You Alone Were Allowed My Name
“How dare he covet my consort.”
Conrad’s jaw tightened. If Stella hadn’t been there, he would have used their sparring as an excuse to beat Messer senseless with his sword.
“Mm.”
When the muscles in Conrad’s body bunched hard, Regina let out a soft, uncomfortable sound. At that tiny noise, he felt the lower half of his body harden, and he lifted a hand to scrub at his face.
This is troublesome.
It was the first time his body had moved against his will, and he was almost flustered by it. He had even blocked out the sunlight so he wouldn’t wake her while she was still sleeping. Now, though, he wanted to wake Regina himself and sate the hunger inside him.
After a long struggle between reason and instinct, reason finally won.
The thick red marks scattered across Regina’s neck and chest had stabbed at his conscience.
“Regina Fredericks.”
Her name, followed by his own surname, rolled strangely, almost pleasantly, off his tongue.
Conrad murmured it under his breath, lifted her hand, pressed his lips to the back of it, and rubbed his cheek against her skin.
“I waited for you.”
He looked down at her like a satiated beast, and a slow, satisfied smile spread across his face. Conrad pulled her deeper into his arms, greedily, then closed his eyes and tried to sleep a little longer.
***
Regina gave a soft, contented sigh as a gentle current of mana wrapped around her body.
Her waist ached dully, but the mana filling her from head to toe left her deeply satisfied.
“Uhn...”
She stretched, trying to work out the stiffness in her body, but it wasn’t easy. Someone had her held so tightly that he refused to let go.
Only when she forced her heavy eyes open and saw who it was did Regina’s cheeks flush.
Conrad’s arm was wrapped firmly around her waist, and she couldn’t slip free.
As one detail after another from last night surfaced in her mind, her entire face turned the same shade as her hair.
No.
This had been part of the contract—an obligation to fulfill faithfully as the emperor’s consort. It was only right that she do it. She had no intention of taking her duties as empress lightly, either.
She would help break the Ferman Empire’s magic barrier, and Conrad would gain a perfect empress. That had been the contract, so there was nothing to be embarrassed about.
With that thought, Regina looked at Conrad, who was still sleeping late.
His mouth was set in a firm line, his eyes long and elegant beneath his closed lids. His nose was straight, his lips full enough to look warm even in repose.
Those closed eyes had held the sea. And when she remembered that, in that deep sea, she alone had been reflected so completely, her face heated all over again.
She shut her eyes tight and shook her head hard.
“Awake now?”
At his hoarse voice, Regina snapped her eyes open.
Her blue gaze, still brimming with bewilderment, met Conrad’s. Regina hurriedly pulled the blanket up to cover her chest.
“Sleep a little longer.”
Conrad cupped the back of her neck with a large hand and drew her against his chest.
With her cheek pressed to the hard muscle there, Regina’s eyes darted around.
Fredericks must have an emperor-led morning council meeting as well.
The nobles attending it would never dream their emperor had committed the mad act of getting married overnight.
So they couldn’t use a honeymoon excuse. If Conrad skipped the meeting now, it would be nothing less than pure neglect of duty.
And it was easy enough to imagine what would be said in a council chamber where the emperor was absent.
When Regina twisted in his arms, clearly intent on escaping for real, he let her go without resistance.
Regina put on the robe that had fallen to the floor and tugged the bell cord.
“I can’t allow myself to be called a seductress who dragged the emperor into the bedroom and wouldn’t let him leave on the very first day I became empress.”
“Hmm. That doesn’t sound so bad, actually.”
Conrad muttered that it might even be a decent strategy.
“Ever since ancient times, emperors obsessed with women have been forgiven no matter what they do.”
“Then I assume you remember how history recorded those emperors.”
“History is written by the victors, so what does it matter?”
Conrad’s confidence—that the bad history would never be written because he would win—made Regina smile faintly.
“That may be true, but if you’re the emperor of an empire, you should still care about your reputation a little.”
As if she wouldn’t tolerate even a speck of dust, Regina held out the robe to him.
