“Me? No way!”

“Then why did you come? You don’t seem to have the guts to even spectate.”

Nikolai slightly raised the corner of his mouth.

My cheeks flushed hot red.

‘Get a grip, Elizabeth. You’re a fatally charming femme fatale!’

I gulped down my dry saliva.

It was time to deliver the lines I had practiced all night.

“Your Majesty, I have an urgent matter to discuss with you.”

My voice was as sweet as if it was coated with honey.

I didn’t forget to make an innocent expression with my eyes half closed.

“If you want to join in, I warmly welcome it.”

“What if you prefer monopolizing over mingling with many?”

I can’t believe such words are coming out of my mouth!

My heart pounded and my limbs were tangled.

Still, I managed to make Nikolai smile.

It was just a slight smile with the corners of his mouth curling up, but I couldn’t help but freeze.

‘Wow. He’s even more handsome when he smiles. His good looks are bursting through the mask…!’

If Douglas was a peach that won with sweet juice and tenderness, Nikolai was a beast condensed with overwhelming decadence.

He was worthy of being the world’s top handsome man, abundantly loved by the author.

‘He has everything – looks, wealth, power. Why did Nikolai surrender to Claudia? He could have escaped with his royal guards.’

Unlike the original Elizabeth, Nikolai was awfully desolate in front of the guillotine.

He neither begged for his life nor cursed Claudia who usurped the throne.

His appearance seemed not like a tyrant who ruined the country, but a martyr who had severed all afflictions.

‘The more I think about it, the stranger it gets. Is this out of character? Could there be a secret setting even avid readers don’t know about?’

I looked at Nikolai once more.

With eyes free from prejudice.

But the emperor in front of me now was just a playboy exuding sensuality.

“I like honest women. I didn’t know you were such a woman.”

“Do you know me?”

“Is there any man in the Hartmann Empire who doesn’t know Elizabeth?”

Not the emperor, but a man.

It sounded like he saw me as a woman, making my stomach tingle.

“This is my first time meeting Your Majesty.”

“You readily sold out an emperor you’re meeting for the first time? Didn’t I tell you not to mock me?”

“You heard everything?”

“I knew Kensing was selling invitations. I turned a blind eye since he handled annoying parties for me. How did you know?”

It seemed Nikolai was aware of the party situation while entertaining the two women.

As expected, a rogue was a rogue.

“Merchants are quick to get information.”

“Is that all?”

“Would there be any other reason?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Pardon?”

“Try being a bit more honest. I think it’ll make you even sweeter.”

It was hard to understand what he was saying.

I also didn’t know why he brushed off the women’s touches and came right up to my face.

An unfamiliar scent made me dizzy.

A handsome man was such a dangerous and scary being.

‘You’re the one seducing, not me.’

I bit my lip hard.

I provocatively raised my chin and winked with one eye.

It was a decisive wink loaded with fatal charm.

“What are you doing?”

Nikolai frowned as if puzzled.

What? Why is he reacting like this?

Impatience suddenly rose. I quickly winked a few more times.

It felt like my eyelids would get a cramp.

“Why are you doing that? Did something get in your eye?”

Nikolai tilted his head.

A cold sweat trickled down my back.

‘Could it be Nikolai also has a life-risking conviction like Claudia? No way a villain who only knows women would be like that!’

Perhaps my effort was lacking.

Pushing away the premonition of failure, I kissed my fingertips.

Smooch.

A trivial and salacious sound echoed.

“……”

An awkward and miserable silence pressed down on the terrace.

My trump card had failed, it felt like the sky was crumbling.

Now there was only one thing left.

‘Do or die!’

I wrapped my arms around Nikolai’s neck as he stood upright.

Pulling him down towards me, I stood on tiptoe.

His lofty lips that I could barely reach.

“Excuse me, but I’ll start with a kiss.”

The emperor did not allow it.

Of course, I had no intention of waiting for permission. There was nowhere to back down anyway.

I closed my eyes and took his lips.

Once our lips touched and saliva was exchanged, even the great Nikolai would have to fall for me.

‘To think my first kiss would be like this.’

The regret didn’t last long.

His lips were moist and soft.

Nikolai’s breath was faint and warm.

The sound of my heartbeat echoed from my chest to my temples.

It seemed like all the blood and nerves in my body had rushed to my lips.

