflappable competence appropriate to a princess’s guard.

“In that case,” said Olivia, “within the bounds of honor and taste, is there anywhere the two of us might enjoy some private frivolity?”

Daisy nodded.

“Would you like that?”

She nodded again.

Olivia stood and offered an arm. Daisy linked hers with it, and started back toward the castle.

She restricted herself to one glance back at Elizabeth. Her current tantrum showed no sign of subsiding. The end was not something to hold one’s breath for, not if one was sensible.

##

One trembling footstep at a time, Gabriel passed through the door that Princess Phaedia held open for him, into her suite at Heartgarden Castle.

She locked it behind them and marched forward into the palatial space, leading him through three doorways before reaching the bedroom.

Gabriel stood with his hands folded diffidently in front of him, counting the beads embroidered into his slippers, the way he always did when he was standing and waiting for something to end.

“Take your clothes off,” Phaedia ordered without preamble. “No need to be shy. I’m going to keep you forever and ever.”

This was it, thought Gabriel. The end of virginity. And once it was over, there was no going back. No great lady would have him except the princess herself. Or if they would, they would always look upon him as less than he could have been.

He could still quit, excuse himself from consideration as a consort altogether. He doubted that even Phaedia would try to hold him here against his will. The queen gave her nearly free rein in most things, but she would definitely have something to say about an act that dishonorable.

Gabriel paused with his hands on the laces of his dress, contemplating the one question he’d hoped never to have to answer.

Would he prefer to live as a pet to a powerful woman he didn’t trust, or go home to his mother with nothing to show for his efforts, search for work serving in a tavern where he might someday catch a common woman’s eye, and then live out his days raising her children for a life of labor in a cottage that probably wouldn’t have a bookshelf, much less a conservatory?

He had never been able to settle that debate with himself, not in all the years he’d been preparing, and now there was an added complication.

Elizabeth.

Leaving now would clinch their separation for good.

If the two of them had happened to meet somewhere outside the Heartgarden, there would have been nothing to stop them from being together. Now that they had met here, however, circumventing the Heartgarden’s rules would be considered very bad form, at best, criminal at worst. Elizabeth could relinquish her invitation and follow him away, only for them both to end up in a prison cell, or out on the streets with none of Elizabeth’s lands and titles.

If they both stayed…. There was a reckless part of Gabriel that actually hoped Princess Phaedia would lose interest in him once the novelty of claiming him had worn off. If she set him aside voluntarily, and Elizabeth wanted to take him back, no one would stop them.

Of course, that assumed Elizabeth would want him back. She’d been talking just last night with such anticipation about taking his virginity for herself. It was only pillow talk, but he had no idea how she truly felt on the subject.

They barely knew each other, really.

Gabriel knew how presumptuous he was being, fantasizing about Elizabeth fighting to keep him beyond this moment. Her power as a knight was nothing compared to that of the heiress of the realm. She had done all she could for him, and he had no right to expect more.

The time for decision-making ran short, and Gabriel found himself undoing his laces and beginning to disrobe. He stripped off his gown, shoes, and stockings, and stood before the princess in only his corset and chastity belt.

“All the way,” Phaedia corrected him.

Gabriel’s voice started up in the back of his throat, but he caught himself just in time. Unlike Elizabeth, Phaedia had not given him permission to speak in her presence, much less to express a preference.

With resignation, he breathed in, unfastened the clasps of his corset, and added it to the pile of the rest of his clothes. He crossed his arms instinctively in front of him, covering his less graceful natural waist as best he could.

“Not bad,” Phaedia assessed him, walking a tight circle around him, dragging her ceremonial riding crop over his skin as she went. “I imagined you a little leaner and softer under those dresses, but that can be fixed. Less rich food, more rest.”

Gabriel tried to ignore the hunger and restlessness that sprang up already in response to her words.

“I’m going to unlock you now,” Phaedia announced indulgently, removing her key necklace from around her neck and dangling it in front of him.

She looked into his face, for what, Gabriel wasn’t sure. He waited in silence until she stepped around him to reach the heavy padlock at the back of his belt.

After a moment, the thick, protective plate of metal fell away from his delicate sex.

