Do You Not Love Me Anymore
He laughed again, bitter.
"In the end your excuses never stray from what I expected. You're sorry you wounded me with cruel words? I didn't take the throne to collect an apology like that."
"Kazan, but I—"
"That's enough."
Kazan set his hands to her shoulders and pushed her down onto the bed. Elona looked up at him in despair. His eyes, colder than they had ever been—colder even than in the moment Antonio was killed—poured down over her.
"Let us each keep faith with our roles."
He bent as if to gather her into his arms. At the sudden closeness Elona twisted out of his embrace and drew back, catching his arm in a rush to stop him.
"Wait. I don't want this. Let me say a little more—my side of it—"
"I told you. You're my slave."
Kazan set a knee to the mattress and climbed over her, caging her between his arms. When she tried to retreat farther, one hand closed around the nape of her neck. Their mouths met first, and then her back met the bed. He settled over her as if it were the most natural thing in the world and slowly let his weight come down—only so much as would keep her from fleeing. Elona struggled to get free, but his body was pressed so tightly to hers that it did not yield an inch.
"No—mmph, wait, not yet—"
As if to crush her resistance, his mouth came down on hers. The tongue that drove in roughly tasted of bitter liquor. The hand bracing the nape of her neck was enormous and unyielding, as though to tell her she should not even dream of flight. Every time that heavy, muscled body bore her down, Elona's breath failed and she beat at his chest. Annoyed, he caught both her wrists in his left hand, pinned them overhead, and took her tongue and lips as he pleased.
"Haah... ha..."
When the unrelenting kiss had drained her, Kazan's right hand slid down toward her chest. She trembled at the touch grazing her through her clothes. He tried several times to undo the nightgown's buttons with one hand; then, irritated, he seized the front placket in both fists and tore it open. At the patter of ripping buttons she flinched. His mouth followed the newly bared skin—from jaw to throat to collarbone.
"Ah... mm..."
When his lips brushed her neck, a moan slipped from Elona before she could stop it. Kazan rose a little and bit the nape of her neck, as if to be certain of it. A ragged breath broke from her.
"Ha—nnh... don't...!"
Strength ran all the way to her toes. Elona shook her head and thrashed, but Kazan only pressed his mouth to her more insistently, working his tongue, goading her. She arched against him and resisted, and it meant nothing. Through the torn gap of her clothes his hand invaded and closed, full, around one pale breast. Elona shoved at his rock-hard shoulder and shook her head.
"Wait, stop—please, really stop..."
"Why."
He stripped away the clothes that hindered him. Looking down at the white shoulder and breast laid bare beneath them, he asked in a tone that found her laughable.
"Why refuse? It isn't as if this is our first time."
"Because I'm afraid..."
Elona barely managed to go on.
"You seem like a different person. I'm afraid."
She meant it. More than any change in his looks or his station, the way he took her was wholly unlike before. When she had lain with the Kazan of old, she had been able to feel, without question, that she was loved. He would check again and again whether he was hurting her, stroking her until her body kindled. But now...
"You're afraid of me?"
Kazan snorted as if the notion were absurd. Already he reached for the breast mottled red with the marks of his hand. Elona moved on instinct to cover herself, but he slipped past her hands, seized the soft flesh more roughly, and kneaded it.
"Elona. I seem like someone else to you?"
"Nnh... hhk..."
"Because I've never taken you like this? Not once?"
"Ah—no, I don't—hhk!"
Still fondling her breast, his other hand pushed in beneath her underclothes. She drew her legs in, but his hand had already found its place and was working into her sex. When his fingers parted what she had kept closed and came in without mercy, Elona's mind reeled. He had never put a hand on her without leave, and she did not know what to do.
"Take it out, please—ah!"
Once Kazan felt that she was faintly wet, he began at once to rub her clitoris. At the unexpected stimulation her body shivered. At the same time he sucked hard at the tip of the breast crushed in his palm. Slick ran down the thick finger seated inside her as if it were a cock.
"Nnh, mm... stop, don't..."
The crest of pleasure, the first she had felt in so long, undid the strength in her whole body almost at once. At last his hand withdrew from inside her, but she could not even think of gathering herself. She did not notice, until too late, that he had begun to undress.
"Elona."
"Mm..."
"Look at me properly."
With one hand he lifted the head of the woman who looked ready to fall back, spent. Through dazed eyes she looked up at his fully bared body.
