42: TWO EMPRESS?

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...42...

TWO EMPRESS?👸👸

When he lifted her into his arms bridal style and proceeded to carry her out of the royal pavilion, she didn't protest though she had the urge to, restraining herself for some reason that seemed reasonable. She also let him do as he pleased because he was severely angry. He took her out of the royal pavilion and to his waiting horse, Clover. He set he atop the horse and mounted after her. He rode slowly with one hand around her waist and the other on the reins. She said nothing, relaxing and just enjoying the view and the ride. He had listened to her. She hadn't thought that he would do so. She should have let him eliminate the bitch from the empress contest, but she knew it will make him look like a tyrant -heartless and wicked, something that she didn't want. That was the only reason why she had intervened in the matter despite the fact that he was brewing with unsuppressed anger. As they approached his manor several minutes later, she took the initiative to speak to him.

'Beast,' she called though she was not expecting an answer from him.

'Yes, Mine,' he answered her after a moment. 'What is it?' he continued. She sighed softly.

'How did you become emperor at such a young age?' she asked him. He felt that the question was rather out of the blues. Why did she want to know that? He shrugged and decided to give her a reply nonetheless.

'I'm young?' he asked her, deciding to tease her a bit before going on to provide her with the answer of her choice.

'Well, of course you are!' she told him in an argumentative voice. 'According to the Linamine Emperor's Chronicles that I have been reading recently, all the emperor's before you ascended the throne at an age past forty.'

'Well, you see Mine, the throne was abdicated to the ones before me. But, my father died before he could actually do same,' he enlightened her. She nodded softly at his words.

'I see,' was her reply to him and then she was quite for a long time. He assumed she was pondering on what he had said and was manufacturing more questions to throw at him. Well, he was correct for she suddenly spoke up again with another question for him. 'Then, your mother?' she said in a tone that made her question sound more like a statement.

'My mother?' he replied her question with another question.

'Yes Beast, your mother, the one that we both saw back there,' she quickly clarified for him.

'Oh, that woman. What about her?' he asked nonchalantly. She raised a brow at his tone, forgetting that she was backing him and he could not see her facial expression.

'What is that tone? And why do you call her that woman? She carried you inside of her for a long time! Even if she has wronged you, be grateful for that you ingrate!' she scolded. He laughed heartily at her chide.

'I wish,' he murmured.

'You wish what? Besides, don't you think that you act too despicable and disrespectful to her?' 'You threatened to have her struck across the mouth. Isn't that too...awless?' she whispered the last word to him. He said nothing to her when she was done speaking, bringing the horse to a halt. She looked up then and realized that they had finally arrived at their destination, the royal manor. His hands snaked around her waist, tightly and he dismounted, taking her with him. He released her waist and took her hand instead as they both strode into the manor with their escorts right behind them.

Peter received them at the entrance with a bow and an information on food being prepared. The emperor declined food and his lady also did same, revealing her hankering for a fruit salad instead. Peter assured her that he would have such prepared and served to her in the comfort of the bedroom. She bought the idea and happily headed to the stairs alongside the emperor who had yet to let go of her hand in his. When they got to the mouth of the stairs, he took her by surprise one more time by lifting her into his arms and striding up the stairs confidently. Just like before, she didn't as much as protest, just choosing to go with the flow. She buried her head in his chest and enjoyed the coolness of his hard masculine body.

When they got to the bedroom, Cora reached out and opened the door for the emperor who had his hands full of her. He thanked his escort and took her into the bedroom. Cora shut the door after him. He reached the bed and gently placed her on it, sitting upright. She only just stared up at him who was standing and staring down at her. There was an unfathomable expression in his eyes. She wondered what it was and was trying decipher it when he sat beside her, facing her and began to speak.

'She is not my mother,' was the first sentence he uttered. She realized then after a moment of thinking that it was in answer to the question she had asked him earlier.

'She is not?' she asked again, for clarification because she was the empress dowager. 'She is really not or you don't want her to be?'

'She is really not,' he explained. 'Do, do not call her that again, especially afore me,' he said to her in a hard warning voice.

'Alright, I will not,' she assured him in understanding. 'If she is not your mother, then how on earth did she become the empress dowager?' she asked out of curiosity. 'She must have had to marry your father, the emperor to become that. That makes her your stepmother right?'

'Yes,' was his only answer.

'Then, your mother, who was she?' she asked him after a moment. The word Concubine was on the tip of her mouth, but she forced it back down her throat and to her stomach.

'Empress,' he said. 'She was an empress of Linamine.'

'Empress? 'But-' she stopped short and thought again. 'Did your father have two wives? Two empress? Is it possible to crown two empress? Who was senior and who was junior? Wait, do not tell me. Let me take a guess. Seeing that your stepmother is still the empress dowager, she must have been the senior one. She didn't bear your father a child, that is why he married your mother right?' she went on and on with no sign of coming to am end. He stared at her, amused. The small smile that she noticed on his face put a clip on her lips. She stared back at him, unsure of why he was amused by watching her.

'Mine, you ask and then answer your own questions,' he pointed out to her. She saw the reason for his amusement then.

'I'm sorry. I should let you speak if I ask,' she mumbled. 'Go on.'

'You are correct, but not entirely. Yes, there were two empress, but my father married them in sequence, one after another. And my mother was his first empress.'

'Where is she? Why isn't she the empress dowager then?' she asked, interrupting him.

'Allow me,' he said, 'or I shall proceed to keep shut.'

'I am sorry for interrupting you,' she apologized hastily. 'Go on,' she urged him with an apologetic smile.

'I will answer all of your questions. But, you have to be patient,' he advised her. She nodded. 'My mother, she died,' he revealed. 'She died twenty two years ago,' he continued in a voice that was tinged with grief. She stared at him.

