My Taboo Harem! Chapter 256: Two Dragons: Master. Wild Card. Slave

Just for a heartbeat. Just a flash of sothing—surprise? Offence? Amusent at the sheer suicidal audacity of this charity-case speck?—before the porcelain mask slamd back into place, flawless and cold.

"Before you say anything," Phei continued, because apparently his survival instincts had booked a one-way ticket to the Bahamas and left a postcard saying wish you were here, "don’t get wrong. I’m not complaining. Whining because soone’s stronger than you..."

He shrugged, casual, like he wasn’t standing in the den of a creature that could unmake him with a syllable. "That’s for the weak. For people destined to be slaves to the powerful."

Sothing shifted in her expression.

Her eyes narrowed. Slowly. Like a cat deciding the mouse in front of her had just done sothing unexpectedly entertaining.

She leaned back in her chair—that black leather throne—and studied him with an intensity that made his skin consider crawling off his bones and hiding under the nearest antique sideboard.

"What," she said softly, "would a boy like you know about power?"

Phei shrugged again.

And then—because his death wishcourting warning alert was apparently still on vacation in the tropics—he walked to the chair across from her desk and sat down.

Just... sat.

Like he belonged there.

Like this was a negotiation between equals instead of a few weeks old dragon wandering into an ancient dragoness den, asking for the wine list, and wondering aloud if the chef could make it quick.

They faced each other across the marble expanse of her desk.

Phei could feel her gaze on him. asuring. Calculating. Trying to force this strange, too-confident boy into boxes he kept refusing to fit inside.

Dravenna was surprised.

She could admit that much, at least to herself. She’d stopped lying to herself about things like that a long ti ago—it was an indulgence she couldn’t afford.

Not by his defiance. She’d seen defiance before. Students with more money than brains who thought their family nas made them untouchable. They all broke eventually. They all bent.

But this one...

He’d felt her aura. She’d watched him feel it—the involuntary step back, the hand at his throat, the way his body had reacted like prey finally recognizing the apex predator in the room. He’d been overwheld. Drowning.

And then he’d simply... stopped.

One mont gasping. The next standing tall, eting her eyes, that strange athyst gaze burning with sothing that looked almost like recognition.

Even now, she was pressing. Testing. Letting her aura lean harder against whatever impossible shield he’d sohow constructed.

It didn’t reach him.

Interesting.

"Let ask you sothing," Phei said, answering her question with one of his own. "Familiar with the power structure in Paradise? And which category do you fall into?"

Dravenna went very still.

Then, slowly, she leaned back. Steepled her fingers. Let herself really look at the boy sitting across from her.

Seventeen. Charity case. Ward of Harold Maxton, which ant effectively parentless. Nothing. Nobody.

A speck of dust in the grand machinery of Paradise’s elite.

And yet.

Those eyes.

Athyst shot through with veins that seed to shift and swirl like they couldn’t decide what color they wanted to be today. Eyes that shouldn’t exist on a face like his. Eyes that reminded her of—

No...

She pushed the thought away before it could fully form.

"Let ask you sothing, instead." She tilted her head, silver hair catching the light like liquid rcury. "What do you see yourself as? Right now. In this mont." A pause. Deliberate. Sharp enough to draw blood. "Are you a Master? A Wild Card?" Another pause. "Or are you still a slave?"

Phei laughed.

The sound was wrong for this room. Too casual. Too comfortable. Like he’d forgotten where he was and who he was talking to. Or like he’d rembered and simply decided it didn’t matter.

He stood from the chair.

Walked—slow, deliberate—to the massive gilt-frad mirror on the far wall. Worth more than most people’s houses. He stared at his reflection for a long mont then to the entire academy expanse.

"That’s the power structure inParadise, isn’t it?" he said, not turning around. "Everyone falls into one of those categories. Master. Wild Card. Slave." His voice went thoughtful. Almost distant. "But nobody seems to understand the depths of any of them. Not even the most unfortunate slaves—the ones born into it. Born to serve the so-called masters of this place. Or the Masters themselves"

"Is there a point coming?" Velvet-wrapped razors. "Or should I send for refreshnts while you philosophize at my mirror?"

