Primordial Villain With A Slave Harem

Ayame, Seraphiel, Feng, Aurora, and Rosie sat together near the roots of Rosie's massive tree, with Felicity perched a little stiffly among them. The princess's face was pale, and her brows knitted dangerously tight.

Her voice trembled. "Is it true? Vex the Hexblade… she's really one of Lord Black's wives?"

"Yeah," Feng replied without even blinking.

"And that woman just now… Raika the Brutalizer… she just strolled in here and demanded to fight the boss of this place."

"Yeah."

"… You're being way too nonchalant about this, Jiai!" Felicity cried so hard that her hands flew up in disbelief.

Feng exhaled through her nose and leaned back against the tree with all the patience of someone talking to a child. "Airhead princess, I'm not sure if your limited brain capacity is enough to process new information. We're wanted criminals. Why exactly is it shocking to you that we house known criminals? The guy you keep calling 'Lord Black' is Devil. An infamous criminal, an upstart who earned his Vesper Phenom rank in the Consortium, where he was then assigned to the drug division. So forgive me if I fail to see why learning that a couple of the drug division's higher-ups are around here is world-shattering news."

Felicity's lips parted. Her gaze sharpened into a glare so icy it almost cut. "Watch your foul mouth, Jiai. I've just entered a whole new world, so some leeway is deserved, I would like to think! Wouldn't it be weird if I took all of this without getting shocked all the time?!"

Irritation, however, quickly gave way to even more shock. Her eyes widened as realization flooded her expression. "Drug department higher-ups…!! Does that mean you've met Black Fang?!" The princess shook right after uttering the name.

She didn't know too much about the Vesper Consortium, but… Everyone had heard about Black Fang. Unlike Vex, who was only truly notorious in Greenvale territory, her master had gained notoriety in the entire human nation.

"…" Feng said nothing in response. Her expression stayed bone-dry, lips pressed in a flat line.

Before the princess could lunge at the oriental teen and demand answers with a shakedown, Ayame spoke up.

Her voice was calm, but her tone bore the unmistakable weight of duty as well as authority. "Felicity."

The princess straightened her spine instinctively under the samurai's gaze.

"I am the group's second in command; it falls to me to do the dirty work our visionary of a leader might not want to do himself."

Felicity said nothing, which prompted Ayame to continue.

"As Jiai said, we are outlaws who are harboring very serious criminals among us. But you are the royal princess. The full-blood daughter of the man who would pay handsome bounties to anyone who could capture or kill us. We decided to treat you as a guest during your stay here, but because of who you are, there must be limits. And now that you are aware of Vex and Raika being here, an unpleasant duty falls to me. I have to tighten those limits of yours even further."

Felicity's shoulders sagged, her voice becoming terribly small. Ayame and Feng looked nearly identical save for the small age difference, but the energy with which the princess addressed them couldn't be any different. "… What do you mean, Lady Black?"

Hearing her timid tone, Ayame's eyes softened, but the samurai remained firm. "I mean that your necklace artifact will need to be confiscated. From now on, you'll only be allowed to speak with outsiders while supervised. That artifact allows you to call your father himself, and I cannot grant you that freedom any longer."

The princess's face fell even further. Her lips trembled, but Ayame wasn't quite certain if it was a protest. Instead, it gave her the impression that the princess was dejected about being treated as an outsider due to who she was.

Ayame sighed. For a moment, the stern mask slipped. "I don't enjoy doing this, Felicity. I know you have a good heart, and I know you wish us no harm. But I won't put the lives of my entire family in the hands of a teenager who might accidentally blurt out something dangerous during a late-night call with the king."

The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the rustling leaves above them.

That was until Felicity released a saddened whimper and willingly gave Ayame her necklace artifact. "I understand, Lady Black… Instead of brooding, I ought to be grateful for the way you treat a royal princess… Any other criminal would salivate at the opportunity of using me as blackmail material."

Thankfully, the princess missed the wry expressions of Aurora, Ayame, and Seraphiel. All adult women, and Feng as well, understood more than well that should Quinlan be pushed too far, he would be willing to use Felicity as a bargaining chip.

Well, he already was using her in a sense. Simply having the princess in his home gave him an incredibly strong voice when speaking with the king.

But the women also understood that their husband was a man capable of committing cruel things if someone in his family was threatened.

For example, if Blossom had been captured by Cassandra and the Queen back during Gina's extraction, they weren't certain Quinlan wouldn't have instantly called the king and begun demanding the dogkin's release lest Aelxios wanted to hear his daughter's screams.

Of course, Quinlan would've hated every second of it, but when the choice came between his woman or a girl he was in a friendly relationship with, well… The choice was obvious.

Serpahiel was quick to break the silence with a chripy tone. "By the way, I agree with you, Felicity. Jiai is just being grumpy; it's more than natural for you to be shocked by the things you learn about our lives. You should've seen this chaotic girl's face when she first joined us."

The princess's brooding expression brightened immediately once her brain registered the elf's words of support. Within a moment, a cheerful smile adorned her face. "Thank you, Miss Elf!" she chimed with a voice that carried the innocent relief of someone who desperately wanted to belong. "And yes, I know that this Jiai girl is a sour one, but we have to accept her for who she is, I suppose… Hehe!"

Feng ignored the annoying fly's buzzing in her ears and instead caught the mischievous twinkle in Seraphiel's eyes. The elf's tone had been too cheeky, too deliberate. Slowly, Feng's gaze narrowed, sending a sharp glare at the elf.

Seraphiel only met it with the slightest upturn of her lips, her gorgeous blue eyes twinkling with mischief.

Feng exhaled through her nose. She'd heard the stories from the others; she knew that the elf had a prankster streak hidden behind her graceful veneer. But until now, Seraphiel had been nothing but formal and restrained around her. This sudden shift… it wasn't lost on the oriental teen.

A thought formed as she studied the woman.

'She's teasing me repeatedly on purpose… testing me, maybe. Or…'

Feng's frown softened at the next thought.

'… Or maybe this is her way of accepting me into their lives. If she didn't care or was just tolerating my presence for Quin's sake, she wouldn't bother at all.'

For the first time, she didn't return fire. She simply looked away with a small huff and told Felicity to stop screeching nonsense.

The atmosphere settled, no longer gloomy.

*BZZZT!*

That was until a sharp vibration jolted through Ayame's palm. Everyone's heads turned instantly as the necklace artifact, resting in her hand, began to glow and ring with a magical hum.

The king was calling.