#

Swimming in the effects of three orgasms and more wine than she’d been able to keep track of, Elizabeth couldn’t bear lying on that bench a moment longer. Stillness allowed thoughts to pool inside her like water in low ground.

She directed four of the aspirants to bring out some string instruments and play something lively.

Haphazardly re-dressed in her tunic and leggings, she danced frantically among the rest of the aspirants attending her. She shook the invisible weights out of her arms and legs, and swung herself from one partner to the next, holding each one close, breathing in a bouquet of perfumes and savoring the hints of a soft body under each stiff bodice and unyielding belt.

Though she knew it was her place to lead, and to give each man in her presence a steady source of strength to lean upon, she found herself leaning upon them instead, tumbling from one living crutch to the next to avoid falling flat on the dance floor and staying there.

She suspected she would fall anyway, sooner or later. She only hoped that, when she did, she would be tired enough to slip directly into unconsciousness, before the thoughts had time to pool again.

#

Daisy walked Olivia brazenly down into the dungeons.

“Whatever could we be doing here?” Olivia asked slyly. “I didn’t see your name on the disciplinary schedule for today.”

“You checked the schedule?” Daisy responded with a daintier sort of slyness.

“With the princess safe behind castle walls, I thought I’d offer up my spare time to assist our hosts,” Olivia reasoned.

Half of her mouth had pulled up into a smile.

“How gallant,” said Daisy. “Were you hoping to find any particular names on the schedule, in need of a volunteer to punish them?”

“If you’d known I would be checking,” said Olivia, “would you have committed an infraction to add your name?”

“Never,” Daisy declared, skipping and twirling down the aisles of the dungeon’s tack room. “I would never shirk my duties on purpose.”

“And yet…” Olivia prompted, watching her with rapt interest.

“And yet I’ve always been fascinated with this place,” Daisy admitted. “Bit exciting, isn’t it?”

“That must make things easier for you,” said Olivia. “When you do break a rule.”

“I wish it did,” said Daisy. “The trouble is, I’m usually too ashamed of breaking the rule to even notice where I am.”

She ran her fingers along a set of correction gags, a rack of whips.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Olivia prompted.

“It seems such a waste, to keep all this equipment on hand, but reserve it for moments such as that. I want to be a good consort. I want to be perfect, if I can. Does that mean I should never be permitted to feel any of these devices at work on me?”

“That would be a tragic injustice,” Olivia agreed. “One we could put to rights.”

“Could we?” Daisy asked, almost painfully hopeful.

Olivia’s eyes assessed the room, the rows upon rows of equipment, and Daisy herself.

“I wouldn’t want to ruin that lovely dress of yours,” she said. “I recommend removing it and anything else that could tear or stain.”

Daisy joyfully did as she was told, struggling not to rush or look more eager than was proper. She folded her clothes neatly onto one of the shelves and stood in only her chastity belt with her hands at her sides, thrumming with excitement for what Olivia would do next.

“Lie on the rack,” Olivia directed her, pointing to one of the room’s larger contraptions.

Daisy practically threw herself onto the horizontal wrought iron framework and raised her hands over her head for Olivia to shackle in place.

The thought crossed Daisy’s mind, as it always did while she was being restrained, that there would be nothing at all she could do if her captor turned out to mean her true harm. The thought was fiercer than usual, with her captor being a nearly perfect stranger, and this encounter between them being unscheduled and unknown to Headmistress Jane.

As usual, the intensity of Daisy’s excitement rose to match her fright, quieting any serious thoughts of escape.

Olivia finished securing the shackles around Daisy’s wrists and ankles, and then set about lighting the partially melted candles on the iron canopy above her. In a few minutes, they would begin to drip their wax onto Daisy’s naked, defenseless body. Only the area around her face was safe, that and what her chastity belt covered.

“You’ve been a good little aspirant,” Olivia cooed reassuringly, petting Daisy along the bare skin between her breasts.

If Daisy had been a cat, she would have purred. No human sound seemed adequate to capture her delight at the touch.

“It’s so unfair, what happens when you’re that good,” Olivia went on. “It’s easy to ignore the person who causes no trouble. Everyone else needs correction, but not you, you can be left alone, trusted, taken for granted. And when someone does have a scrap of attention to spare for you, they never guess how you like it best, do they?”

