Your esteemed master must not have told you. You have to leave a mark on this body to become the master of a beast. Otherwise, the wild beast will burst forth and rampage. If you must leave a mark, make it deep and rough.... more>>

The Emperor, with amber eyes, lifted one corner of his mouth and stretched out his long neck. Arabelle, the unwanted daughter of a charlatan healer living off a rural noble’s relative, saves a dying black panther in the woods, only to be approached by the red-eyed Emperor inviting her to the palace.

Asked to enter the palace as a candidate for Empress to break a curse, she firmly declares with enchanting lips not to even dream of becoming Empress.

Somehow, the man she must not desire causes hundreds of butterflies to flutter in her heart. Resolutely ignoring her growing feelings, she joins the competition for Empress to lift the Emperor’s curse…

Sharply sensing the piercing crimson gaze on her nape everywhere she goes. Maxwell, the absolute sovereign who wields his sword between good and evil, and Arabelle, the owner of a pure soul, the key to his curse.

The story of a man who sacrifices everything for a woman who taught him the emotion called love, and the journey of Arabelle, once a despised nobody, rising to become the respected and loved Empress of the empire. You are invited to their poignant and beautiful fairy-tale-like love story. <<less