I’m Going to Change My Husband With a Predatory Marriage - Chapter 11

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 11

With the bride vanished, there was no possibility the wedding could proceed as planned.
Ludwig stood abandoned at the Temple altar, forced to endure the humiliation of canceling the ceremony, while guests rushed to spread the shocking news throughout the Imperial Capital.

* * *

During my first regression, I also recalled memories from my past life.
Memories of when I lived as an ordinary woman in a different world—Korea.
There was a cliché I’d seen in morning dramas back then.
An ex-lover grabbing the bride’s hand and fleeing down the Virgin Road!
I hadn’t consciously planned it, but this time I’d actually executed that very scenario.
Of course, I had fled with Count Beltane before, but that wasn’t during the wedding ceremony. That desperate escape happened the night before.
By that measure, this was truly a “dramatic” experience.
If someone asked how I felt about it?
My answer would be simple.
“…Save me!”
I could express it differently too.
“Please put me down!”
Now that’s a proper line for a bride being abducted, isn’t it?
But I had no leisure for such idle thoughts.
Arpard laughed with unbridled delight.
“Not yet! I can’t let you go until we reach somewhere safe!”
I cried out desperately.
“We’ve already left the Imperial Capital far behind!”
Though I thrashed with all my might, Arpard remained unmoved, his tremendous strength and balance absolute.
“We don’t know when pursuers might catch up!”
Well, I knew he was right.
But still, but still!
Clop-clop, clop-clop!
The powerful, swift horse galloped without pause.
With each thundering hoofbeat, the world lurched violently.
Sway, sway, sway, sway…
Moreover, I wasn’t simply sitting atop the horse—I was perched on Arpard’s lap.
The height made the swaying twice as severe!
In the end, I abandoned all pride and dignity, crying out with brutal honesty.
“…I’m going to be sick!”
“…!”
Indeed, even the mad Crown Prince must have disliked it, for the horse that seemed as though it would tremble until death finally came to a halt.
“Are you alright?”
With Arpard’s cautious voice and his supporting hand, I was barely able to step down onto the ground.
But the moment my feet touched solid earth, I simply collapsed.
“Blegh!”
Even the ground seemed to be swaying!
It resembled an overwhelming hangover—something I’d experienced only a handful of times during my life as a Korean.
While I lay sprawled on the ground, the mad Crown Prince surprisingly patted my back and spoke.
“Can you see clearly?”
“Not clearly. Everything just seems to be spinning even with my eyes open.”
“That means you can see just fine.”
He grasped my shoulders and slowly lifted me up.
(From this, I could tell he was also afraid of discovering what I’d eaten yesterday.)
Where pale, beautiful fingers—yet rough to the touch—pointed, a small white castle came into view.
“That’s our destination.”
At those words, the small, modest castle appeared more luxurious and comfortable than the Imperial Palace itself.
Thus, after four days and nights of riding, we arrived at a Palace situated quite far from the Imperial Capital.

* * *

I stumbled into the castle looking like a crumpled ball of tissue paper that had been carelessly wrinkled and rolled across dirt.
If Arpard hadn’t supported me, I wouldn’t have been able to walk properly at all.
Finally arriving at my destination, I cried out with the urge to give three cheers.
“Finally, I can bathe. Where’s the bed?”
Then Arpard, who was supporting me, spouted nonsense.
“My bride is so eager that I’m rather embarrassed.”
Bewildered, I simply turned my head and saw a most unfair sight.
Whether by coincidence or design, Arpard had arrived in a white ceremonial robe that matched mine, and he was irritatingly pale and immaculate.
‘Here I am looking like crumpled tissue, and he’s pristine! How infuriating!’
Watching the man’s annoyingly radiant face, I responded weakly.
“I simply… can’t… joke anymore… or even get angry… please, have mercy.”
This was genuine.
Three days of horseback riding with the untrained body of a noblewoman was an absolute ordeal.
Now I understood how much Count Beltane had worried about me when he fled in my previous life.
Ah, could that be why he was caught so quickly?
I had discovered the painful reason for my failure in my past life, but now there was something infinitely more important.
“I… need… to rest…”
As my eyes began to flutter shut, Arpard stopped me.
“…!”
But his method shocked me.
I wouldn’t have been so startled if he’d simply slapped my cheek.
A touch.
He kissed my cheek. A sweet fragrance brushed against the tip of my nose.
Sleep vanished instantly.
I literally jumped up. It was vivid movement, like a mackerel thrown onto ice.
So much so that even Arpard lost his grip.
“W-what… what are you doing?!”
Then Arpard’s eyes curved like a bow as he smiled.
“A gentle kiss to wake a sleepy princess?”
“…!”
While I stood there in shock, nearly fainting.
Arpard dragged me toward the interior of the castle.
Despite not being a particularly large fortress, there was a small chapel within.
And waiting there was an elderly Priest.
“You’ve truly come, Your Highness.”
The Priest looked bewildered, alternating his gaze between me and Arpard.
Only then did sleep completely abandon me.

