Imperial Affairs (Levi X Reader) AU

4. Life Lessons

Reader's POV

"Names Levi," he said, before rudely returning the glare.

Oh, so the short man has an attitude.

"Is that all I need to know about someone who has been sent to kill me?"

With that question, he visibly stiffened. He must've been told about all the failed attempts and what I'll be expecting. Still, he must've not expected me to bring this up so soon. I waved my hand for one of the guards to approach.

"You may be an assassin but according to what I'm told, you're my guard. Follow the rules until you're ready to try to kill me. Follow Kirstein, he will tell you what you're supposed to do."

I wasn't one bit fazed by this man. Many people had been sent to kill me up until now. None of them came even close to success, I had better things to stress over.

I wasn't stressing over him but I sensed a certain familiarity and felt restless, more than I had ever been before. It felt like the blood inside my body was moving faster, my heart pumping faster, trying to tell me something as it acted like a certain blood detector.

Could it be?

No.

It can't be or he would be feeling the same too and he seems fine. It doesn't look like anything is affecting him or his skin would've turned paler than it was at the moment.

"Tch," he murmured, turning around to follow Jean.

"And be more respectful, I can send you back to the Empress due to your lack of respect."

"Of course, Your Highness."

The look on his face clearly showed that now he actually hated me. Killing me was his personal mission now, whether the Empress wanted it or not. But he wasn't really a threat to me. I already had a lot of enemies, a few more wouldn't hurt.

Once the midget was out of sight and earshot, I asked Mikasa a question, "Where's Marcel?"

"Reiner said that he wouldn't be able to talk today but he did pass on a message to be careful of this man," Mikasa plainly answered.

"I see."

I turned around and went to my garden. Hange, my cousin from my father's side, was coming for tea today. My father, the Emperor's older brother, had no interest in the throne so he married off to the Zoe noble family, to the Countess. Hange and I had a close relationship but she wasn't aware of my secret. Father forbade me from telling her because of her inability to keep secrets and to be honest, I agreed. She was a very important person to me and had good intentions, I was sure that she would understand my reasons.

The shorty would be put on duty starting tomorrow. The Empress was sending endless assassins and that annoyed the hell out of me so I made a new rule, I would test the guards. My personal guards had to be the strongest guards in the palace so I made sure to have the assassins duel with my palace guards. If they succeed, they get to try to kill me. If they fail, they immediately get sent back to the Empress. Today, Levi would duel with my guards, if he won, he would get his uniform and a place to stay in the palace. I honestly wanted him to fail. I didn't know what the Empress did with those who failed but the ones who actually tried to kill me got a bad punishment. Attacking the Imperial Family could result in life imprisonment or death for commoners and I didn't want more people to meet the same fate but I wasn't going to get myself killed because I felt piy for the assassins. I had to take the throne and it wasn't all for myself.

I promised my mother, the youngest princess from the French Empire, Historia Reiss, that I would succeed and I promised to myself that I would avenge her. The Empress had her killed, as she just wants to make sure that one of her children inherit the throne, the first princess, Gabi, my biggest enemy or Falco, who had no interest in the throne whatsoever but could do anything to protect his sister. A lot of other things are also on the line. My friends, Annie and Bertholdt weren't in the direct line of succession in their families. To inherit the positions from each of our respective noble families, one of us had to gain power first to support the other individuals in becoming heir. If this succeeded, I would become the Emperor, Annie would lead the Grand Duchy of Leonhart and Bertholdt would lead the Hoover March. This was our biggest hope for now.