"Also... be careful."

Her voice cracked through the air like a whip.

"You’re speaking to an Ashford. A master." She let the word hang between them like a guillotine blade waiting to drop. "Depending on your next words, there will be consequences."

"Consequences," Phei repeated. Like he was tasting the word. Like he found it funny.

"The last student who spoke to like this," she said, and there was silk stretched over broken glass in every syllable, "spent his senior year at a reform school in Siberia." A pause. Lethal. "They say he never quite recovered from the cold."

Phei just laughed again.

Laughed.

At her.

"You’re walking on very thin ice, Mr. Oh, so might, Tiamat."

"I know." He t her eyes in the mirror’s reflection and smiled. A real smile. That made her want to check for hidden blades. "I can hear it cracking. Beautiful sound, don’t you think?"

He turned back to the mirror.

"Perhaps the only structure that truly understands its place," he continued, like threats of Siberian exile were just small talk, "is the Wild Card who’s been broken into an obedient slave."

He turned his head. Just enough to catch her eye in the reflection. again

"And maybe that’s the most dangerous one of all. Or the most loyal." A pause. "Depending on their nature. Their situation. What they’ve got left to lose."

Sothing flickered in her eyes.

Sothing old. Sothing she’d buried four years ago and thought—hoped—would stay buried.

Sothing that looked almost like pain.

Dravenna stood.

The movent was fluid. Graceful. A motion that ca from decades of knowing exactly how much space your body occupied and how to make that space feel like a threat.

Phei didn’t turn. Didn’t need to. He could feel her presence behind him—that massive, suffocating weight that his aura was barely keeping at bay.

He was still ahead of the ga she did not know she was playing.

She was tall. He’d known that intellectually, but now, with her heels clicking against marble as she approached, he understood it in his bones. When she stopped beside him, they were nearly eye to eye. Centitres of difference.

Close enough that he could sll her perfu—sothing floral and expensive and subtly wrong, like roses that had learned to bite.

She didn’t look at the mirror.

She looked at him.

"You have a death wish," she said. Not a question.

"Had one," Phei corrected. Past tense. "Survived it... and here I am!"

Sothing flickered across her face—too fast to catch, too complicated to na.

Then she walked back to her chair, trailing her fingers along her desk as she went, and settled onto its edge. Sitting on it. Casual.

Watching him.

How did we get here?

The thought flickered through her mind, unbidden.

She’d called him here to reprimand him. To remind him of his place. To crush whatever spark of rebellion had made him think he could challenge a Heavenchild and survive. And now we’re... what? Discussing power structures? Philosophy? Playing verbal chess while my aura presses uselessly against whatever impossible shield he’d constructed?

She recognized strategy when she saw it.

This boy had co with a plan. A script. Sothing careful and calculated.

Her aura had shattered it at first, all of it.

And he’d rebuilt.On the fly. Real ti. Restructured his entire approach while drowning in her presence and co out the other side with... this. Whatever this was.

Dangerous, she thought. This one is dangerous.

But dangerous could be useful.

And it had been so long since anyone had been dangerous to her in a way that didn’t make her want to rip out their throats.

"Enough."

Her voice was different now. Softer. More curious than commanding.

"I called you here to—"

"Oh, I know exactly why you called here."

Phei turned from the mirror.

Started walking toward her.

"The mighty Prince complained." His voice was light. Almost amused. Like they were sharing a joke. "Ran crying to Daddy, probably. Or maybe straight to you—why bother with middlen when you’ve got a perfectly good puppet Dean on speed dial?"

He laughed.

The sound bounced off marble and gold like it was mocking both.

"And now here cos part of the Oversee Queen of his little kingdom, calling in a subject who forgot his ’place’." Another step. Closer. "Ti to punish the charity case. Put him back in his box. Let the spineless prince keep running amok while the adults clean up his sses."

He was close now.

Too close.

Close enough to see the way her jaw tightened. The way her nostrils flared. The way sothing ancient and furious stirred behind those jade-green eyes.

"How the mighty have fallen."