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The Apprentices’ Ball was almost over.
Bethany wore purple, her brown hair twisted up in spirals and held in place with sparkling pins. Sarah wore red, her shoulders bare, blonde hair falling long and straight down her back.
Aaron wondered how their hair would look twisted together.
They wandered out of the ballroom, meandering through the compound’s twisting halls. Eventually they reached the cultivation chamber - dubbed hortosubterranei by some smart-aleck Latin linguist long ago – and found their way inside.
Aaron hadn’t expected the girls to turn their sparkling eyes on him.
Bethany turned to Sarah and held out her hand. Sarah laughed, took the offered hand, reached up to brush a stray curl back from Bethany’s face, and tipped Bethany’s chin back.
“Like we planned?” Sarah asked, eyes warm.
“Yes,” Bethany whispered, smiling and winding their fingers together and pulling Sarah closer. Their gazes flickered back to Aaron. He stuck his hands in his pockets, trying to look nonchalant.
Bethany licked her lips, and Sarah kissed them. Their eyes fell shut as their mouths opened.
Aaron blinked.
Laughing softly, they pulled away from each other. Bethany nipped gently at Sarah’s lower lip. Their faces pressed together for a moment, before turning to look at him again.
His stomach fluttered when they grinned and held out their hands to him. Swallowing, he brought trembling hands out of his pockets and reached. Only when their mouths were planted against both corners of his did he realize they might feel the same way he did.
There was no fancy ceremony, only a private exchange of gifts, each of them receiving one item jointly from the other two.
Sarah received a diamond ring.
They gave Aaron an engraved box containing locks of their hair.
Bethany received bird-shaped medallion.
“It’s a phoenix,” Sarah whispered. “It dies in flames, and is reborn from its own ashes.”
Bethany’s nipples were just a shade paler than Sarah’s deep, pink ones, and Aaron found he liked the way they pressed against each other almost as much as he liked to watch their hair tangle together.
“Who gets him first?” Bethany whimpered when Aaron pulled her down to straddle his torso. With a grin, he licked his fingers, then slid them between her legs to circle her clit.
“Can I?” Sarah questioned quietly as she straddled Aaron’s hips herself, and he gasped when her moist labia brushed against his cock.
“Yes,” Bethany hissed as Aaron pressed a finger inside her, “as long as I get his mouth.”
Sarah sobbed into Aaron’s shoulder, equal parts grief and ecstasy, his arms cradling her as their hips rocked together. She almost felt whole like this, but Bethany wasn’t there. She loved Aaron and Bethany equally. Aaron might be her oxygen, but Bethany was their light.
“We were supposed to tell her tonight,” Sarah gasped as the head of Aaron’s erection nudged against her cervix. Would they be some of the lucky ones who conceived on their first try? “She was supposed to be here.”
“I know.” Aaron’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “But she’ll be back. Where would she go without us?”
She trembled in his arms, tears falling down her face as her body tensed and arched. Aaron shattered.
Sarah was afraid of what the answer to that question might be.
“I just... need something. Anything. I can’t take being cooped up in here much longer!” Bethany pleaded.
Sarah’s mother had tried to get Bethany quartered someplace else once she was confined, but Aaron had put his foot down, and Sarah was grateful. But Aaron was better at soothing Bethany than she was, and Aaron was on shift in the infirmary.
“Please.”
Sarah kissed Bethany, not sure what else to do. Clothes fell away and Sarah pushed her back on the bed, lips moving softly down her neck, pausing to suck and bite at her breasts before sliding over her stomach.
She slipped two fingers inside Bethany, curling up.
“Ah!”
Sarah leaned in to wrap her lips around Bethany’s clit, and soon thighs trembled on her shoulders, so Sarah was surprised when she was pushed away.
“Please, kiss me,” Bethany whispered. Sarah could only oblige, reaching to cup Bethany’s breasts and roll her nipples.
Gentle fingers slid between Sarah’s legs, fluttering over her clit before sliding into her the same way Sarah had done to Bethany.
“Beth-Ann!”
Bethany couldn’t stop crying. She was terrified, but how could she tell Sarah? She didn’t want to die. But Sarah’s mother had never wanted Bethany to share Sarah and Aaron. Sarah was supposed to have Aaron to herself, and for a brief moment Bethany was actually jealous of Sarah – jealous that she would get to bear a child. If Bethany was pregnant, she couldn’t be executed. But she didn’t even have that hope.
“Beth-Ann, don’t think right now,” Sarah whispered in her ear, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck. Aaron was buried inside Bethany, his grip like iron against her hip as the three of them rocked together on the bed. Slow and deep, then short and desperate. Morning approached far too quickly.
Sarah’s breasts pressed against Bethany’s back. Bethany let her head fall back on Sarah’s shoulders.
She wasn’t a traitor. But the core was dying, and it felt like she was dying with it and no one cared. No one except Sarah and Aaron. Even so, they weren’t able to convince Sarah’s mother to let anyone return to the surface. To see if there was some way they might all leave earth and survive.
“Stop thinking, Beth-Ann,” Sarah crooned again. Aaron pressed his mouth to Bethany’s, all tongue and no finesse, and for once she didn’t care if he was sloppy.
She just didn’t want this to be her last time with them.
It was only when Aaron finally fucked her, with Sarah’s fingers dancing over her breasts, that Bethany was finally able to stop thinking and see their stars.
Too bad their stars weren’t real.