The Emperor at Breakfast

Surely not the night. He couldn't possibly mean last night.

He had harried me until I could scarcely sleep at all. How could any of it have been lacking? I stared at him, eyes wide, and he rose neatly from his seat and gave a shrug.

"No. It's nothing."

I caught his arm before he could walk off.

"It didn't sound like nothing."

"I told you, it really is nothing."

"I'll answer whatever you ask, so tell me the truth! What was lacking?"

"It really isn't that. I'm hungry. Let's go eat."

"......"

I narrowed my eyes at him, then got to my feet. He set off a couple of steps ahead, and I followed, watching those long legs of his swing along.

"I really shouldn't have let you go this morning, either."

So he was talking about last night after all!

I wanted to correct the man's dreadful misconception, but he played innocent to the very end and would not say another word.

Breakfast was to be taken not in our room, but in the dining hall. A savory smell drifted all the way past the door, and my empty stomach clenched in protest.

I have to eat a great deal.

I had just settled on that resolve and was watching the dining-hall door swing open when what appeared was not the delicious breakfast I had been expecting.

"Sister-in-law!"

"Ghk!"

A plump bear came bursting through the opening door like a flying squirrel. There was no mistaking that red cloak, its collar trimmed in marten fur.

"Y-Your Majesty!"

It was the Emperor himself.

His Imperial Majesty, paying a call first thing in the morning? What is this supposed to mean?!

This was the imperial palace, and there was nowhere in the world the sovereign of the realm could not go. Even so, bursting in on the breakfast that followed a wedding night was another matter entirely.

Either he failed to notice my discomfort, or he chose not to. The Emperor laughed heartily and greeted me with easy familiarity.

"Aigoo, our dear sister-in-law has arrived. Did you sleep comfortably through the night?"

"Y-you honor me far too much."

It was no mere courtesy. The weight of it pressed so hard that the words came out on their own. Sister-in-law. Was that not far too intimate a title to hear from the emperor of a nation?

He really does dote on Ian.

Granting us the palace for our wedding night, turning up at breakfast, beaming at me and calling me sister-in-law—all of it came from how close he and Ian were.

In the end, this man is the problem.

I lifted my head a fraction and glared at Ian, who looked thoroughly unimpressed.

Why didn't you tell me His Majesty would be joining breakfast? I needed time to prepare myself.

Ian, who had been counting the patterns on the wall, caught my stare and turned. Those blue eyes glittered like waves catching sunlight—and then, without warning, his lips touched my forehead. I had never imagined he would kiss me in front of the Emperor. I scrambled three steps back, my face going scarlet enough to burst.

"Wh-what was that?!"

I rubbed my forehead with my palm and glared. He shrugged, as if he could not see the problem.

"Weren't you looking at me because you wanted a kiss?"

"When did I ever!"

Why had he been twisting my every look to suit himself since earlier? I was shooting him a sharp glare, and he was tilting his head with shameless innocence, as though none of it made sense to him, when a thoroughly wicked laugh slipped in between us.

"Heh heh heh."

What is that? Why does he keep laughing? What kind of laugh is that?

Goosebumps rising, I looked over, and the owner of the laugh was none other than the Emperor. He nodded, wearing a smile as plump and cozy as a well-steamed dumpling.

"To think the two of you suit each other so well! Just looking at you fills me up. I won't need breakfast this morning."

He looked as if watching our little display of affection might actually kill him with joy. Dignity kept him from braying aloud, but the corners of his mouth kept twitching upward, unable to hold still.

Is Ian some hidden son of his, or what?

He was so pleased, as if the matter were his own, that the thought actually crossed my mind. I narrowed my eyes at the Emperor.

That was when Ian answered, looking thoroughly unenthused.

"I take it you've already eaten."

"The two of you came out so very late."

I understood a beat too late and blinked. So then.

...He really did mean he was full, and didn't need to eat.

In that moment I learned one lesson. Do not believe everything His Imperial Majesty says.

Still, he did seem to have waited a long while. I gathered my skirt and offered a graceful bow.

"I was indisposed. I apologize."

"No, no, I would never scold my sister-in-law. Heavens! How could I say a word against her? I'm nothing but grateful that you took in our lacking cousin!"

It would have been better if he had stopped there. Worked up by his own speech, the Emperor snorted and launched into a second verse.

"I was so anxious the bride might flee on the wedding night because the groom was impotent that I came running at dawn and waited all the way until now—but it's fine! I tore at my hair wondering whether, come morning, my cousin would betray me with 'The marriage was actually a joke! I really am impotent!'—but I said it's fine! Even if you don't leave the bedchamber until sunset, I won't say a word, so don't you worry."

In other words, he had truly believed the rumor of the National Impotent, and had been camped out since dawn for fear the marriage—already sealed and stamped—might fall apart.

Once I understood the whole of it, the color drained from my face of its own accord.

