My Taboo Harem!

Chapter 968: Blooming Jealous

The long limousine rolled through the night along a lonely strip of asphalt that looked far too perfect for how empty it was. The road stretched ahead in a smooth black ribbon polished by moonlight and the faint silver glow of the lake beyond, carrying its passengers toward the other end of Hell’s Paradise Island. There were almost no other cars around, which somehow made the road feel less abandoned and more exclusive as though even traffic had been filtered by wealth and found unworthy.

This particular road led toward the buildings that floated above the lake.

From a distance they looked unreal luminous structures resting over dark water with their foundations hidden beneath reflections and engineering arrogance.

Towers of glass, steel and pale gold hovered over the surface like palaces too proud to touch land, their lights trembling faintly across the lake below. Hell’s Paradise Island had many beautiful things, but these buildings possessed a colder more celestial beauty that made ordinary architecture look like it had been assembled by tired men with budgets and permission forms.

Phei, however, was not looking at the buildings.

He was looking ahead.

The limousine’s headlights pierced through the night spilling white light over the road until they revealed a car stopped near the shoulder, angled neatly as though it had suffered mechanical trouble.

Beside it, two beautiful women leaned against the vehicle, waiting beneath the cold glow of the moon. A handsome young man in a butler suit stood near them at a respectful distance his posture calm, his hands folded, his expression composed.

There was nothing loud about him.

His demeanor alone was flawless, almost gentle but something boundless and sharp rested beneath the surface like a blade hidden.

Phei’s senses brushed against him once and bounced away cleanly not blocked in a rude way, but dismissed as if the man’s existence had politely informed him that probing further would require a better appointment and perhaps a stronger cultivation realm.

The limousine slowed, then rolled to a smooth stop.

Inside, Maddie leaned slightly forward, eyes narrowing toward the two women outside. "Are those the ones?"

Phei smiled. "Yes."

Sierra’s gaze flicked from him to the waiting women, then to his smile, and her lips curved with immediate suspicion. "You look far too pleased."

"I am allowed to be pleased."

"You are collecting beautiful women on a road beside a lake at night," Valentina said dryly. "That sentence alone should have legal consequences."

Maddie leaned closer to Phei and tapped one finger against his shoulder. "Be honest. Did you plan this because the moonlight makes reunions look more expensive?"

Phei caught her finger before she could poke him again. "I planned nothing. Fate is just tasteful around me."

"Fate needs supervision," Maddie said.

"Fate needs a restraining order," Nastya muttered from the corner, not lifting her eyes from the window, and Valentina snorted before she could stop herself, which seemed to please Nastya privately, because the corner of her mouth moved a single guilty millimeter before discipline dragged it back.

Sierra tilted her head, studying Phei with soft amusement. "And are we supposed to believe you are not enjoying the jealousy forming inside this car?"

Phei turned toward her.

Sierra’s smile widened slightly, victorious already because she knew she had touched something true. "Oh? No answer?"

Phei leaned in instead and kissed her.

It was not long enough to become a deflation, but it was warm enough to make the question fall from her mouth and sweet enough to silence her in the most unfair way possible. His hand brushed her cheek, thumb grazing lightly beneath her eye before he pulled back, and he murmured against her lips, low enough that it belonged only to her, "There. Much better than answering."

Sierra blinked once.

Then she smiled.

She had seen the kiss coming half a second early and chosen not to dodge it.

"You distracted me," she murmured.

Phei gave her an innocent look so fake it deserved punishment. "From what?"

"From my question."

"I would never."

"You absolutely would." Her smile softened despite herself, and she leaned back with that pleased little glow.

She pressed two fingers briefly to her own lips, as though checking the kiss were still there, and let her eyes tell him she had noticed she was smiling and had decided not to fight it. "Coward."

"Strategist," Phei corrected.

Maddie stared at him. "You kissed your way out of an interrogation."

"And it worked."

"It worked because she loves you."

Sierra, still smiling, did not deny it. She only looked out the window again, cheeks faintly warmer than before. "Unfortunately."

"Take notes," Maddie advised the car at large. "He will try it on each of us before the night ends."

