Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 2018: Beneath the Stars

Della finally remembered the spoon in her hand and brought it to her mouth.

"Mmm...!"

She closed her eyes.

The crab broke apart against her tongue, sweet and tender beneath the warm butter. She’d expected something like the little river crabs sold in baskets near the market. Those needed sauce and a great deal of patient picking to become worth eating.

This filled her mouth with rich, succulent meat, and she wanted another spoonful before she’d finished swallowing the first.

"Oh, Goddess."

Tavi looked down at Della’s bowl, then hurriedly tasted her own.

"Mm!"

Her free hand caught Della’s sleeve. Della nodded to her, understanding perfectly, and went back for more.

Across the fire, Brena had stopped watching Black. She was bent over her dinner, using a piece of bread to push every loose flake of crab onto her spoon.

"Lucille," she managed after swallowing, "what did you put in this?"

"Butter, salt, and the herbs Della brought."

Brena looked at Della with something close to accusation.

"You put those herbs in our meals."

"I do."

"It doesn’t taste like this."

"...Are you insinuating that I can’t even use the herbs correctly?"

"Don’t use hard words just to appear more dignified. I know you too well. And yes, that’s exactly what I’m ’insinuating.’"

"Ladies, it’s the crab that’s doing the heavy lifting..." Lucille giggled, hiding the fact that she did in fact have more than a decade of experience cooking meals for her inn.

She offered another helping, and all three women were holding out their bowls. Smiling, she filled them and passed over the bread, explaining that she’d kept some sauce warm for dipping.

Tavi immediately tore off a piece, dragged it through the sauce, and took a bite.

"We should live out here."

"You complain about sleeping on the ground," Brena reminded her.

"We have a fortress to live in. What do you mean, on the ground? We get to live rent-free, too!!"

"Yeah, well... Actually, hmm..."

As the women were debating the benefits and drawbacks of living in a dirt mound, the rest of the party was lively as well.

"Could I have some of that, Hubby~?"

Vex indicated the bread in Black’s hand. He dipped it in the sauce before bringing it to her mouth, and she accepted it with a pleased hum, leaning comfortably into his side.

"Good?"

"Mm~"

"Master! Blossom would also like to be fed!"

The dogkin immediately came around to his other side. Black chuckled as she opened her mouth, her ears pointing eagerly toward him while he prepared her bite.

Tavi looked down at the bread in her own hand.

"Don’t," Della whispered.

"Don’t what? I’m just eating."

"Then why are you moving your blanket?"

Ayame burst out laughing beside them. Tavi stopped dragging the corner toward Black’s seat and smoothed it with great care.

"There was a lump."

"A lump? In Lord Black’s fortress?" Brena asked.

"!!" Tavi’s eyes widened. The implications of saying yes... Her gaze found Black, who didn’t seem to care one bit, happy feeding and being fed by his girls. But still, with wry lips, Tavi refused to utter those words.

"Uh... Nice weather we’re having."

...

Later, with dinner finished and the girls still talking around the fire, Quinlan wandered toward the tower overlooking the stream.

Moonlight reached the upper steps. He climbed to the watch platform, then jumped onto the flat earthen roof above its inner half.

Above the surrounding treetops, the night sky spread open from horizon to horizon, crowded with stars.

Black Fang was already there.

She sat near the outer edge with her legs stretched before her, her sheathed blade lying within reach. Black silk pooled around her hips, and the moonlight caught the pale curve of her cheek as she looked up at the moon.

Quinlan stopped a few paces away. Her stillness held him there for a moment as he watched the beautiful woman who had found this place before him.

Then he went to sit beside her.

There was room between their shoulders. Resting his hands behind him, he stretched out his legs and followed her gaze to the moon.

For a while, the conversation below was clear enough for him to make out individual voices. Ayame giggled at something, and the answering protests brought a smile to his face. Beside him, Black Fang remained motionless.

The roof was cool beneath his palms. With his belly full and the breeze moving gently through his hair, Quinlan let his head fall back, enjoying the night air against his uncovered face.

He could hear the stream beyond the walls, its soft rush mingling with the wind in the trees below.

Minutes passed before she spoke.

