"You're so beautiful."

She whimpers and squirms.

"You just can't get enough of me, can you." He squeezes her leg, just above the knee; the bone cracks in his grip.

She gasps, high and soft, and goes still.

"Even when I hurt you. Especially when I hurt you."

"Always, my lord," she moans.

"Slut." He wrenches her legs apart hard enough to pull her hips out of joint, then breaks her other leg for good measure.

She tries to form words, but all she can manage is an urgent panting whimper.

"You're amazing, you know that?" He holds her down with both hands, kisses a bruised and bloody thigh. "My slut, my treasure. When you die I'll burn a city for your pyre."

She shudders, dizzily imagining the whole palace going up in flames. It's the sort of thing he'd do.

He moves up to kiss her stomach, then her breasts, licking at the streaks of blood that trickle from the marks of his teeth. His eyes rest speculatively on her face.

Oh, that's a good look, she likes that look—she wants to beg, wants to say something eloquent about how she still fondly remembers the day they met, but the best she can do is moan desperately and hope he gets the hint.

It wasn't a very difficult hint.

He kneels over her face and shoves his cock in her mouth, fucking her throat until she chokes.

Her lungs ache and her eyes stream with tears and she loves every second of it.

He rapes her mouth for hardly a minute before he spills his seed down her throat.

She coughs and chokes and cries.

He takes a moment to catch his breath, then moves back so he can kiss her cheek and pet her hair.

Catching her breath takes her a lot longer.

"My treasure," he murmurs, watching her.

"My Emperor," she says breathlessly.

"What if I told you to touch yourself right now," he says. "Like this, bleeding and broken. Would you do it?"

Whimper. "Yes, my lord."

He shifts back a little farther on the bed, trailing his fingertips down her ribs as he moves.

"Go on, then."

Trembling, she reaches between her mangled legs. When she looks up and meets his eyes, she finds she can't look away; the blaze of shimmering colour is too captivating, his expression too intense. She has never in her life seen anything half as beautiful as the Emperor's eyes.

He watches her like she's the most important, interesting, attractive, beautiful thing in the world.