Chapter 33
Kaelan's gaze, fixed on me as I sat slumped on the floor, made me uncomfortable.
But I didn't even have the strength to demand an explanation.
I was alive.
That alone was enough.
“Aria, can you stand?”
I shook my head.
Not only was there no strength in my body, but with this leg, all I could do was crawl.
Kaelan's arm slipped beneath my back and legs.
He lifted me, but I was far too exhausted to resist.
My body went limp in his arms.
“You're covered in sweat...so am I.”
He looked down at his own body and continued.
“Let's go wash up.”
Since he always washed me himself, saying he disliked other people's hands touching me, I simply entrusted myself to his hands at his unexpected suggestion.
“Good girl.”
The piercing on my breast swayed with each movement of my body.
Each time, a faint pain rose.
There were servants in the hallway leading to the bathtub.
A maid who was cleaning.
A servant carrying something.
They looked at me.
I could feel their gazes directed at my breasts.
The swaying piercing.
The navy-blue rose carved into it.
Unlike before, when their expressions had held a measure of sympathy, their faces now held contempt and disgust.
‘Mary...’
My chest tightened at the thought of Mary.
Me, held in Kaelan's arms, covered from head to toe in his marks.
What did I look like to them?
Kaelan's pet dog who had hurt Mary.
Wanting to avoid their gazes, I lowered my head.
Kaelan, walking along the hallway, stopped.
In front of him, a maid was cleaning.
“You there, clean my room.”
“…Yes, Lord Kaelan.”
The maid who passed by me and headed toward the room looked at me.
Her gaze lingered briefly on the piercing on my breast.
Then she quickly looked away.
I was inwardly ashamed that she had seen the traces I had left behind.
The smell of urine.
The puddle on the floor.
The fact that she had seen all of it.
Kaelan started walking toward the bathroom again.
The marble bathtub in the bathroom was already filled with steaming water.
Kaelan set my body down on the edge of the tub.
After taking off his clothes, he soaked a cloth in water.
The warm, wet cloth touched my body.
The cloth gently wiped the tear tracks from my sweat-damp face.
I felt my body gradually relax beneath the warm water and gentle touch.
As my body relaxed, I forced myself to tense up again.
I couldn't relax beneath the enemy's hand.
But my body wouldn't obey.
My tired muscles were gradually loosening beneath the warm water.
His hand descended to my neck and traced the brand on my collarbone.
As though engraving his name once more.
The hand that had begun at the top and gradually descended reached my breasts.
As his hand rubbed my breast with the cloth, the piercing swayed.
"Ugh..."
"Does it still hurt?"
His finger touched the piercing.
"...Yes."
"It's all right. Every instrument needs time to be tuned. Until my roses form a perfect harmony with your body, that is."
"..."
Despite my saying it hurt, his hand continued fiddling with the piercing.
He looked satisfied, as though pleased by another mark of his on my body.
“Pretty.”
The cloth that had wiped my entire body soon fell away.
“The wound must have opened. I should look at your thigh.”
The wound was revealed as the bandage was carefully unwound.
It was swollen, red, and bleeding.
His fingers lightly brushed the wounded area.
White light.
“Ah...”
It stung.
“Bear it.”
“Hngh...”
The bleeding stopped, but the wound had not healed.
“You bear it well. Good girl, Aria.”
He stroked my head.
But I couldn't deny it.
I felt as though I was gradually becoming accustomed to the way he treated me like a dog.
There was something wrong with me.
After wrapping a fresh bandage, he stood.
He tilted my body to the side and sat beside me.
His hand tugged my shoulder, gradually tipping me backward until my head touched Kaelan's thigh.
I lay diagonally against the edge of the tub.
Warm water soaked my head, and his fingers combed through my hair.
A strange sensation.
No.
This wasn't pleasure.
This hand had gouged out Mary's eye.
This hand had put piercings and plugs in me and carved brands into me.
This hand had shot me with an arrow, broken my leg, and gouged out my eye.
It was only because of the pleasure his touch had given me in the room earlier.
My body was merely confused.
“All done. Did that feel good?”
Kaelan was smiling.
“…No.”
“Liar. Your eyes are telling me the truth.”
That was a lie.
This was merely a delusion of my brain.
When we entered the room again, a maid followed immediately, pulling a serving cart.
A red-haired girl.
The girl who had taken Mary away.
When she saw me, I felt her eyes on me.
Cold and sharp.
Hatred still lingered in her eyes as she looked at me.
Those eyes were unchanged from before.
Unable to keep meeting her gaze, I quietly turned my head away.
The sound of food being set down.
The sound of the door closing.
Once again, I was alone with Kaelan.
Unlike usual, Kaelan did not set the bowl on the floor.
Instead, holding the bowl, he sat beside me on the bed.
“Come to think of it, with your leg like that, you can't eat as usual.”
“…So?”
“Eat.”
His palm was extended before me.
A bite-sized piece of food rested on it.
His action was like giving a dog a treat.
The food placed on his palm disgusted me even more than eating from the bowl on the floor.
I tried to refuse, but Mary's face came to mind.
An empty eye socket.
Mary might be hurt if I resisted.
My head lowered.
Slowly, toward his palm.
My lips, still damp from washing, touched his hand.
The rough hand against my lips was unpleasant.
Even so, I moved my lips and tongue and put it into my mouth.
“Good girl.”
His palm extended again.
A piece of meat soaked in sauce.
I lowered my head again and bit the meat.
“Aria. You should eat all the sauce too, nice and clean.”
I didn't deliberate for long.
Mary's image lingered in my mind like an afterimage.
My tongue licked Kaelan's palm.