Daisy shook her head, eyes closed, reveling in the words as much as the stroking on her skin.

“How would you like to be rewarded for all your patience, and thoughtfulness, and hard work?” Olivia asked.

“Turn the crank,” Daisy whispered reverently.

“Manners,” Olivia reminded her. “Don’t go and forget them now, after all you’ve been through.”

“Turn the crank, please, my lady,” Daisy corrected herself.

“Very nice,” said Olivia, reaching for the crank.

With several intimidating thunks, the chains attached to Daisy’s wrists and ankles shortened, pulling in opposite directions. Olivia stopped them right at the end of Daisy’s reach, leaving her comfortable but quite immobile.

“You depend on being noticed, don’t you?” asked Olivia, returning to the stroking of Daisy’s chest, only the middle, nowhere more sensitive than that. “Obviously, you depend on it now. If I were to forget you here, all chained up like this, you could honestly die. But even when you seem to be walking around free, with ready access to food and water and all the dull necessities of life, you feel just the same, don’t you? It feels as if your next breath hangs on someone else’s distractible, unreliable gaze. As if, at any moment, you could slip out of the thoughts of all other living beings, and then out of existence altogether. You can’t seem to fend off the threat of indifference, no matter how good you are.”

Claustrophobic tension pressed down on Daisy’s chest… something the bindings alone had not been able to prompt.

“You’re safe here,” Olivia told her with absolute authority. “I find your goodness captivating.”

Warmth replaced the pressure.

“Tighter,” Daisy dared to ask. “Please?”

“Because you asked so nicely…” Olivia gave the crank another slow turn.

The next few thunks lifted Daisy off of the frame and suspended her between the taught chains. As measured as Olivia’s adjustment was, the machine’s rough, easy motion made Daisy feel like flower petal tied to two carriages. Her body was insubstantial, not even a minor consideration to the capacities of the gears.

“Those candles are heating up nicely,” Olivia informed her, craning her neck to see. “They’ll be getting as wet as either of us quite soon. Are you looking forward to that?”

“Yes,” said Daisy, watching the lights flicker against the ceiling with nervous anticipation.

Olivia reached up and put her hand on the upper rack that held the candles. She rested her weight on that hand, upsetting the candle rack’s balance exactly as it had been built to be upset. With just a few degrees of incline, the candles sputtered noticeably, and within a matter of seconds, the first drop fell and hit the sensitive skin of Daisy’s rib cage.

The burn was harsh enough that she could feel her body trying to jerk away and shield itself. Within moments, however, the scorching heat faded to a comfortable warmth, and the wax hardened into a protective shell over nearly but not quite burnt skin.

Another, larger drop hit her upper thigh and seared its way along the inside edge, touching the opposite thigh while it was still hot and runny.

The lesson repeated itself, drop by drop: her urges of self-protection were unnecessary. She was in safe hands that would grant her only as much pain as was good for her. All she needed to do was take it.

“Is this the sort of blameless rough handling you’ve been missing?” Olivia asked her.

“Yes!” Daisy moaned, lost in the torturously slow cooling of an especially long drip, which had landed on her left breast, sending wax tendrils down the edges like a spider’s web.

“Pity,” said Olivia, brushing dust off her armor with her free hand. “The machine does almost all the work. Hardly anything for me to do at all.”

Daisy lifted her head, one of the only parts of her that could still move, to drink in Olivia’s presence. Even if the machine had been able to do everything by itself, it wouldn’t have been the same without this handsome knight here, seeing to it that Daisy was feeling how she was intended to feel.

Daisy bit her lip and found herself coming over rather bold. “You could do something to me, regardless,” she suggested. “That is, if you wanted to.”

“Hmm,” Olivia hummed thoughtfully, letting go of the rack to walk the nearest aisle of implements.

The candles leveled out, the steady rain of wax slowing to a sprinkle.

“Best not to use anything too rough on that skin of yours at the moment,” Olivia thought aloud. “Ah.”

She returned to the rack with a long, soft leather strap.

With firm hands, she removed the iron grate that Daisy was currently suspended over, the one she had started out lying on. That done, Olivia rotated the framework of the rack, so that Daisy was hanging with her face to the floor instead of the ceiling. Her back sagged slightly in the middle, but Olivia soon corrected that with another slight turn of the crank.

