Chapter 93

✧I Love Him✧

*.·:·.✧.·:·.*

( For this chapter, Listen to the Audio File ^^)

Leyla immediately pushed his lips off of her, allowing the kiss between them to break but didn’t manage to get free from him.

“Please just go!” She exclaimed, glancing around in fear as she tried to find an escape route. Seeing her back in these shabby clothes, and poor state of dress couldn’t help but mock Matthias’ rose tinted glasses on their last moments in Carlsbar.

Matthias had already felt foolish when he found himself in the empty cabin. He was feeling lost without Leyla, and just kept walking around as he ran the memories of her over and over in his mind.

He had entertained thoughts of letting her go like she was nothing to him. But it seemed he was the one who was nothing to her! But he can’t help but want her too. She possessed something in her that drove him wild beyond what his mind could comprehend!

And it’s been like that for a long time now. Perhaps, ever since the beginning.

“What is wrong with you?!” Leyla couldn’t help but ask him as tears threatened to escape her, “You don’t have any right to do this to me!” she quickly darted out from under him, but just as quickly as she escaped, he pushed her into the kitchen table, making the shopping bag tumble off the edge, and sounds of glass jars being broken clanged in the kitchen.

“Right?” Matthias asked her, a hint of incredulity in his tone, “You think I have no right?”

“Yes!” Leyla spat back at him, “You don’t have any right to come here and do these things with me!”

Once again, she couldn’t help but feel foolish at how she allowed herself to lower her guard around him all because of that one day in Carlsbar. That day was now just another distant dream. She shouldn’t have expected anything different from him.

This would always be how things would be with Matthias.

“I am already catering to whatever you want me to do, so why do you insist on making my life so miserable?!” she persisted, “Didn’t you give me your word to never come here?! To my cabin with my uncle!?”

She tried to push him away again, but she was physically weak against him. He grabbed her by the waist, securing her tightly towards him as she continued to struggle, making sure she didn’t have any room to escape from him.

It only made Leyla more frustrated with him.

She’d seen the Duke and Claudin by the stables on her way back just yesterday, being such a typical couple. She’d stop by because the stable keeper was a close friend of her uncle, so she went to help by pulling a cart full of hay behind her. Afterwards, she would feed the cattle they were raising in Arvis just as she did every other day.

He had offered to pull the cart for her, but Leyla had insisted she could handle it, firmly refusing his help. And she was successful, but she found herself in an unexpected place.

Lady Brandt was with the Duke walking, with her arm in his, down the path located between the stables and the forest.

It was odd seeing her there, because she wasn’t the type of woman to be casually taking a stroll outside of the mansion, or the nearby promenade in the estate. Leyla was terrified at the idea of Claudine noticing her, and immediately hid behind the trees in an attempt to remain inconspicuous.

At that moment, Claudine’s head whipped back to her direction, but Leyla saw no indication she had been spotted. After a few tense moments of Leyla wishing to every deity up above she would remain unseen, they resumed their walk until they disappeared in Leyla’s line of sight.

Without wasting more time, Leyla immediately hauled the partially filled cart behind her through the trees, heart racing at the close call. She tried not to run too fast as the hays began spilling out of the cart, but she still returned home in record time, with a few hays bundled in her arms.

She looked like an absolute mess, with strands of hays sticking on her clothes and out of her hair.

That strange feeling in her chest was back again. It happened every time she’d see those two together, which she chalked up to her guilt for Claudine, and fear of Matthias. Still, it was almost like a mix of relief, shame… and oddly enough, sadness.

“Why are you even doing this now?!” Leyla cried out, “Were these days too boring without your daily dose of tormenting me that you would rather come here just to amuse yourself?!”

She wanted him to give her answers and to tell her why! Why, out of all the girls, he chose her to play with? Why did he keep coming back just to make her life a living hell? She knew it was meaningless to ask, but she wanted to lash out at him.

To make him suffer as she did. To feel all the pain he caused her.

These emotions were clawing at her walls, gnawing at her thoughts that she has every reason to torment and disrespect the Duke! And she wanted to see it too. Just the thought of seeing the hurt in him made her feel a different kind of exhilaration, she wanted it now.

The more she thought back to that day in Carlsbar, the more the rage in her was fuelled.

“You talk too much Leyla.” Matthias finally spoke in a calm voice, as he glared down at her shuddering form. But her words kept ringing around in his head, echoing them louder and louder, making his grip on her tighten up.

Leyla froze in shock at the coldness in his tone, but she refused to back down as fiery resentment blazed inside her chest.

“Then I suggest you stop playing around so much!” she hissed, “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? Always do what you want and then leave as soon as you’re done having your fun with no regard for anyone else but yourself!”

As she spewed out everything she’d been holding back, she kept her eyes on him, locking gazes with Matthias, not willing to let go. She was eager to see that hurt in his eyes.

