I’ve Become a S*ave Bride - Chapter 11
“The husband you so desperately wished would be human.”
At the voice ringing in her ears, Lenette sank deeper into the bathtub.
‘Why in the world did I let myself fall into such a ridiculous misunderstanding?’
She had said all sorts of nonsense to a beast that couldn’t even understand human speech—asking when he would turn back into a person, wondering if it only happened under the full moon… She had made a complete fool of herself.
“Ha…”
As if trying to push away the wave of shame washing over her, Lenette sank even deeper into the tub.
But it backfired.
With her ears submerged, the world around her went quiet, making her own words echo even more clearly in her mind.
“If you’re trying to eat me, it’s not a good idea. I’m not very nutritious.”
“Do you only turn human under the full moon?”
“Or… do you have to eat human flesh to become a person?”
Eventually, she shot up from the water and snapped in frustration.
“How could I even make such a stupid assumption…?!”
Had she ever been this humiliated in her life? Had her past ever made her feel this ashamed?
No.
Without a doubt, this was a feeling she had never experienced before.
“Crazy. I must’ve been crazy. After all the time I spent studying the human body, how could I believe something like that? A black panther turning into a human? Does that even make sense?”
Her wet hands covered her pale face. Red petals floating on the water stuck to her skin, but compared to how flushed her face was, they were nothing.
“Haah…”
Lenette went back and forth between self-blame and regret until she suddenly froze.
“…Come to think of it, that guy too.”
He had heard everything. So how could he just listen quietly without correcting her even once?
“Creepy.”
She muttered the word without meaning to, then flinched.
‘He’s not listening to this too, is he?’
That man was staying just upstairs.
“……”
Lenette fell silent for a moment, as if trying to assess the situation outside.
‘He’s not really hearing me, right?’
She had mumbled in Ecaron anyway, so it shouldn’t matter even if he did hear… but it still felt off.
‘He’s not a pure-blooded Tazetra. He might understand Ecaron.’
So she listened closely—but all that brushed past the three open walls of the bathroom was the cold desert night wind. No sound of a black panther or the man upstairs.
Only after confirming for a while that the man above wasn’t listening did Lenette finally relax.
“Haah…”
After throwing such a fit, she was completely drained. She leaned back weakly against the edge of the tub.
‘That man… his surname was Tazetra.’
Which meant he wasn’t from some local noble family—he was of the House of Kal.
‘…He must not be a direct descendant of Kal.’
The empire was so closed-off that she couldn’t know the full details of its leadership, but she had never heard of any “half-blood” children from the Kal.
‘Yeah. He’s probably not. He can’t be.’
Then why was she feeling so uneasy?
‘He’s not, right?’
Between the Tazetra Empire and the Kingdom of Ecaron lies a vast stretch of unconquered land.
Barbarian territory.
So while the Tazetra Empire ‘was’ a neighboring country, it wasn’t exactly close in terms of geography.
Until the current King of Ecaron began studying the political structure of that empire, it had been a distant, unfamiliar land—like a story from across the sea.
That’s why she wasn’t confident in the information she had.
‘They said the Kal didn’t have any half-blood children, or even a northern wife who could have borne one.’
She clearly remembered hearing that from a few of the great merchants who risked their lives crossing through barbarian territory.
‘That much, I remember for sure.’
If that weren’t true, there’s no way the King of Ecaron—who had desperately tried to establish diplomatic ties with the Tazetra Empire—would have stayed quiet.
After all, wasn’t the surest and most comfortable way to win over a nation’s ruler always through a marriage bed?
‘If the Kal had a northern wife, the King of Ecaron would’ve made a move.’
But there’s no record of that. So the half-blood man upstairs couldn’t possibly be the Kal’s direct descendant.
‘Then is he from a side branch?’
Lenette wiped her face with her wet hand. A soft splash echoed as water followed the motion.
Against that faint sound, her murmuring voice filled the bathroom.
“Right.”
At least he’s not a direct descendant of the Kal.
“Let’s be content with that.”
Too much had happened in the past few days.
Her body had stayed on edge, constantly tense with the fear that she might end up as a black panther’s meal—even in her sleep.
So for tonight, at least, she didn’t want to think about it anymore.
“That’s enough. This is more than enough for today.”
With that murmur, Lenette let her tired body sink deeper into the water.
And just like her body slipping down into the bath, her thoughts gently sank into silence.
That night, the toxin moon hung in the sky—a blood-red full moon.
☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓 ☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓
“Achoo…!”
Maybe it was the relief of no longer needing to worry about the black panther that made her let her guard down so suddenly. The night before, Lenette had fallen asleep while taking a bath.