Ian, looking every bit as appalled as I was, covered his face with one hand and muttered.

"Your Majesty, it would be better if you said nothing at all."

"I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to our pretty sister-in-law, you know?"

Wait. This is the kind of person he is?

Can you hear it—the sound of my patriotism dying?

Laid bare like that, I lost every word and froze like a fool. I glanced sideways, waiting to see how Ian meant to salvage the situation.

He was biting down hard on those apricot lips.

"......"

And I saw it. For an instant, the muscle in Ian's forearm bunched tight.

If this weren't the Emperor, he would have thrown him.

Those glittering blue eyes looked dangerously sharp—sharp enough that I began to worry I might become a traitor's wife and be driven from the country a single day after my wedding.

But this was hardly the first time the Emperor had met that killing glare. He changed the subject with perfect ease.

"So. How long will you be staying in the palace? Shall I simply give you that detached palace over there for a week or so?"

You want me to endure this for another week?!

Ian seemed to feel much the same. He answered, cool and blunt.

"We'll be leaving today."

"Why? Stay a little longer."

The Emperor kept clinging. Ian dispatched him in a single line.

"Then send us on a honeymoon."

"...Ahem. However lovely your wife may be, you must attend tomorrow's grand council, Duke."

Watching us might have been the greatest entertainment of his life, but having his own work increase because of it was apparently a fate worse than death.

"Well then, I'll be off. You two talk plenty."

Perhaps he feared Ian might change his mind and request a week's leave. The Emperor abandoned all his earlier momentum and vanished as fast as a chicken with its tail on fire.

In the end, all that remained in the dining hall was the disorder he had left behind, and a breakfast that had gone a little cold.

Only once the hall had gone quiet did Ian fold his arms and mutter.

"Ugh. What a spectacle."

I gasped.

The Emperor might have left, but plenty of people in imperial service were still in the room.

I clapped both hands over Ian's mouth.

"Be quiet! You know that's an insult to the imperial family, don't you?"

Caught off guard, lips sealed beneath my palms, Ian blinked, eyes round. And then—

"Ack! I said don't lick me!"

A soft tongue brushed slowly across my palm. Revolted, I snatched my hand away.

But he caught one of my wrists tight and nipped lightly at the tip of a slender finger.

Does he think it's candy?!

I could not begin to understand why he liked biting and sucking so much. The sight of that red tongue slowly licking down my fourth finger—the one that wore my wedding ring—was indecently sensual.

Before I knew it my face had gone scarlet, and I was staring at his lips as if spellbound.

"We'll have to wait for them to bring the meal again anyway, now that it's gone cold."

He pressed a soft kiss to my fingertip and smiled, wicked as a fox.

"How about we eat comfortably in our room?"

Another line meant to lure me in, soft and sly. This was the moment I should have shaken my head, firm.

I nodded.

Utterly robbed of my attention by that tongue, I nodded without properly understanding a word he had said. He let out a short laugh, as if I were adorable, and scooped me up.

We returned to the room we had only just left, his stride far quicker than the one that had brought us to the dining hall.

The palace attendants who had been about to change the bedclothes froze solid at the sight of us coming back in.

Ian jerked his chin and sent them out.

"No need to change the sheets. They'll only get dirty again soon."

At that, the attendants who had frozen went bright red. Hardly like trained palace staff, they fled the room in a fluster.

Having escaped the bed not long ago only to be returned to it, I clutched his arm.

"Y-you said we were going to eat."

"I did. I'm hungry too."

At his answer I let out a breath of relief.

So he didn't drag me here just to have me, without so much as a preamble.

But the relief had come too soon. The moment my grip on his arm slackened, he pulled me hard against him and kissed me.

The hot weight that pushed between my teeth caught my tongue and sucked at it, hard and wet. The kiss was fierce enough to ache at the root of my tongue.

A broad palm shoved my skirt up in a rush and gripped the soft fullness of my thigh. My waist bent, and my body swayed, unsteady. With nothing to hold, I flailed in the air, then wound both arms around his neck and clung. Soft golden hair tangled in my fingers.

A voice that was neat, and yet strangely chilling, whispered low at my ear.

"But I'll have you first."

"What does that even—mmph!"

I had been about to pout and grumble at a line that made no sense from start to finish when his mouth covered mine again. My lower belly drew tight with heat, and I twisted a little. His hot breath seemed to pour down my throat in thick swallows.

He had not even been touched, and yet the hard length of him nudged against my underclothes, again and again. Still devouring my mouth, he slipped his fingers in and drew the fabric aside.

"Mmph!"

His fingers rubbed, light as a tickle, over flesh still a little swollen from the night before.

Ah. Why does he keep going there?

My lower belly kept prickling, and strength gathered in my thighs. I tried to relax, but the tension came on its own and clenched around the hand that had pushed between my legs.

Ah. I shouldn't be doing this.