My Taboo Harem!

Her eyes narrowed. "Do not sound pleased."

"I am extremely pleased."

"That is foolish."

"That is honest."

"I am not scared of Courtney, if that is what you are implying."

Phei blinked, then laughed softly. "I said Dravenna."

Her gaze sharpened further. "I know what you said."

"Then why bring up Courtney?"

"Because I saw you watching her with Delilah."

Phei’s smile became downright sinful. "Oh, so my Goddess was watching me watch other women and felt jealous?"

"I was observing."

"Jealously."

She tried to pull her hand back.

Phei did not let her instead, he drew her closer.

The movement was smooth, gentle, and absolutely public.

Her body came into the circle of his arms, divine presence wrapped suddenly against the warmth of a dragon. He held her at the waist, close enough that the room noticed, close enough that her dress brushed his clothes, close enough that her composure had to make a decision.

To retreat or settle.

She settled.

That, more than the embrace, drew attention: Roxanne’s brows rose from across the room and Adriana, glass halfway to her lips, paused while Melissa’s eyes softened with recognition.

Dravenna’s jade gaze flicked toward them and stayed one breath too long.

Even Cassiopeia glanced over, expression unreadable.

The Goddess did not seem alarmed in Phei’s arms.

She did not stiffen as if he had overstepped to hold her like this in public; she simply allowed herself to be held, chin lifted, her body fitting against him with an ease so beautiful it made several women in the room suddenly feel like they had witnessed something they did not fully understand.

Phei lowered his face near her hair:

"You know," he said softly, "that you will always be one of the most cherished women in my life."

Her lashes trembled.

"No one replaces you," he continued. "No one steps into the place you hold. No woman in this room, no woman outside it, no woman I have yet to meet. They may be beautiful. They may be dangerous. They may tempt me, amuse me, challenge me, and make me lose sleep for all the wrong reasons."

Her mouth curved faintly despite herself.

"But you," Phei said, voice lowering, "you are my Goddess and no one can be in your place."

Her head lowered against him, the tension in her shoulders easing.

Phei’s arms tightened slightly.

"You saw me when I was still learning how to stand inside my own life; and that day you allowed me to do things we did when you could’ve killed me for it. Okay what I said does not make sense, but you get me." he murmured. "You remained when you could have left after you got what you wanted and you instead let me in, became mine and I became yours, Goddess! So yes, I may chase trouble. I may flirt with danger. I may admire a woman wearing a dress designed by enemies of male self-control."

A soft laugh escaped her: "But no one is you."

She settled deeper into his arms; too close, perhaps.

Not that he objected:

Her presence curled against him like moonlight accepting a throne, and Phei, for all his hunger and arrogance and shameless thoughts, held her with real tenderness.

The kind of tenderness that made lust bow its head for a moment and admit love was older.

Across the hall, Maddie watched with Sierra and Yuki.

Maddie exhaled, almost annoyed. "I hate to say this."

Sierra smiled. "Then do not."

"I have to. It’s hurting me internally." Maddie gestured toward Phei and the Goddess. "Those two match way too badly."

Yuki tilted her head. "Badly?"

"Dangerously. Unfairly. Like someone took a goddess who stepped into the mortal realm and paired her with something no god can match, then expected the rest of us to have self-esteem afterward."

Sierra looked at them.

Phei in black-white authority, amethyst eyes softened around the woman in his arms; the Goddess, divine and elegant, resting against him with an openness she rarely gave the world.

Sierra’s smile thinned with helpless admission. "They do look beautiful together."

Nastya came near, following their gaze. "Sometimes I feel inferior in her presence."

Jade nodded. "Same."

Maddie stared at Yuki. "You? Admitting that?"

"I am not blind."

Natasha, standing nearby, added quietly, "She has that effect."

Their eyes turned toward Elena, who had come closer without anyone noticing.

Maddie’s grin sharpened. "Elena. Explain."

Elena arched a brow. "Explain what?"

"How can someone even be as beautiful as your mother?"

The question was bold enough that Sierra nearly choked.

Jade laughed.

Elena’s expression softened despite herself.

She looked toward the Goddess in Phei’s arms, then gave a small smile. Not proud exactly; a daughter’s complicated warmth.

"She has always been like that," Elena said.

Maddie blinked. "That is not an explanation."

"No." Elena’s smile deepened slightly.

Back in Phei’s arms, the Goddess heard none of that clearly, or chose not to react. She had stopped hiding her jealousy now. She did not pretend she had been unaffected. Did not insult him for seeing through her and did not turn away and bury the feeling under pride.

