My Taboo Harem!

One of the Void Djinn’s face changed whenever the eye attempted to understand it, shifting between smooth absence, half-formed features and the impression of something watching from the bottom of a hole.

Hollow shapes revolved above its head in the suggestion of a crown, each piece of geometry folding through angles the mortal world had never learned to accept.

The second was taller and far thinner, resembling a vertical wound that had reluctantly taken human form.

Invisible chains pressed occasional dents into the darkness surrounding its body, revealing restraints only through the pressure they placed upon absence. Light curved away from it, distances became unreliable near its outline and the floor beneath its feet appeared several steps farther away than it truly was.

Danton studied them both before pointing toward the star-chested Djinn. "Send that one after Anahita," he ordered, turning his gaze toward the elves.

"It is not going there to assist her, protect her or reveal itself like some obedient little shadow. It will follow her from a distance, watch every person she meets and record every deviation from the instructions Marcus gives her. She is not to know that it exists."

The elf with the broken crown slowly raised his head, his cracked lips trembling before he forced himself to speak: "Anahita’s senses are exceptionally powerful. Even among the most powerful beings, there are few who could remain near her without being noticed."

Danton’s golden eyes settled upon him, and the chains binding all five elves tightened simultaneously. Metal sank into their wrists, collars burned against throats and the male elf’s knees struck the altar as pain tore through the remnants of his strength.

Danton watched him struggle without changing expression:

"Then perhaps," he said softly, "you should make certain the Djinn does not behave like one of those few."

The woman with woodland-blue eyes bowed quickly, her chains rattling around her ankles as she lowered herself:

"She will not suspect a thing," she promised, the words emerging with the careful desperation; she knew that failure would be punished through every one of them.

"Good." Danton turned his attention toward the second Void-Djinn and gestured for it to remain where it stood. "This one stays here for emergencies. The Dragon has developed a tedious habit of producing a new power whenever our plans begin succeeding, and I would rather retain one useful blade than discover later that we threw every weapon into a fire we did not understand."

Marcus briefly lifted his eyes from the phone and regarded the towering absence. "You call that a blade?" he asked with a faint chuckle. "It looks as though reality attempted suicide and left the wound standing."

The Void-Djinn’s hollow crown rotated once above its head.

Marcus’s amusement weakened as he lowered the phone slightly. "Did I offend it?"

"If you had," Danton replied without looking at him, "your head and the rest of your body would currently be occupying locations incapable of communicating with one another."

Marcus considered the answer for a moment, then returned his attention to the phone with considerably no care at all at the threat.

Danton faced the elves once again. "What of the three Djinns sent to obtain the Park key?"

The male elf with green markings burned across his face answered this time.

His sacred patterns had been scarred repeatedly by the iron runes placed over them, and each word forced the marks along his throat to pulse with pain. "They have reached the outer territories of the Park ancestral estate, but they have not yet crossed the final barriers."

Danton’s expression hardened as his finger stopped against the armrest. "Why?"

The elf hesitated for no more than a breath, but the chains reacted immediately, tightening around his body until a broken sound escaped his throat:

"After what happened at the Ashford Estate, we instructed them to proceed with greater caution," he said quickly. "The Djinns failed to sense the presences resisting within the Ashford household until the attack had already begun. Three were destroyed immediately and we do not wish to repeat the same mistake with the Parks."

Even the smug satisfaction on the Maxtons’ faces thinned at the reminder.

The death of three Void-Djinns was not some small loss that could be dismissed as the failure of ordinary assassins. Those beings had entered ancestral domains, crossed spatial laws and removed keys from treasuries guarded for centuries.

Whatever had killed them deserved caution.

Danton and Marcus knew exactly what it was.

"The three at the Park estate are studying the movement of the ancestral beings residing there," the elf continued. "They are searching for concealed presences and they will enter only after identifying the safest way to obtain the key."

Danton remained silent for several moments, his gaze drifting beyond the elves toward the enormous altar. The thirteen keys continued circling behind him, casting gold across his face while his thoughts moved somewhere far colder.

At last, he nodded. "Tell them they may take their time," he said. "Patience is permitted. Failure is not."

The elf bowed as deeply as the chains allowed: "It will be done."

Danton leaned back in the head chair, but the earlier leisure had left his posture.

Three Void-Djinns had been destroyed inside the Ashford Estate, and the deeper he examined that fact, the more irritating it became. These were creatures that travelled through the spaces law had forgotten.

Consort had not merely discovered them; she had killed three before the others escaped.

The power required to do that was enough to disturb Earth itself.

Any being releasing that much genuine power on this planet should have triggered the Laws of the Universe. Earth tolerated powerful bloodlines, hidden immortals and the descendants of ancient races because most of them restrained themselves beneath the threshold the world could endure.

Those who exceeded that limit risked immediate rejection.

The Laws would descend, seize the intruding existence and throw it beyond the planet’s boundaries before its strength damaged the world’s foundations.

Yet Consort had slaughtered three Void-Djinns without consequence, no heavenly rejection or forced expulsion.

The Laws had watched and remained silent.

Danton’s fingers tightened slowly against the chair as his mind returned to the Ashfords’ behaviour over the previous decades.

How had he failed to recognise it sooner? Their rebellion had never been reckless, their arrogance had never been empty and they had broken away from the Heavenchilds, insulted the old alliance and carried themselves with the confidence of people who knew retaliation would fail before it reached their gates.

All along, someone had been protecting them.

Danton had never imagined a protector capable of cutting through Void-Djinns while the universe looked elsewhere.

His thoughts moved inevitably toward Phei.

The Dragon had awakened early; his power behaved as though the ordinary hierarchy had become an insult it no longer intended to recognize.

"Could that woman’s freedom to use such power beneath the Laws and without ant consequences be related to him?" Had his awakening damaged some boundary, opened some hidden authority or granted protection to those standing around him<anno data-annotation-id="6696fc1e-4bd7-a15c-32bc-c8a680e3d329" data-title="?">?¹</anno>

Danton’s jaw tightened as the possibility began to root itself in his thoughts.

Marcus noticed and chuckled. He leaned farther back in his chair, amusement gathering around his mouth as he turned the phone in one hand:

"You truly are becoming paranoid," he said, then raised the screen of his phone toward Danton. "Does this fool look as though he had anything to do with what happened at the Ashford Estate?"

Danton turned his eyes toward the phone.

<annotations style="display: none;">Guys I hope you remember before Phei, One Above used to the one who helped the Legacy boys and even covered some of their crimes using Consort, so of course Danton, Marcus and other boys know about Consort’s powers but not One Above’s and who she really is but it also means Danton know or at least has an idea what Consort is capable of and her limits, thus the surprise... what he doesn’t know is One Above’s involvement.</annotations>

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