Morning After

The bells of the castle haven’t rung yet. Morning light creeps soft through the mullioned windows, silvering the sheets where you lie sprawled, bare and defenseless. Your cock is already hard, pulsing with that cursed hypersensitivity the Moon Blossom trial stamped into your body. But it isn’t the dawn that rouses you—it’s the maddening sensation of an unseen hand stroking your length with perfect, merciless rhythm.

“Uhhh—ahhh—” Your hips jerk against the air. No hand is there, and yet it squeezes you, slides over you, thumb circling your tip with lazy cruelty. A groan breaks from your throat as your eyes flutter open.

A soft rustle; a page turns.

Sera lounges beside your bed in a sheer nightgown the color of spilled wine, one knee tucked beneath her, the other foot flat on the rug, toe idly tracing figure-eights. The gossamer clings to her as if it has a crush, letting moon-pale skin glow through. She holds the morning paper in one hand and the other is moving in unison with the pressure on your cock.

“Morning, Sir John,” she purrs, cocking her head to one side. “Still hard, I see. I’d say ‘rise and shine,’ but it looks like you’ve been rising all night.”

Your jaw tightened. “I didn’t ask for a wake-up spell.”

“Oh, no,” she said sweetly, circling the bed like a lioness. “But you did moan my name in your sleep. Three times, actually. Once while your hips were grinding against the sheets.” Her fingers danced, and your cock twitched helplessly in reply. “I figured you’d appreciate a personal touch.”

You swallow. The spell is there — humming above your skin, not on you — waiting. You meet her eyes. You nod once, then again, a tiny surrender more like a confession than consent. She taps a fingertip to her lower lip and the sensation blooms: an invisible hand wraps your shaft with the gentlest, laziest stroke, barely there, maddeningly there. Schhh—schhh—like silk slipping over glass.

You have to grip the mattress to keep from bucking.

“Ah,” Sera sighs, turning the broadside slowly as your cock strains, “they went with a pun. ‘BLOOM & BOOM — Knight’s Staff Makes Moon Blossom Gush.’” She affects a bored court reader: “‘Sir John’s resolve was ironclad; certain other parts were described as steel-tempered.’”

“Fuck,” you breathe.

“Language,” she chides, and the spell grows lazier, crueler in its patience. Shlick… shlick… shlick… her phantom grip milks you with lazy decadence, a squeeze at the base, a slow pull, a cruel pause circling your head that wrings a helpless, breathy “ah—” out of you. “Ah— the illustrator.” She tilts the sheet so you catch it: a full-plate engraving of your cock in profile, thick and shameless, the artist’s crosshatching almost obscene. “She nailed your veins. But it doesn't quiet compare to the real things. The proportions are slightly off,” Sera says, eyes dark, tongue wetting her lip. “Maybe we can arrange a sitting. She could measure you with her lips! I'm sure she's be sure to measure every inch”

Your forearms jerk, useless. The compulsion snaps them back wide, a schoolmarm parting them with a tsk. The exposure burns. The exposure thrills.

You drag in air through your teeth. The compulsion spell that forbids covering prickles at your wrists when instinct tries to pull your hand down. Useless. The magic parts your fingers like a tutting governess. You have to lie there and take it; you have to be seen.

Sera reads on, delight curling every word. “Quotes! ‘I’ve never seen a man turn into a dowsing rod before.’ ‘You could bounce a spell off that thing.’ ‘I wanted to curtsy at his cock’, ‘His cock twitched like it wanted to salute us all.’” Her voice softens for the last one: “‘It was beautiful.’” She glances over the top edge of the paper, gaze flicking from your face to your cock and back. “Beautiful,” she echoes, a whisper meant only for you.

The door slams open.

Princess Elara sweeps in like a drawn sword. Where Sera is careless tease, Elara is marble composure; the gown she wears is a formal blaze of midnight velvet and silver filigree, the bodice molded to her, the skirts a waterfall, her shoulders bare and impeccable. The crownlet on her brow makes every line of her face sharper. She takes in the scene — your naked body arched under invisible pleasure, Sera in her nightgown with the paper — and actually stumbles.

“Serafina,” she says, scandal and steel tangled in the name. “What— are you doing?”

Sera doesn’t even lower the paper. “Reading the news,” she says brightly, and rattles it. “Would you like the Culture section?” Then she hums and quotes while you pulse helplessly under the spell: “‘In a sensational first trial, Sir John demonstrated stamina, civic spirit, and restraint.’” A beat. “Cheerful journalism, that. Very supportive of local heroes.”

“Stop playing with him,” Elara snaps, cheeks pinking, voice pitched low to be kind but cutting anyway. “He is still recovering. Those enchantments…” Her eyes flick, unwilling, to your erection, then higher, as if dragging herself back to propriety. “Release him.”

The invisible hand pauses obediently. You gasp, your entire body thrumming with thwarted momentum.

Sera folds the paper at last, eyes bright as polished copper. “Release, hmm? Funny word choice, Your Highness.” She leans on her elbow, chin in palm, and the nightgown slides a scandalous inch. “This from the woman who wanted to how far his release would —” She lets the sentence dangle, baited, dangerous. “No, never mind. Must have been the magic.”

Elara’s composure fractures. Scarlet floods from her collarbones to the tips of her ears. “You will not invent things to justify your lack of discipline,” she says quietly.