“Abduction alone won’t suffice. You must immediately complete the marriage contract signature and obtain the Temple’s official certification as well!”

Arpard remembered and fulfilled my threat—or rather, my request—with perfect precision.
Arpard knelt before the Priest and made his demand.
“Officiate the marriage ceremony between myself and Hillia Delphin, and serve as our witness.”
This was our wedding.
I crumbled to my knees beside Arpard.
The Priest’s expression grew even more troubled.
He looked at me and asked.
“Are you not the bride of Ludwig, the Grand Duke? Do you truly consent to this marriage?”
I hesitated to answer ‘yes’ in this moment.
Remarkably, Arpard seemed to have anticipated even this, answering the Priest in my stead.
“It has already been four days since I abducted the bride from her wedding day. Even if I return her unharmed, will her reputation remain intact?”
“…Your Highness!”
“The path that wounds her honor least is for her to marry me.”
The Priest could not refute Arpard’s words.
“And have you not already sworn to me? That you would do anything to repay the debt you owe to my mother?”
In the end, he could resist no longer.
The Priest conducted our marriage ceremony, brief though it was.
We exchanged vows before the Lord and Lady of the Temple.
I signed my name in the marriage register—my hand trembled so badly I had to press hard to make the signature legible.
I received the holy oil upon my head and heard the words of blessing.
“By this, you are reborn as husband and wife, blessed and protected by the Lord and Lady.”
I barely managed to exhale in relief.
The authority over marriage and its recognition belonged solely to the Temple.
Neither the Emperor nor even a Dragon could violate this.
As I relaxed, an entirely unexpected command fell from above my head.
“Now, the two of you must share the kiss of the covenant.”
“…!”
I glanced sideways in shock.
There stood the man with that inscrutable smile—now my husband.
Arpard brought his face close with perfect naturalness.
Under normal circumstances, I would have startled and pulled away, but I could not do so now.
‘This is merely part of the ceremony!’
I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for what was to come.
With my vision blocked, my other senses seemed to sharpen.
My heart pounded as though it might burst from my chest.
It felt as though someone were drumming at my temples.
‘Should I just open my eyes?’
But that would only make the moment feel stranger.
After what felt like an eternity of waiting, I received the kiss of the covenant.
His lips were unexpectedly soft and supple, and the way they enveloped mine was far more tender than I had imagined.
It was utterly different from the vow-kiss I had experienced with Ludwig countless times before.
His kiss became relentless and fierce, as though he meant to devour me entirely, stealing away every breath I possessed.
“…Mmph!”
So intensely that even the Priest was taken aback.
Only when the Priest, his face flushed crimson, could no longer bear it and turned away.
Just before I lost consciousness, Arpard finally released me.
“…Haah! There’s a Priest present—do exercise some restraint.”
I chided him lightly, playing the part of an embarrassed bride.
But my true thoughts were far different.
‘Is he trying to suffocate me to death?’
Even as I fixed him with that reproachful gaze, Arpard stared at me with an eerie intensity.
Like a man entranced by something.
A chill crept down my spine.
‘What is this? Surely not already….’
But my thoughts could not deepen further, for the wedding ceremony still had procedures remaining.

* * *

Arpard was acutely sensitive to situations where he lost control of himself.
It was only natural—he had experienced multiple harbingers of madness in his youth, and had even endured mild instances of the affliction.
Yet that kiss just now was far too strange.
It had begun merely as a procedural necessity of the wedding ceremony.
But the moment their lips touched, Arpard lost his reason entirely in an instant.
He desired her like a parched beast discovering an oasis in the desert.
And as the kiss deepened, as time stretched on, he felt a peculiar sensation.
The beast within him that had always writhed sharp and unpleasantly suddenly became docile.
It was a satisfaction and joy he had never felt before in his life.
‘I’ve never felt anything like this, not even during the harbingers of madness.’
Arpard gazed at the woman who had just become his wife with an expression of deepening suspicion.

* * *

“Your Majesty! Please, I beg you, release me from this anguish!”
Ludwig had been protesting just outside the Emperor’s bedchamber for nearly four days now.
There was no one in the Imperial Palace who didn’t know the reason why.
More precisely, there wasn’t a soul in the Imperial Capital unfamiliar with the rumors.
‘A kidnapping had occurred openly on the main avenue right before the Imperial Palace, after all.’
The humiliation struck him anew, and fury surged through him as Ludwig bit his lip once more.
Blood trickled from his ravaged lips, damaged over these past four days.
He deliberately refrained from wiping away the blood, ensuring those around him could see it.
“When I think of the suffering my wife must be enduring right now, I cannot eat or sleep! Please, Your Majesty!”
The Emperor, listening to his nephew’s anguished cries from beyond the door, remained lost in contemplation.
It was not Ludwig’s desperate shouts from outside that drew his attention back to reality, but rather the woman seated across from him.
Empress Isabel.
“Your Majesty. How do you intend to resolve this matter?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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