She accepted his reassurance, his arms; being cherished did not mean being unchallenged by the existence of other beautiful women. It meant still being held and loved just as the first time, when the feeling came.

Phei kissed her forehead.

"Of course," he murmured, "I do enjoy my jealous Goddess."

Her head lifted at once.

"You know how to ruin romantic moments."

"I enhance them."

She stared at him, then shook her head, but there was warmth in her eyes now.

Across the room, Adriana and Roxanne had moved closer to Melissa, both asking questions with the kind of quiet intensity that made escape impossible.

"So," Adriana said, looking toward Phei and the Goddess, "how close are they?"

Melissa took a sip of wine. "Close."

Adriana’s brows lifted. "That is not an answer."

"It is the safest answer."

Adriana leaned in. "Safest for whom?"

Melissa smiled. "Everyone."

Adriana looked from Melissa to the Goddess, then to Phei. "You knew?"

Melissa’s eyes warmed. "I know many things. Not all of them have explanations I can give."

Adriana sighed. "That is deeply unhelpful."

"It is also honest."

Adriana took another sip of wine, partly to hide her own blush when Phei glanced in her direction and shifted the hidden Void-Ice construct just enough to make her fingers tighten around the glass.

Melissa noticed that too.

Her eyes flicked from Adriana’s expression to Phei, she smiled.

Adriana saw it. "Do not."

Melissa’s smile grew. "I did not say anything."

"You were about to."

"I am very proud of my restraint."

Melissa only smiled.

The party moved toward its end slowly, like a dream reluctant to wake.

Hours had passed.

Dancing, laughter, gifts, wine, teasing, music, secret looks, restrained rivalries, and small emotional victories had carried the night into its final shape and the guests slowly returned to their tables and places around the central platform.

It was time:

The climax of the birthday.

Several people gave short speeches first.

Maddie, against better judgment, was allowed to speak for one minute.

She used thirty seconds to call Sienna "the most terrifying birthday girl in Paradise," fifteen seconds to praise her dress, and the remaining fifteen seconds to accuse Phei of bribery. Sienna stared at her the entire time as if memorizing where to bury the body.

Everyone laughed.

Then Melissa rose with a glass in hand, mature beauty glowing beneath silver and violet light, her dress embracing her lush figure with graceful warmth. The woman who had once carried so much pain in private now stood before family, daughters, friends, lovers, hidden monsters, young princesses, and the boy she had loved enough to save in the ways only she could.

Her eyes found Sienna.

Sienna stood near the platform, still in that impossible star-blue gown, expression cold but not empty.

Melissa’s smile trembled.

"My child," she began softly.

The hall fell completely silent.

"I have spent many years wondering if I had done enough for you. If I understood you enough. If I protected you enough. If I loved you loudly enough, or quietly enough, or in the ways you would accept."

Sienna’s expression did not change.

But Phei saw her fingers tighten slightly on her dress.

Melissa continued, voice warm with tears she refused to let fall. "You were never easy to hold. Never easy to comfort, to reach. And yet, somehow, you allowed me to be your mother."

Her breath shook once.

"For that, Sienna, I will always be grateful as a mother."

Even those who did not know what Melissa meant felt the weight in the words.

"Watching you turn eighteen tonight," Melissa said, "watching you stand here surrounded by people who came not out of obligation, or out of fear, but because they wanted to celebrate you... it makes me happier than I can say."

Phei looked at Sienna.

Melissa raised her glass higher.

"So tonight, I ask everyone to toast with me. Not only to your birthday, to the child I have loved, worried for, scolded, chased, and occasionally failed to understand."

A few soft laughs moved through the room.

Melissa’s eyes shone.

"But to the day you will become yourself fully. Freely. Without pain holding you back. Without any chains, fear and without needing to hide what you truly are."

Melissa’s voice became softer and somehow stronger.

"To my child becoming the Goddess she was born to be!"

Then she lifted her glass.

"To Sienna."

Everyone echoed it.

"To Sienna."

Wine, champagne, water, all of it lifted beneath crystal rain and black-silver light.

Most of the room drank without understanding the full meaning of Melissa’s words.

They heard motherly pride, poetic blessing and the exaggerated language people used at important birthdays when love made them dramatic and nobody wanted to be the villain who complained.

But Phei understood enough to feel the weight of it.

Eira, invisible above, watched quietly.

Far away, in the unseen dark, Selene stood silent.

The Vice Principal lowered his head in reverence.

Dravenna’s jade eyes sharpened.

Hayashi smiled faintly.

And Sienna, standing in the heart of the birthday built for her, held her glass without drinking for one long moment.

Then, with the room still echoing her name, she lifted it to her lips.

And drank.