Chapter 10
At the low, deep voice, Patricia’s body grew warm, and she couldn’t breathe.
‘Ah, he remembers that night. But… can that even be called a kiss?’
She felt suffocated.
The emperor raised the left hand he’d rested on the back of her chair and grabbed her cheek. His eyes were fixed intently on her lips as he lowered his head.
Even in that moment, Patricia’s heart fluttered strangely, and she hoped he wouldn’t hear how loud her pulse was.
If one could call that moment a kiss, she hadn’t forgotten it either. In truth, she’d recalled it many times, blushing each time.
“But those lips… they feel like they were yours.”
His breath brushed against her lips. Patricia shut her mouth tightly and didn’t even breathe.
“We’ll know if I check.”
She shook her head and leaned back. But his hand grabbed the back of her head and pulled her forward.
“Your Majesty, this isn’t the time for this… Please, mind your conduct.”
“Now that I think of it, maybe that moment on the terrace was just a performance. But why?”
One way or another, then and now, there was a sensation about her he couldn’t understand. The temptation was overwhelming, so intense it was maddening. He wanted to do something, anything.
The emperor grabbed Patricia’s arm and pulled her up. His hands glided over her shoulder and arm. Even with just a light touch, she felt delicate, like she might crumble, and soft.
“The mysterious lady was just about your height and build.”
He wrapped an arm around Patricia’s waist and pulled her close.
The rush of his heavy scent made Patricia feel dizzy. His tall figure, broad and firm shoulders, and sharply defined face that remained striking even in the moonlight.
The eyebrows were thick, the nose elegantly sharp beneath them, the green eyes lowered with a quiet intensity, and the lips, expressionless but slightly upturned, held a trace of arrogance.
‘I think I stared too long.’
Like she was under a spell cast by the moonlight, Patricia gazed blankly at his face before snapping out of it. She grabbed his arm and pulled it away from her waist.
“Please don’t do this.”
“Princess, I’m not usually like this,”
Just had to confirm I wasn’t crazy… Harzen, this woman is the leader of the enemy forces who started a war and is now your prisoner. She killed your soldiers and stained the empire’s land with blood. And yet, what is this…
“You’re insane.”
The emperor instinctively gripped her delicate cheeks with both hands and stole a kiss. As Patricia gasped, shocked and about to scream, something hot slipped through the gap of her parting lips.
Without realizing it, she clutched his shirt and accepted the kiss, but as their soft mouths entangled and something pliant twisted together, she jolted, shoving his broad, solid shoulder.
Staring into the depths of his vivid green eyes that had darkened to a deep blue, she raised her arm and slapped him hard across the cheek.
Smack!
‘Ah… I didn’t mean to hit him.’
Her widened eyes flashed like blue fire. Patricia was stunned by her own reaction, by the violence she’d reflexively used. She pressed both hands over her mouth.
She thought he’d get angry, but the emperor instead smiled, lips curling upward.
His cheek, both the struck and unstruck side, turned red.
“This is driving me crazy. Why are you so provoking?”
The emperor swept back his black hair that had fallen over his forehead and spoke in a low voice.
Harzen Einte Kal Berg. Born with the world in his grasp.
From the very midsummer he was born, just as the prophecy of a new golden age foretold, the Kaosan glacier began to melt, revealing fields of gold and diamond mines.
At twenty-seven, the young emperor had already established the Round Table during his crown prince days, relentlessly questioning and receiving reports from imperial council members.
He eradicated the marauding tribes along the Kaosan Mountains and the borderlands, and accepted nomads and the Huen people as citizens of the empire.
Upon ascending the throne, he abolished slavery and appointed talented commoners. He mercilessly eradicated three corrupt noble families.
Even his mother Diana’s family, the House of Orteo, was nearly torn in half under his ruthless anti-corruption campaign.
He shed light on the darkest alleys of the empire. In matters of state, he was cold and, at times, arrogant.
And Patricia had slapped that very emperor. Twice, no less.
The emperor’s dark eyebrows and deep eyes remained expressionless. It was impossible to read his emotions.
Patricia burned with anxiety inside.
‘He must be angry. Then get angry already. Slap me back or something.’
She pursed her lips, then bit her lower lip. She’d done it too hard without realizing, blood welled at the corner of her scorched lips.
The emperor frowned as he saw her biting her lip.
This princess had a bad habit.
She never left her lips alone. She licked and bit them without fear in front of a burning beast’s eyes, without knowing what kind of stimulus that was to the emperor’s nerves.
Ha, doing that right in front of me.
The emperor groaned low and pulled her waist close. He lowered his head, as if to confirm the feel of their tightly pressed bodies. His dark green eyes stared straight through her.
“Princess, you’ve already slapped me. Might as well take it further.”
‘Take what… ah.’
The emperor pulled her head in and pressed his lips to hers. He sucked on the blood-tinged sweetness of her lips. His rough hand slid into the front of the shirt Patricia was wearing.
“…Hh.”
A moan escaped, and her lips parted instinctively. Tilting his head, the emperor invaded her deeply and relentlessly.
Patricia pounded her fists against his firm chest, but all it did was hurt her own hands.
Though their lips were wetly intertwined, her insides felt bone-dry. Her body, betraying reason, flushed with heat. Her guts felt like they were turning to ash.
