Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1812: Embarrassed Daughter

Morning finished rising over Miri Town, and the workroom finally surrendered.

Sunlight fell through the hole in Naomi’s roof in one honest golden column, dust still turning lazily inside it, and beneath that accidental skylight, an alchemist family was coming apart at the seams.

Naomi sat on her bench with her apron strings undone and her hands open in her lap, too spent to pretend otherwise. Gideon had sunk into the room’s only armchair, notebook against his chest like a sleeping infant.

Aurora was the best off, thanks to her being higher level than her parents, but she still leaned against the center bench with her platinum hair escaping its tie one strand at a time, and even her posture, usually the straightest in any room, had filed for a leave of absence.

Quinlan stood among them, his vitality already returning, skin going from pale parchment to healthy.

He inclined his head to Naomi and Gideon both.

"Thanks, you two." His voice was quieter than the room was used to hearing from him. "You didn’t owe me any of this."

Gideon’s monocle came off. He polished it on his sleeve, set it back, looked at Quinlan, and took it off again, as though the words might parse better through cleaner glass.

"Thanks... us?" The third adjustment failed as thoroughly as the first two. "Young man, do you have any grasp of what we witnessed tonight? Essence that answers speech! A reduction bound by will! Alchemists will be arguing about this night centuries after our names are dust, and we were here for it! It’s us who should be grateful for being present at this moment!"

"What my husband is trying to say," Naomi cut in, "is that there’s no need for gratitude between family."

Her smile was soft. It was also, in a way that had nothing to do with her tired shoulders and everything to do with the glint underneath, dangerous.

"But if you insist on repaying us..." The glint sharpened. "I want grandchildren. Big, healthy ones. One girl and one boy, minimum."

"MOM!"

"Grandpa Gideon does have a ring to it," Gideon mused from the armchair.

"DAD!"

Quinlan smirked, entirely unbothered. "I’m afraid that desire of yours will have to wait a while."

"Aww." Naomi pouted. A full pout, lips and all, and she knew exactly how effective it was.

"Stop pouting! Why are you pouting?! You’re a middle-aged woman, act like one!" Aurora had pushed off the bench, pointing at her own parent like she was flagging a safety violation.

"Excuse me, young lady? I’m not middle-aged."

"..." Aurora didn’t mean to say something too rude, so she instead turned delusion into a weapon. "Then stop demanding grandkids!"

"No."

What a cute family.

Aurora achieved a new shade of red, seized Quinlan by the arm, and began hauling all two meters of him toward the door with the strength of pure mortification. "We’re leaving. Mom’s gone crazy, she needs time alone to calm down."

"Really? She looks pretty normal to me," Quinlan noted, letting himself be hauled.

"My daughter is just flustered," Naomi told him warmly, waving from her bench. "Isn’t she adorable?"

"Yeah," Quinlan smiled over his shoulder. "She is. You have great genes."

"Right?"

"Mom, take your meds!" Aurora shouted, and slammed the door on her parents’ laughter.

...

The morning street had opinions about what came through that door.

The apothecary stood on one of Miri Town’s waking lanes, and the lane was busy enough that recognition arrived within three heartbeats.

"The lord! The lord is here!"

"By the walls, it’s him..."

"Someone get Tomas, he’ll never believe..."

Unlike Lucille, whose family’s quiet life had needed a plain dress and a plainer name, the Loriens had never asked for anonymity.

Half the town had watched their apothecary go up board by board, and everyone knew whose parents had moved in, the same way everyone knew their daughter stood beside the lord himself.

It was no secret, so Quinlan spared the gathering crowd exactly none of his attention.

Aurora had stopped at the top of the steps, arms crossed, fuming at the cobblestones.

Strands of platinum stuck out where the night had pulled them loose, her amber eyes were bright with leftover embarrassment, and the morning light was being frankly unfair about the whole arrangement. Flustered, rumpled, and utterly sexy.

"They’re too much," she muttered. "Dad’s a fanatic. And Mom... Mom is Mom. There’s no fixing either of them."

Quinlan stepped in close.

She noticed the shadow fall over her and looked up, and whatever she found in his face made her take half a step back against the railing. "W-what? What is it?"

"My gorgeous alchemist," he said, "is way too cute. I wanted to see from up close."

The red came back all at once, ears included, and she began observing her feet furiously. "You lost too much blood tonight. You need rest, your brain is clearly..."

He reached out and caught her chin, tilting her face up to his, and her protest died somewhere on the way out. The pout arrived instantly.

"You always play the straight woman for everyone. Dependable, smart, calm and collected." His thumb traced the line of her jaw. "Let me enjoy this view for once."

"Not fair..." she murmured, quieter, making no attempt whatsoever to reclaim her chin.

"I’ll have to visit your parents more often with you."

"Don’t you dare, they’ll only get worse, Mom will start knitting baby clothes just to pressure me-"

He leaned down and kissed her.

"No! Quin...! Bad Quin... I’m not done..." She melted almost instantly, complaint and all, her hands closing on the front of his shirt as though she’d merely been waiting for a better argument. Two big hands slid down to her round butt, and Aurora left the ground in one practiced hop, legs wrapping around his waist, night-long exhaustion apparently negotiable after all.

And just like that, in front of a street’s worth of audience, Quinlan turned, carried his woman down the apothecary steps, and walked into the [Warp Gate] that unfolded ahead of him, her lips never once leaving his.

The gate winked shut, and Miri Town’s morning was left to fend for itself.

Jealous men stared at the empty air. So did no small number of jealous women. Teenagers of both kinds went variously red, and a baker’s boy dropped an entire tray without noticing. Several small children asked questions that several parents suddenly found fascinating reasons not to hear.

Another legendary sighting of the town’s lord went down in Miri Town’s history that day.

...

The [Warp Gate] delivered Quinlan into the morning air of his own garden, and Aurora neither noticed nor cared.

She was busy. Her fingers had buried themselves in his hair somewhere between one town and the next, her thighs stayed locked around his waist, and the kiss had long since stopped being a farewell to Miri Town.

The family’s dependable buffer and scientist, the calm and collected voice of reason who had spent the entire night holding three alchemists and one bleeding primordial together, was currently making small, impatient sounds against her man’s mouth, pressing closer with every one of them, a night’s worth of worry demanding payment all at once.

"Mmh... Quin..."