My Taboo Harem!

They looked like two mature, devastating women meeting over polished glass, each one aware of the other’s beauty, intelligence, weight in Phei’s life, and possible danger. Melissa’s dress held her lush figure with warm, mature elegance, the dress embracing the fullness of her chest and the soft power of her hips in a way that made her beauty impossible to mistake for anything fragile.

Dravenna, in ivory silk and exposed waist, looked leaner, sharper, more temple than hearth, more ancient seduction than maternal warmth.

When they spoke, sparks did not fly loudly.

They moved quietly under words and behind smiles.

Between women who knew exactly what kind of man stood nearby watching them both. And both of them, in the brief diplomatic ballet of that greeting, let their attention drift once toward him in the same heartbeat, caught the other doing it, and returned to their smiles a fraction sharper than before.

The acknowledgment passed between them without a word: each had clocked the other clocking him.

Melissa’s chin lifted by a degree no one but Dravenna would read. Dravenna’s smile curved by a degree no one but Melissa would answer. Neither conceded an inch.

Phei watched.

Eira drifted beside his shoulder, invisible to the room, tiny arms folded, silver-gold hair swaying in the air.

"I do not know what your plan tonight is," she said.

Phei did not look at her. "Liar."

Eira paused.

Then shrugged. "Fine. I know exactly what your plan tonight is. Cancel it."

That made his eyes move toward her.

Eira pointed at Dravenna with deadly seriousness. "Cancel all of it and get that woman, Master."

Phei looked back at Dravenna.

She was laughing softly at something Melissa said, but she did not come near him. In fact, now that he noticed it, she kept herself positioned carefully. Close enough to be present. Far enough not to be caught. She moved through greetings like a woman circling a flame she had already touched once and did not trust herself around again.

Phei smiled: "I know," he said.

Eira’s eyes brightened.

Phei’s gaze remained on Dravenna. "I’m done waiting."

"Attaboy," Eira said with immediate approval, because dignity was apparently optional in divine creatures. "How can we let a beauty like that roam the world with no man in her heart? The thought alone is forbidden. Offensive, even. I may write a law."

Phei almost laughed, but Dravenna’s jade eyes flicked toward him again across the hall.

One breath then she turned away before he could hold her gaze.

Avoiding him.

Definitely avoiding him.

Good.

The hunted rarely admitted they were being hunted; they simply walked faster and called it independence.

At the far side of the hall, near one of the shadowed service entrances, the three members of the Hayashi family stood together.

Hayashi remained in the middle, hands folded before him, old eyes calm as polished steel. Beside him stood Ryuzen Raizen Hayashi, tall, sharp, severe, carrying the disciplined beauty of a blade that had been given a human body by mistake. On Hayashi’s other side stood Yuzuki Hayashi, elegant and watchful, her gaze bright with curiosity she had learned to wrap in restraint.

Yuzuki was the first to speak.

"She stepped out of her cave, done slumbering huh?"

Ryuzen Raizen shook his head slowly. "No... I do not think so. Not fully."

His eyes narrowed as he watched Dravenna move among the guests. "She is probably here to wreck something before crawling back into her cave."

Yuzuki hummed thoughtfully. "The Maxtons?"

"Likely," Ryuzen said. "Or the Heavenchilds. She may wait until one of them tries to make their move."

Yuzuki’s lips curved. "Better yet, the Lin family. She might let them show up first, then the dominoes will fall."

Ryuzen’s gaze remained on Dravenna. "She would enjoy that."

"She always did have theatrical cruelty."

"Strategic cruelty."

"Same thing with better posture."

They both turned to their father.

"What do you think?" Yuzuki asked.

Hayashi smiled faintly and pointed, not at Dravenna, but across the hall.

"That is her plan," he said. "But she is unlikely to succeed."

Both siblings followed his gesture, their gazes landed on Phei.

"Young Master?" Ryuzen Raizen asked.

