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Crack!

The sound of a stiff palm colliding with soft flesh cut through the air like a whip.

Bright red pigment immediately began to spread across the woman's cheek where she'd been slapped, matching the scarlet cheeks of the man who knelt next to her.

As silence settled over the candle-lit room once again, the man standing in front of the kneeling pair raised his hand a second time.

The woman's eyes remained focused on the floor in front of her, not a single muscle tensing. Either it was a situation she was accustomed to, or she feared even the tiniest movement would further aggravate her punisher's temper.

"That's enough!"

Kel jumped up, grabbing the Emperor's arm before he could strike Lucy again.

"Please, stop this!" she pleaded with teary eyes.

The Emperor attempted to shrug her off, but she stubbornly tightened her grasp.

"It wasn't their fault! It was mine!" she insisted.

With a sigh, Calix finally gave in and lowered his hand.

"No." He turned his steely gaze toward Kel for the first time since she'd entered the room. "Their job is to protect you wherever you are and stop anyone who dares approach you."

"But I'm not even hurt!" Kel protested. "Besides, I was the one wh-"

Calix raised his hand to silence her and turned back to Lucy and Thane.

"You may be excused for tonight," he instructed coldly. "... but we will finish this tomorrow."

In all the time Kel had known the three of them, she couldn't recall the two knights cowering beneath the Emperor's wrath like that. For the first time, they truly seemed like Calix's subordinates rather than his friends.

The way they'd fallen immediately to their knees when Calix called them to his study and didn't so much as flinch under his blows, it made Kel feel uneasy.

Neither of them had even tried to defend themselves. They accepted their punishment as if they really had done wrong!

"I.. I don't like this," Kel spoke softly as the door thudded shut. "Nothing that happened tonight was their fault."

She'd been repeating the same thing since earlier.

What happened at the festival with the shady actor and other unidentified people wasn't because Lucy and Thane were lax at their job.

Rather, Kel was the one who'd left them behind.

So, why didn't the Emperor understand that?

"Keliyah."

Kel flinched under her name. Calix hadn't been calling her so formally lately.

"You are the most important person on the continent," he continued, "so you need to treasure yourself more."

He was definitely saying something nice, right? So why did his voice sound so scary?

"It's not that I don't treasure myself," Kel suddenly felt defensive, "it's just that I treasure my friends as well."

His teeth bared, Calix stomped toward her.

Kel tried to back away, but soon found herself trapped against one of the cold, stone walls.

Thud!!

The Emperor's fist slammed into the wall above her head.

"Put yourself above everyone."

His breath was hot against her skin.

"Think of yourself first and always."

Kel scoffed, whipping her head to the side.

"To be a good empress?" she hissed.

"No..."

Calix's other hand rose to her cheek, forcefully turning her face back toward him.

"To survive."

Kel gulped.

"Y-You're too close!" she barked, smacking his arms away.

What did he mean 'to survive?'. She knew well from serving as the Princess's body double that being a royal wasn't the safest position in the world, but did Calix really have to exaggerate it so much?

"Do you really think it won't get any worse than tonight?" Calix obediently took a step back, his eyes still locked with hers. "That saliva will be the only thing aimed at your neck the next time it's exposed?"

Kel pursed her lips together.

Of course she wasn't that naïve. But during a crowded street festival in her home country with two capable soldiers nearby, and her being a capable soldier herself, danger was the last thing she suspected.

"I have many enemies, as you know well since you used to be one of them," the Emperor went on. "I guess you haven't realized how dangerous it is to be the Dragon Emperor's woman."

"No.. I.." Kel paused. "I thought of you as the enemy back then because I didn't know-"

"And the people who attacked you tonight?" Calix interrupted, raising an eyebrow. "Do they know why you've done the things you've done?"

".. No. But if they knew about.. Everything."

Kel stopped. The people who hated Calix, and the people who hated her, most of them probably just didn't understand. Like she had, they'd been brainwashed into thinking Serin is the enemy.

If only there was a way to explain to them, to show them, how much better their lives could be as part of the Serin Empire.

"You can't reason with everyone," the Emperor chimed in as if he were reading her thoughts. "That's why you have to protect yourself."

He walked to his desk, snatched a quill and parchment, and immediately began scribbling something down.

"From now on," he spoke when he had finished, "you will be accompanied by four guards at all times."

Kel, still pressed timidly against the wall, raised her eyebrows in surprise.

Four guards at all times?!

"And," Calix added as he strode toward the door, parchment in hand, "you will not leave this palace unless it is with me and my entire army."

Kel's jaw dropped.

Was the Emperor placing her under house arrest? Had she circled back around to being his hostage once again?

Wait, no. He couldn't do something like that without her permission. He.. wouldn't, right?

While she pondered her new chains, Calix opened the door and handed the parchment to one of the guards outside. They exchanged a few words before he shut the door and turned to Kel again.

"You must be thinking it's not fair," he smirked as he approached her. "I forced you to be my fiancé, and now I'm locking you away again."

He stopped in front of her, running one of his fingers down her cheek.

"But since you don't seem willing to keep yourself safe, I have to."

"I don't like this," Kel whispered, repeating her earlier sentiment.

The Emperor's finger trailed down her neck and then into her hair.

"Blame the people who brought you into this world, or the man who couldn't hide you well enough from me," he whispered. "But from now on, this is how things are."

A sudden knock at the door caused Kel to take a sharp breath in.

Calix chuckled at her reaction.

"It looks like your guards are here to escort you to your room," he explained, leaning in and pressing his lips to her forehead.

"Goodnight, Kel."