“So tell me, Duke,” she said his title with such contempt, “Do you want your plaything to undress for you? Oh! But I remember you find it so dull! You know what? You’re so used to doing what you want anyway so go ahead!”

She dared him, finally stopping her resistance in his hold.

“Go ahead and take me in whatever way you want then. I don’t care either way. Not anymore.” She finished, heaving a breath as she waited for him to make a move.

“Stop this nonsense Leyla.” Matthias scolded, a frown marring his features, yet Leyla remained indifferent, a sense of satisfaction filling her at the shaky tone in his voice.

“Why? Am I getting too boring for you already? Come on! Didn’t you say I’m so amusing to you?” she asked again, “You see, this is all that you’re good for, Duke Herhardt. You take and take and take, until nothing you like is left for you to take and then throw it out.”

Matthias’ breathing quickened with every word Leyla let loose.

“So just throw me away now, and I’ll thank you for it.” She felt him loosening his grip on her waist and stood a little taller in front of him. “In fact, it’ll be the one good thing you’ll ever be able to do for me – ACK!”

A stinging sensation was left on her cheek as she was suddenly facing the table. Matthias wasted no time in grabbing her by the waist, and laid her out on the table as she whirled around to face him, a hand cupping her reddened cheek from where he backhanded her.

“And how about you?” Matthias growled as he pinned her down on the table, forcibly slotting his body between her legs, bunching up her skirt around her waist, “Aren’t you loving the way you drive me crazy too?” he asked her, a manic look in his eyes as he stared at her.

He immediately took hold of her wrists, even the one that had just been cupping her cheeks and held them in one hand to pin on the table, in the spot above her head. Leyla looked up at him with a smug look of her own.

“Perhaps just as much as you enjoy seeing me cry.”

Once more, Leyla reminded herself to never cry in front of him. She must hold herself together, until she’d see the torment in his eyes…

But then her expectations were shattered when Matthias began chuckling slowly to himself, before blowing out into a fully blown manic laughter and threw his head back as he laughed at her. When he looked back at her, she could only see the face of a person who had finally snapped out of his sanity.

“Then, don’t you think it’s only fair by now to see you cry too, my Leyla?”

Wasting no time, his free hand grabbed Leyla by the chin roughly. She was certain he would be leaving not just hickeys on her skin by the end of the night. She only prayed they’d be gone by the time her uncle returns.

However, she wasn’t one to back down easily with Matthias, but he won’t let her continue to speak, clamping her jaw shut with his strong grip around her mouth.

“Then, let’s begin our pleasurable deal with each other, shall we?” he purred in a low baritone, before she heard the sound of cloth ripping and the sensation of the cool air hitting her legs before he drowned her in the beginning of heated kisses he would leave with her tonight.

*.·:·.✧.·:·.*

The last few days was the time Kyle needed to stop sending himself into a panic attack at Claudine’s words. He needed to distance himself for a while to organize his thoughts before he could even begin to confront Leyla with Claudine’s accusations.

It was getting late, but Kyle knew by now Leyla was back in her cabin, and he could talk to her there alone, without any prying ears or eyes to spread further rumors about them.

He still had that nagging feeling of a small chance that what Lady Brandt had been telling him was true, but his loyalty to Leyla made him refuse to entertain it. He’d go over there, and lay his mind to rest, and Leyla would assure him all that Claudine said was a lie.

He believed Leyla. He knew she wouldn’t lie to him, not with this.

‘But what if she confirms everything is true? And that’s why she’d never go back to you?’

There was that nasty voice in the back of his mind again, growing louder the longer he put it off. He’d been yelling at himself to shut up for hours on end since he returned from Carlsbar, but it kept going louder and louder, making him lose sleep and more of his waning sanity.

But if it is even true, maybe Leyla was in trouble! He needed to help her! He knew she wouldn’t ask for help, so that’s why he must go to her and assure her that he has her back, all she needed to do was to let him.

He eventually stopped in front of her dark cabin. He took a pause outside as he slowly got off his bike, parking it beside the cabin’s storage hut. Was Leyla asleep?

Should he come back tomorrow?

‘No,’ Kyle thought to himself as he approached the cabin’s entrance with a determined look, ‘It’s better to rip the band-aid off quickly.’

But the more he got closer, the nasty voice in his head grew louder, making his anxiety worse and his stomach churned uncomfortably with every step he took. There were odd sounds coming from inside the house, but it was so muffled that he couldn’t hear it clearly…

He went to knock on the door, but a light gust of wind blew past him, making the door swing minusculely open. Kyle paused as his heart froze, he could clearly hear some ragged breaths inside.

Quietly, he pushed open the door.