"The Young Dragon," Yuzuki said at the same time.

Hayashi nodded. "Look at him."

They looked.

At first, all they saw was Phei standing near the edge of the central gathering, outwardly relaxed, smiling faintly, one hand in his pocket, his black-white attire catching the hall’s silver and violet glow. He looked calm, almost lazy; just a beautiful young man watching a beautiful woman.

Then they looked better and saw the determination.

Not lust alone, though that was there too, plain enough in the way his amethyst eyes kept finding Dravenna’s exposed waist, the curve of her hip beneath ivory silk, the long line of her thigh whenever the slit opened with her steps. Phei saw her body. No one with eyes could fail to.

But beneath was something firmer:

Decision and possession not yet spoken.

"A hunt not yet begun."

Yuzuki felt the naked lust leaking off him on her own skin for half a second — that ambient, unhurried lust and desire rolling off the Young Dragon as he tracked the Dean across the room — and found, to her quiet professional annoyance, that her own composure had developed a small crack she now had to repair.

She smoothed it before her brother could notice. It was not aimed at her:

The boy was not even trying, and the residue of it had still brushed past her like warm water!

Ryuzen’s expression sharpened. "Feels like they have something unfinished between them?"

Hayashi’s smile deepened by a fraction. "That, I do not know."

Yuzuki looked back at Dravenna. "She is avoiding him."

"Yes."

"Quite deliberately I must add."

"Yes."

Ryuzen watched as Dravenna changed her path when Phei shifted slightly, ensuring three people and one table remained between them. "Like getting too close to him is akin to throwing butter into raging flames."

Yuzuki tilted her head. "And she is the butter."

Ryuzen nodded. "Apparently."

Hayashi’s old eyes remained on Phei. "Whatever lies unfinished between the Young Master and the Jade Dragon will stop her from returning to her slumber despite her plans. Or at the very least, it will delay her until whatever exists between them is done."

Yuzuki glanced at him. "You sound certain."

"Who knows; I might be seeing it all wrong."

Neither of his children believed that.

Hayashi was many things and wrong was rarely one of them, and when he was wrong, it was usually because someone older than history had cheated first.

Across the room, Dravenna was still greeting guests.

But never Phei.

She greeted Jade with amused elegance, already aware the younger one was measuring her.

Adriana too seemed to have noticed something, she glanced between Dravenna and Phei once, then smiled faintly like a woman recognizing unfinished tension when it had dressed itself in ivory silk and walked into a room.

Phei saw all of that, Dravenna avoid him again.

His smile grew.

Eira, hovering near his shoulder, whispered, "She knows."

"She does."

"She is running."

"Walking."

"Running elegantly."

"Very elegantly."

"You should catch her."

"I will."

"When?"

Phei’s eyes followed Dravenna’s back as she turned, the gown exposing that smooth, flawless expanse of skin before her silver hair slid over one shoulder and hid part of it again. The dress surrendered her back almost entirely, leaving enough bare skin to make his fingers remember the office and resent history.

His gaze traced the dip of her spine to where the ivory caught at the small of her back, slow and unhurried and entirely without apology, and somewhere across the room Dravenna’s stride hitched by the width of a held breath, as if she had felt the weight of his attention settle exactly there and refused, on principle, to turn around and confirm it.

"Soon," he said.

Eira looked pleased enough to be a bad influence, which was her natural habitat.

Back near the shadows, Hayashi’s expression suddenly changed.

Only slightly but his children noticed.

Ryuzen Raizen straightened. "Father?"

Hayashi’s eyes moved toward the entrance: "Only one thing can get between whatever the Young Master is planning."

Yuzuki followed his gaze, then her face paled, Ryuzen Raizen’s jaw tightened.

Hayashi’s voice remained calm:

"The Monster?"

Neither sibling answered immediately.

The Monster was indeed here and she was not alone and behind her stood a Fallen Angel.

Unseen!