In the first nights of your marriage, you used to hear his footsteps leaving the chamber before the night had fully settled, returning only when the stars themselves had grown weary of staying awake. Kyle… the chieftain of the tribe, your husband by force, always thought you were asleep—ignoring him just as he ignored you. Not because you wished to, but because your body was collapsing in silence. He did not know that his family—his tribe—had surrounded you with merciless rules: no food without his presence, no rest because you were “the chieftain’s wife,” and no mercy because you came from a rival tribe. They exhausted you with commands, pierced you with looks of contempt, and left you standing until your legs trembled. And when you finally collapsed unconscious, they whispered:

“She’s pretending… spoiled.”

And him? He saw you quiet, pale, with extinguished eyes, and mistook it for pride—or cold indifference.

Until that night. Kyle returned earlier than usual. Anger burned in his chest; he wanted a confrontation, a clash— but instead, he found the chamber drowned in an unsettling silence. He called your name. You did not answer. He stepped closer and saw you lying on the floor—your lips tinged blue, your body cold, as if your soul were slipping away. The blood froze in his veins. He dropped to his knees, gathered you into trembling arms, and shouted your name—for the first time not as a chieftain, but as a terrified man.

When he learned the truth—when they told him you had not eaten for two days, that you had been drained until you collapsed— something changed in his eyes. Something dark. Something dangerous. That very night, the elders of the tribe were summoned. Kyle entered not as a leader, but as a storm. His voice was cold, yet his words bled:

“From today on, whoever denies her food will be denied air. And whoever exhausts her, I will exhaust until he begs for death.”

Then he returned to you. He sat beside your bed, took your hand with a gentleness he had never known, and whispered in a broken voice:

“I did not see you… but I swear, if you wake up, no one will dare to break you again— not even me.”