"I want to sleep with you every night."
"...What?"
Kaian made an unintelligible sound. I clung to him desperately.
Insomnia can never be understood by anyone who hasn't experienced it. Yesterday and today, sleepless days had continued, and the premonition that I probably wouldn't sleep tomorrow either drained my energy and ate away at my body. It felt like my brain had become a lump of dry bread, unable to function properly.
As soon as I'd been freed from the pain caused by consumption and the fear of death, insomnia had taken its turn, leaving me feeling utterly lethargic.
"Tonight. Can you come to my bedroom?"
My situation was still pitiable. Kaian was my family's enemy. It wasn't as if I'd completely overcome the feelings about Temnes that had been drilled into me for so long—almost like brainwashing.
However, this man—my enemy, the one who held power over my life and death—refused to let me die. He didn't seem particularly pleased about keeping me alive, but I didn't think that meant he wouldn't treat me as his wife.
If I had any hope at all, I had no choice but to ask him like this.
I'd had no idea my insomnia was so severe until Kaian gave me the elixir and cured my consumption. My insomnia had first started when I was only ten years old. Because I was still so young, I didn't fully understand it. Rather than focusing on the seriousness of the insomnia itself, the aftermath of the incident that caused it had been overwhelming.
My comfortable home had vanished from one day to the next. Before I could even process my mother's absence, my father's death came and left me feeling lost and frightened. Since my insomnia had been caused by that trauma—and it was difficult to suppress and endure that sadness—and because it didn't seem to matter as long as I could sleep with Hannah nearby, I'd lived for years almost forgetting I even had insomnia until I came to Rowan Castle.
However, after my consumption was treated, the insomnia symptoms had disappeared for a while. But when they returned, they were far worse than before. After not sleeping for several days, it felt like my brain was being devoured alive by a monster, and I was gradually losing consciousness.
I think the reason I'd continued seeing the doctor and eating meals with Kaian was that I felt anxious, as if I'd been thrown into the middle of enemy territory with Temnes supporters everywhere. But my terrible nervousness, coupled with the deterioration of my physical and mental energy caused by insomnia, disturbed me so much that I even dozed off like a narcoleptic during meals.
"If you don't want to...?"
Kaian seemed surprised, but then he picked me up and laid me on the bed.
"You should stop eating for now."
"...Will you come?"
"Yes."
Only then did I feel relieved. There was no reason for Kaian to break his promise.
"I'll wait."
I smiled as I watched Kaian head out of my bedroom.
*I'll be able to sleep well tonight.*
As hope arose, I felt like I could somehow endure the pain in my head until the sun went down.
---
Kaian left Claudel's bedroom and headed to his own. The butler, who had been waiting for him to finish his meal outside the bedroom, hurriedly followed.
"Aren't you going to the office?"
Kaian ordered coldly, his face stern. "Cancel my afternoon schedule."
"What? Why so suddenly?"
The butler looked flustered. "There's training for the elite knights this afternoon. Afterward, there's a special event to honor those who accompanied us on the crocodile hunt."
Even the schedule Kaian had just ordered canceled was one he'd paid special attention to. The knights who'd been suddenly dispatched to retrieve Claudel's medicine and had suffered unexpectedly were elites—like Kaian's own limbs. They were so loyal they would die if Kaian died, would jump into fire or water for him.
Even those men had thought, *I was dragged out to get medicine for that Vermont girl?*
Assuming that Kaian, as head of the Temnes family, hated Vermont more than anyone else in the household, it was only natural that the elite knights—the main force preparing for territorial wars by supporting their Lord—would bristle at the mere mention of Vermont's name.
The fact that they'd thought, *Could the Lord actually be doing this to save Vermont?* had become an uncomfortable reality.
His marriage to Claudel had been by the King's command, so it had already happened and was unavoidable. All of the Temnes family's relatives and vassals would have expected Vermont to be treated coldly and eventually driven out of Rowan in misery.
Kaian had no thoughts of divorcing her or anything of that sort at the moment. At first, he'd been dissatisfied—even felt humiliated—that he'd been forced to marry Vermont to make peace.
That was when he hadn't known Claudel. Though it wasn't as if he knew her particularly well now either.
Was spending the night together—the bond between a man and a woman in darkness—so special that it could make one forget long-held resentment?
He couldn't let Claudel die, he'd decided. He could have handled Vermont's bloodline without getting a drop of blood on his own hands. He could have simply pushed his enemy straight into the gaping maw of her disease, but he couldn't bring himself to do that to her.
Kaian himself couldn't fully understand the reason, but he thought it was because Claudel was too insignificant and weak. Cunning Vermont—horrible people who could cut others to pieces with their sharp tongues and clever words. Claudel possessed none of the traits that had been so cursed.
