Dream Trysts: A Sleeping Beauty Story (Passion-Filled FairyTales Book 4) by Rosetta Bloom Page A

both her hands in his, and said, “I have gone on traveling delegations to all the nearby kingdoms,” he said. “For the past year, I’ve done nothing but visit the monarchs, telling my father I wished to extend a hand of friendship to our neighbors. I’ve learned much about the neighboring areas, about customs, kindness, even the traits that seem to make the best rulers. Yet, I have not found the one thing I’ve actually sought on these trips: you. For everywhere I went, I hoped to find you. I toured their kingdom, seeking a place that looks like the place of our dreams, hoping to find you in a field picking the flower that bears your name. I was starting to think I would never find you, and yet, somehow, today, you’ve done just as my brother suggested: stepped out of my dream and into my arms.”
    He pulled her close to him, and Rose felt at peace in his strong, loving embrace. She was amazed that he had spent so much time searching for her. He hadn’t forgotten her. He was real and he had been trying to find her.
    “Well,” she said, her arms wrapped around him. “I’m so glad you looked for me, but sorry you didn’t find me.”
    “But how did you find me?”
    Rose laughed. “It’s going to be hard for you to believe.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “Given that a girl from my dreams, the girl I’ve been searching for more than a year, just showed up in the woods behind my home, I’m apt to believe anything.”
    Rose explained about the fairy stone, and how she’d been given it as a birthday gift.
    “It’s your birthday?” James said, disappointed. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have gotten you a gift.”
    Rose shook her head. “But don’t you see?” she said. “This is my gift. Being here with you is my gift.”
    He kissed her, but this time lightly, softly, a lingering kiss that was all sizzle and left Rose wanting more. “Let’s celebrate your birthday. My brother tells me the cook made a cake. Why don’t we go in, get a picnic basket, then find a pleasant clearing to have a birthday picnic?”
    Rose could think of nothing she’d like more. James stood and extended a hand to help her up. “But I have to go home after the picnic,” she said as she rose fully. James frowned.
    “I’ll explain everything as we walk,” Rose said.
    James and Rose walked to the castle and she told him of how she’d been raised by Dwennon and Hilly because she’d been cursed to fall asleep for a hundred years on her seventeenth birthday.
    “A hundred years,” James said. “But how? Wouldn’t you die after not eating for a week?”
    Rose grimaced. “Yes, my sweet but practical James. If it were a normal sleep, yes. But it’s an enchanted sleep, so I suppose my needs will be met by the enchantment.”
    “And you’ve been hidden all this time to avoid this, but you decide to come out on the day it is to happen, just to visit me?”
    “Well, the fairy stone was a birthday gift. Who else would I want to visit on my birthday?”
    “Your parents,” he teased.
    “I told you, Dwennon said I couldn’t go there. Not until tomorrow.”
    James sighed. “I can’t believe your parents are King Edmund and Queen Blissa. It was the final kingdom on my last journey. But they said nothing of a daughter.”
    “I suspect it’s hard for them to speak of it. My mother feels awful that I have yet to see my father.”
    James stopped walking, surprised. “You’ve seen your mother?”
    “The way I see you. In dreams.”
    He nodded, and they continued walking. 
    They stopped in the kitchen, where their presence seemed to grind things to a halt. The head cook ushered the staff back to work, and Rose found the scene enchanting, watching so many people about, measuring flour, cutting vegetables, and readying that night’s meal. James offered a few kind words to cook, who packed them a basket full of breads, cheese, wine, salted meat, and fruit. The cook joked with him kindly and only asked a few questions about the