“So stop whining and get up, Your Majesty.”
Conrad’s brows drew together sharply at the way she addressed him.
He yanked on her slim wrist, and Regina lost her balance and toppled over him.
Red hair spilled everywhere, and their lips brushed together.
Startled by the familiar ease of the contact, Regina tried to sit up quickly.
But the knight’s thick arms caged her waist firmly in place.
“Your Majesty? That hardly sounds like the proper way to address a passionate lover who’s gone as far as a stolen marriage.”
“...There’s no one listening, so why...?”
“Even if no one’s listening, the performance has to be perfect. Didn’t I tell you to call me Conrad?”
Conrad grumbled that he had granted her his name, so why was she still calling him Your Majesty? Regina, baffled, stared back at him, hearing a note of genuine hurt in his voice.
Weren’t we in a contract marriage?
Then she only needed to use his name when it was necessary. Why did this man sound truly disappointed?
Still thinking it over, Regina met Conrad’s blue eyes, fixed steadily on her, and sobered at once.
His expression seemed to be urging an answer. If she let him lead her around like this, she had a strong feeling the days ahead would turn out very differently from what she’d expected.
Conrad did not press her.
In a place where no one else was present—just the two of them—if Regina said his name, it would be no different from acknowledging her relationship with him.
An imperial name, especially the emperor’s, was not something to be spoken lightly.
And yet some inexplicable possessiveness surged through him. He knew Regina didn’t mean it sincerely, but that knowledge only irritated him further.
Deciding to give her wavering back a gentle nudge, Conrad murmured sweetly,
“I only allowed you to use my name, Regina.”
He smiled lazily and said it almost coaxingly.
“That means no one but you is permitted to call me by it.”
So as his empress, shouldn’t she be the one to take responsibility for the emperor’s name?
Regina blinked, innocent and uncertain. Remembering their contract and the duties of an empress, she nodded before she quite realized it.
At her consent, Conrad let out a low laugh and didn’t bother holding back as he took her reddened lips with his.
The long kiss continued until the emperor’s chamberlain, summoned for them, came searching outside the bedroom door.
***
In the Empress Dowager’s palace, the lamps remained lit deep into the night.
It was because Chloe had learned far too late that Conrad had come out of the temple. She bit down hard on her lip.
“He signed the oath document?”
“The High Priest said he was with him, so that seems likely.”
Her grip tightened on the armrest of her chair. Though she tried not to show it, Chloe’s expression was growing steadily harder.
If this happens, then the financial authority...
Financial control over the imperial treasury.
It had always been a right granted to empresses by tradition, but since Conrad had no consort yet, Chloe had kept it in her own hands and refused to let go.
The nobles of the emperor’s faction had protested, but each time Chloe had invoked etiquette and tradition and left the financial authority untouched.
“I can’t hand it over now.”
As she measured the money she had embezzled from the palace over the years, Chloe thought it through carefully. She would have to devise a plan that made it as hard as possible for them to take the financial authority from her.
First, I need to knock that woman down a peg. That’ll make everything easier.
Remembering Regina’s brazen attitude from the previous state council meeting, Chloe’s brow furrowed.
“She was insufferably bold.”
By beating them to the punch and saying she had no parents, she had made herself impossible to treat carelessly. And with the nobles’ attention fixed on her, there had been no opening to make a move.
But things are different now.
Conrad had no leisure to concern himself with Regina at the moment. Chloe had already sent letters to the nobles as soon as she learned of their hasty marriage.
Aside from the nobles aligned with the emperor, the rest had surely rushed straight to the emperor’s palace. In fact, if they did not go, she was fully prepared to send them there herself.
“Has the Duke of Messer not yet entered the palace?”
The maids, who had been nervously watching Chloe’s face, hunched their shoulders at the question.
“We have not received word of his arrival.”
“Tell him that even if it’s late, he must come here.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Time passed, and when Conrad and Regina finally entered the bedroom together, Chloe was able to meet the Duke of Messer, who arrived even later than expected.
And so those seditious murmurs continued until dawn.
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