In the Emperor’s bedroom, after Lord Jacob and Assistant Kyle had left, only the Emperor, Arabel, and the Imperial physician Lord George remained.

As the physician grabbed the left ankle of Lady Arabel, who was seated – no, who had been seated by the Emperor – in the armchair that only the Emperor was allowed to sit in, thud, the Emperor’s leather glove fell onto the carpet.

When Lord George looked up at the Emperor in confusion, even without him speaking, his red eyes were commanding.

How dare you touch someone with bare hands. Put on gloves for treatment, they said.

As Lord George’s gloved hands carefully grasped and rotated Arabel’s left ankle, sweat began to form in his armpits from the burning gaze he felt on the top of his head.

Not long after, a chilling voice was heard from behind.

“Must you knead it for so long to fix it? When you treated my wrist at the hunting grounds last time, you didn’t fiddle around like this, did you?”

Lord George’s expression turned miserable at the voice that sounded very displeased.

His insides burned at the eerie voice that scrutinized every step of the treatment process with wide eyes, picking at each little thing. Lord George’s efforts to touch the lady’s ankle with just his fingertips were tearfully apparent.

To avoid further displeasing the Emperor, Lord George carefully examined Arabel’s ankle and said,

“Fortunately, it’s not broken or severely injured. It seems to have been misaligned from a sudden impact, if I do this.”

As Lord George’s two hands gently rotating the ankle twisted it in opposite directions, there was a cracking sound.

“Ouch!”

“What are you doing?”

In an instant, the spacious bedroom was filled with a thunderous shout.

The scream that escaped Arabel’s lips as her ankle was twisted was barely more than a small, short sound that could hardly be called a scream, but simultaneously, the sound that burst from the Emperor’s mouth, swallowing her scream, was an angry roar that sent chills down the spine.

This was the Emperor who hadn’t even let out a groan when he had to remove an arrow piercing his shoulder on the battlefield with a clear mind.

Lord George tightly closed his eyes, feeling as if the Emperor’s great sword might fall on his neck at any moment. He calmed his pounding heart, lamenting his fate of having to risk his life just to treat a slightly injured ankle.

“Strangely, it doesn’t hurt at all.”

As Arabel’s voice was heard, Lord George finally let out a sigh of relief and opened his eyes.

“Thank you.”

As Arabel stood up from the chair, rotating her ankle this way and that, and bowed her head in gratitude, Lord George replied with a smile.

“I’m glad. I can confidently set a fracture. But it must have hurt quite a bit, you endured it well. Rather, His Majesty’s act of pretending to be injured seemed so real, and since you didn’t show any sign, I almost didn’t realize you were in pain.”

At Lord George’s words, Arabel’s eyes widened as she looked at the Emperor.

“Your Majesty, were you not injured?”

Lord George quickly changed the subject after alternately looking at the Emperor’s smoldering red eyes and the great sword hanging at his waist where his hand rested. While hunching down as much as possible to avoid exposing his neck.

“We, we should quickly apply an ice pack to reduce the swelling. Then you’ll be able to walk without any problems soon.”

As he sat Arabel back in the chair and tried to wrap the ice that a maid had just brought in a towel to reduce the swelling on her ankle, bang, the sound of the Emperor’s heel hitting the floor, filled with dissatisfaction, pierced through his eardrum.

Lord George looked up at the Emperor again with his hair standing on end at the back of his neck, and he raised one eyebrow and asked.

“Is ice treatment all that’s needed to complete the treatment?”

“Yes. Once the swelling goes down with ice treatment, the injury will heal completely.”

At Lord George’s answer, the Emperor silently lifted his sharp chin slightly upward.

His eyes narrowed as he looked down at him, and his handsome eyebrows twitched. The physician initially didn’t understand and stared at the Emperor with his mouth open, but then the Emperor’s red lips twisted slightly as he gestured towards the door with his chin. A signal to get out quickly.

“Ah, I have somewhere I urgently need to go…”

Stammering, as he hurriedly opened the bedroom door and went out, Lord George’s eyes widened. As he briefly turned his head, an astonishing scene entered his view.

The Emperor approached the chair where Lady Arabel sat, and knelt on one knee like a knight, raising it at a right angle. The Emperor carefully grasped the lady’s ankle with one hand and placed her foot on his other palm.

Although the Emperor’s attitude was undoubtedly extremely respectful, that image was somehow incredibly erotic and intimate. Feeling as if he had stolen a glimpse of something he shouldn’t have seen, the physician swallowed and quickly exited the bedroom, closing the door.

“I, I can do it myself.”

Ignoring Arabel’s flustered voice, the Emperor brought her foot, captured in his palm, closer to his chest. Then, with his other hand, he skillfully placed the ice-wrapped towel over her cream-colored stockings.

Silence fell in the bedroom, with only the sound of the fireplace logs burning. The Emperor placed the foot that had been in his hand onto his thigh, holding the ice towel on her ankle with one hand, and slowly began to massage with the other.

Arabel’s shoulders stiffened as she vividly felt the long, firm fingers gently massaging her ankle through the thin stockings. The heat transmitted from each finger through the stockings spread across her delicate skin.