"I will allow it," Valentina said serenely.

"That is not the lesson," Maddie sighed.

"It is my lesson," Valentina said, and Victoria, despite herself, huffed something that was almost a laugh before she remembered she was supposed to be above all of this.

Phei opened the door and stepped out into the cold night before Maddie could use that against him too, because survival sometimes required tactical retreat.

The moment the two women outside saw him, their faces brightened. One of the two pushed off the car first and reached him a full stride ahead of her companion, plainly determined to win even at being hugged.

The second, softer and slower, with dark waves and a sleepy warmth to her, simply arrived and folded into him without competing at all.

Phei spread his arms with open, welcoming warmth, and they came to him at once, slipping into his embrace as though they had been waiting longer than minutes. He gathered them both close, one arm around each, his smile softening as they pressed into him, and he murmured something low to each in turn that made one swat his chest and the dark-haired one laugh into his collar.

Inside the limousine, Nastya and Victoria watched the scene with elegant frost. Phei felt their eyes like twin blades, and the dark satisfaction that curled through him was pure sin.

These two new arrivals were warm and willing against him, soft curves and willing sighs, while two haughty princesses seethed in jealous silence. The contrast was delicious; he would enjoy breaking that frost later — slowly and thoroughly, until they were both trembling and begging in his lap.

Inside, Nastya and Victoria rolled their eyes.

It was a small movement, elegant, contained, and absolutely full of violence.

There was something uniquely excruciating about seeing someone you had once believed yourself above receive something you desired but had never truly gotten close to having.

It was not jealousy in the loud, ugly sense but quieter than that and sharper like a golden needle pushed under the skin.

Nastya and Victoria had status, beauty, bloodline and pride, yet there were those two women outside, snuggled comfortably in Phei’s arms, receiving the warmth they themselves had not fully earned from him yet.

A tragic situation, really.

Several princesses had survived wars between each other, politics from other families, family expectations and emotional repression only to be defeated by two women hugging a boy beside a brokenly-expensive-looking car.

’History is always the cruelest when it became petty.’

Maddie noticed.

She leaned back with a smile that should have been illegal in diplomatic settings. "Oh, look at them."

Nastya’s eyes cut toward her. "Look at who?"

"You two," Maddie said sweetly. "Trying not to look jealous."

Victoria’s chin lifted. "We are not jealous."

Sierra, apparently recovered from Phei’s criminal distraction, laughed softly. "That sounded practiced."

"It did," Maddie agreed. "Very palace-trained. Very ’I am above this’ while dying inside."

Nastya’s lips pressed into a line. "You speak too much."

"And yet I speak truth," Maddie said, placing a hand over her chest with unbearable innocence. "A burden, truly."

Nastya turned the full weight of her attention on Maddie then. "Say, Maddie," she said, with the lethal sweetness, returning fire, "when you first climbed into his lap, did you announce it as strategy, or did you simply lose the argument with yourself the way the rest of us are losing it now?"

The car went very still.

Maddie’s grin did not falter, but it sharpened with genuine respect, the way a duelist’s does when an opponent finally lands a touch. "Oh," she breathed, delighted. "She bites."

"She was provoked," Nastya said primly, and looked back out the window, having drawn blood and decided that was enough sustenance for now.

"I like her better already," Valentina informed.

Victoria looked toward Phei again, and for a breath her expression changed. The irritation remained, yes, proud and defensive, but beneath it was something softer. Wanting. Not greed, not exactly. More like a girl watching warmth from the other side of a window and pretending the cold was a choice.

Maddie saw that too, and for once her teasing eased by half a degree.

Only half. Maddie was not a saint; let us not become unrealistic.

But she did lean over, just slightly, and bump her shoulder against Victoria’s, a small wordless thing that said I see you, and I will stop for exactly one minute.

Victoria did not acknowledge it; Victoria also did not move away, which from Victoria was practically an embrace, and Maddie counted it as the diplomatic victory it was.

Valentina leaned forward then, resting her elbow lightly on her knee as she looked between Nastya and Victoria with amused curiosity.

"Do you feel jealous when you look at me too?"