The Shape of Envy
Lost in the throes of their shared intimacy, Lapis had wound her slender arms around Rohen's back and locked her trembling legs about his waist, panting softly — utterly unaware that Aria, watching from her place of exile, was mocking her in silence, comparing her to nothing more than a common brothel girl.
She would never know. She *couldn't* know — not when her face, stripped of every trace of the refinement and dignity she carried by birth, was so thoroughly drowned in pleasure that she couldn't have noticed a thing even if she'd tried.
And as the minutes stretched on, the rank scent of a female in heat rising off their entwined bodies — mingled with the musk of a man's sweat — tickled insistently at the tip of Aria's nose.
*Squelch!*
Pinned beneath a body corded with hard muscle, she bounced and jolted with every rough, lust-slicked stroke of his hips, and the lewd, obscene sounds of their coupling rang out without shame.
Forced to do nothing but watch it all, Aria felt an inexplicable ache tightening in her chest. Before she knew it, her hand had drifted down toward herself — and she bit down hard on her lip, forcing it back.
Because she knew that if she couldn't wait for her turn and reached for a pleasure that would amount to nothing, the humiliation would surge up in her like something words could never mend.
*Ah……*
Thankfully, that shameless coupling before her eyes seemed to be nearing its end at last……
*Creak!*
The bed groaned wildly beneath them, and Rohen's hips — which had been thrusting in measured, deliberate strokes — began to quicken. The powerful muscles he had held coiled and restrained now stood out sharply enough for her to see with her own two eyes. The wet sounds from where their bodies met grew shorter and shorter, closer together, and Lapis's cries dissolved from sobs into something so raw and ugly it was almost embarrassing to hear.
Pounded that brutally at the very mouth of her womb, wouldn't even a woman nowhere near her fertile days have her abused womb straining itself wide open, desperate to drink down every last drop of seed it could hold?
*Creeeak!*
Soon the heaving bed stilled. Rohen stopped moving, buried to the root, and shuddered faintly.
Aria didn't need any great insight to recognize the sign of his release.
And sure enough — "Nngh……! Hhk……!" — Lapis let out a string of graceless moans, her thighs falling limp and slack where they had been clinging to Rohen's waist, her already-soaked bedding soaked further still, her whole body beginning to quake in helpless tremors.
At the end of it, Rohen exhaled a long, quiet breath and drew himself out of her.
The masculine scent that hit her — faintly unpleasant, and yet somehow making her mouth water — spread through the room, thicker than before.
When he leaned slightly back, the sight beneath him was plain: Lapis's sex, spread lewdly and still quivering, showing not the slightest sign of closing, was in the middle of welling up and spilling his seed in slow, surging waves.
*Lapis…… do you even know what you look like right now?*
*A woman who will one day be Empress — lying there in a state that would make a common whore blush.*
But Lapis, oblivious, was still caught in the aftershocks of her climax, flinching and shuddering again and again.
And because Aria knew all too well that this would be her own reflection in a matter of minutes, she couldn't help a small jolt when Rohen's hand seized her by the arm and pulled.
Bent forward, her face brought up close to that obscene thing — the organ that had turned his own wife, a woman who would make a whore flinch, into nothing more than a beast in heat — it was still hard and unsated, throbbing violently, tapping insistently against the bridge of her nose.
The tingling scent wafting off it made Aria want to turn her head away, but she had no desire to take that seed-slicked, lather-covered organ — crusted with the dregs of his release and Lapis's arousal — anywhere else, so she obediently opened her mouth and took it in.
"Ghk……! Kkh……!"
Even with half of it resting on her tongue.
As if that weren't enough, a thick hand pressed firmly against the back of her skull, and Aria's stomach lurched with the threat of gagging — though mercifully, the organ withdrew almost at once, glistening clean with her own saliva, flaunting its slick, gleaming girth.
From Rohen's side of it, he had simply surrendered to a surge of pleasure for a moment, troubled her by accident, and pulled out quickly out of something like apology. But to Aria, it felt as though he had used her mouth as nothing more than a rag — and she glared up at him, eyes narrowed like a cat's.
Yet what met her gaze were eyes that seemed to be barely restraining a lust that had been forcibly bottled up and was now straining at its leash.
So there was no way she could detect the faint thread of remorse threaded through them. All she could see was a man who looked ready to take her — this woman — and ravish her on the spot. Flustered, and with a dull ache spreading low in her belly, Aria lowered her eyes in a gesture of caution that was quite unlike her.
"Ah……!"
Before long, Rohen turned her body, caught her slender legs in his hands, and dragged her plump rear back until it pressed flush against his groin. Aria swallowed hard, glancing at Lapis, still whimpering softly right beside them.
But the thought lasted only a moment — *why* did she have to be joined like this, in such a shameful position?
She wanted what Lapis had gotten: to face him properly, to make love while looking into each other's eyes.
She strained against him, trying to twist herself around — but his large hands held her hips locked firm, refusing to let go.
Soon she felt the organ that had been grinding against the cleft of her rear pull back for a moment, then the head of it press against her entrance, wedging itself into that tight, narrow passage.
"Hahk……!"
It wasn't as if this was their first time, their second, or even their third. She should be used to it by now.
But there was still no sign of that. That signature, heavy thickness slowly filling her lower belly drew ragged, uneven breaths out of Aria one after another.
And every time that depth-stuffing organ throbbed violently inside her, sending its pulse through her core, cold sweat broke out across her whole body whether she willed it or not.
"Aahk!"
But far from showing her any consideration, Rohen leaned his upper body down, pressed his solid chest flush against her slender arched back, and drove his hips straight down into her.
