Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1654 Lovely Princesses

Amara entered first.

Her eyes were red-rimmed and wet, her lower lip caught between her teeth in the way it had been caught since she was a child of six coming to his chamber after a nightmare. She wore a sleeping gown too thin for the season and her arms were wrapped around her own middle as if she were holding herself together. Behind her, Vivienne followed a half-step back with her chin tucked toward her chest, fingers twisting at her hem. The sound she was making was small and fragile, caught somewhere between a sniffle and a sob.

They had been crying.

Alastair felt his heart skip in his chest, the way it always did when his princesses hurt and came to him for safety. The boastful war commander dissolved inside two heartbeats, replaced by the father who had held these girls through every scraped knee, every broken heart, every night terror their young minds had conjured, and who had held them through something far worse these past months.

Amaraʼs voice came out small and guilty, as if asking were a sin she could not bring herself to commit without shame.

”Papa... c-could we...” She swallowed. Her wet eyes dropped to the floor between her bare feet. ”Could we sleep here tonight...?”

A pause. Vivienneʼs fingers tightened on her hem.

”Weʼre scared, Papa,” Vivienne whispered, barely audible. ”Please...”

Alastairʼs chest ached in the good way. He opened both arms wide from the bed and gave them the same words he had given them since they were small enough to fit in the crook of one elbow.

”Come to Papa, my princesses.”

Behind him, Ophiraʼs sigh cut through the dark, precise and deeply unamused.

”Alastair.” Her voice was flat. ”They are grown women. This is not normal.”

She was already scooting toward the far edge of the bed, making room she did not want to make, her pillow dragged along with her in protest.

Alastairʼs head turned a fraction toward his wife, and his voice dropped to a hiss that carried no warmth whatsoever.

”You know what happened to them.”

”That was months ago.”

”Trauma does not vanish because time passes, Ophira.” The hiss sharpened. ”If my daughters need their fatherʼs bed to sleep without screaming, they will have their fatherʼs bed. End of discussion.”

Ophira said nothing further. Her back turned, her pillow adjusted, her displeasure radiating off her spine like heat from a banked coal.

The twins crawled into the sheets between their parents. Vivienne settled against Alastairʼs side immediately, her cheek finding his chest, her small frame curling into the space beneath his arm with a trust that made him ache. Amara wriggled into the space closer to Ophira, pushed her rear against her motherʼs hip, paused, then turned around and wrapped both arms around the Duchess.

”Mom...” Amara murmured against Ophiraʼs shoulder blade, her voice thick and sleepy and adoring. ”Youʼre so pretty...”

Ophiraʼs entire body went stiff.

”...Sleep. Now.”

Amara giggled, small and airy, and pressed her face deeper into her motherʼs shoulder.

The chamber settled.

Four bodies in one bed, the moonlight drawing a silver line across the foot of the sheets. Breathing slowed. Vivienneʼs small weight rose and fell against Alastairʼs ribs in the shallow rhythm of a girl who had finally found safety. Amaraʼs arms stayed locked around her motherʼs middle, her breath warm and even against Ophiraʼs spine. The Dukeʼs own eyes drifted shut in slow stages, each blink longer than the last, and the tension in his shoulders bled out into the pillow beneath his neck.

His princesses had come to him again. He had opened his arms, and they had crawled into the only place in the world where nothing could reach them. This was the part of fatherhood no war could replace and no campaign could replicate. His girls, grown as they were, still needed him. Still chose him. Still curled against his chest with the same blind trust they had carried since their first breath.

Alastair Thalion Greenvale fell asleep smiling.

Any other night, Alastair Thalion Greenvale would have felt it. A life of war against the animalistic beastkin tribes who fought with their sharp instincts had built reflexes into his bones that no amount of peace could strip, and the smallest shift of weight in a bed he shared would have snapped him awake with his hand already reaching for a weapon. Any other night.

But his girls were home. His princesses had crawled into his arms with tears on their faces and trust in their eyes, and the man who had never once lowered his guard on a campaign had lowered it here, in the only place in the world where he believed nothing could reach him.

”Hiya!”

The sound was a grunt of effort that came with a blade through his sternum.

”Gah!”

His eyes snapped open so hard the lids hurt. The pain arrived before comprehension, vast and immediate, a cold wrongness punching through his chest that ripped the breath from his lungs. Vivienne had barely moved. She was still pressed against his side, still curled beneath his arm, her cheek still warm against his ribs. The only thing that had changed was her hand, which had traveled six inches from where it rested on his stomach to the hilt of a dagger now buried to the guard in the meat above his heart.

Her eyes were open and looking up at him through her lashes, and they were not his daughterʼs eyes.

They were bright and giddy and utterly empty of the girl who had been crying against his chest ten minutes ago. The redness was gone. The trembling was gone. What looked back at him was a stranger wearing Vivienneʼs skin, and the stranger was beaming at him from the crook of his arm like a cat that had caught something.

”What...?” Alastair grunted, and his voice came out thin and ragged because the dagger in his chest was doing something to him, pulling his Strength out through the wound and into whatever vile enchantment coated the blade, each heartbeat siphoning deeper than blood loss could reach.

Across the bed, Amara giggled.

The sound was bright and delighted. Ophira woke to her daughter already on top of her, one palm clamped across the Duchessʼs mouth, the other driving a matching dagger into her stomach with a single clean thrust that pinned her to the mattress.

Ophiraʼs scream died behind Amaraʼs fingers. Her eyes blew wide above the muzzle of her daughterʼs hand, her body arching off the bed against the blade, her legs kicking beneath the sheets.

Alastairʼs hand found Vivienneʼs wrist and gripped. He was Level 74. The strength in his arm should have launched his daughter through the ceiling.

His fingers shook. His grip did nothing.

The dagger was drinking him. Every heartbeat pumped another mouthful of his Strength out through the wound and into the enchantmentʼs hungry channels, and the girl at his side could feel it happening because her smile widened a fraction with each pulse.

He tried to shout. His voice caught in his throat and came out a wheeze, a fraction of the roar that should have shaken the walls and brought every guard in the corridor running. Ophira was trying the same behind Amaraʼs palm, her screams compressing into thin nasal sounds that barely reached the foot of the bed.

Vivienne swung her leg over him and straddled his stomach in one smooth motion, now that the enchantment had done its work and the man beneath her could not throw her off. She yanked the dagger free and Alastairʼs body spasmed beneath her.

Both of them looked at their daughters and could not reconcile what they saw.

These were not the girls who had crawled into their bed. These were not the trembling, teary creatures who had begged to sleep beside their parents. The eyes looking down at Alastair were gleeful and cruel, and across the bed, Amaraʼs face wore the same expression with a cold brightness that made it worse.

”Hup!” Vivienne drove the blade back in two inches to the right with a sharp little grunt of effort, and the Dukeʼs back arched off the mattress as the enchantment found a fresh channel to drain. His hands clawed at her arms but could not close properly, his Level 74 body fighting a war against itself as the blade systematically dismantled the stat foundation that made him strong.

She pulled it out again. ”Hah!” Back in beneath his ribs. ”Nngh!” A fourth thrust along his collarbone that tore a wet line through the muscle.