In any case, by trying to save her, he'd wounded the pride of the loyal subjects who served the Temnes family. As head of the family, it was necessary to praise them and remind everyone in the household about Claudel's status as his wife. Kaian had checked and prepared for today's event several times with the butler.
For days now, the castle's kitchen had been in an uproar preparing for the banquet that would follow today's training—slaughtering pigs, making sausages with the intestines, preparing alcohol.
"Ha."
His breath was so hot it burned between his lips as the memory overwhelmed him. His heart was pounding and racing as if he'd traveled a great distance without stopping.
"One hour. No—tell them to wait thirty minutes."
"Then right now—"
Kaian burst into his bedroom and slammed the door. His hands were shaking and his palms felt sweaty. He roughly stripped off his clothes and headed to the bathroom.
*Whoosh!*
When he turned on the tap, cold water poured out. Kaian literally stuck his head under it and drenched himself.
As if he were hallucinating, he could hear the woman's breathing.
*"Ah..."*
The vision of a thin arm climbing up his shoulder when he held Claudel coiled around his consciousness like a snake preparing to strike.
*"Ah... ah..."*
While he'd been in a state of passion, she'd been whimpering as if she could barely endure his invasion. But each time, it was Kaian who felt as if he were being consumed by Claudel instead.
"What on earth were you thinking when you said that?"
*"I want to sleep with you every night."*
That was exactly what Kaian wanted, but he'd been pretending not to recognize his own desire the entire time. Because it had been a shock to him that he'd embraced a woman who was on the brink of death without even realizing it.
*"Didn't even the Lord, who was closest to her, know about his wife's condition until she became completely ill?"*
*"She's so thin there's no flesh on her body. How could you not know?"*
How was he supposed to know when the doctor criticized him so fearlessly? He'd thought so initially, but if he'd been more careful or attentive, he would have known.
It had been his first time seeing a woman's body—not just a human body in general. The comparison might not be apt, but he'd lived a life where he stripped and washed up with strong, muscular men without any regard for rank or status.
Even for a woman—being so thin should have signaled that something was wrong. But Kaian had thought he'd done his duty by being careful when pressing against the woman's body, worried that she might break somewhere.
Afterward, he'd seen that Claudel was gaining weight and recovering vitality unlike before, but he hadn't known when the right time would be. Part of him was troubled by the thought that she might see him as a terrible perpetrator.
He'd loved the night he'd spent with her, but he wondered if Claudel saw it as her shame and disgrace—and on top of that, unending pain.
Forcing himself on women was something only vulgar people who didn't know gentlemanly manners and chivalry did. Kaian knew there were nobles with such depraved tastes who did such things deliberately, but he was definitely not one of them.
He'd been raised almost like an ascetic priest due to the strict education and discipline of the previous head of the family. Born and raised with honor as the Duke of Temnes, Lord of Rowan, and son of a princess, he'd learned to behave without shame in anything.
However, even though she was from Vermont, he'd had no intention of assaulting Claudel. So when he thought about what had happened while she was barely conscious, he felt gloomy and frustrated, uncertain how to proceed.
Just when he'd been wondering why Claudel wouldn't eat the dessert he was trying to feed her, she'd dropped the fork she was holding and collapsed. It had been a reflex action for him to catch her with his body.
Her freshness and her pleasant scent had assaulted his senses as soon as he'd held her. That alone had nearly made Kaian lose his mind, but he'd calmly tried to wake the unconscious woman by tapping her cheek.
*"Tonight. Can you come to my bedroom?"*
But who would have imagined those would be the words she'd say as soon as she opened her eyes?
Her moist golden eyes had been transparent and beautiful, like they'd been carved from amber. The words the shy woman had whispered so faintly still lingered in his ears.
"Damn it."
He could still go to her bedroom—if it weren't for the elite knights. Kaian tried to cool his burning desire and unrelenting body temperature with cold water.
---
Kaian didn't even remember how the banquet that had been carefully prepared for several days had ended. When the knights excitedly urged him to pour and drink, his consciousness was already standing in front of Claudel's door.
When he finally arrived before the familiar door, Kaian's heart pounded.
When he opened the bedroom door, Claudel was sitting on the bed and welcomed him with visible joy.
"You came?"
She was waiting for him. Even welcoming him.
"I really wasn't sure you would come. Thank you."
*Thank you.* She was grateful.
The beast that had been suppressed for so long was running rampant inside Kaian's body, demanding to be released.
"I have severe insomnia, so I can't sleep alone. I haven't been able to sleep at all lately."
"...Insomnia?"
---