As a result, she caught a cold.
“Achoo!”
Lenette wiped her runny nose with a cloth and pulled the blanket tighter around her to fight off the chills.
“Ugh…”
A groan escaped her lips.
Even though the thick blanket was made for the cold desert nights, it couldn’t stop her body from trembling.
“Who would’ve thought falling asleep in water would make me this sick…”
Who would’ve guessed the desert nights could be so cold? The only thing she’d ever heard about this place’s climate from the Kingdom of Ecaron was that it was ‘very’ hot.
“Achoo!”
Maybe her sneezes were loud.
By the time she’d sneezed for the tenth time in a row, someone knocked on the door. When Lenette sniffled and gave permission to enter, the old lady came in.
Seeing Lenette’s condition, she gasped and rushed to the bed.
“I’m okay. I just caught a cold because I fell asleep in the bath last night.”
The old lady gestured for her to wait a moment, then quickly ran out the door.
After a short while, the sound of hurried footsteps returned. In the old woman’s hands were two thick blankets.
“Thank you…”
Lenette gave a faint smile, and the old lady shook her head as she approached and helped her lie back down.
Three layers of blankets were laid over Lenette’s body. Maybe because she had no strength, even the weight of the blankets felt heavy—but at least the cold felt a little more bearable now.
“Thank you…”
Like a cuckoo bird, she kept repeating the same phrase. No other words of gratitude came to mind.
The old woman furrowed her brow, looking at her with pity.
“Uuuhhh, uhuh.”
“Ah… right. Thank you.”
“Uhhuhh, uuuh!”
“You mean… no?”
“Uuuuhhhh!”
The old woman shook her head and tried her best to explain something. But Lenette’s eyelids kept growing heavier as her mind slipped into drowsiness.
She forced her fading strength together, trying to guess what the woman meant.
“Food? Ah… I’m fine. I’m not hungry.”
At that, the old woman nodded.
‘Or… did she shake her head?’
But she couldn’t ask again.
Her awareness faded along with the weakening murmurs in her mind.
‘Just a bit more… Let me rest… just a little…’
The words never made it past her lips—they only echoed quietly within her.
☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓 ☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓
Kazen stood silently, looking down at the bed, and spoke indifferently.
“How long is she going to stay like that?”
Beside him, the physician dabbed at the sweat steadily forming with a cloth.
Even as a physician, he had never encountered someone who spent the night in water during a freezing desert night, so he couldn’t say anything for certain. Desert dwellers were used to the climate—none would fall ill so easily.
But he couldn’t just stay silent either. After rolling his eyes around nervously, the physician finally gathered the courage to speak.
“Well… recovery time varies from person to person…”
“There must be some kind of average.”
“That’s the thing…”
The physician trailed off again. And that was one of the responses Kazen hated most.
Kazen slowly turned his gaze toward the physician and stared.
“If you don’t know, just say you don’t. Don’t drag it out.”
The physician bowed his head with an apologetic look.
“…I’m sorry. I don’t know for sure.”
“Fine. Then get out.”
Waving his hand with an annoyed expression, Kazen dismissed him. The physician hurriedly gathered his things and left the room. Watching him, Kazen let out a dry chuckle.
“Anyone would think I was about to eat him.”
“Shall I look for another physician?”
At the attendant’s question, Kazen lazily squinted one eye and gave a halfhearted reply.
“No need. If she dies from a cold, that’s just her fate.”
“Understood.”
Kazen crossed his arms and leaned to one side, his gaze fixed on the patient lying in bed.
“Strange.”
“What do you mean?”
Kazen nodded toward Lenette with his chin.
“That woman.”
When someone’s sick, isn’t their face supposed to turn dark and their lips bluish?
But somehow, her complexion had turned even paler, and her lips looked redder, as if blood had rushed to them. Overall, she looked oddly healthier.
“Maybe it’s just from sweating.”
Kazen tossed out the conclusion carelessly and walked over to the bed.
“After all that fuss that night…”
The night he revealed his identity—the sound of splashing water and a voice full of self-blame had echoed in from the veranda all night long.
“Was she so embarrassed she wanted to die?”
Otherwise, why would anyone in their right mind spend a freezing desert night soaking in cold water?
Kazen snorted as he half-mockingly analyzed her actions.
“She’s really something.”
Running a hand through his hair, he spoke to the middle-aged steward.
“We might not have had the wedding, but we should at least share a bed, right?”
“…Excuse me?”
“Move my bride’s room by today.”
“Move it… where exactly?”
Kazen looked at the servant, clearly uninterested in the obvious question.
“Where else? Where should a bride be if not beside her groom?”