A wet, lascivious sound.
I felt ashamed of the sound I had made myself.
“Good.”
Kaelan's hand stroked my head.
The cycle repeated.
Palm.
Food.
Eating.
Licking.
Petting.
I couldn't understand what I was doing.
But I couldn't stop.
I was hungry.
I was afraid something might happen to Mary.
I ate the last piece of food.
“Well done.”
Kaelan was staring at his palm.
The palm I had licked over and over.
Only then did I notice the bulge rising in his groin.
“Aria, I've been a little busy for the past few days and haven't been able to be intimate with you, but I've wanted to engrave my mark inside your belly again.”
I understood what he meant, but I didn't want to.
The fact that I had to join bodies with him at this very moment.
But I couldn't refuse.
Mary's image was dragging me toward him like shackles.
His outstretched hand gripped my shoulder and slowly lowered me onto my back.
I wanted only to shake off that hand, but I didn't have the courage.
As Kaelan moved on top of me, I felt his weight.
“Relax.”
His words made it even less possible for me to relax.
The enemy was directly above my body.
His presence pressed down on the air and squeezed the breath from me.
His hand started at my neck and slowly stroked downward.
The cold fingertips that reached my collarbone followed the letters of the brand.
Kaelan
“My name. Engraved on your body.”
His hand moved lower.
Toward my breasts.
And stopped just above the piercing.
“Pretty. My rose.”
His finger lightly touched the piercing.
“Ngh...”
“Does it hurt?”
His voice was gentle, but cruel curiosity lurked within it.
“…Yes.”
“Even so, I want to touch it.”
“Don't—ngh!”
His fingers caught hold of the ring and slowly pulled.
“Just a little more.”
My flesh stretched, and a sharp pain spread.
I could clearly feel the wound opening.
“Hngh...it hurts...”
“Bear it.”
When Kaelan let go, the piercing returned to its place.
“Ah...”
My nipple throbbed.
“Sensitive.”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
His voice was satisfied.
“Wait...!”
Suddenly, both piercings were caught between his thumbs and index fingers at once.
He began rolling them slowly in circles.
“Ah...it hurts...”
“A beautiful melody.”
It seemed my pain entertained him.
He continued rolling them without letting go.
“Nngh...hngh?!”
Pain.
But a strange sensation mingled with it.
Somewhere between prickling and throbbing.
An unknown heat flowed along my spine.
“Ah...”
“That's a lovely sound. Make more.”
Both were pulled simultaneously.
Fear swept over me at the thought that my flesh would stretch and my nipples would be torn off.
“Please...it hurts...”
“They haven't torn yet. You can take more.”
My nipples were pulled farther.
“Ngh...”
Tears came.
“I love this red color. A perfect accent.”
When he let go, the piercings sprang back into place.
As the flesh reddened and grew hot with throbbing pain, a ragged breath escaped me.
“I'll give you time to catch your breath.”
I hoped it was over, but his hand betrayed that hope and moved back to my breasts.
“Now the real thing begins.”
“...What?”
When he covered my breast with his palm, the piercing was pressed against it.
As he began kneading it, the piercing dug into my flesh and new pain spread.
“It hurts...it hurts...”
“I know.”
He answered indifferently, then stopped kneading and pinched the piercing with his fingers alone.
Both piercings twisted.
“Haaaagh!”
“Good sound.”
He twisted them the other way.
“Aagh! Please...please...”
“Please what?”
“Stop...please stop...”
“No.”
When he pulled upward, my back lifted off the bed.
“Nngh!”
“It hurts, doesn't it?”
“Yes...yes.”
One hand moved toward my vulva.
“But your body is wet.”
“No...I'm not...”
“Liar.”
The fingers he held up were clearly wet.
I couldn't believe it.
That I had become aroused by the pain.
“If it hurts, why are you wet?”
“I-I don't know...”
“The body is honest. I suppose you like the pain.”
“No!”
The piercings were pulled even harder.
At the same time, my vulva was touched.
“Nngh...”
“You're even wetter now.”
I couldn't deny it.
I couldn't understand myself.
My body had reacted of its own accord to the touch of the person I hated, amid this pain.
It was as if my body was desperately clinging to life.
I couldn't tell whether it was my last desperate attempt to deceive myself into mistaking pain for pleasure, or whether something inside me had truly been irreparably broken.
At the same time, along with nausea, a strange sensation flowed down my spine.
“This is interesting. I like it even more.”
When he released the piercings, my breasts throbbed.
The swollen, reddened flesh remembered his touch all too well.
“They've swollen so prettily.”
He tapped it with a finger.
“Ngh...”
“Sensitive.”
His finger tapped it again.
“Ugh...”
“Good reaction.”
His finger kept tapping.
It hurt every time.
Yet each time, a strange sensation came.
“Ngh, hngh, huugh...please...stop...”
But then he brought his mouth to it and took the piercing between his lips.
“Huh...?”
He bit it lightly, pulled, then sucked it again.
Pain and the strange sensation continued to mingle.
I couldn't distinguish them.
When he pulled his mouth away, only the piercing wet with saliva and the reddened flesh remained.
I panted heavily and stared blankly at the ceiling.
Throbbing breasts, the foreign sensation of the plug still lodged there.
And the remnants of the terrible sensation from moments ago.
Everything seemed to become tangled into a complicated mess in my head.
I could no longer tell which was pain and which was pleasure.
I only wanted all of this to end.
“Beautiful.”
Kaelan's voice pulled me back to reality.
“Shall we begin in earnest now?”
“…What?”
His hand moved toward my legs.
As though the real hell hadn't begun yet.
“The real thing starts now.”