Worsening Things For The Emperor

His balls? 

How dare she mention his balls without any ounce of decency? Right now, she was no different from an uncultured slums brat who was brought into his palace to exhibit a very strange kind of behavior, in order to irk him.

Blake was furious.

Could it be she had been pretending this entire time and now decided to show her true colors after their marriage and her coronation as the empress?

"Open the door," Blake commanded authoritatively and the guards immediately obliged. 

With a clenched jaw and his hands behind his back, he strode into Imogene's cell and the frightened little thing moved until she was backing the wall. Her wedding dress was stained with the ground dirt and her hair was in a mess. She didn't even look like the woman whom he had married four hours ago.

"Are you here to order for my execution, Mr. Emperor?" Her voice was really tiny that it was a miracle he could hear it.

Blake only glared at her, wondering how she could run that small mouth of hers and still lace her voice with all that innocence.

Suddenly, like a switch being turned on, Imogene's demeanor changed and she moved away from the wall. 

"Why should I even be afraid of you when I'm gonna die anyway?" She stood in front of him, put her hands on her waist, and held her chin up to him. Something no one in their right state of mind would do.

Blake was still trying to process everything when she pointed at his face for the second time in that day.

"Listen up and listen good, Mr. Emperor. I never signed up for this. I had no fucking idea that I'd end up marrying a cold and ferocious beast like you. So just kill me and get over with it quickly, hm?" She threw him a dry, humorless smile, "Don't leave me out here to starve and crave for meals that don't even exist in this fucking 18th century!" With annoyance, Imogene stomped on the floor. 

Except it wasn't the floor she hit her foot but something else. 

"Argh!" Blake's sudden groan confirmed it all. 

Quickly, she tipped her head down, only to find her foot on top of Blake's. It was his foot she just stomped on. Accidentally.

"Oh shit," Imogene mumbled, recoiling and stepping backward.

Blake decided he had had enough of her impertinence. 

This woman had not only disgraced him in front of five hundred guests, she was saying inappropriate things about his balls just five minutes ago and now she stomped on his foot.

A gasp flew from Imogene's mouth when Blake wrapped his hands around her neck and slammed her against the wall.

"You're the most ill-mannered and uncultured woman I have ever met," thankfully he wasn't strangling her. He just trapped her on the wall so she wouldn't escape from him. His blue eyes were deeply peering into her big almond eyes. 

"What did I ever do to deserve this?" Blake spoke as if it was himself he was questioning and not her.

Imogene cleared her throat.

"I have a solution that can help you out of your mystery and.."

"Quiet!" He snapped, silencing Imogene immediately. And she took a hard, hurtful gulp.

Having him this close to her made goosebumps rise in her every single pore. Blake Fitzgerald was someone she had read about and now she had her soul residing in the body of his wife. It would have been like a fairytale for her if she wasn't murdered in her other life. And Blake was no Emperor-charming. They wrote him off as the deadliest man one could ever encounter.

"What gave you the nerve to disgrace me like that in front of everyone?" Blake gritted out, glaring at her through clenched jaw as he impatiently waited for her response.

"Oh, you mean the wedding?" Imogene put her small hand on top of his hand that was lightly securing her neck.

Blake's anger was increasing at each timid tick of the clock. The way she uselessly mentioned 'wedding' as if she didn't give a care in the world, nearly, very made him snap her small neck. 

"It's a long story but I'll briefly explain things," Imogene continued, "you see, I'm a businesswoman…"

"Business woman? What in the seven hells are you talking about?" Blake narrowed his eyes at her in irritation, "You were spoiled rotten by your parents."

"Allow me to finish," she rolled her eyes at him, "my boss murdered me when I talked about fairness. He shot me thrice and then I transmigrated into this body. Your Imogene isn't here, she's probably in my body somewhere. Whilst I'm here in hers. And the only way you can get her back is to shoot me thrice." 

"What!?" Blake's puzzled yell was enough to make Imogene flinch. 

"I came from the future," she added.

"I was close to giving you the benefit of doubt that you're not feeling too well, but now I can see that you have in fact, gone mad," Blake's hands released Imogene's neck and he withdrew them.

"It's just so fucking exhausting when you blockheads don't believe me! I'm not Imogene," she was losing her temper right now, "I am Kate Benmurry Butcher from the twenty-first fucking century. Damnit!" Boiling with rage, Imogene raised her stained wedding dress to cover her face, showing him her corset.

Had it been the situation wasn't repulsive to Blake, he would've had a good laugh himself because it wasn't every day you'd see a small woman losing her temper and manners in front of him. She even called him a blockhead.

But she was confusion with the capital 'C.'

Whenever there was confusion obstructing his part, he had a way of erasing it.

Death. 

Except Imogene wanted the exact thing so much. She was against the idea of being his wife. Wanted to end things so she would not stay married to a cold-hearted beast like him.

He couldn't let her slip so easily. Perhaps if he tortured her for some days, she would contemplate her sins and plead for mercy. Then he would let her die a slow, painful death.

"Where are you going?" Imogene asked when she saw him heading toward the door.

Blake ignored her but then she did the unexpected.

She ran until she had her behind pressed against the door.

"What are you doing?" Blake was surprised when the realization hit him hard that he wasn't as upset as he was when he first arrived.

"You can't leave without granting me my wish of killing me. I cannot spend one more hour in this body and crave for things that don't even exist in this century," with that, Imogene opened the door, stole the key from the keyhole, slammed the door shut, locked them inside, and swallowed the key. 

She did it so fast that Blake or even the guards outside couldn't stop her. She was a con artist after all. She knew how to snatch things within a blink of an eye.

"Don't even bother about retrieving the key, you assholes. It's already settled in the pit of my stomach," Imogene made this known to the guards through the peephole.

"What have you done?" Blake could barely believe his eyes.

No. This wasn't happening. She didn't just gulp down the key.

"You were about leaving, weren't you?" Imogene folded her arms across her chest and raised a mocking brow at him, "No, you want to keep me here to suffer and starve to death, while you could return to your palace, eat, drink, and fuck your bitches." The corners of her mouth curved into a self-pleasing smirk.

"Oh, maybe this is a hallucination and none of it is real," Blake put his hand over his face because if it was real and she truly locked them in, he would crush her skull.

"Your majesty, there's only one key to that door and because it's gone and the door is made of steel, we cannot break through it," one guard from outside informed Blake. Even groans from his colleagues could be heard. They were trying to push the door open but it was futile.

And then it dawned on Blake that it was happening. 

The crazy women just locked them in.

His hands found her neck for the second time that evening, but this time he wasn't cautious with the way he held it. He handled it roughly like the way he would treat a rebellious subordinate.

"What have you done?" He iterated the question he had asked earlier.

Imogene coughed in three rows because he was squeezing the life out of her neck with his big hands.

"Too bad you're stuck here with me," she choked out amid trying to catch her breath, while her small hands grabbed his, "as much as I'd like to die, it can't be this way. I'd rather you have a gun to shoot me."

And one thing was for sure.

Blake was going to kill her and he would do it with his bare hands. To hell with beheading and poisoning.