Daisy’s shoulders popped with the tighter stretch, and she held her breath, waiting for the first stinging fall of that strap.

The metal above her shifted, and another rain of wax fell over her instead. Thin channels of scorching heat gathered between her shoulder blades and ran down the curves of her ass, sticking to the chains of her chastity belt.

With another shift of metal, the rain died out, and cool breath blew over her, all the way down her back and legs. She shivered, from the brush of the air on her skin, and from the thought that the same air had just been inside Olivia’s chest.

Something soft — the strap — brushed over one of the patches of fresh wax on Daisy’s ass.

She clenched, ready.

The strap rose and fell with a snap, shattering the cooled wax and inflicting a new kind of sting on the recovering flesh beneath. The soft texture of the leather left no splits in Daisy’s skin, but the impacts had a blistering feel to them nonetheless.

Olivia worked her way down Daisy’s legs, then up again to her back. Every inch of skin she coated systematically with blows. Daisy savored the magnificent evidence of how much she could endure, so much more than her skittish reflexes gave her credit for.

When the lashing ended at her shoulders, Daisy’s whole back side felt as if it were vibrating with energy. She felt half sure that if Olivia were to touch her now, with her bare hands, they would both be stunned by the spell hovering over her skin.

Olivia crouched in front of her, looking up into her hanging face.

“If you could make one more wish right now, what would it be?” she asked.

This moment was already so much more special than anything Daisy had expected to happen today. She thought of wishing for some assurance that it would happen again, but that seemed a greedy distraction from the moment itself.

“I wish I could see proof that this was more than a fantasy plucked from my head and parroted back to me. I wish I knew how it felt to you.”

“Oh.” Olivia’s face melted into a pure grin. “Is that all?”

She rotated the rack again so that Daisy was hanging fully upside down, her face level with Olivia’s hips.

Methodically, the knight began untying the plates of armor that hung around her waist, and opened the front of her leggings.

“Is this the kind of proof you were hoping for?” Olivia asked, slowly stroking the lips of her cunt.

Daisy took in a hungry breath, savoring the tangy sweetness on the air, and nodded.

“This is from looking at you, touching you, watching you feel, thinking about how sweet you are. Do you believe me?” Olivia asked.

Daisy nodded again, loving how true it was. The part of her that always assumed she was being humored was gloriously silent.

“Would you like a more complete demonstration?” Olivia asked, still stroking herself, slowly, with glistening fingers.

Daisy nodded yet again. “Yes, please.”

Olivia braced herself against the shelf behind her and began to stroke herself more vigorously, occasionally dipping her fingers inside before bringing them up to rub back and forth over her clit.

Hanging upside down, with stray bits of wax dripping in sizzling splotches up her legs, Daisy watched in awe.

Cunts and how they functioned were an essential part of the curriculum at the Heartgarden. Every aspirant needed to be prepared to please their future lady with minimal additional training.

They were not, however, allowed any unnecessary familiarity with their own bodies. Daisy’s fellow aspirants were not permitted to see or touch their cocks until they had been formally introduced to them by their ladies. They might see someone else’s cock at one ceremony or another, but then only at a distance.

For Daisy, watching Olivia’s technique in full, close-up detail, while being able to feel the same sort of anatomy existing under her chastity belt, felt like wicked, forbidden knowledge. But it wasn’t. That made it all the better. It was a free, adventurous thrill without any real rule-breaking.

Daisy’s own cunt burned differently but almost as hot as the wax on her skin, desperately curious how it would feel to be touched that same way. The idea called to her like the smell of coffee before she had ever tasted it, promising an experience she could only comprehend the edges of, until she had lived it for herself.

Olivia leaned harder against the shelf, breathing hard, and lurched downward several inches as her knees lost their strength. For an instant, her position looked almost as helpless as Daisy’s own, gripped by a vast, mysterious force. The sound she made, the wave of awed contentment that passed over her face, made it look like something that could only be magical.

All the most indulgent things Daisy could think of — a fresh, sticky honey cake, a full orchestra playing her favorite symphony, a warm rosewater bath — all seemed inadequate points of reference. Much as she loved them, any one of them would need to be refined to an impossible purity to match the ecstasy playing out in front of her.