“Who said invent?” Sera’s smile is all teeth. “We all remember yesterday’s truth-spells, don’t we? We’ve all heard your… curiosity.” She purrs the last word, making it sound indecent. “And some of us saw more than the Moon Blossom. Stars, Princess, the way you look at him—”

Elara didn’t raise her voice. “Serafina, end the spell. Now.” She set her gloves on the bedframe like a judge setting down a verdict and stepped between you and Sera’s gaze. “He is not your morning amusement.”

Sera’s laugh was light and wicked. “Morning? Please. Lyria turns him into a spectacle from breakfast to curfew. I’m just reading the program notes.” Her eyes slid to Elara’s mouth. “Unless Your Highness would prefer to… host?”

Color flickered in Elara’s cheeks; she blinked once—only once—then steadied. “Enough.” Her tone softened and sharpened at once. “You talk about the world using him while what you want is to put your name on him. You’re not protecting him, Serafina—you’re stamping him. You've always been jealous. And possessive."

Sera laughs, a bark that isn’t amused at all. “Possessive? Jealous? Please!" Sera steps forward towards Elara, "I'm the only one who's not! You pine for him because you cannot marry him - a princess cannot marry a knight!" She points the rolled paper at Elara like a baton. “But all you want to do is stare at him. All of you girls do it — the market, the court, the apprentices in the stairwells. Googly eyes at this big, dumb brute with the big, dumb cock and the brave, dumb heart. You’re all infatuated. But not me.”

Elara’s smile is all court-trained sweet. “The market, the court, the stairwells… and somehow you, Serafina, are always at the center of his little procession. Not jealous, of course—just the vigilant shepherd whose eyes never, ever leave her favorite ram.”

You lift your head, dizzy with the whiplash between pleasure and conflict. “My princess, Sera—” you begin, voice raw.

They don’t even look at you. “Shut up,” they say together, perfect unison, and turn back to each other like dueling magnets snapping together, the air crackling between them.

Elara folds her hands, finds her spine again. When she speaks next, her voice is measured as a judge’s. “This is my final word on the subject. Do not take your feelings out on him. Or on me.”

Sera’s chin lifts. “Take what out?” There’s a tremor there now, anger slanting toward something far more ****. “Say it.”

Elara holds her for a long, dangerous second. A thousand court decisions gather behind her eyes. Then, with the kind of finality that can end a war or start one, she says, “The fact that Sir John has a crush on me. Not you.”

Silence detonates without sound.

The spell on your body collapses like a dropped harp, all strings jangling at once. Relief and ache slam through you in the same instant. Sera’s mouth opens; no words come out. Hurt flashes bright and naked across her face before she can arm herself; then it’s gone, shuttered, but not fast enough to pretend it never existed. Elara realizes what she’s done at exactly the same time and refuses to flinch, refuses to apologize; her hands are steady, her back too straight, her eyes too bright. Sera goes pale, lips parting in a rare moment of speechlessness.

There’s a polite rap at the door that is not polite at all, and then Lady Cassandra is there, shoulder against the jamb, enjoying herself thoroughly. Her robe today is a lean black thing banded in blue, hair swept back with a bone comb, golden eyes taking in every piece on the board with a predator’s ease.

“I do love a well-argued morning,” she drawls. “We could sell tickets and fund a school.” Her gaze skims you — utterly naked, still hard, a little glassy-eyed — and lingers. The corner of her mouth lifts. “Breakfast with Queen Morgana awaits. Do wash your faces. And… perhaps,” her eyes cut to Sera, then Elara, then back to you, “take a breath. The second trial begins after. We are all very curious to see whether it proves as…” She lets the pause lengthen, wicked, “…explosive as the first.”

Sera finds a laugh from somewhere and makes it a weapon, tossing her hair as if the last thirty seconds didn’t slice her open. “Oh, I can guarantee fireworks,” she says, and the brightness in her tone almost sells it. Almost. She sets the paper down too carefully. “Come on, Sir Stud. Up and at ’em. The kingdom’s favorite centerpiece has a royal appointment.”

Elara steps to the side of your bed, still regal, still composed, but the pinched strain at the edges of her mouth is human. She doesn’t look at Sera when she speaks. “Take your time,” she says gently. To you, even more gently: “Can you stand?”

“I can,” you say. You can. You will. You do.

Cassandra’s gaze coasts over your body and returns to your eyes, amused and — gods help you — almost kind. “Good man,” she murmurs. She steps back into the hall, leaving the door yawning like a mouth. “The princess looks stunning and ready. As does our knight. Sera - get changed already.”

As Cassandra leaves, Sera gives a lazy flick. Her nightgown ripples off like smoke; in its place snaps raven-black witchwear—a tight, corseted mini skimming her thighs, sheer stockings kissing garters, a ribbon choker at her throat. Her red hair spills in glossy waves, wicked as a torch. Your cock throbs, without magic this time

You swing your legs to the floor and stand—still bare, still thrumming with leftover spell-heat—and the room seems to tilt toward you, toward trouble. Elara’s composure settles like a mantle; Sera’s new black silks drink the light. Elara smooths an invisible crease from her bodice without looking at you; Sera tips her chin like a dare, the last of her hurt tucked behind lacquered wit. Cassandra’s footsteps click away down the corridor, a metronome for your resolve. You draw a breath, square your shoulders, and step through the open door between them, the cool stone waking your skin. Somewhere beyond, servants murmur, hinges sigh, and—at last—the first bell begins to ring.