I say nothing while she wipes tears from her eyes.

“You promised me, Gabriel. You promised everyone.”

Sighing, I place my hands on her shoulders. “I still swear on my life to keep that promise. Can you make sure Belle remains under watch at all times while I’m gone?”

“I will,” she says, nodding. “All of our lives depend on it…”

A Bastard’s Ball

Belle

Three nights later

“Ohhh my godddd…Ahhhh…Ahhhh!”

Loud moans and murmurs sift under my door in the middle of the night, knocking me out of my sleep.

They’re more intense and drawn out than they were the night before, and from what I remember, they didn’t stop until long after dawn.

Pushing a blanket off my body, I grab a candelabra and open my bedroom door.

“What do you need, Miss Belle?” A guard immediately stands to his feet, his eyes red-rimmed and weary.

“I’m a little hungry,” I say. “I want to grab something from the kitchen.”

“Tell me what it is and I’ll have someone get it for you.”

“Please let me get it myself…” I beg. “If I wanted to escape, I doubt I would try running through the front door.”

He taps his chin a few times, considering.

“There are guards outside my window, too,” I continue pleading my case. “I’m not a threat for escaping…I just need to eat something.”

He turns his head away from me, clearing his throat. “Bring me a cake when you return.”

I nod and move past him.

Using my free hand to grab the staircase’s railing, I hold out the candle to illuminate my path in the darkness, following the moans and murmurs.

I stroll far past the kitchen, through a hallway of sullen, silver soldiers, until I reach a room hidden behind floor-length velvet drapes.

Letting out a breath, I grab the cord to pull one side open, and my jaw slowly unhinges and falls to the floor.

The room is full of naked men and maidens, and their bodies are sleek with sweat as their bodies writhe all over the furniture.

In the corner, a pianist strums her fingers against the keys as a trooper slides into her from behind. On their left, a woman sits on all fours, moaning as she takes one soldier’s cock in her mouth and another between her legs.

There’s an undulating pleasure here, an unashamedness that’s turning me on, and I can’t look away. I envision myself and Gabriel taking one of the couples’ places, kissing his mouth with my red-stained lips, straining to hear his commands as he grips my hips.

Right ahead of me, the oldest soldier—Tobias, grips a redheaded woman’s hips and pulls her onto his cock. She buries her head in his neck as he controls her every move.

I watch her body contort in absolute pleasure, and his dark eyes meet mine.

Smiling at me, he rubs a hand against the woman’s back. Then he extends it toward me.