The Dark Forest: A Collection Of Erotic Fairytales(2)
It was the gypsy woman from the fair two summers ago.
Loosening her grip, she fell to the ground, staring at the shriveled woman in horror.
Pointing one gnarled hand towards her, the gypsy woman, spat out, “I curse you! You, who are arrogant, who hold yourself above all those around you. Your beauty is your curse. You shall only know happiness through pain, will only find love through supplication to the beast. Be forced to yield to the hand of your master or face your destiny alone!”
Beatrice awoke with a start. Her legs tangled in the heavy, velvet bed covers. Her breath visible in the frigid bedchamber. It was a dream, she told herself. Just a dream.
Sleep, My Beauty
Sleep, My Beauty by Alta Hensley
A Sleeping Beauty Story
Once upon a time, there were blue skies and bright sunrays.
But not today. Today the ash falls from the sky casting a thick layer of darkness and despair. The powerful Maleficent army is marching through the destroyed land collecting all the young women to add to his collection of sleeping beauties. There is no escape. There is nowhere to run.
Briar Rose has one choice. Submit or die. But when she meets her trainer, a sadistic and damaged man named Prince, she soon realizes that her choices are not so black and white.
In a world cast in an apocalyptic nightmare, is it possible for one woman to find her happily ever after?
Sleep, My Beauty Warning:
Sleep, my beauties. But when you dream, be warned. You will discover dark taboos, delicious fantasies, and sexual delights you may never want to wake from.
Alta Hensley
Excerpt from Sleep, My Beauty
Briar
Once upon a time, there were blue skies, and bright sunrays. But today, and any other day from this point on, the ash fell from the sky, casting a thick layer of darkness and despair. I leaned against the open doorway, reached out with my palm, and allowed the grey particles to fall into my hand.
“I have to. There is no other choice,” I said in a low voice. I looked over my shoulder at the three women I had grown to love who sat by a low burning fire, and swallowed the large lump in the back of my throat. “I don’t want to leave you. But if I don’t leave now, they will come and take me anyway, punishing all who try to stop them.”
The frailest of the women nodded in understanding. Dear Jane could barely stand nowadays, but still had a strong spirit I admired greatly. “They will come for you regardless, true.” The other women, Anna and Ruth, nodded silently in agreement. You could see that it pained them to do so, but these women had always been honest and direct with me since the day they found me and offered shelter in their home.
Word had spread that the Maleficent Army was moving in, and it was a matter of a day, maybe even hours, before they would storm our small village, looting and killing all to get what they wanted.
Women.
They wanted women.
They were on the hunt for all the young, beautiful females under the age of twenty-five, by order of the most powerful man left standing on this charred and destroyed earth—Grimm Maleficent. Decades of war, bombs, violent attacks, and a ruthless way of living had left very little of what once was a modern, high-tech society. The thick layer of grey destruction dripped from the atmosphere, casting what was left of civilization into a deep and dark slumber from the life we once lived. The world had changed drastically. People merely survived. Their souls cast in an eternal sleep.
Nothing but simple existence.
Nothing but emotionless breaths purely to meet the basic needs of life.
Nothing but a walking nightmare underneath the doom of suffocating air.
The weak became weaker. The poor even poorer. Very few people of power existed, but the few who remained were the most evil of them all.
Chills ran up my spine at the mere thought of Grimm Maleficent. The tales of a pure monster were enough to have the man feared by all. He and his army had risen from the ashes and had become even stronger with the embers of the world sizzling around him. I knew his army was marching my way, and when they reached my small village consisting of less than ten structures, they would slowly and mercilessly kill all who stood in their way.
I had no choice. I couldn’t run. Where would I run to? I couldn’t hide. They would find me. I couldn’t fight. They would win. And since I was the only woman under the age of twenty-five who resided in Hollow Valley, I needed to surrender without a fight, for the sake of everyone else. It wouldn’t be fair to the women, who watched me with tears in their eyes, to attempt to harbor what Maleficent would eventually obtain anyway. They would die trying—I knew this—but I couldn’t allow that to happen. I would sacrifice. I had no choice.
“When I think about the things they will do to you,” Ruth said as she dabbed the tears in her eyes with a handkerchief that had long lost its stark white color only to be replaced with a dull grey. Grey like the world. “We can’t just sit here and do nothing, knowing… well, just knowing.”
“Ruth! Hush,” Jane scolded. “She doesn’t need to be thinking of those awful things right now. We need to help her stay strong. They’re coming, and there isn’t anything we can do about it.”
My shoulders sagged in defeat as I watched the older lady scowl. They knew. I knew. Every single woman who wasn’t diseased or maimed—which was rare—would eventually belong to Maleficent. His appetite for sexual pleasures that crossed into a realm of dark erotic horrors were tales that kept any innocent awake with nightmares. Devious kinks, perverse taboos going beyond the most devilish of imaginations. Maleficent was a sadist, and although I really did not know what that truly meant, I did know that it was something to fear.