Chapter 30

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter: 30

Chapter Title: The Suppressed Beast

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“I want to sleep with you every day.”

“......What?”

Kaiyan let out a dumbfounded sound.

Clodel clung to him in desperation.

Insomnia was something no one who hadn’t experienced it could ever understand.

Days of being unable to sleep yesterday or today stretched on, and the premonition that she wouldn’t sleep tomorrow either drained her energy and gnawed at her body.

It felt like the brain in her head had turned into a dry, crumbling lump of bread that couldn’t function properly.

Once she escaped the excruciating pain and fear of death brought by Herzol, insomnia had come knocking as if it were next in line, leaving Clodel utterly exhausted.

“Won’t you come to my bedroom tonight?”

On the other hand, she felt pathetic about her situation.

Kaiyan was the enemy of her house.

The deep-seated aversion to House Temneth, instilled almost like brainwashing over long years, wasn’t entirely gone.

Still, the man from the enemy house who held her life in his hands hadn’t let her die, so it didn’t seem like he welcomed her impending death.

And though it didn’t sit right with her heart, it seemed he wouldn’t completely ignore treating her as his wife.

If there was even a sliver of hope, she had no choice but to plead with him like this.

Until Kaiyan fetched the elixir for her—and until Herzol was cured—Clodel hadn’t realized her insomnia was this severe.

It had first started when she was just ten years old.

She was still too young to understand much, and rather than focusing on the severity of the insomnia, the aftermath of the incident that caused it had weighed heavier.

Her comfortable family that had raised her had vanished overnight.

Her father’s death had come before she could even comprehend her mother’s absence, leaving her lost and terrified.

The insomnia stemmed from those emotions, and just processing and enduring that grief had been overwhelming enough. Plus, she could sleep beside Hanna, so until she came to Rowen Castle, she had forgotten for years that she even suffered from insomnia.

But after the symptoms vanished for a while due to Herzol treatment, when it returned, it drove her to the brink of madness unlike before.

A few sleepless nights felt like a monster was devouring her brain while she was still alive, and her consciousness grew increasingly foggy.

Even consulting the doctor and continuing meals with Kaiyan had probably been driven by the anxiety of being surrounded by House Temneth everywhere, like being thrown into the heart of enemy territory.

Yet that relentless tension harmonized perfectly with the insomnia’s toll on her mind and body, tormenting her until she dozed off mid-meal like a narcoleptic.

“If you don’t mind. Right?”

Kaiyan looked startled for a moment before scooping her up and laying her on the bed.

“We should stop eating now.”

“......You’ll come?”

“I will.”

Only then did Clodel feel relief wash over her.

There was no reason for Kaiyan to make such a promise only to break it.

“I’ll wait for you.”

As she watched Kaiyan head out of the bedroom, Clodel smiled.

‘Tonight, I’ll be able to sleep.’

With hope ignited, she felt she could endure her splitting headache until sunset.

Leaving Clodel’s bedroom, Kaiyan headed to his own.

The butler, who had been waiting outside for his meal to end, hurriedly followed.

“Aren’t you going to the office?”

Kaiyan commanded coldly, his face hardened.

“Cancel this afternoon’s schedule.”

“What? Why all of a sudden?”

The butler panicked.

“There’s elite knight training this afternoon. After that, there’s a special commendation for those you took on the water buffalo hunt before.”

Moreover, the schedule Kaiyan had ordered canceled was one he had personally arranged with great care.

The knights mobilized for Clodel’s medicine had suffered unexpectedly, and they were his most elite—extensions of his own limbs.

They were the ones who would die on his command, leap into fire or water without hesitation, bound by unyielding loyalty.

Even they had grumbled, ‘What? Me, dragged out to fetch medicine for some Vermonte wench?’

If Kaiyan, as head of House Temneth, harbored the deepest loathing for House Vermonte within the family, it was only natural for the elite knights—the core force preparing for territorial war under their liege—to froth at the mere mention of Vermonte.

They had wondered, ‘Am I really doing this nonsense to fetch medicine saving a Vermonte?’ And now it was fact.

The marriage to Clodel was by royal decree—an accomplished, unavoidable reality.

House Temneth’s kin and vassals had all hoped Vermonte would face his cold shoulder and be miserably chased from Rowen lands.

Kaiyan had no thoughts of divorcing her now.

At first, he had resented it—the forced reconciliation with Vermonte felt humiliating.

That was before he knew Clodel.

Not that he truly knew her now, either.

Was sharing a night, the intimacy between man and woman in the dark, really so special that it could erase years of enmity?

He couldn’t let Clodel die.