Already struggling to bear it, and now bearing his weight as well, Aria clutched at the bedsheets, her lewdly raised hips shivering uncontrollably.
And when it didn't stop there — when a large hand slid lower and seized her breast — Aria found herself thinking that if there were a mirror on the far wall, surely it would be showing the scene of a dog in heat mounting its female, hips hammering away.
*Well, then again……*
Compared to Lapis sprawled beside them, perhaps it was the better outcome after all — better to have her husband reduced to a mere beast of a male than to be treated like a beast herself.
"Nngh……! Ah……! Huaah……!"
But as if to punish her for such impure thoughts, the organ stuffed deep inside her dragged itself along her inner walls, and Aria gasped, crying out shamelessly.
Each time it withdrew halfway only to plunge back in and fill her to the brim, the discomfort was giving way — to a strange, blooming sense of fulfillment.
At the same time, Lapis, finally surfacing from the lingering haze of her own climax, was at last able to take in the sight of Aria joined with him.
*Ah……*
Where had the proud, haughty princess gone — the one who was so infuriating, so insufferably self-assured in everyday life?
Platinum-blonde hair utterly in disarray, hips hiked high into the air, miserably receiving every convulsion of the male atop her — it was, truly……
*Ugly.*
And yet, after swallowing hard, Lapis caught herself envying Aria all the same.
Whenever Rohen joined his body with hers, he was always gentle. Even when the act occasionally grew rough, a thread of consideration for her always remained.
Was that why?
Some part of her had wanted — wanted — to see him vent his desire the way he was doing now, bold and unbridled.
A consideration that held back even his own lust was, without question, born of his love for her.
But translated into another meaning — didn't that mean she herself lacked the allure to make him forget it?
If her allure had been enough, he would have thrown even that consideration aside, ravished her like an animal, and only afterward apologized as if sorry for it.
In truth, there was one kind of lovemaking Rohen had never given her — the kind where a man mounted her like a single beast and took her, pressing her down beneath him.
*Ah……*
Her eyes met Aria's.
Aria — shrieking out cries so base it was embarrassing to hear, receiving his thrusts with hips raised high enough to snap her spine.
And yet the way the corners of her eyes curved into that faint, knowing smile — it looked for all the world like a female flaunting her superiority.
The release of restrained lust — and the release of lust unrestrained.
Which one any man would prefer between the sheets — there was hardly any need to deliberate.
Was that why?
For the first time, Lapis felt something like inferiority toward Aria.
Something utterly distinct from jealousy — an emotion that was, if anything, uglier still.
Talent for magic. Aptitude for sorcery. Those were things she could never hope to match — but in nearly every other field, her own gifts outstripped Aria's so thoroughly it was laughable.
Even setting aside talent — in rank, in background, in looks, was there really anything in which she yielded to that woman?
Frankly, looks were a matter of taste past a certain threshold, hard to rank — but in birth and standing, she was the superior one.
Aria was the daughter of an Empress who had committed treason and been executed, after all.
To feel *inferior* to such a woman should have been utterly indefensible.
And yet what Lapis felt lacking in herself was that subtle, dangerous charm — the art of a woman who could lure a man to bed and unravel his desire.
……No — she didn't actually believe she lacked that charm itself.
It was that Aria — sharp-tongued, quick to talk back, brimming with pride — became in bed a shameless, wanton creature, begging for seed like a beast in heat.
That sense of conquest, surely, was what fanned Rohen's desire all the hotter.
And so this was the one thing Lapis could envy but never imitate, no matter how it gnawed at her.
Still, she refused to grow impatient.
*After all……*
If that was all there was to it.
Then the day Rohen grew accustomed even to that — the day he no longer felt even the conqueror's thrill of the beast — would be proof that she was the far better match.
When that day came, Aria would grow desperate, frantic — and might well degrade herself into something baser and more wanton than any brothel whore.
And when that time arrived, Lapis thought, she would return that mocking smile she'd just received in full — and with a soft *hmph*, exhaled through her nose.
……And yet.
She, who had never once entertained such sordid thoughts before — watching them now surface so naturally — realized that her small resentment toward Aria was a secondary thing altogether.
"Nnghik……!"
And so the long act of coupling — no, of mating — drew toward its close.
He pressed his upper body down until Aria was pinned completely beneath him, held her fast so she could not escape, sealed their hips flush together, and burst — spending himself to the very depths.
If what he shared with *her* was, at every step, the coupling of husband and wife……
then what unfolded before her eyes was, truly, the sight of a male conquering a single female — breeding her — and Lapis, face flushing hot, found she could not look away.
Because that primal ecstasy stirred in a woman a strange, aching thirst.
"Hah…… ah……"
Shuddering, collapsed in utter ruin, Lapis had all but forgotten the organ being drawn out of her —
and through her sex, still spread lewdly and quivering, the seed came welling up and spilling out in slow waves.
Could she really have taken far more of it than I did?
Neither of them was in her fertile window, and their cycles could hardly be made to coincide — but neither was it a perfectly safe day, so the barest sliver of possibility could not be dismissed.
If anything, to fall pregnant *now* — when she needed to be at Rohen's side on the battlefield — would be less a blessing than a shackle.
And worse, if they were to lose the war…… she would meet her death alongside a child not yet born. What could be more heartbreaking than that?
*Firmly—*
But Lapis found her own hand had seized Rohen's before she knew it.
And Rohen, exhaling a long breath, looked down at her like that — and let out a bitter smile.
*So it was to be a last supper after all.*
*And whose place was it, exactly, to fill that hunger?*
But he brushed the thought aside as lightly as dust, and drew Lapis into his arms.
And so the hours of ecstasy flowed on once more —
and the time remaining to humanity, too, slipped swiftly away.