How To Tame An Empress (BOOK I)

Chapter 6 - The Vow of a Different Man

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They say a boy grows into a man the day his father dies. But me? I became an Emperor.

My father was different things to different people; To the senate, he was a formidable leader. To the people, a symbol of strength. But to me, he was something else entirely. Neither a father nor an emperor, but an example of what I was to become. Like a marble statue, he was stern yet beautiful, but cold to the touch.

As an emperor, I admired his brilliance in court, the way he silenced people with a single lift of his hand, and the way he ruled with a fire in his veins, I respected that part of him; The emperor not the man.

Because as a man, I was revolted by him.

He was a rake in every sense of the word. His love came cheap and often, scattered around this palace to the point in which it was closer to being a brothel than anything else. My mother was one of his many concubines, known to be one of the most beautiful women in the Empire, but that is all I know of her, along with the fact that she died in childbirth, bleeding out before I had even released my first cry. 

To this day, I do not know how I was the only child born within these walls, but it may have been a gift in disguise from the gods above. I had no competition, so the throne was naturally meant to become mine, but with the lack of competition, my father had all the more expectations.

Since I was his only heir, I was forced to go through strenuous training for both my mind, body and soul. I studied that man like a scripture, learning every movement and word he used to bend the world to his will so that I could become a ruler like him. But only that, a ruler. Not a man, or more specifically, a husband.

The previous Empress, my father's wife, was unable to bear a child as she repeatedly kept suffering from miscarriages, and every time she lost a child, my father would remain unfazed, letting her suffer alone as he continued to mingle with his other lovers.

I detested that.

She was a woman who could have resented me, I would not blame her if she did as I was proof of her husband's betrayal. But instead, she chose to love me as her own, and though she did not birth me, she was my mother nonetheless.

She raised me with dignity, her love constant. Standing by my side as I studied late into the night, teaching me the old prayers, and even holding a torch as I memorised military strategies, she was too good a woman for my womanizing father.

So, I told myself that when I grow up, I would only have one wife whom I would treat with the utmost respect and give her, and only her, all my attention.

However, as I grew older through the years, that intention faded into nothingness as my only desire was to become a strong ruler for my empire. However, every now and then, I would sleep with the women who threw themselves at me to shut the senate members up about creating an heir, although I ensured that none of those women became pregnant. Because at the end of the day, they meant nothing to me, and a meaningless person like that could never be empress, let alone the mother of my heir.

That was until I met her. Valeria.

She, who took the meaning of love to a whole new level. Whether it was love or obsession, I did not know, but one thing remained clear, it was only going to be her from now on. For the rest of my life, and for the rest of hers, it was only going to be her.

I was crowned Emperor of the Roman Empire at the age of 16.

That night, I lost both my father and mother to assassins- cowards, who struck them down in the confines of their chambers. I still remember the scent of oil lamps mixed with the metallic tang of bloodshed as the echo of hurried footsteps were heard along the marble corridors.