"The moon looks the same as always."

Her eyes stayed on it. He waited, content to look with her.

"...But it feels different."

Quinlan turned toward her.

There was wonder in her voice, quiet and unguarded. She’d offered him the thought while they sat together, trusting him with this unfamiliar feeling she was trying to understand.

He smiled softly and looked back up.

Moonlight lay across the roof as they sat side by side, close enough for him to feel the warmth of her arm whenever the breeze died.

Eventually, Black Fang reached behind her head and loosened her hair. The dark strands slipped over her shoulders as she lowered herself onto her elbows, then lay back on the roof with her face turned to the sky.

Quinlan joined her, folding one arm beneath his head.

Lying back, he had the whole sky before him. Stars filled the vast darkness from one edge of his vision to the other, faint lights appearing wherever he let his eyes linger.

As her attention wandered beyond the moon, Quinlan followed it toward the fainter lights. He wondered what she imagined when she looked at them.

"The stars back home were suns," he said. "Some had whole worlds circling them."

At that, she glanced at him. He smiled at her and let her consider it, listening to the stream while her attention returned to the sky.

"We searched for life around the stars near Earth and found nothing. Maybe the worlds around these aren’t so empty..."

Black Fang lifted an arm toward a bright cluster overhead and opened her hand. For a while she held it there, looking into the vastness beyond her fingers.

"I spent so long trying to leave the Suppression..."

The words came quietly. Quinlan remembered her in the shallows, watching seawater drain between her fingers, struggling to comprehend that she could finally walk beyond the place that had stopped her.

More than a hundred thousand attempts to escape. She’d told them that herself, standing before an ocean that was suddenly open to her.

He looked at her raised hand.

"I want to see."

The longing in her voice made his chest ache. She lay beside him with her fingers reaching toward distant suns, allowing herself to want something so enormous.

Quinlan raised his free hand. At the touch of his fingertips, Black Fang turned her palm to his, watching as he slipped his fingers between hers.

Her hand was warm and soft. Her fingers closed around his hand, and his smile widened.

"Then I’ll take you to every star in the galaxy and beyond," he promised.

Black Fang remained silent for a good few seconds, then turned her head on the roof to look at him.

"That sounds like torture."

Her violet eyes went back to the sky.

"If your tales are to be believed, there are nigh infinite stars."

Quinlan grinned. He brought their joined hands down between them, keeping hers enclosed in his.

"Then we’ll only visit the ones that interest us. We’ll go where we please, when we please, and no one will stop us. How about that?"

She watched him for another moment before returning her attention to the stars.

He lay beside her, his thumb resting against the side of her hand. Through their linked fingers he felt her shift closer, until her sleeve brushed his forearm and her hair spread against his shoulder.

The fire below burned lower. As the conversation faded, the stream’s soft rush carried up to the roof.

Quinlan let his gaze drift across the sky, lingering wherever the stars gathered thickest. Black Fang’s fingers tightened around his, and he answered with a gentle squeeze.

He was happy here. The earth beneath his back, her hand in his, the sky she wanted to explore stretching above them... He could have stayed like this until morning.

For a long time, they did nothing but look. Then Black Fang parted her lips.

"Thank you."

Quinlan glanced at her, startled.

A lone tear was slipping from the corner of her eye. It caught the moonlight as it traveled toward her temple, and he stared, his fingers growing still around hers.

"Thank you, Quinlan..."

She met his eyes.

"For showing me that..."

A smile touched her lips, so tender that the sight of it left him speechless.

"Life can be this beautiful."

Happiness shone in those violet eyes, open for him to see, and his chest ached with affection.

She was breathtaking.

He wanted to keep looking at her, to remember every detail of her face in the moonlight. Her expression stayed soft beneath his gaze, and his own smile returned with a tenderness he couldn’t have hidden if he’d tried.

Quinlan released her hand to slide his arm beneath her shoulders, drawing her against him. Black Fang eased closer until her head rested on his shoulder, her loosened hair spilling across his chest.

He brought his other hand from beneath his head to rest over her waist, where she caught it between her fingers. Together they looked up at the stars.

"Yeah... It really can," he muttered.