Villain's Breeding System: Evolving 999+ Harem into an SSS-Rank Legion

Chapter 704: Chapter 704- A Mana Contract as a Gift

"You will not suffer the fate of your mother."

The words cut through her screaming like a blade through silk.

The princess stopped. Not gradually— instantly. Her mouth was open. Her wail was still in her throat. But the sound died. The words— his words— had reached her. Through the grief. Through the memory. Through the ten years of screaming "MOTHER!" into pillows and sheets and empty rooms.

She looked up.

Her green eyes— wet, red, swollen, the lashes clumped— found his black ones. His face was above hers. She had not realized how close he was. When had he moved? When had he knelt? When had he come to her?

His hand moved.

It went to her arm. His fingers closed around her wrist. Not tightly. Not painfully. Firmly. The grip of a man who is holding something that is about to fall and who is catching it.

He pulled.

She winced. Her body resisted— the instinct of a girl who has learned that hands on her body mean pain. But his pull was not violent. It was steady. Constant. The pull of a current that does not need to be fast because it is inevitable.

She fell forward.

Into him. Against him. Her face hit his chest. His bare, warm, muscled chest. The pheromones hit her— not the overwhelming, mind-destroying flood of before. Something softer. Gentler. A warmth. A comfort. The scent of a man who had just fucked two women and killed a bear and who smelled of sex and sweat and power and something else— something that her body recognized, on a level deeper than thought, as safe.

He hugged her.

His arms went around her. One across her back. One on her head. His hand cradled her skull. His fingers were in her emerald hair. He held her the way one holds a child who is crying. Firmly. Completely. Without reservation.

"What—?" she gasped. Her voice was muffled. Her face was in his chest. Her tears were on his skin. "What— leave me— you—"

She pushed. Her hands went to his chest. She shoved. Her palms pressed against his pectorals— the hard, ridged muscle, the warm skin. She pushed. She hit. Her fists connected with his chest. Not hard. Not with training. Not with the strength of a fighter. With the strength of a girl who is drowning and who is hitting the hand that is pulling her out.

"Leave me—!" she cried. "Let me go—! I do not— I cannot—"

He kissed her forehead.

His lips touched her skin. The spot above her brow. The spot where her hair began. The spot that her mother used to kiss before bed. The spot that no one had kissed since.

Her body went rigid.

"It is fine," he said. His voice was low. Close. The words spoken into her hair. "It is fine."

His hand moved.

To her back. He rubbed. Slow circles. The way one rubs a child’s back when the child is crying. The way her mother used to rub her back when she woke from nightmares. The motion was steady. Rhythmic. Calming.

She trembled.

Not from cold. Not from fear. From the contact. From the warmth. From the hand on her back and the lips on her forehead and the voice that said "it is fine" and that meant it. She trembled because she had not been held in ten years. She had not been comforted in ten years. She had not been told "it is fine" in ten years. And the feeling— the physical, actual, tangible feeling of being held— was so foreign, so alien, so overwhelming that her body did not know what to do with it.

So it did the only thing it could.

She cried.

She stopped fighting. She stopped pushing. She stopped hitting. Her fists uncurled. Her hands went flat on his chest. Her fingers spread. She held. She gripped. She clung.

And she cried.

The tears came. Not the screaming. Not the wailing. The tears. Silent. Steady. Running from her green eyes onto his skin. Soaking his chest. Pooling in the hollow of his collarbone.

Raven held her.

He did not speak. He did not move. He held her and he let her cry. His hand continued the slow circles on her back. His other hand cradled her head. His black eyes— violet beneath— looked over her shoulder.

At Latina.

Latina was seated on the grass.

Her body was bare. Both legs— the healed and the original— were tucked beneath her. Her dark hair was loose. Her breasts were bare— heavy, the nipples still stiff, the bite marks visible. Her pussy was leaking— the seed, the blood, the juice. But her face was calm. Collected. The face of a woman who has been in the information business for fifteen years and who has seen everything and who is not surprised by anything.

She was looking down.

Not at the ground. At her hands. At her fingers. At the calloused tips and the short nails and the scars of a woman who had fought for everything she had. She was quiet. Still. She did not move. She did not speak.

She already knew.

Everything. The mother. The king. The barbarians. The coffin. The promise. The coming of age. The concubine. The ten years of grief. She knew it all. Because she was the leader of the Information Guild. Because information was her trade. Because a princess with emerald hair and a dead mother and a father who had sold her to her mother’s killer was the kind of information that the guild collected, catalogued, and stored.

She had known before Raven had brought the princess here.

She had known before Raven had fucked her.

She had known before Raven had healed her leg.

She looked down. She did not look at the princess. She did not look at Raven. She looked at her hands. Because looking at the princess— at the girl who had been sold, who had been promised, who had been broken— would mean looking at herself. At the woman who had sold information about this girl’s life. At the woman who had profited from the tragedy of a child.

She was not ashamed. Latina did not do shame. She was a businesswoman. Information was her commodity. Tragedy was her currency. She had sold the story of the Emerald Princess to three different clients and had made enough gold to fund her network for a year.

But she looked down.

Raven’s eyes held hers for a moment. The black eyes— violet beneath— and the brown eyes. The exchange was silent. Brief. The exchange of two people who understand each other. Who know what the other is. Who do not judge.

He released the princess.

Slowly. Gently. His arms loosened. His hands withdrew. He held her at arm’s length. He looked at her face. At the green eyes— red, wet, swollen. At the emerald hair— tangled, dirty, plastered to her cheeks. At the mouth— trembling, the lips chapped, the lower lip bitten.

She looked at him.

"Latina," Raven said. He did not look at Latina. He looked at the princess. "Give me the contract that I prepared to gift... Princess"