The Alpha Emperor's Courtesan

Accepted

I remained silent beside the Emperor. He was still waiting for my response, and I found it satisfying to leave him waiting.

I smiled politely after a few more moments of expectant silence and repeated his name as if it was a totally new word to me.

“Caius.”

He blinked, unable to respond because he was clearly used to people finding it impossible to control their reactions when they realized who they were talking to.

I didn’t care what he called himself, or who he was to this city. He wasn’t in control of me, and he never would be.

I took advantage of the fact that my lack of reaction had caught him off guard and continued to feign ignorance.

“I thought you were going to explain my situation to me, Caius?”

My casual use of his name shook him, and his expression hardened.

“You’re here because I asked Rin to find me someone new. The past few girls she has brought here have not been…” he stared off into the distance, and bit his lip teasingly as he searched for the word, “…right…”

“Right? Right for what?”

He smirked again, and I realized that he had been playing with me and that I had fallen for it.

“To be one of my courtesans.”

That word… courtesan. I still wasn’t sure what it really meant, and Caius was clearly not going to give me a straight answer.

“I assume that is why I have been presented to you in this ridiculous outfit; so you can see the goods before you decide if you would like to commit?”

Caius laughed.

“This is not about your body. There are women you couldn’t hold a candle to who are desperate to spend a night with me - I am not looking for someone pretty. I’m looking for someone who can accompany me to official engagements without being tediously boring to talk to… I am looking for someone who can entertain my guests with more than just their body…I’m looking for…”

“…a wife?”

Caius laughed again - he found my suggestion legitimately hilarious, and I was angry at him for laughing at me like that.

“No… not a wife; I am not looking for a wife. But I think Rin has finally found me someone I can work with.”

I shook my head in disbelief. I still didn’t know what the hell he was planning on doing with me. Apparently, this wasn’t s****l, but there had to be some element of that in this. And I couldn’t even speak his language, so the idea of me accompanying him to any sort of event or entertaining his guests was laughable.

“I…”

He moved closer to me on the cold stone and whatever I had been planning on saying was completely lost as I got caught up in his eyes, and examining every feature of his face - the face of the most powerful man in the world.

He was an infuriatingly attractive man, and I hated the fact that I couldn’t find any faults with his appearance. It felt like a great injustice that a man I knew only as a cruel despot who killed entire tribes on a whim was this pleasing on the eye.

His strong jawline was rough with dark stubble, and I wasn’t sure if he had chosen not to shave or if he had not had the time. It suited him, in any case.

He was looking at my features just as objectively, and he seemed to make some decision about me as he reached for my face and held my jaw in his rough hand.

He tilted my face up a little, and then to the side, before finally brushing his lips against mine, as if I was his lover and this was a tender moment and not something hideous and grotesque.

I backed away from him, and he looked at me and bit his lip in that way he had done a few times before… it was playful, and flirtatious, and entirely inappropriate.

“What?”

He knew what… he still wanted me to acknowledge that I knew who he was.

“I am sure you are used to getting everything you want all the time, Emperor, but I am not from this city and I am not going to fall at your feet to grovel for your attention the way you are used to.”

“Very good; I’ll let Rin know that you are acceptable and you are free to leave with her… unless you would rather stay a little longer?”

My skin burned as the blood rushed to my cheeks, and I slapped him hard across the face again.

He didn’t react, and the Emperor called Rin’s name rather sternly.

She arrived a few seconds later - I assume she had been listening to us somewhere out of sight, trying to figure out whether this man was satisfied with me or if she would have to continue to search for another woman to satisfy whatever strange requirements he had given her.

I was blindfolded again before the large man who had met us at the building I had been washed and dressed in carried me back out of the room, and set me down in a carriage.

My blindfold was not removed until we arrived at our destination, and I found that the building I had first been taken to was now going to be the one place I called my home.

Rin did not say a word to me on the way back, and she pressed my back gently to steer me through the building to a room with an empty bed before she spoke at all.

“Your bedroom.”

Her accent was thick and barely intelligible.

I suppose that was why we hadn’t spoken. There wasn’t much we could talk about with my five words of Latin and her obvious difficulty speaking my language.

All I could do now was to hope there would be someone living here who could finally explain what was going to happen to me now the Emperor had decided I was acceptable.