Ch.93: I Love Him

"Leave, please!" Leyla shouted, looking around.

Matthias realized that it wasn't just her shabby clothing that was the same as before; her fear of him was just as intense as it had always been. He had thought that their lovely day together had marked a turning point in their relationship, but now he saw that this was just a delusion. He had been constantly revisiting the memory of that day with great pleasure and had been entertaining all sorts of fanciful possibilities. All of this made him feel unbearably pathetic now, as did his spontaneous decision to come to visit her at the cottage.

In the past, he had treated her like she was nothing to him, but it appeared that, in fact, he was the one who was nothing to her. And yet, strangely, he longed for her, and he longed to be hers. It was something that could never be, but at some point, he had started desiring it. Perhaps he had desired it from the start.

"Why are you doing this? You don't have the right!" she shouted as she staggered away from him.

The sound of glass bottles breaking soon followed as she dropped the bag of groceries she had been holding.

"The right?" he asked.

As she stooped over to pick up the dropped groceries, he grabbed her shoulders and made her stand up and face him. As she tried to hack away from him, he followed her, soon passing over the cottage's threshold.

"You don't have the right to come here and treat me like this," she said, scowling at him.

Their idyllic day together now felt like it had just been a dream. He was right not to have gotten his hopes up. After spending that wondrous day together in another city, this dismal situation was all that was greeting him back at home.

"I'm holding up my end of the deal," she said. "So why are you treating me like this? After you made that promise, how could you come here, to my home...?"

She tried shoving him away, but he was far too strong for her. The feeling of powerlessness increased her anger even more.

She had seen Claudine and him taking a walk the previous day while she was dragging a cart of hay back from Arvis's stables. The stable keeper was a good friend of Bill's, and he often gathered hay to be used as feed for the animals that Bill and Leyla kept at their cottage.

When Leyla had gone to pick up the hay, he had offered to pull the cart to the cottage for her, but she had firmly rejected the offer. She was perfectly capable of doing it herself. At least, that's how she had felt until she encountered the couple...

Claudine, who rarely ventured outside the area around the mansion's garden for her walks, had been walking with the duke in a remote area of the estate, on the path in between the stables and the forest. Startled at the sight of the couple, Leyla had hidden behind some large trees on the side of the path. Claudine had suddenly looked back but hadn't appeared to see her.

While the duke and Claudine continued their leisurely walk, Leyla had desperately prayed not to be seen. She didn't want to stand in front of the two of them together ever again. Even though none of her prayers ever seemed to have been answered earlier in her life, this one was. The couple passed out of sight without showing any sign of noticing her.

As soon as the coast was clear, she pulled the cart back out from amid the trees. Feeling anxious to get home quickly, she started moving very quickly. Soon she tripped, and the cart toppled over, spilling hay all over the path. She frantically gathered the scattered hay and put it back into the cart, then started running again. By the time she got back to the cottage, she was covered with hay from head to toe.

She couldn't find words for the emotion she had felt at that moment. How could one describe a feeling that was a jumbled mixture of relief, humiliation, sadness, and shame?

"Why are you doing this? Did you find the last few days without me so boring that you had to come to this lowly cottage to use me like I'm your plaything?"

She knew that yelling at him wouldn't accomplish anything, but she wanted to anyway. Just once, she wanted to pay him back for all the times he had treated her like garbage. When she remembered the strange feeling she had felt on the day they had spent together, her repulsion increased.

"Shut your mouth, Leyla," he said in a disturbingly quiet voice.

Her body was frozen with fear, but she didn't want to stop talking.

"Fine, if I'm your plaything, then play with me. Play to your heart's content. That's the kind of person you are, right? You do whatever you want, and you only leave once you're satisfied." Staring straight into his eyes, she continued. "Shall I undress for you? Oh, wait, no. You said you found that dull. Then go ahead, have at me. I don't care. It's going to be awful for me regardless."

"Stop, Leyla."

"Why? Is this dull for you too? All the better. Get rid of me, then. When you do, I'll be sincerely grateful. It will be the one and only happiness you have ever given me. So... Ack!"

She shrieked as she suddenly felt her body being lifted up. She only realized what was happening after he had carried her to the kitchen and thrown her down on the table.

"Do you like seeing me being driven wild like this?" he whispered as he pressed his body down on top of hers.

"Maybe... Maybe I like it as much as you like seeing me cry," she retorted, thinking to herself, Don't cry.

She had hoped that her quip would make him feel bad, but in response he just let out an unhinged laugh and said, "Then you'd better cry, so that we can have a fair deal, right?" After caressing her hair for a moment, he suddenly grabbed her chin. "A deal that's fun for both of us."

At this point, she felt ready to denounce him in the most ferocious terms, but he didn't let her have the chance. Before she could utter the first word, his lips were on top of hers. Shortly thereafter, the intermingled sound of their breathing started to permeate the darkness.