He could have dealt with Vermonte blood without spilling a drop—simply shoving her into the gaping maw of warhorses. Yet he hadn’t.

Kaiyan couldn’t fully grasp why, but he chalked it up to her being too pitiful and frail.

Cunning Vermonte.

Vicious kin who shredded people with their three-inch tongues.

Clodel lacked any of that.

In any case, saving her had wounded the pride of his loyal retainers who served House Temneth. As family head, he needed to commend them and remind the household of Clodel’s position as his wife. That was why he had confirmed the plans with the butler multiple times.

The castle kitchens had been in uproar for days, slaughtering pigs, stuffing sausages into casings, preparing liquor—all for the feast after today’s training.

“Hmph.”

He groaned, his breath hot between his lips as if it would scorch.

His heart pounded like he’d raced a long distance without rest.

“Tell them to wait an hour. No, thirty minutes.”

“Then right now...”

Kaiyan slipped into his bedroom and slammed the door shut.

His hands trembled like in a spasm, sweat slicking his palms.

He half-stripped off his clothes roughly and headed straight to the bathroom.

Whoosh.

Turning on the faucet unleashed a torrent of cold water.

Kaiyan thrust his head under it, letting the water drench him.

Her breathing echoed like an auditory hallucination.

‘Hngh.’

The phantom of her slender arms climbing his shoulders as he took her coiled around his mind like a serpent ready to strike.

‘Ngh. Uuuh.’

While he drowned in ecstasy, she had whimpered as if barely enduring the intrusion. Yet each time, it was Kaiyan who felt devoured by her bites.

“What the hell were you thinking saying that?”

‘I want to sleep with you every day.’

That was exactly what Kaiyan craved most, but he had always pretended not to know his own desire.

Because embracing a woman in such dire straits without realizing it shocked even him.

‘How could you not know? You’re the lord right beside her, and you didn’t notice Madam was so gravely ill!’

‘She’s so weak now, not an ounce of flesh on her bones—how could you not see it?’

When the doctor had scolded him so boldly, he’d thought, How was I supposed to know? But with more attention, more care, he might have noticed.

This was his first time with a woman’s body, but not a human body.

Not comparable, sure, but he’d stripped and bathed freely with brawny, muscle-bound men, regardless of rank.

Even for a woman.

Her skeletal thinness should have been a red flag, but Kaiyan had thought he’d done his duty by pressing into her cautiously, worried she’d snap.

Now, seeing her regain weight and vitality unlike before, he still didn’t know the right moment.

Part of him hesitated, wondering if she saw him as a monstrous assailant.

The nights with her had been sublime for him, but what if she viewed them as shame, humiliation, and unbearable agony?

Raping a woman was for scum who lacked a gentleman’s manners or a knight’s honor.

Kaiyan knew some depraved nobles did it deliberately, but he never would.

Raised austerely like a priest under his predecessor’s strict education and discipline, as Duke of Temneth, Lord of Rowen, and son of a princess, he had been taught to act without shame in anything.

Even against Vermonte, he had no intent to assault Clodel—not the slightest speck. So replaying events while her consciousness was gone left him grim and frustrated about what came next.

Earlier, puzzled when she refused the dessert he tried to feed her, she had dropped the fork from her hand and slumped over.

Catching her was pure reflex.

Fresh, tangy, intoxicating scent hit him the moment he held her.

That alone nearly made him lose his wits, but he stayed composed, tapping her unconscious cheek to rouse her.

‘Won’t you come to my bedroom tonight?’

Who could’ve imagined those words from her the instant she opened her eyes?

Her golden eyes, moist and gleaming, were transparently beautiful—like amber split to reveal its deepest core.

The shy woman’s faint whisper lingered in his ears.

“Damn it.”

He could go to her bedroom right now.

If not for those elite knights.

The bastards who yapped ‘My lord, my lord, our lord is the best’ every damn day—complaining while following a water buffalo trail. Men, honestly.

Kaiyan cooled his baseless rage and unrelenting heat with cold water for a long while.

He barely remembered how the feast—prepared meticulously for days—ended.

While the burly men guzzled liquor in revelry, his mind was already at Clodel’s door.

Finally arriving at the familiar door, Kaiyan’s chest even fluttered.

Opening the bedroom door, he found Clodel sitting on the bed, lighting up with joy at his arrival.

“You came?”

She had waited—and welcomed him.

“I didn’t think you’d really come. Thank you.”

Thank you? I’m the one who’s grateful.

The beast he had suppressed all this time thrashed wildly inside him, begging for release.

“I have severe insomnia, so I can’t sleep alone. I haven’t been able to sleep properly at all lately.”

“......Insomnia?”