The tingling sensation that started from my lips circulated through my blood vessels.

The intimate sound of completely attached flesh rubbing filled my eardrums.

Nikolai didn’t push me away. Nor did he greedily explore my lips.

He just accepted the kiss I gave him without moving an inch.

“…Thank you for your understanding.”

I slowly unwrapped my arms from around Nikolai’s neck.

My strength drained and my knees wobbled.

The women who had been with Nikolai exploded with rage.

“Didn’t you say you didn’t want to join?”

“You should wait your turn quietly!”

They seemed to think I had cut in line.

“Everyone, leave.”

“Your Majesty!”

“I have something to discuss with this woman. Alone.”

Nikolai’s gaze pierced down on me.

It was as if he would penetrate my inner thoughts and unearth even my deeply hidden true feelings.

‘Is this success? Or failure?’

I bit my lips at the crossroads of life and death.

Nikolai didn’t show the fervor typical of someone who had been seduced.

He didn’t express anger or fury either.

In front of the eyes of a predator searching for prey, I couldn’t move an inch.

At that moment, Nikolai swiftly threw off the mask that had covered half his face.

As the cumbersome mask disappeared, his wild yet sensual good looks were fully revealed under the moonlight.

Thick eyebrows and deep, mysterious eyes.

His tall nose bridge and voluptuous lips were truly works of art.

But why is he looking at me with those eyes?

Is it the gaze of a man reuniting with a lost lover? Or the gaze of a boy falling in first love?

No, it was different.

‘Let’s think positively. The fatal charm worked. Nikolai has become my puppet!’

Joy and delight enveloped me at the thought of extending my lifeline.

Then Nikolai moved his lips.

His voice was too rational and cool.

“You, become my empress.”

***

Even while exploring the two women, Nikolai’s attention was entirely focused on the party hall.

‘I feel like there’s an unfamiliar scent coming from somewhere. Is it my imagination?’

A hollow laugh escaped.

After his coronation at the age of 22, Nikolai couldn’t smell any scent.

Freshly baked bread, fully bloomed roses, top-grade perfume, it was all the same.

His sense of smell only reacted to the stench of the plague called the “flower of the underworld.”

Finding the underworld flower and secretly quarantining those carrying the disease was Nikolai’s fate.

When the underworld flower developed, people suffered from red rashes like petals, a strange scent, and high fever before dying.

There was no cure or prevention.

To stop the uncontrollably spreading epidemic, the previous emperor sought out the goddess of healing, Mora Sinsia.

He personally fasted for 10 days and held a 100-day ritual.

He also offered 1,000 oxen and 1,000 sheep to the temple.

Moved, the goddess Mora Sinsia drove out the underworld flower and bestowed a wolf that tracked the seeds of the disease inside the previous emperor’s body.

The underworld flower disappeared and the previous emperor was recorded as a sage king who saved the country.

Nikolai bit his lip.

‘The wolf only finds, tastes, and suppresses the underworld flower. It can’t fundamentally eradicate it. The reason the underworld flower, which was eradicated in the previous generation, is rampant again, and the reason it only afflicts young women, I don’t know either.’

The voice of the previous emperor rang in his ears.

“Remember. The wolf feeds on your desires. An emperor must not be swayed by lust. He must not pursue personal happiness. Do not let your heart be stolen by anyone.”

When the goddess’s wolf was by his side, the underworld flower did not develop.

That was also why he confined those carrying the seeds of the underworld flower in the palace.

Since they were all young women, Nikolai had to endure the scandal of being a Casanova.

Only a few of his closest aides knew that.

Even his aides didn’t know that the 28-year-old young emperor was a virgin.

To Nikolai, women were just an endless duty and subjects of surveillance.

Desire disappeared along with his senses.

Today, he had only followed the stench of the underworld flower.

‘A scent mixed with cherry blossom, jasmine, and sweet berries… It’s not my imagination. The wolf seems to have noticed it too.’

He placed his right hand on his irregularly beating heart.

When the owner of the scent appeared on the terrace, he froze.

He swore he had never smelled a more captivating scent.

‘Isn’t this woman the heiress of the Amster Group? She was an ordinary woman with no scent or taste?’

The Amster family was one of the wealthiest in the Hartmann Empire.

Nikolai couldn’t not know the successor of Amster.

He was also well aware of the rumor that she was the queen bee dominating high society.

But that was it.