Little by little, Sir Olivia returned to herself and stumbled forward to the frame of the rack. She rotated it to turn Daisy’s body more or less upright, with a forward slant that made it easier for them to look into each other’s eyes.

The rush of blood down from Daisy’s head only added to the pounding heat between her legs.

“Are you ready to rejoin the festivities upstairs?” Olivia asked.

Daisy’s hips would have been writhing if they’d had any give to move at all. “Please, one more round of lashes,” she begged.

It was the only thing she knew of that might quiet her craving for the impossible.

Though the droop of Olivia’s body said she was craving a comfortable spot to sit or even lie down for a nap, she picked up the strap and brushed Daisy’s cheek with infinite patience.

“As many as you like.”

##

Phaedia stepped back in front of Gabriel and looked exasperatedly down at his soft, exposed cock.

“What kind of greeting is that for your princess?” she asked him.

Gabriel bit the inside of his cheek, trying to gauge whether this was a rhetorical question, and what respectful, truthful answer he could possibly give if it wasn’t.

Phaedia reached down and grabbed his cock forcefully in her bare hand.

Gabriel’s stomach turned over at the abrupt, unceremonious intimacy he had apparently been saving himself for all these years.

The first woman to touch him, skin-to-skin: Princess Phaedia. So it was and would always have been.

“Show me how excited you are to be let out,” she demanded.

Gabriel tried to give her the reaction she obviously wanted, but only managed a feeble twitch.

“Explain yourself!”

That was direct enough to count as permission, and obligation, to speak.

“I apologize, your highness,” said Gabriel. “My parts are still sore from the seed extraction. You were quite… thorough, with me.”

It was true, his ass and cock felt faintly bruised all over from the improvised claiming ceremony.

He couldn’t mention that he’d also had his testicles drained and then flogged a few hours earlier, at Elizabeth’s hand. Hopefully, any extra tenderness could pass for a particularly fragile, masculine constitution on his part.

Phaedia’s lips squeezed petulantly together.

Headmistress Jane herself had warned that performing a seed extraction as part of the ceremony would reduce Gabriel’s physical desires for a while, and could potentially disrupt the bonding process between them.

It seemed as if Phaedia found nothing so annoying other people’s tactfully offered advice turning out to have merit.

Jane might be in for some form of retribution for that later, but for now, Gabriel was the target within easiest reach.

“No matter,” said Phaedia, with a hard smile that said it definitely did matter. “There’s nothing that can’t be solved with adequate discipline. Bend over the bed.”

Gabriel awkwardly did as he was told. The bed was too high for his knees to touch the ground, and too low for a stable stance with straight legs.

Before he’d quite settled into a position, the crop snapped against his ass, making him yelp.

“This is for making me feel unwelcome.” She snapped it against the other side. “From this point forward, when I remove your belt, you will be ready for use, or you will be punished. Your body will learn over time which it prefers.”

Gabriel pressed his face into the satin duvet while she flogged his ass, wondering if she was right.

After what felt like an eternity, Phaedia grabbed his shoulder and turned him onto his back.

Spankings usually got Gabriel’s blood flowing, but he hadn’t felt any change to his cock, nor thought about trying to force any. All his attention had been on enduring the pain.

“Do you think I’m ugly?” Phaedia asked, with a threatening squeeze.

“Of course not,” Gabriel answered automatically.

This wasn’t dishonesty. If he scrubbed everything Princess Phaedia had ever said or done from his mind, she was a pleasing figure of a woman. She had a powerful frame, even under the doublet that was, of course, tailored to make her look even more imposing.

Her rosy skin, her golden hair, her unusually even teeth, all were clean and perfect in a way that most men aspired to, and only the wealthiest of women bothered with.

Gabriel perused her body with his eyes and tried to snap himself out of his resistance.

There was so much about this situation that should have aroused him. As he’d confessed to Elizabeth on their first night together, he did want to be owned, even if he didn’t always want to want it. This strong, powerful, handsome woman had taken over his life, held his key in her hand, and was willing to see to his discipline when he couldn’t manage it himself.

Now she wanted to use his cock in the way he’d been waiting all his life to have it used. His pleasure was not only allowed but encouraged. She would consider it a compliment.