'I am sorry.'

'It was not your fault. I assure you that it was not your fault,' he said placing a hand in her shoulder and squeezing it tenderly. She wondered why he was looking at her with such eyes as of he was really trying to convince that that it wasn't her fault when it was. She attributed the emotion he was displaying to overdue grief for he didn't seem like someone who always had a chance to open up about his grief.

'You must miss her,' she noted.

'Yes I do,' he answered after a long time. 'I miss her greatly.' There was a small pause. 'My father married Juliet four years after her death. She bore him a daughter, Tatiana.'

'Why have I never heard of her? Or seen her?' she asked him.

'She is out if the empire, schooling in country A.'

'How old is she then? Fifteen? Sixteen?'

'Sixteen.'

'How old were you when your mother died?'

'I was eleven.'

'That makes you thirty three now, does it not?' she asked further.

'Not now, further down the year, at the end of the empress contest. My birthday marks its end alongside the empress coronation,' he revealed to her. She nodded at him in understanding but he deduced from the distant look in her eyes that her mind was not fully there.

'Mine,' he called just as she spoke, coming back to the present.

'You have sixteen years on me then,' she blurted out. So, that is what she had been calculating, their age compatibility? He smirked.

'Thirteen,' he whispered inaudibly. She looked up at him.

'What?' she asked, having not clearly heard what he had said to her.

'Are you out of questions already?' he changed the topic.

'No,' she said to him. 'So, your father has a total of three children then, three royal offsprings? You, the little prince and Tatiana,' she said.

'No.'

'No? There's more?' He nodded with a chuckle.

'Yes, there is more. You have yet to meet the second prince or the centre prince, Jasper.'

'Oh!' she drawled. 'Wait, where is he then?' she asked. 'Not in your empire I suppose?'

'No he is not. He must be somewhere on a wendy, gambling and chasing woman. That is his speciality,' he sneered. She laughed. 'What? Why are you laughing?'

'Forgive me, but he does not sound like a Linamine Prince.'

'Of course he doesn't. Wait till you meet him. He does not look like one either!' he said. She laughed again. It was very clear that that brother of his could get on his nerves comfortably.

'Albeit he does not chase me,' she said jocosely.

'Mine,' he said in a chiding voice. She giggled some more.

'Then, you are four in number?' she continued with her marathon of questions.

'From my mother, yes.'

'Wait, I thought that Tatiana was your step sister?' she asked him with arched brows.

'Yes she is.' She was only confused for a little while.

'Oh I get it now!' she said as her eyes lit up in realization. 'You have another sister then?' he nodded. 'Where is she? How is she? Does she look like you?' she bombarded him.

'Easy,' he adviced her so that she would not pop with all the speed and momentum that she was using to question him.

'Alright,' she yielded to him, slowing down. 'What is her name?'

'Her name is Candy.'

'Is it Candy as in C-A-N-D-Y or C-A-N-D-I-E?' she asked him. 'Which of them is it?' she pressed.

'C-A-N-D-Y,' was his reply.

'Is she sweet?'

'Yes, just as her name implies.' His voice said that he was proud to have a sister like her.

'She is the last child right?'

'Yes she is.'

'Then where is she? She not in your empire too?' she asked him.

'She is just like the second prince, Jasper,' he mused.

'She likes chasing men?' she asked him with raised brows and a totally befuddled look on her face.

'No, not that,' he explained to her. 'She is like him in the fact that the both are peripatetic, itinerate.'

'Oh, I see,' she said. A knock on the door of the bedroom made them both glance in that direction. The emperor stood to his feet.

'Who dares?' he asked in a voice that revealed that he was offended that they had been interrupted. He was just finally getting to have a good chat with the Lady and they were being interrupted.

'It is I My Lord,' Hyeera's voice came from across the door.

'And what may you want Hyeera?' he demanded.

'I have brought the Lady the one dish that she has been craving,' she explained to the emperor. 'I have also brought a message for My Lord.'

'Come in,' he said after a moment. This was important. He could not turn the healer away and continue with their discussion. The lady needed to eat since she rejected food and rather chose some sort of fruit dish. Also, he needed to know what message the healer has brought for him. The bedroom door opened and Hyeera came into the room alongside five maids bearing dishes. They all paid obeisance and began to set the table. They left when they were done except the healer.

'My Lord, the Little Prince had sent a messenger to you. He asked that you receive him for an audience and did not know if you would be able to do so now.'

'I shall entertain his presence,' he said to the healer.

'Then I shall tell Peter to summon him My Lord?' she asked.

'No wait,' he said with his eyes darting from the lady to her meal and back. 'I shall go to him instead. Tell Peter to have my horse prepared. I shall be down in a moment.'

'Yes My Lord,' she said with a bow and left the bedroom. He turned to the lady, bent and carried her to the meal table.

'Why are you carrying me?' she asked him. 'It is not as if something happened to my feet. I am copacetic. I can walk just fine,' she informed him. He said nothing.

'Eat,' he told her when he settled her at the meal table. 'Eat heartily. I shall return soon from my brother's manor,' he assured her. She smiled at him and nodded.

'I shall do that.'

'And when you are done, rest,' he said further. She shook her head at him.

'I would rather not do that as I have already taken a nap earlier. I will prefer some equitation.

'Do whatever,' he permitted her. She nodded at him and proceeded to take a spoon from the meal table. He leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips, taking her completely unaware. Then, he was up on his feet and gone before she could recover from the sweet feeling that the soft kiss had caused to wash over her.

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...OmaPhinaPhire🔥

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One more chapter to go and a mean cliffhanger. Sorry, that was a spoiler, or was it not? Lol! I am glad you made it this far. Mon amour, saranghe.

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OmaPhinaPhire🔥