A woman unrelated to the underworld flower held no meaning to him.

Provoking Elizabeth was due to the intense curiosity he felt after a long time.

No, should it be called hunger?

Or perhaps a desperate wish.

“Do you want to join too?”

“No way!”

The terrible stench that had filled the terrace receded and a refreshing floral scent swept in.

His nostrils cleared and saliva pooled in his mouth.

His two eyes looking at Elizabeth heated up like a starving beast.

‘If those emitting a stench taste bitter, wouldn’t those carrying a fragrance be sweet?’

A strange heat stirred his stomach.

He wanted to taste her.

Right here, right now.

A brutal desire he had never harbored before flared up.

‘Perhaps the goddess took pity on me, who only smells stenches. Maybe she sent someone to save me even for a moment.’

Caught up in a ridiculous delusion, Elizabeth shook Nikolai that much.

While blinking one eye as if having a seizure and repeatedly blowing hand kisses.

Just as Nikolai became terribly curious about Elizabeth’s intentions, she spoke with a determined voice.

“Excuse me, but I’ll start with a kiss.”

He couldn’t be certain of what happened afterward.

Sweetness poured into his mouth.

His consciousness soared to a realm he couldn’t control.

‘It’s not a heavy and artificial sweetness like chocolate cake, but a refreshing and lively sweetness. It’s as if my numbed senses are awakening.’

He concentrated all his senses to savor Elizabeth’s scent and taste.

He couldn’t even afford to moan.

The scent of cherry blossoms splendidly embroidering spring surged inside him.

For the first time in his life, Nikolai thought he didn’t want to part from a woman.

He wanted to kiss longer, get closer, and touch deeper.

“You, become my empress.”

His heart, which he thought had frozen, pounded as if it would burst.

It was because he was afraid the sweet woman would reject his proposal.

Fear. Nikolai’s thick eyebrows wriggled.

Since the bold woman who came to find the playboy emperor on her own and gave a daring kiss, she must want something.

Come to think of it, he had received a report that a woman named Elizabeth was babbling about seducing him.

‘There’s no way she’ll refuse. Who in the world would dislike wealth and glory?’

But Elizabeth shattered Nikolai’s expectations once again.

“I don’t want to.”

An inexplicable rage surged.

It wasn’t just because she defied the imperial order.

“What is the reason?”

“I’m not interested in such things. All I want is to control Your Majesty like a puppet.”

“Is that something you should say to the emperor?”

“So what? You’ve fallen head over heels for me anyway.”

Elizabeth was brazenly confident.

Nikolai, his brows deeply furrowed, asked back.

“What if I haven’t?”

Sensing something strange, Elizabeth’s complexion changed.

She abruptly demanded, her eyes shaking for a moment.

“Your Majesty. Can you sit down and stand up for a bit?”

“What?”

“Try hopping like a rabbit or turning around with an elephant’s nose.”

Elizabeth was terrifyingly serious.

She even demonstrated grabbing her own nose and spinning around.

She was certain Nikolai would follow her orders.

Swallowing his displeasure and a different bewilderment, he asked back.

“Why should I do that for you?”

“Because I’m a fatally charming femme fatale?”

“You seem more like a rude tomboy with lost common sense.”

“I’m doomed!”

Elizabeth covered her head with both hands, letting out a short scream.

She seemed to have come to her senses now.

“It’s about time you remember who I am.”

“Y-Your Majesty the Emperor…?”

“Do you have a sense of how doomed you are?”

Nikolai snapped his fingers.

Armed knights rushed in.

Quick-witted knights surrounded Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, her face ashen, stammered an excuse.

“I-I didn’t mean to insult Your Majesty! There’s a bit of a complicated situation…”

“Insulting the emperor. It’s a grave crime deserving of exterminating three generations.”

Nikolai growled low.

Elizabeth trembled as if she had never acted arrogantly.

“I-I’m sorry! Please spare my life!”

It was a somewhat familiar sight.

Nikolai had never kept a pet, but he had seen a small silky mouse wriggling on Franz’s palm.

Black, round eyes. Shiny, gleaming fur.

Small hands and feet trembling in fear.

‘That was called a hamster, wasn’t it? This woman looks just like it. Elizabeth Amster.’

Swallowing back the laughter that threatened to burst out, Nikolai vowed.

That he would make this woman his, no matter what it took.