Beneath the broad, imposing span of his shoulders and the clean line of his collarbones, a hard-muscled chest and abdomen came into view one after another. What she saw next was his sex, hugely swollen below. At the sight of it, veins standing out in a brutal relief, the color drained from her face. When they had coupled in their youth she had never even looked at it properly, and the size of the thing settled between her legs was beyond all reason.
"I—I can't take it. I absolutely can't..."
"This place is begging me to put it in."
He answered her wickedly and rubbed the blunt head against her wetness. The moment she swallowed her breath and bit her lip, he tore away what remained of the nightgown hanging in tatters at her waist and flung it aside. His body came down over her white, flat belly, and a rough hand dragged her underclothes off. Elona was already burning; even a brush of his hand along her thigh made her shake. But in the next instant every other sensation in her body vanished.
"Ah! Aah...!"
He pushed slowly into her. To say it was only difficult because it had been so long would have been a lie—he was far too large. He seemed even bigger than before, and Elona began to doubt all over again. In the past she had never had to take him this painfully. Had he truly become another man...?
"Nnh, hhk, I can't... I can't..."
"Don't hold your breath."
When Elona raised both arms to hide her face, he caught them at once and pulled them away. Wrists pinned in his grip, her body began to rock helplessly. Every time he drove his hips up hard, a moan tangled with a cry broke from her mouth.
"Aht—ah, ah...!"
But even that did not seem to satisfy Kazan. In one motion he drew out what he had buried deep inside her. Elona closed the legs she had spread wide and only just caught her breath. Before the panting had faded, his hands came for her again.
"Get on your front."
"On my front? How am I supposed to—"
"The way dogs do. Get down."
Elona did not know what posture he meant. As if exasperated, Kazan hauled her up himself and turned her around. When she stayed still, facing the wall, he took her by the nape and pressed her steadily down. As she lowered herself and tried to curl inward, his other hand caught her under the belly and lifted it. Forced into a strange posture she had never taken in her life, Elona's face went scarlet.
"Why... why are you doing this?"
Was it only to shame her? She was craning anxiously back over her shoulder when the touch of his sex made her start and try to evade it.
"Don't move."
"Wh-what are you—ah!"
The first thing she felt was a strange sense of intrusion. Packed so full it seemed her belly would burst, Elona twisted, trying to slip free of his hands. But the more she did, the fiercer the stimulation became, until at last she clutched the pillow and went still. Then, holding her by the hips, he began to thrust.
"Ah, haah, nnh...!"
Every time he drove into her, tears kept welling in Elona's blue eyes. Ashamed of the moans spilling unchecked from her own mouth, she buried her face in the pillow. Whenever she tried to shift into some easier posture, Kazan seized her from behind and yanked her closer still.
"Kazan, please! Stop—ahk!"
When she called his name, his movements grew rougher. A violent stimulation she could not tell from pain or pleasure seemed to pierce her to the crown of her head. Each time he thrust, the stark slap of flesh on flesh rang out. Elona could no longer even think of shame. Lost in the stimulation pouring over her without end, she let go of reason and cried out. In the empty corridor before the princess's chamber, only her wanton cries echoed, lewd and unchecked.
"Hhk, I don't want it, I don't—nnh..."
When her strength failed and she could no longer hold herself up, he leaned in and gathered her against him. Hot lips bit her ear and the nape of her neck, granting her, for the first time, a sweetness of pleasure. His heated breath scattered at her ear, and a whisper reached her.
"I wanted to have you here, Elona. Every night... I wanted to make you like this."
"Hhk... nnh..."
"You never allowed it. Not once."
Beneath the violent motion, as if it carried a grudge, Elona thought she would lose her mind. Only after he had tormented her for a long while did he let out a rough breath and crush her tight in his arms. She collapsed onto the bed with him and shut her eyes hard. Her head spun, and she slipped at once into a brief sleep.
Elona opened her eyes again some thirty minutes after the heat of his climax. She did not know how much time had passed, but it struck her as strange that Kazan was still awake. He had moved so fiercely, and yet he looked entirely unbothered.
He sat leaning against the pillow, watching the fire in the hearth. Warm light flickered over his face, and no weariness showed there. Nor did he look at peace. Regret, bitterness, and anguish seemed to linger in those red eyes, and toward them Elona asked:
"Do you not love me anymore?"