Chapter 4: Sleeping Beauty

The Prince had grown up on the legend—a girl cursed into sleep for a hundred years, her parents and their entire court frozen with her in silence and dust, sealed inside a castle lost in time.

He never truly believed it—not until he stood in its shadow.

The tangled rose vines were real, thick as a man’s arm and as hungry as wolves. They wrapped the castle in a wall of thorns, studded with the skeletons of other princes, their armor split open, rusted blades still gripped in dead hands. They’d tried. They’d bled. They’d failed.

But he didn’t fear it. He wasn’t here to die. He was here to conquer.

The vines fell before him—his sword slicing root and thorn as though the plants sensed the difference in him. The path cleared, and he stepped through ruin into the castle’s breathless hush.

Sunlight filtered in faint and gold through shattered stained glass. The banquet hall lay cloaked in decay—nobles slumped in their chairs, their skin slack, spun over with cobwebs. Servants dozed against the walls, faces serene, clothes faded to threads. Everything still. Everything asleep.

He pressed forward, heart pounding—not from fear, but from the terrible certainty that he was drawing closer to her.

He found her in the highest room, alone in a vast velvet bed. The chamber was still, the air thick with dust and the perfume of ancient roses. Light spilled through the opened windows, gold on her skin.

And there she lay.

Sleeping Beauty.

Her name wasn’t needed. Her body was a cathedral of desire. Flaxen hair spilled like silk over the dark green of the velvet. Her dress clung to her curves, the embroidered fabric fallen into the valley between her thighs, revealing the soft swell of her sex beneath it.

She looked untouched by time—breasts high and round beneath the lace, lips slightly parted as if about to whisper. Her skin held a soft blush, as if the pulse of sleep had kept her blood warm.

He reached for her—not with caution, but with a reverence that trembled in his fingertips. He traced her cheek, her lips, her closed eyes, lingering on the lashes that curved like feathers. Her skin was like warmed silk beneath his fingertips, a revelation after the rough chill of his armor. She was real. Alive. And utterly his.

With his sword, he sliced the gown down the center, careful not to mar the skin beneath. The fabric whispered open, revealing her inch by inch—rosy nipples rising in the cool air, her belly smooth and soft, her sex hidden beneath a golden tangle that shimmered like honey.

He stripped the sleeves next, lifting her gently, her head falling against his arm as if even in sleep, she sought him.

His breath caught. He inhaled, pulling in the ancient perfume of roses mingled with something uniquely hers—a scent that drove him wild.

He stripped himself bare. The armor fell to the floor with a heavy clatter that did not disturb the silence. Naked, aching with need, he knelt before her.

His hand slid between her thighs. The heat of her core shocked him—wet, pulsing, ready. His thumb pressed to her mound, his fingers parting the lips of her sex. A deep, unfamiliar warmth bloomed within her, a coil of dormant pleasure beginning to unfurl. She sighed, deep and low, the sound barely more than breath—but enough to burn him.

He cupped her breasts, kissed each nipple with reverence, his tongue circling, sucking, then biting gently until they pebbled tight beneath his mouth. He rolled them in his palms, savoring the weight and softness, then slapped them lightly to watch them sway.

She was beauty made flesh. And her body, though still asleep, seemed to ache with unspoken need.

He climbed over her, spreading her thighs wider, watching the slick shine between them. With one hand on her breast and the other guiding himself, he pressed into her—slow, insistent, unrelenting.

Her sleeping body seemed to instinctively tighten around him, a slow, deep stretch that resonated through her core. She gasped—the sound sharp and raw, her eyes fluttering beneath closed lids. Her walls clenched around him, and he moaned as he pushed deeper. The heat enveloped him, a liquid fire that gripped him tight. Every inch deeper was a slow burn, an exquisite friction that made him groan.

He bent to kiss her, tongue slipping between her parted lips. When his tongue slipped between her lips, she tasted like something pure and untouched, like sun-warmed honey. She tasted like something ancient and untouched—like spring beneath snow.

Her legs lifted without command, wrapping loosely around his hips. Her body responded to every thrust, her hips rising, her back arching, her breath catching in soft moans.

He drove into her harder, the bed creaking beneath their joined bodies, the slap of flesh echoing in the silence. Her lips moved beneath his, and her hands twitched where they lay by her sides.

And then—

Her eyes opened.

Deep blue, wide and wild, they stared into his as though seeing light for the first time.

“Beauty,” he whispered, trembling. He kissed her throat, her collarbone, her mouth again, softer now.

She blinked, dazed. Her brows drew together in confusion—and need.

She moaned as he pulled out of her, only to gather her up, her naked body pliant in his arms. She sat upright, one leg bent, her sex glistening, still open, still aching.

"I've awakened you, my love," he said, brushing hair from her face. "A hundred years you've slept... and now the world begins again."

Below, the castle stirred.

A murmur of voices. A clash of steel. The first thrum of harp strings in the banquet hall.

She turned toward the sound—and then back to him. Her body leaned forward, mouth brushing his shoulder. A soft, open kiss.

And then she whispered, her voice like wind in the roses—

“Take me again. I want to feel alive.”