To Aurum With Hate

Two: Imperator Zale

Two  

Zale

    I woke up to someone kissing my neck. “Imperator,” the girls voice whispered in my ear, “wake up, and we can have more fun….” My c**k stiffened, and I groaned. The girl next to me was one of our maids. She was petite, with blond hair, and blue eyes that were looking at me hungrily.

    “You need to go,” I said.

    The girl frowned, pulling my bedsheets to her chest. “Did I do something to displease you sir?”

    I shook my head. “No.” I kissed her on her lips, then her neck, and then I sucked her breast. The girl moaned under my touch. “But my fiancé is coming today. I cannot have the smell of some random servant trash on me. Which means that you need to leave.”

    The girl frowned. “You are an asshole.”

    “I’m aware,” I said, “however, I am your Imperator. I’m telling you to get the f**k out of my room.”

    She frowned. “You’re not the Imperator. Not yet.”

    “But I will be,” I said, “I’m your Prince, and you’re getting out. Or I will have the guards forcibly remove you.”

    There was a knock on the door. “Prince Zale, are you awake?”

    It was my guard, Antero Dukas. I’d known Antero since we were children. His father was the Captain of The Guard and he would inherit the title once I came of age and became Imperator myself.

    “I’m awake,” I said, getting up and out of bed, “I am simply kicking out the trash.”

    The girl huffed as she dressed. “You are terrible.”

    “I’m aware,” I said. I wrapped my sheets around me then I opened the door, and I tossed the girl out by her hair.

    Antero caught her in his arms as she stumbled. “Ah. The trash, I’m assuming?”

    The girl frowned. “My name is Grace. I’m a maid.”

    “Well, Grace, if you go to the servant’s quarters now the castle Housekeeper won’t have you fired for tardiness. I would run,” said Antero, “and remember, gossiping about the Imperator is punishable by being put in the dungeon.”

    Antero is tall, with brown hair that falls into his eyes, which are also a warm brown. “Do you really think it wise, sleeping with a girl before your fiancé is due to arrive? The girl could wind up pregnant.”

    I laughed. “All of the staff has to be on birth control. Besides, my father has six bastards. I have to keep the family legacy up somehow, don’t I?”

    Antero smirked. “There’s our wise, future leader. Are you going to get dressed? Or are you going to greet Princess Sirena naked?”

    I smiled. “I might as well give her an idea of what she’s coming home to every night, don’t you think?”

    Antero laughed. “Your father will chop your d**k off if you meet her naked.”

    I chuckled. “He wouldn’t dare. It’s the thing that makes heirs. He might, however, lock me in a dungeon if I meet her naked so I suppose I understand what you mean.”

    There was a designer suit laid out for me, from the House of Sartor. It was hanging in a dress bag on the door of my wardrobe. I opened it and got dressed. It was black with red pin stripes, and red buttons.

    “There,” I said, “presentable?”

    Antero nodded. “She’ll be swooning.”

    I hadn’t seen the girl that I was about to marry, other than a portrait of her from when she was seven. She was small, with a round face, brown hair, and brown eyes. “What time does she arrive?”

    “This afternoon,” Antero said, “but your parents are hosting a reception for her that you were supposed to have been at five minutes ago.”

    “Oh,” I said, “why wasn’t I there five minutes ago?”

    “The maid,” Antero replied.

    “Right, of course. Well. Or did everyone else simply arrive obnoxiously early?”

    “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Either way, we should get there before your father has my head or my job.”

    I patted him on the shoulder, and together the two of us made our way to the garden where the party was being held. It was filled with courtiers and press, all of whom were eager to get the first glimpse of my fiancé. My parents were in the center, surrounded by advisers.

    My father looked like me. Tall, with blond hair, and piercing blue eyes. My mother had a heart shaped face, auburn hair that at that moment was pinned back, and brown eyes. She wore a dress of light peach, and a large sunhat to cover her face.

    “Darling,” she said, kissing me on the cheek, “wonderful to see that you are awake. I was beginning to think that we’d have to make up some terrible excuse to your fiancé when she arrived about your being late.”

    “Yes, son,” said my father, “cutting it awfully close.”

    “It’s morning, father,” I reminded him, “and the girl doesn’t even arrive until noon.”