Kyle leaned his bicycle against the cottage's shed. There was a look of utter determination on his face. After a long process of deliberation, he had made up his mind.

Rather than let himself continue to be overtaken by feelings of suspicion and anxiety, he was going to ask Leyla directly. This was all the more imperative if what Claudine had told him was true. If that was the case, then he needed to rescue Leyla. Even if things between him and Leyla could never be the way they had used to be, he couldn't just sit back and let her life be ruined.

To get rid of the last trace of hesitation, he took a deep breath and slowly let it out. However, before he had reached the cottage's front door, his determination had already reverted to uneasiness. The door was open, but the inside of the cottage was dark. Moreover, there were objects strewn about in front of the door.

He stood in a daze for a moment, his face ashen, then he ran into the cottage. Just as the darkness was making him worry that he was going to encounter something disturbing, he happened upon something much more disturbing than he could have imagined.

There was someone on the kitchen table. At first, he thought it was just a single large man, but he soon realized that there was a woman underneath the man.

"Leyla...?" he called out in a shaky voice.

It felt like time had stopped. Frozen with shock, he stared at the scene in front of him, unable to believe what he was seeing. The two others were just as still.

Leyla... and the duke?

While Kyle glared at him, the duke slowly stood up straight. Unlike the half- naked Leyla, he was fully dressed. His appearance was pristine, other than his moist, red lips.

"What... are you..." Kyle stammered. His fingers started shaking, and soon his whole body was trembling.

The duke, however, was facing him with utter composure. Leyla quickly sat up, then hid behind the duke's back as she hurried to put her clothes back on.

"What is going on here?" Kyle asked, looking at the groceries scattered around the open front door, then turning back to face the duke. His brown eyes were heavy with the despair that this undeniable reality had thrust upon him.

"Exactly what you see," Matthias casually replied. His brazenness attitude snapped the last thread of Kyle's self-control. What Claudine had said was right. The duke was defiling Leyla.

"What have you done to Leyla?!" Kyle shouted, rushing at the duke.

Before Leyla knew it, the two men were grappling with each other.

"K-Kyle! No! Don't!"

Despite her cries, the fight was only growing more heated. It was a strange fight. Kyle obstinately kept lunging at Matthias, who dispassionately blocked every one of Kyle's punches without punching back. Even so, Matthias was the more threatening of the two.

"Kyle!" Leyla screamed with tears in her eyes.

The two men were of similar height and build, but the duke was a trained soldier. It was clear what would happen the moment he grew tired of Kyle's relentless attacks.

"Are you a human being?" Kyle shouted at him. "Human beings don't do things like this! Leyla, how could this happen?!"

After staggering for a moment, he lunged at the duke again. Distracted by the sight of Leyla crying, Matthias failed to block Kyle's incoming fist. He used the back of his hand to wipe the blood from the edge of his lips.

Kyle ran over to Leyla, who was pale-faced and trembling. "How long is it been going on? How long has that bastard been doing this to you?"

She opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out were gasps and sobs. Kyle grabbed her wrist. He was crying, just like her.

"Let's go, Leyla. I'II... I'll rescue you. So, let's go."

He turned, ready to lead Leyla out of the cottage at once. However, they weren't able to take a single step. The duke was standing in their way. His face bore a cold expression, other than the slight smirk on his injured lips.

"Get out of the way," Kyle said in a voice full of contempt.

The duke turned his head slightly to look at him but didn't budge.

"No..." Leyla muttered fearfully as she saw the cold anger in the duke's eyes.

The duke glanced briefly at her before looking back at Kyle. Then, all of a sudden, his bloody hand came flying at Kyle's face.

As Leyla screamed, the fight quickly escalated to an all-out brawl. Kyle attacked the duke with vehement furor, while the duke no longer limited himself to moderate defense. The two men's shadows mingled in the dark cottage as they exchanged blows.

"Stop! Kyle! Kyle!"

Kyle fell to the floor. Leyla frantically ran over to him. Matthias coldly glared at her back as she wrapped her whole body around Kyle.

"Don't do this, Kyle. Please," she pleaded, clutching Kyle's shoulder to try to keep him from standing up again.

Kyle's rage-filled eyes finally softened as they turned towards her. "Leyla, did

that bastard, did he..." he stammered in a miserable voice. His contorted face was soaked with tears.

"No. No, Kyle. It's not like that," she replied. Tears were flung from her chin

as she firmly shook her head. "I... I-love him," she whispered in a trembling voice.

Matthias, who had been about to grab her shoulders, stopped when he heard what she said.

"I... I love him," she repeated, her voice even shakier this time. In an instant, the life seemed to drain out of Kyle's bloodshot eyes.

"I love him, Kyle. I love him..."

Chapter end