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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 s******c 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 s****l 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 s****l 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.

“It’s time, child,” Anna said, motioning for me to come sit on the small wooden stool that rested at her feet.

I knew what the woman wanted, and what all the women would want to do as well. It was custom. A tradition. A way to say goodbye but forever mark the person leaving. The people saying goodbye would all leave a lasting farewell. A slice of the skin—a scar forever to remind.

Walking over to the stool, I unbuttoned the top buttons of my tunic while taking the slow but deliberate steps toward the final parting from the only women I knew and cared about. Silently sitting down, with my back facing Anna, I lowered the fabric of my shirt, exposing my shoulder blade fully. From the corner of my eye, I could see Ruth reaching for the only knife in the house. The one we used to carve the dried meat of old wild game carcasses we stumbled on while foraging, or to divide a discovered root into four equal parts for the daily meal. It wasn’t the sharpest, but it would do for what its purpose would be today.

Anna held her hand out, and Ruth placed it on her open palm. “As I say goodbye to you forever, I give you the gift of courage.” She sliced the knife in a straight line down the flesh of my shoulder, ignoring the hiss of pain that escaped between my clenched teeth. “May you always have it.”