Reciting these details to himself allowed him to present her with a serviceable bit of hardness.

“That’s better,” said Phaedia, her voice all exasperation and no approval.

She slipped her legs out of their hose and climbed onto the bed, straddling Gabriel’s thighs. She took his cock in her hand again and pumped it vigorously up and down.

Gabriel tried to enjoy it, to let it shore him up, but it had the opposite effect, beating his flesh back into softness like kneaded dough.

Phaedia shifted her hips forward to grind against him, but quickly found that she had no traction there.

“What is wrong with you?” she shouted.

Before Gabriel could form an appropriate reply, he felt Phaedia’s weight leave him, followed by her gaze.

The princess stormed out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind her, leaving him with no instructions.

Gabriel couldn’t call after her without breaking the code. He couldn’t leave this room. He wasn’t even sure if he could put his dress back on.

He curled his knees up to his chest, trying to ignore the strange feeling of his unprotected cock, pressed between his bare legs and stomach.

Time stretched out, unmeasured. Uncertainty drowned out any relief Phaedia’s absence might have given him.

#

Daisy and Olivia ambled back up to the gardens, arm in arm, dressed and de-waxed and looking far more respectable and ordinary than the thrill running through Daisy’s veins should have allowed.

Though she’d had time to calm herself since the peak of her passion, her skin still had a wonderful charge to it. The world seemed a kind and hopeful place.

It wasn’t until she glanced over at the veranda and saw Elizabeth sitting alone, leaning over a tankard of ale, that she remembered how cruel that world had been of late, to some.

Elizabeth looked up as she saw Daisy approach, eyes round, bloodshot, and entreating, though she made no direct request.

Daisy looked to Olivia, who appraised the situation with quiet efficiency.

“Your friend?” she asked simply.

“I believe she is,” Daisy answered.

Olivia swept her arm out from under Daisy’s and kissed her graciously on the hand. “Then I will leave you to your evening. Thank you for a wonderful time.”

Daisy hurried to return her thanks, before Olivia disappeared toward the wing of the castle where the royal apartments lay.

Alone in the moonlight with Elizabeth, Daisy walked over to the veranda and stood, unpresumptuous and silent, until Elizabeth could no longer resist saying, “Sit down.”

Daisy sank down onto the stone step next to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth held out the tankard sideways toward her. Daisy politely waved it away.

“I’d stopped thinking of protecting him as a favor I had to do for someone in need,” Elizabeth said hoarsely, swaying back and forth. “I was ready for it to be the most sacred work of the rest of my life. And I failed at it, as completely as anyone could fail at anything. She took him, and I did nothing. I helped her. I stood there with her, through the whole ceremony. I used things he trusted me with, to make it work for her.”

Elizabeth took a long draft from the tankard.

“Say something,” she said. “Please.”

Daisy checked carefully over each shoulder, though there had been no time for anyone to creep up on them in the vacant courtyard.

“There is a way,” she whispered.

Elizabeth raised an incredulous eyebrow at her.

“Not tonight,” said Daisy. “It’s something you’ll need all your wits about you for, and it will take time, but if you’re committed, there is a protocol that might allow you to reclaim him.”

“Why didn’t you say…?” Elizabeth set her tankard down and sprang to her feet, or tried to. She never quite got them all the way under her before tumbling forward into a flowerbed.

Calmly, Daisy lifted up her skirts, knelt down in the flower bed beside her, and patted her soothingly on the back.

“Tomorrow,” she promised.

***

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As promised, a plot-only summary of the Phadia/Gabriel scene:

Phaedia brings Gabriel to her royal suite. He reflects unenthusiastically on whether he would rather be her consort or go back to a common life. He realizes that if he and Elizabeth were both to leave the Heartgarden, they could never be together without getting in trouble for circumventing the Heartgarden's rules, whereas if they stay, there's a chance Phaedia will get bored with him and give him up, making him available to Elizabeth again. He wonders whether Elizabeth feels as strongly about him as he does about her and whether she'd see him differently if he were no longer a virgin. Ultimately, he decides to try to comply with Phaedia, but can't meet her demands. She ends up storming out in frustration over his inability to maintain an erection.