Thump…

Thump…

Thump…

His heartbeat thundered in his chest as the ringing in his ear grew louder, drowning out that nasty voice in the back of his mind. He could feel his breathing quickening at the sight of a fallen bag of groceries on the floor thrown haphazardly all over…

The next he saw some shards of glass glinting in the moonlight…

The next he saw was a fallen bag of groceries, with some shards of glass glinting in the moonlight…

And then he was drawn to the sounds of the table squeaking as it rocked back and forth. In the dark, he could faintly make out a silhouette of a man rutting on the table’s surface. He was huddled over something he couldn’t make out just yet as he groaned, breathing in ragged breaths…

And then he could hear more sounds, like flesh slapping sloppily against each other, and the unmistakable sound of a woman moaning. And then his eyesight adjusted, he could see the tight grip of a smaller arm, fingers digging into the man’s clothed back…

And then his eyes adjusted further, that he could make out a golden color of the woman’s hair beneath the man’s form, and the way her legs wrapped around the man’s waist with a face full of bliss…

It was…

“Leyla…” he breathed out in a shocked daze, and Leyla’s eyes snapped open as she finally took note of their unexpected guest. Even Matthias stilled in his movements, his looming form seemed to be hiding Leyla from his view, but Kyle could see Leyla’s flushed face as she stared at him with wide eyes.

Time stopped as the three of them all locked gazes with one another, until the ringing in Kyle’s ears turned into a deafening silence, and his breathing calmed down to a stop before his eyes shifted to look at the Duke with an indecipherable gaze.

Matthias finally straightened out, his clothes having long been rumpled over the beginnings of what could have been another night of pleasure, while Leyla was only partially undressed, the top of her dress hanging off her shoulders, as her breasts laid bare for all to see.

Kyle’s eyes were fully adjusted by now, and could see the blooming hickeys left on Leyla’s collarbone, as well as the forming wrinkles on the Duke’s usually pristine clothes. He looked so unbothered too at being discovered, while Leyla hurriedly got up to right her clothes…

Alarm bells began ringing the back of Kyle’s mind, but the voice in his head stayed oddly quiet…

“What are you guys doing?” He couldn’t help but softly ask them instead, body numb at what he had just witnessed. Matthias only stared at him nonchalantly as he straightened up to his full height, allowing Leyla to scramble behind him to cover her indecency.

“What do you think we’re doing?” he asked the new arrival.

And then Kyle’s world turned red…

He could barely register Leyla calling out for his name, begging for him to stop as he wrestled with Matthias. He had just tackled Matthias with a scream of rage, yelling profanities at how lowly he was treating Leyla.

He’d hit Matthias, and the Duke would hit back just as hard, but the adrenaline running through his veins made him oblivious at how poorly matched he was.

The only thought he could think about was how he should be protecting Leyla from such a vile man!

At some point, Matthias spared Leyla a glance, and completely missed the fist Kyle threw out to him while Leyla rushed to Kyle’s side, as he was momentarily shocked.

Matthias could feel the taste of copper filling his mouth.

“What have you done to Leyla?! are you human, how can you do this??!!! “ screamed Kyle as he grabbed her wrist, “Let’s go, Leyla. I… … I’ll save you. Let’s leave.” They both were pleading with each other by now. Leyla kept insisting that Kyle should just leave her behind and that she was fine, while Kyle yelling at him accusations and promises of taking Leyla away from Arvis, while …

And it just made Matthias’ blood boil and grabbed Kyle away from Leyla and resumed their fighting. In Matthias’ mind, Kyle must disappear, and then Leyla can be his!

“Kyle!” Leyla screamed out worriedly as she watched in horror as the two men threw fists at each other once more!

Kyle was not a fighter, Leyla knew that best, it’s what she liked about him. But Matthias was. He was a seasoned soldier, who had fought in battles before, Kyle had no chance of winning against him!

She could see the way Matthias was pummeling Kyle, and she feared if she couldn’t stop them from going further, Kyle would end up dead because of her…

“Kyle, stop it please!” she yelled out, tears falling down in rivers from her eyes. “Duke stop!” Still, not one of them seemed to be listening to her anymore, both men had their senses overridden by adrenaline and anger.

“Stop!” she screamed, voice cracking as she yelled out in frustration and fear, yet both men remained deaf to her cries…

“I love him!” she exclaimed, her sudden declaration stilling both men into a stop as she sobbed desperately at Kyle’s now swollen eyes, “I love him, Kyle… I love him…” she cried out as her heart broke for a second time at seeing the fierce protectiveness in Kyle’s eyes diminish in front of her…

Matthias looked down, spitting the blood out of his mouth as he finally got off of Kyle’s prone form, finally calm enough to let the man stagger up to his feet to approach his woman.

“It’s not true… Leyla, tell me it’s not true and I’ll protect you this time… I swear it…” Kyle whispered as he stared desperately in front of her through his remaining good eye, but Leyla only shook her head at him as she continued to sob at how terrible he looked…

And it was all because of her.

“I love him Kyle,” she lied through her teeth, before taking a deep breath to look at him more calmly to convince him, “And that’s the truth.”

*.·:·.✧.·:·.*