# Chapter Five: The Fourth Defeat – The Garden of Forbidden…

# Chapter Five: The Fourth Defeat – The Garden of Forbidden Fruits
The following week brought rain—relentless, silver sheets that turned the Isle of Wight into a watercolor of blurred greens and grays. Classes moved indoors; the corridors echoed with the soft patter of shoes on marble and the murmur of girls trading secrets like currency. Rosetta kept to her routine: morning lectures on the diplomatic history of neutrality, afternoons in the library poring over forbidden texts (smuggled pamphlets from the Reich’s liberal wave, American broadsheets decrying the lingering deportations), evenings tending Amelia with stories of far-off lands where mothers could be queens without crowns.
Yet the fourth summons came not by note, but by whisper.
During supper in the grand refectory, Cordelia slid onto the bench beside Rosetta, freckled cheeks flushed from the warmth of mulled cider.
“Tonight,” she breathed, leaning close enough that her perfume—jasmine and mischief—brushed Rosetta’s skin. “The Walled Garden. Midnight. No masks this time. Only truth…and hunger.”
Rosetta glanced across the long table. Liliana sat at the high end, flanked by Beatrice and Isolde, her silver fork tracing idle patterns in a untouched slice of pear tart. When their eyes met, Liliana lifted her chin—a silent command.
Rosetta inclined her head once. Acceptance.
Midnight found the rain slackened to mist. Rosetta left Amelia sleeping, a lantern in one hand, a small basket in the other. She had prepared: fresh strawberries from the conservatory vines, a vial of rose honey, a single pomegranate split open to reveal its ruby seeds. Offerings, perhaps. Or weapons.
The Walled Garden lay behind the east wing, a secret enclosure of high yew hedges and wrought-iron gates locked to all but a few. Liliana held the key tonight. The gate creaked open at Rosetta’s approach; inside, lanterns hung from low branches like captured stars, casting pools of gold across mossy paths and flowerbeds heavy with late blooms.
Liliana waited at the center, beneath an ancient apple tree whose branches sagged under fruit. She wore a simple linen shift, damp from the mist, clinging transparently to every curve: the full swell of her breasts, the dip of waist, the generous flare of hips and ass. Her blonde hair was unbound, darkened by moisture, strands sticking to neck and collarbone. No jewelry tonight save the emerald at her navel and the lily tramp stamp just visible where the shift rode up her thigh.
“Thou camest,” Liliana said, voice soft as rain.
“Thou didst summon,” Rosetta replied, setting the basket on a stone bench. “Fourth round. What game tonight, my queen?”
Liliana stepped closer, barefoot on wet grass. “No game of words or steps. A feast. We feed one another. Whatever is offered must be taken—eaten, licked, swallowed. The first to refuse, to pull away, to say ‘enough’… loses.”
Rosetta’s pulse quickened. She lifted the pomegranate first, breaking off a cluster of seeds and holding them to Liliana’s lips.
“Open,” she murmured.
Liliana obeyed. Rosetta pressed the seeds between those full lips, watching juice burst and stain them crimson. Liliana’s tongue flicked out, catching a stray drop, eyes never leaving Rosetta’s.
“My turn,” Liliana whispered.
She took a strawberry, dipped it in the rose honey, and traced it along Rosetta’s lower lip before slipping it inside. Rosetta bit down slowly, letting honey drip down her chin. Liliana leaned in and licked it away—slow, deliberate, tongue tracing the curve of lip to corner of mouth.
They fed each other in silence at first: figs split open and scooped with fingers, oysters tipped from shell to tongue, more strawberries painted with honey across collarbones and the swell of cleavage. Each touch lingered longer than the last. Fingers brushed throats, traced jawlines, slipped beneath damp fabric to graze skin.
Then Liliana took the pomegranate again.
She crushed a handful of seeds against her own palm, letting the juice run down her wrist, then offered it to Rosetta.
Rosetta caught her hand, brought it to her mouth, and licked—slowly, thoroughly—from wrist to fingertips. Liliana’s breath hitched.
“Thou tastest of sin,” Rosetta said against her skin.
Liliana’s free hand tangled in Rosetta’s braid, pulling her closer until their foreheads touched.
“And thou art the devil who tempts me to it,” she answered.
The feeding became something else. Liliana pressed Rosetta back against the apple tree, bark rough through thin gown. She dipped fingers in honey and painted Rosetta’s throat, then licked it clean with long, languid strokes. Rosetta retaliated, crushing strawberries against Liliana’s breasts until juice stained the linen scarlet, then bent to suck the fabric clean, teeth grazing nipple through cloth.
Liliana moaned—low, broken—and pushed Rosetta to her knees on the moss.
“Take,” she commanded, voice trembling. She lifted the hem of her shift, exposing the pale expanse of thigh and the dark triangle between. Rosetta did…