Kiss or Kill: Emperor vs Empress

Victor Shaw holds the throne and wants the army as well. The army answers to the Marshal, so Victor asks for the Marshal's daughter in marriage. His plan is to use the family's troops and then wipe the family out. Faye Finch is the daughter. She is a general in her own right, and she comes to the palace intending to depose Victor, take the heir, and hold the throne herself. The wedding goes ahead. From then on the emperor and the empress share a bed and spend each day working out how to kill the other one first, through schemes and paybacks, in a running contest of wits. "Marriage is war," one of them says. "And I never lose." The palace staff, watching the two of them at such close quarters, take the whole thing for a passionate marriage, and the court starts talking about the emperor and empress as a love match.