As his touch, slowly tracing small circles from her heel to the hollow behind her ankle bone, simultaneously conveyed heat and cold, her innocent face flushed red from an indescribable tingling sensation.

The Emperor’s long, lush black eyelashes cast shadows on his high, smooth nose bridge as he knelt like a knight with his head bowed.

His rectangular, straight shoulders looked even more reliable than usual today, and the firm elasticity of the thigh muscles where her foot rested was clearly felt, causing her toes to curl repeatedly inside her stockings.

Being with him made the hurtful words she had received in the banquet hall earlier scatter and disappear like grains of sand.

I shouldn’t be greedy. But I want to look again and again… Arabel lowered her head, ashamed of her desire for this moment to pass a little more slowly.

The Emperor’s red eyes flickered deeply as he gazed curiously at the thin ankle that could be easily grasped with just his thumb and index finger.

A slightly hoarse baritone voice broke the silence in the room.

“It’s amazing how you run around the mountains with such small feet. They’re so small, it would be hard to find you if you ran away.”

I don’t know why I feel so anxious. The Emperor’s jaw contracted strongly as he subtly bit his molars.

Even though she’s right here in my hands. What is this uneasiness, as if she might slip through my fingers? I only brought her here as a tool to break my curse. If I don’t see her with my eyes, no, if I don’t touch her, my mind won’t calm down.

Too many ridiculous situations are repeating where I’m being controlled by unfamiliar emotions.

When I received the report about the gossip directed at her in the banquet hall, my body was already drawing my sword and heading out of the bedroom. If Jacob and Sir Peter hadn’t stopped me with their whole bodies, there wouldn’t be a single mouse breathing in the banquet hall right now.

It’s absurd. To lose my reason the moment I imagined her hurt appearance.

It’s dangerous. Is this also part of the curse? An animal-like obsession with the woman who saved the beast’s life.

I suppressed the dark desire to trace the thin ankle I was holding and invade deeper up above. Then, clear and determined eyes appeared beneath her eyelashes and met the Emperor’s possessed eyes.

“As I promised, I won’t run away. I’ll stay by your side until Your Majesty’s curse is lifted.”

As people say, I may not have anything, nor be special enough to suit Your Majesty’s side, and I may have nothing to offer Your Majesty… But I will definitely keep my promise. I will surely break Your Majesty’s curse.

As Arabel spoke sincerely, the Emperor’s red eyes, which had become opaquely dark, found a warm light, and his furrowed brow softened.

The Emperor slowly rose from his seat and said in a gentle voice,

“The swelling seems to have gone down, shall we go down to the banquet hall? It’s almost time for the last dance to begin.”

He spread his large hand towards Arabel.

Arabel looked at the Emperor’s hand for a moment, then raised her head,

“I won’t go.”

She rejected his hand.

The Emperor looked down at his empty hand and asked in a low voice. Unlike his calm expression, a chilling coldness seeped into his voice.

“You dare to reject the Emperor’s hand?”

Arabel shook her head slightly and answered.

“If Your Majesty dances the last dance with me, people will suspect Your Majesty’s injury.”

“Is that the problem? Being suspected? What does that matter?”

The Emperor’s brow furrowed slightly. Even if they suspect, it doesn’t matter.

There is no one in the empire brave enough to complain that he lied in front of the Emperor, and even if there were, he would simply ask, “So?” and crush that impertinence.

“I can’t let Your Majesty be suspected because of me. I can’t allow Your Majesty, a wise and benevolent ruler, to leave a blemish of lying to your subjects in order to help me.”

Arabel’s voice was unwavering and firm. One of the Emperor’s eyebrows rose smoothly.

The woman before him… doesn’t even imagine that the Emperor, if it’s for his purpose, wears a mask and lies dozens of times a day, trapping and using people like in a chess game.

The Emperor Maxwell she had seen was a virtuous and excellent emperor who helped weak people and animals. The Emperor thought as he looked down at Arabel, who had clenched her small fists and tensed her nostrils.

Right now, she doesn’t even seem to know why I acted out injuring my ankle before dancing the first dance with Princess Lilibet. She probably believes I pretended to be injured for some great hidden purpose for the empire.

In fact, I set up this act simply because I didn’t want to show her the sight of me dancing with other women in front of her.

To her, he appears to be nothing more than a benevolent emperor trying to dance the last dance with her to protect her honor, which was insulted in the banquet hall.

‘She will absolutely not return to the banquet hall to dance with me.’

The Emperor, who had already experienced Arabel’s stubbornness, narrowed his eyes as he said inwardly.

“Your words are correct. It’s a top-secret matter of the empire so I can’t tell you the reason, but I felt uncomfortable having to act injured in the banquet hall. It might be better not to return to the banquet hall.”

At the Emperor’s words, Arabel nodded with a brightened expression, as if understanding.

The Emperor escorted Arabel to sit on the sofa, then sat beside her and said in a glib voice,

“There’s still time before the banquet ends, so eat some chocolates by my side until my work is done before you go back.”

He opened the box of chocolates he had intended to drop on the balcony of Arabel’s annex.