This is actually the tenth time I've re written this chapter. And I've been having trouble because I've been distracted lately by personal issues. I hope that you like the chap anyways.

I just added some length to it.

Talking with Ichigo's friends proved to be interesting as well as enlightening to him. Mostly because they were all a tad bit more knowledgeable about the laws of humans than he was. But also, because they were paranoid as hell.

Rukia had all but accused he and Ichigo of screwing each other in secret.

Not making love, not just having sex. No- fucking.

He wasn't sure why exactly the woman, her husband and Chad would think such a thing. In all honesty he hadn't been expecting to be accused of being the girl's lover simply because he planned to make her his Queen. But once the accusation was out in the open, there was little that any of them could do about it but move forward.

The crassness of the word 'fucking' set his teeth on edge as he simultaneously reached over to cover Ichigo's innocent ears to prevent her from hearing even more crude words. Especially since he didn't want her to have another panic attack of some kind simply because her friends were being crazy.

But he thoroughly intended to nip the accusation in the bud.

"Do. Not. Say. Such. A. Thing. Again!" He hissed angrily at the dark-haired woman. Rukia merely glared at him and waited for him to answer her question. It took him several heartbeats longer than necessary before he could finally manage to control his temper enough to say anything. "I am not screwing Ichigo. Why would you even think such a thing?"

"Because elevating her to the status of your Queen is practically like staking a claim on her," Renji explained. "Doing such a thing without some sort of physical bond- like being married- is practically unheard of. Even for someone who rules his own country."

"What do you mean?" Rimuru asked, genuinely wondering where they got such ideas from as he slowly dropped his hands away from Ichigo's ears, earning him a weird look from her.

Chad sighed and let some of the tension in his shoulders ease up a bit as he said, "Renji is right. By elevating her status to Queen, and co-ruler of Tempest you're basically saying that she's yours. It might not be such a big deal here, within Tempest. But what about outside of it? What do you think others would think of your Queen if the two of you aren't married?"

Rimuru balked as all of terrible thoughts filled his head and in the end he relented. Because they were right, damn them.

Before, he had completely overlooked the fact that Tempest was a country entirely of monsters. Monsters that knew little to absolutely nothing of how outsiders- humans, would perceive Ichigo's change in status. They would think her his plaything or whore. An abomination.

They would seek to humiliate and punish her for his oversight every way that they could.

Casting a glance towards the girl, he gritted his teeth and came to an abrupt decision. One that would protect her from such harsh scrutiny. He would not allow her to be seen as nothing more than his whore. Not by anyone, friend or foe.

Which meant that he would just have to give his name to her as well as his protection, status, and everything else that went with them.

"Very well, I see your point on the matter." He said somewhat reluctantly. He was beginning to feel impatient with the whole situation. Though he knew that it was entirely his fault. "We will begin negotiations for a marriage contract immediately."

Beside him, Ichigo sputtered. Her face was flushed a fetching pink color and she was now looking at him as if she'd like nothing more than to do something reckless and destructive to him and maybe each of her friends too.

He didn't take any offense though since she hadn't initially agreed with his idea of becoming his Queen anyways. And now he had a better understanding of why.

He wanted to pull his own hair out from the frustration that his own blunder was causing him.

But as he kept reminding himself, he wasn't going to protect the girl half assed. If this secured her throne and place in Tempest as his co-ruler without too much trouble for them both- then he would go through with it without complaint.

Besides, as a King and ruler he would have gotten married eventually anyways. So, this turn in events wasn't nearly as startling/shocking to him as it probably should have been.

Though he couldn't quite speak on Ichigo's behalf since the girl looked as if her head were about to explode as Rukia announced that he was currently in the presence of three people who could act as her representatives for the negotiations.

After that, it was only a matter of hashing everything out.

It took them all nearly three hours. Three, long, and somewhat enlightening hours to completely come to any sort of agreement. And Rimuru had to say, Ichigo's friends drove a ruthlessly hard bargain.

They had all been dead set on making sure that the girl got the absolute best of everything as far as marriage contracts went. So much so that even he was impressed.

Besides, they had worked around everything that he had already agreed to so that the both of them would greatly benefit from the arrangement.

He'd been startled to find out that his bride-to-be was an actual crown Princess and next in line to ascend the throne of her homeland.

And even more startled to learn that she was pretty well off both from her inheritance as a Princess and from raiding some dragon's dens/nests and stealing some of the treasure that they were hording. In fact, if what he was told was completely true, then she had more money than his entire country and its people combined.

Which was a nice thing to know since if he ever needed a loan, he'd know who to ask for it.

But not only that, but marriage to her would come with an alliance with the kingdom of Kurokami, and its people. Chad had been the one to sell him on that matter. Especially once he explained that the royal family there basically consisted of people who were nearly as powerful as Ichigo herself. Each one excelling at assassination, war, science, medicine/medical care etc. And all of them were completely capable of bringing entire nations to their knees easily.

Rimuru hadn't needed to hear much more about them since he asked Ichigo if the man was telling him the truth and gotten a curt nod of her head in response.

After that, he'd totally been on board with everything.

Besides marriage to the girl wouldn't be so terrible. Even he knew that he could do worse. So, once he and her friends came to the agreement, all that was left was securing Ichigo's agreement.

Which proved to be a bit difficult since the girl still didn't want the throne to begin with. But after she and Rukia got into a screaming match and devolved into a hair pulling match where they both growled, snarled, and called each other bitches a few dozen or so times and finally had to be pried apart by Renji and Chad. She inevitably agreed.

But Rimuru wasn't such a fool that he couldn't see that she wasn't as happy about it as he and her friends seemed to be. And while he understood her reasons easily enough, he decided to go ahead and leave hoping that after a night of rest and serious thought would help her adjust to the idea.