    “Yes well,” he said, “image is everything. The press could talk.”

    I snorted. “The press always talks. It’s what they do.”

    Mother pursed her lips together. “But there is good talk, and bad talk, son. Someone might perceive your arriving late that you don’t care about the girl, it could get back to her family, and we could have an international incident on our hands.”

    “And what? They could refuse to let her marry me?” I said. “Once she’s here, on our soil, what does it matter? She’s ours. Regardless of if she marries me or not.”

    My father smiled at me. “There’s my boy.”

    “Well, I did learn everything from you,” I said.

    “Of course, you did.” He patted me on the shoulder. “You are here. That is what matters. The girl will get here. You’ll spend your year courting. Then, when she is eighteen, you’ll marry. Of course, should you seduce her beforehand---”

    “Eric,” my mother chided.

    My father smiled. “What? It wouldn’t hurt to push the alliance up further, would it?”

    She sighed. “No, I suppose not. But I don’t think we should be encouraging such impropriety.”

    “Fine,” said my father, “we won’t encourage it. However, if----”

    “Eric,” my mother chided again.

    I smirked at my father. “You needn’t worry. I expect I’ll have seduced the girl before the evening is over. Perhaps we’ll need to push up the wedding to accommodate for an heir.”

    Antero snorted. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

    “Why?” I said with a frown. “Have you heard something?”

    He made a face. “Well…. there is a rumor….”

    “What rumor?” I asked.

    “That she hates you,” Antero replied.

    I frowned. “How can she hate me? She doesn’t even know me.”

    “No, but she knows of Aurum,” Antero said, “and, as you’ll recall, we have been bombing her country steadily for the better part of a decade.”

    “Yes,” I said, “but the girl should know that all is fair in love and war.”

    “Yes,” said Antero, “she should. Be that as it may, there is a chance the girl could get here and want absolutely nothing to do with you.”

    My mother laughed. “I would think nothing of it.”

    “Oh yes,” I said, “think nothing of my future bride hating me.”

    She smiled, then placed a hand on my shoulder. “Zale, I don’t mean it like that. Only, it’s par for the chorus with arranged marriages. I would be more concerned if she showed up and she didn’t hate you. At least if she hates you, there’s a chance that it could turn into something else.”

    “What, disgust?”

    Mother laughed. “No. Like true love.”

    “She’s right,” said my father, “your mother hated me when we met.”

    She nodded. “It’s true. How many times did I try killing you the first year?”

    Father paused. “You know, I don’t remember. Fifteen? I stopped track after the incident with the snake and the poison.”

    Mother laughed. “That was when we---”

    “Ah,” said Father with a smirk, “I remember.”

    “Young love,” said Mother.

    I smiled at the two of them. They had always been so loving. Sometimes it was hard to remember that Mother had been the daughter of an enemy country too. That was how Aurum survived. We married princesses, and their countries became ours. The same thing would happen with Sirena’s.

    At that moment, there was someone running across the garden. One of my father’s assistants whose name I couldn’t remember. She was short, with brown, curly hair that was put up in a ponytail.

    “Imperator Eric!” the assistant shouted.

    My father looked at her. “What is it, Astra?”

    “There’s been an incident.”

    “What kind of incident?”  

    “The girl….”

    “Princess Sirena,” my father said, “what of her?”

    “She’s been kidnapped,” Astra said, “this message was all that was on the plane when it arrived.”

    My father took the piece of paper from Astra. “In death she will be immortal.”

    I frowned. “It’s him.”

    “Him who?” father frowned. “Oh, you can’t possibly be serious. That revolutionary prick that you’ve got a war going on with at school.”

    “Xavier Bones,” I said, “he is part of that cult, that worships the old gods. It would be just like him to do something like this.”

    “Then,” said father, “we’re going to have to go find Xavier Bones. Because we can’t have had your fiancé be kidnapped on the first day. People will think that we’re trying to take over her country.”

    “We are trying to take over her country,” I reminded him.

    “I know that,” said my father, “but they don’t need to just yet.”

    “We’re going to have to search the cities catacombs. They think they’re holy,” I said.

    “Alright,” said father, “then, search them we will.”