Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1478  Shameless Declaration

"The bearkin foreman, Groth, he's been incredible. Organized his people into work crews in the first hour. Didn't even wait for instructions, just started building." She paused. "I think he needs to build. I think if he stops moving, he'll start remembering."

Quinlan looked at her.

This woman. This girl, who could barely swing a sword, who had watched him leave for a trial that might have killed him and had chosen to stay behind and work instead of worry.

She understood people the way he understood battlefields.

"Quin?" Jasmine looked up at him. Her cheeks flushed faintly under his stare. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"No reason."

Jasmine narrowed her eyes. "You're thinking something sweet about me, aren't you?"

"I was calculating tax revenue."

"Liar! Tell me, I want to hear it!"

"No."

"Yes!"

"No."

"Hmph! Men and their useless masculinity! Why can't you just speak your heart?"

<I like this girl already. Screw your dickless wimpy attitude and be a real man! Praise the woman who stayed behind for your sake!> Nyxara demanded. She even added a'hmph!' for emphasis. It sounded like the succubus was immensely enjoying the drama while backseating him from the soul realm.

But Quinlan had to admit. For once, she had a point.

He reached down.

His hands found Jasmine's waist and lifted. She weighed nothing to him. Her feet left the ground, her eyes went wide, and a startled sound escaped her lips as she was pulled flush against his chest, held above the cobblestones with her hands bracing against his shoulders.

"Quin? What are you-"

He looked into her eyes.

"I love you, Jasmine Argentis."

He said it loud. He said it clear. No grin. No deflection. No joke waiting behind the words to take the edge off. Just his voice, carrying across the square, over the heads of workers and children, of freed slaves and nuns, for every single person in earshot to hear.

The square went quiet.

A dwarf lowered his hammer mid-swing. A group of children froze mid-chase. The bunnykin woman at the census table looked up from her ledger, blushing hard. Two elves stopped arguing about the rights of trees. A bearkin hauling timber set his load down and turned.

Silence.

Jasmine's lips trembled.

Her eyes filled, and her face crumpled into the kind of smile that a woman made when the man she loved finally, publicly, without reservation, told the world what she already knew.

"I love you too, Quinlan Elysiar!" she shouted back at him.

Then she grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him.

It was not a polite kiss. It was not a forehead kiss. It was the kiss of a woman who had spent days awake, running a town alone, who had watched him fly off to a trial that might have killed him, who had chosen duty over worry and buried every ounce of fear beneath logistics, census reports, and housing allocations.

She kissed him like she was collecting payment for all of it.

Quinlan kissed her back.

<Good.> Nyxara was satisfied.

The square watched.

And the square smiled.

The children giggled. A few of the older orphan girls clasped their hands together with stars in their eyes. The nuns looked away, though not all of them. The dwarves exchanged glances. The elves pretended not to care, which meant they cared immensely. A wolfkin woman nudged the wolfkin man beside her, clearly asking why he couldn't be like this.

The man pretended not to notice.

Despite the differing reactions, one thing was clear. There was nothing to mock. Nothing to hide.

Their governor loved their liberator. Their liberator loved their governor. It was simple and it was real, and in a town full of people who had been stolen from their homes, freed from chains, and dropped into a strange new life with nothing but hope and the word of a man they barely knew, seeing that man hold a woman like she was the most important thing in his world meant more than any speech he could've given.

Construction stopped. Hammers rested on shoulders. Saws went quiet. The square held its breath, giving the moment room to exist.

But within moments, Jasmine's fingers snapped.

Loud. Sharp. Without pulling her lips from Quinlan's.

The workers blinked.

Then the grins spread.

This woman. She had absolutely no intention of stopping the kiss, but she demanded the work resume immediately. Her priorities were crystal clear, and somehow, being ordered back to labor by a governor who was actively making out with the lord of the settlement in broad daylight was the most motivating thing any of them had experienced all day.

Chuckles rolled through the square. A dwarf shook his head, picked up his hammer, and swung. The rhythm resumed. Saws bit into wood. Voices picked back up. The noise of Miri Town rebuilt itself around them, and the moment folded into the chaos like it had always belonged there.

After what felt like only ten seconds to her but was actually minutes, Jasmine finally pulled back. Her cheeks were flushed.

She looked at him with swollen lips and bright blue eyes and a smile so wide it made her cheeks ache.

Quinlan set her down. His thumb brushed her cheek once.

"Great job, Jasmine."

She beamed.

"But it's time for me to resume my activities." His grin turned sharp. "You can probably expect even more citizens to step through the gate very soon."

Jasmine's expression changed.

The warmth stayed. The love stayed. But beneath it, behind those blue irises, something else surfaced. A glint. The same glint that had earned her the title of Tyrant of Commerce, the same cold calculation that had crushed her competitors in the merchant world, and would crush anyone who stood between her and the growth of this town.

"Send them all," she decreed. "We need manpower, and we're actively stealing from our biggest rivals." Her chin lifted. "Go get me as many willing citizens as you possibly can. I will take care of everything else."

The criminal that flashed through those blue eyes when she talked about stealing populations from enemy nations was far too sexy.

This woman was a cutthroat thug made governor. And he liked it that way. It fit his style perfectly.

Soon, Quinlan released her, turned, and walked toward the portal.

He had a war to get back to.