My Taboo Harem!

Maya seemed to see it all.

She saw beyond the pieces and scattered events drifting around the reception like pretty, disconnected ornaments waiting for someone clever to string them into meaning.

No:

To Maya, the night had never been a birthday party for a cold girl in a beautiful dress.

It had been a board and the cards were moving.

Every laugh, every glance, every carefully placed smile was just another piece sliding across the surface — some moving with purpose, others drifting because they had no idea they were already part of someone else’s game.

Dravenna’s arrival alone had drawn the room’s attention like blood in water. People noticed the absence of Phei. They noticed the absence of Sienna. They noticed the particular shape of Dravenna’s smile — amusement without victory, satisfaction without completion. Everyone had their own little theory, of course:

Give people wine, mystery, and beautiful women walking out of private rooms alone, and their minds became sinful little factories working overtime, churning out theories that were usually half right and entirely useless.

But Maya had seen more.

She had seen how Dravenna positioned herself earlier before the Jade Dragon had led Phei out by without appearing to lead him at all. The direction of her steps and the the slight, deliberate delay before turning into the hallway.

The exact route; the library.

That same library where Maya had already felt Sienna’s presence tucked into shadow. Hidden as she waited while watching.

’How very like them — to believe that hiding something made it safe.’

How curious.

Maya had stood near the living room’s edge for a long time, an untouched glass in her hand, silver hair flowing softly over one shoulder as the penthouse lights turned her white dress into something moonlit and untouchable.

Around her, the reception continued in its warm, glittering disarray.

Laughter rose in bright, careless bursts — the sound of people who still believed the night belonged to them. Laughter rose from the princesses. Maddie was clearly committing social vandalism somewhere near the bar. Melissa looked serene, which meant she was either genuinely happy or hiding a hundred thoughts behind the softness of her eyes.

While Adriana kept drinking in a way that suggested the wine had long stopped being wine and had become a necessary support system.

All of them moving... yet none of them seeing the board of the Empress as she moved her pieces one by one like they were puppets with their string attached to her infinity fingers like an extremely powerful being with their fates in her hands.

All very charming.

Maya’s gaze remained on Dravenna.

What she could not understand was why they felt the need to hide Sienna’s relationship with Phei.

’Or perhaps they are not hiding the relationship itself?’

Perhaps they were hiding what would come out of it.

That thought settled in Maya’s mind with a small, quiet click.

How curious, indeed.

Were they trying to recreate what Melissa and Phei’s relationship had already produced for the Ryujin Tiamat family? A child? A continuation no one in this room fully understood yet. Or were they chasing something older — something that required more than just bodies and blood?

But no. They did not know about Melissa’s condition. Not yet. At least, most of them did not, so it might be about getting another child.

Maya’s smile softened by one precise degree.

Of course, that did not mean Dravenna and the others had not assumed. Perhaps they thought Sienna would be the first to carry his child? Perhaps tonight had always been arranged around that assumption. Perhaps they were not chasing pregnancy specifically, but something deeper, stranger, older.

A binding?A requirement? A hidden law written in bodies — because old families, like old monsters, preferred turning simple love into administrative horror.

"It might be something else," Maya whispered to herself.

She felt sorry for Phei. Truly.

He was so clueless about what was happening inside his own family.

Her poor dragon, becoming so powerful, so beautiful, so surrounded by women and secrets that the poor boy could barely walk through a room without stepping on destiny’s toes. He thought he was pursuing answers, and perhaps he was. But the answers had already been sitting around him tonight, dressed in silk, sipping wine, blinking innocently, and moving him across the board like a cherished piece no one dared call a pawn.

He still believed he was the hunter.

As for how Maya knew about Melissa...

Well...

...she was Maya Scarlett.

Eira feared her for a reason.

No?

Maya’s gaze shifted slightly, across the room, Dravenna was looking at her and it wasn’t casually or idle curiosity of one guest wondering about another:

An appraising look laced with a measuring look: she looked like Maya like she were mysteries she had not yet decided whether to open, burn, or politely invite to tea before the murder.

Dravenna’s eyes were calm, but Maya could feel the calculation behind them — the quiet rearranging of plans that had just been forced to account for an unexpected variable.

Maya smiled:

’How cute. How very curious.’ It was like watching a toddler trying to appraise a literal goddess.

"Mmmh?" a voice asked beside her. "Did you say something?"

Maya turned; the girl beside her was impossible not to notice — which was saying something in a penthouse currently overcrowded with women who could make mirrors reconsider their loyalties.

Evy.

The celebrity.

She had been drawing quiet attention the entire night, though she behaved as if she had no idea. A delightful lie. Evy knew exactly what attention felt like. She wore it with the ease of someone who had lived under spotlights long enough to know where they would land before they even turned on.

’She is quite a beauty.’

Evy’s beauty was sharper than that. Her face had a living clarity that made people look a half-second longer than they meant to. High, clean cheekbones caught the light without effort. Her eyes were large and dark, quick with intelligence and the quiet suggestion of secrets she had no intention of sharing. Her mouth was full and soft, the kind of lips that could sell a dream with the smallest smile or destroy a man’s patience with a single pout.

The dress only finished the damage; it followed the lines of her body with deliberate precision — elegant enough for a public birthday, fitted enough to make every spectator feel the exact cost of looking.

Among the younger generation, few could match her. Perhaps Dravenna, Elena, and Jade could stand beside her without losing.