The emperor pulled back slightly, withdrawing from the kiss.
“It was you, wasn’t it, Princess?”
He grasped Patricia’s chin. His dark green eyes scanned her, her blazing blue eyes, her pale cheeks, her red lips.
“These lips, that breath, even what’s inside, you can’t fake it.”
His low voice seemed to press along her blood vessels. A faint tremble rippled through her body like an aftershock.
Patricia swatted his arm away and turned her head, wiping her lips on her shoulder. Unhappy with that, the emperor gripped her cheek again and forced her to look at him.
“Look into my eyes and answer. We’ve kissed before, haven’t we?”
Patricia misunderstood his question. How many women has he kissed that he even has to ask that?
“What difference does it make?”
At the very least, I won’t seem like some lunatic hallucinating. He gently stroked her cheek with his fingertip and lightly rubbed her swollen, red lips with his index finger.
“You didn’t feel anything, Princess?”
I was serious. This vivid sensation lingering on the tip of my tongue has driven me insane for so long.
Patricia turned her head away, knocking his hand from her lips, and answered coldly.
“Do you ask every woman you brush past if you kissed them like this?”
Brush past… Ha. What does this princess take me for?
The emperor let out a hollow laugh and tilted her chin up again with his hand, locking eyes with her.
Princess, you were my first.
“Princess, you call that a question? I’m speechless.”
Suddenly, Patricia recalled the way the young noblewomen had looked at him during the banquet. In her memory, he was a flashy, arrogant crown prince. It wouldn’t be strange if he confused her with one of the many ladies.
What’s more, he was the emperor of an enemy nation, and she was his prisoner.
She tried to turn her head, but the emperor cupped her cheeks with both hands again. His fierce green eyes seemed to suck her in.
“Let go of me.”
“Answer me!”
‘Don’t get swept up. Stay focused, Patricia.’
Patricia pushed the emperor away. Escaping from his arms, she clenched her fists and said,
“Yes, we did kiss. But it wasn’t anything special… To me, it was something fleeting, like the wind.”
Bang!
The emperor slammed his fist on the table.
“You toyed with me.”
Patricia bent her knees and bowed, then turned with a pounding heart.
“I will take my leave.”
“Sit. The interrogation isn’t over yet.”
“Your Majesty is enraged. I believe it would be best to resume once you’ve regained your composure…”
She straightened her back as much as she could.
“And I also ask that you address me with proper courtesy.”
‘If, of course, I get the chance to again.’
Without showing any signs of rushing, she slowly crossed the drawing room and entered the bedroom. Her neck stiffened with tension.
“She does as she pleases.”
Patricia heard his words, but didn’t react. Maintaining her posture, she entered the bedroom.
She quietly turned the lock beneath the golden handle of the double doors.
Only then did her legs give out.
Staggering forward, she collapsed onto the bed. She pulled the leather cord wrapped around her ankle, coiling it into loops and placing it neatly beside her.
Patricia slipped her hand under the pillow and found the cold metal of the scissors.
She couldn’t fall asleep easily. Her mind kept reviewing her plans. To succeed, she needed at least some rest, but her nerves were on edge, and her thoughts wouldn’t settle.
Her hand moved to her lips. She traced the spot the emperor had kissed.
He had been rough and unskilled, yet his lips were soft. His tongue, when it entered and stirred inside her, was hot and dizzying. The deep green gaze that had stared at her so intently made her chest ache.
If things had been different, if the emperor hadn’t been so forceful… Could she have confessed that she felt a spark when they first met at the academy?
‘No. Clearly not.’
Patricia lay flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling.
It was her first kiss. She couldn’t dismiss it as a passing feeling. And if it had been the wind, it was a wind that wrapped around her whole body like a storm and left a wound. But no matter the kind of wind, it had to be cut away with a single stroke….
‘These lips, that breath, even what’s inside—you can’t fake it.’
Recalling the emperor’s low, languid tone, her veins seemed to swell and tighten.
According to Patrick, there was a noble lady from the Karsik Empire studying abroad, rumored to be a potential match for the emperor. Was she one of the ladies who danced the waltz with him?
‘Patricia, get a grip. Why are you even curious about that?’
This wasn’t the time for idle fantasies. She had no room for emotional indulgence. That was a luxury she couldn’t afford.
Click. Click.
Then, the door handle to the bedroom turned.
‘No way, the emperor? Has he lost his mind? Is he trying to come into the bedroom?’
She had locked the door from the inside when she entered. She was sure of it. The handle jiggled a few more times, then went quiet, he must have realized it was locked.
A moment later, the door connected to the dressing room slid open.
‘W–what…’
Patricia had no idea that the night before, the emperor had entered her room half-asleep and laid beside her in bed.
She reached under her pillow. Her fingers wrapped around the cold metal of the scissors, tailoring scissors she had secretly taken from the Huen maids’ sewing basket earlier that day.
She prayed he was just here to retrieve something. If not, she had steeled herself to use the scissors.
Time passed, but she heard no movement approaching the bed.
She squinted. Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she clearly saw the figure standing in the middle of the bedroom, it was the emperor.
He stood by the side of her bed, then moved to the foot and silently slipped off his robe, climbing onto the bed.
Patricia’s hand, clutching the steel scissors, grew damp with sweat.