She walked him to the door of her home and stopped him before he stepped outside to ask him if he was absolutely certain that marrying her was something that he wanted to do. It puzzled him, especially since she didn't seem all that pleased by the evening's turn in events.

But he still confirmed that he wanted the union since he saw it as a means to keep his word and protect her in a more efficient manner.

She sighed at his response, but nodded, her expression tired as she quietly bid him a goodnight. However, before he stepped through the door, he made sure to reach up and grasp her chin so that he could press a soft kiss to the corner of her lips.

At the small contact, they both felt a jolt of something almost electric shoot through them. Suddenly feeling embarrassed by what he had just done, Rimuru dropped his hand back to his side and stammered out a goodnight and then left. Leaving Ichigo standing there with a look of startled confusion on her face.

She took a second to mentally shake herself before closing the door and then walking back to the dining room to rejoin her friends who were still sitting at her table, expecting her to say or do something.

And she did.

She waved her hand and sent Chad and Renji outside of Tempest, in the woods far enough away so that they would have some difficulty getting back any time soon, but not far enough away where they would be attacked by any low-level monsters.

And since Rukia was the only one left, and likely the ringleader of the current mess that she found herself in. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the small woman who looked completely unruffled by the fact that she'd just made her husband and Chad completely disappear into thin air and could easily do the same to her too.

"What the hell are you thinking?" Ichigo finally asked, her tone a few shades to venomous to be remotely considered calm. In fact, she was seriously thinking about causing a natural disaster of some kind.

Like an earthquake. Or a terrible thunderstorm. Just something that she could use to show her current displeasure. The only problem that she had with actually doing so was she wasn't sure how much power to use. She wanted to destroy something, sure. But she wasn't willing to set a whole fucking nation on fire just to get out of the mess that she'd landed in.

"I'm trying to cover your ass." Rukia merely said with a shrug. She looked bored to Ichigo. So, she reached out and gave her a small electric shock to wipe that damned bored expression off of her face.

Rukia jumped and yelped in surprise because she hadn't been expecting her to actually use any of her god of creation abilities for the forces of evil and shot her a glare while she absently rubbed the sore spot on the back of her hand where Ichigo had just zapped her.

"Cover my ass, how?" Ichigo finally asked in an incredulous tone as she brushed by Rukia and went to get something to eat from her kitchen.

"We both know that it's inevitable that you're going to be crowned Queen of something."

Ichigo made a humming sound, knowing that Rukia was probably right about that. But at the same time, she was also in denial and wasn't pleased to have such a thing pointed out to her. Especially right then but she still held her tongue so that Rukia could explain her reasoning to her anyways.

Besides, she was still debating on the earthquake/storm thing.

"Between Kisuke and the others, you would have been forced to in a decade or so anyways," Ichigo hummed again to acknowledge the fact that she could still hear her as she grabbed one of her pre prepared meals from her pantry and then walked back into the dining room to sit down and eat i as Rukia continued to say. "But since you like it here and have made your home in Tempest- going ahead and marrying the monster King isn't such a bad idea. You get to stay in your new home, tucked away where others won't be able to find you without a lot of trouble. And you get a husband who's willing to burn the whole world down to keep you safe. Sounds nice, right?"

"Huh?" Ichigo asked unintelligibly. Wondering at the last sentence that her friend spoke. It sounded suspiciously like what Rimuru had told her before they had reached her home.

Rukia rolled her eyes at her and muttered something along the lines of, "Infant." under her breath in annoyance as she watched realization cross her friend's face.

"One of you was eavesdropping on us." It wasn't a question nor an accusation. Merely a statement of fact.

"Chad," Rukia confirmed with a nod. "I sent him out to find you since it was taking you too damn long to return home. He overheard Tempest's words to you and made sure to let us know about them."

"And from there you decided that having us marry is the best course of action? Rukia that's insane!"

"Maybe," Rukia shrugged again. "But I can already tell that Tempest likes you quite a bit. He may not have realized it yet, but he's already taken with you."

"Huh?!" Ichigo said again, not really knowing what Rukia was referring to. She hadn't seen any particular behavior in the monster King that would even indicate such a thing.

Rukia sighed and banged her head on the table for a second as she said in a frustrated tone. "This is where your age and innocence do you no favors at all, Ichigo."

"What do you mean?"

"Idiot, you haven't noticed some of his behaviors at all have you. Tempest isn't the same as human men. He's a monster! Monsters have entirely different habits and instincts than humans," Rukia stressed to her as she suddenly raised her head. Ichigo blinked at her in confusion. Still having no damned idea what she was talking about so the woman decided to elaborate a bit. "He's always touching you in some way. He's always watching you too. Every time that the two of you are together, he finds some way to do both of those things. Not only that, but when you're standing side by side, he makes sure to stand especially close to you so that he can use himself as a shield if need be. He's also constantly scanning the immediate area for threats to you. And then there is way that he reacted when I accused him of fucking you too."

Ichigo blinked again as she took a moment to think. Rukia was right. Rimuru did do those things a bit more than normal or necessary.

"There is also the fact that he decided to make you his Queen even before he was aware of the ramifications of doing so without the benefit of marriage. Do you understand now?"

"Uh..."

Rukia snorted at her stupidity before saying bluntly, "Monsters only act like that when they are close to a potential mate. The whole Queen thing is his way of showering you with gifts and courting you. But the two of you are apparently hopeless and don't seem to notice it the way that others do."

Ichigo was the one to bang her head on the table this time. A small, pitiful sounding whine escaping her throat as Rukia sniggered at her.