Villain's Breeding System: Evolving 999+ Harem into an SSS-Rank Legion-Chapter 210 - Promising to Give a Bride Gift

Chapter 210: Chapter 210 - Promising to Give a Bride Gift

He was looking at her the way people looked at something they had been thinking about before it arrived and were now adjusting their prior image against the actual thing. The purple eyes, in the morning light of the sitting room — not the firelight, not the forest light. Just the honest, flat morning light that came through the windows without flattering anyone. That found the architecture of his face and laid itself across it the way morning light did, and did not improve it, because it didn’t need to.

She put her hand flat on her knee.

"’Are you not afraid of me?’" he said.

The question came simply. Not performed. The specific, honest curiosity of someone who has been watching someone else’s response to them and found it unusual.

She considered this.

"’No,’" she said. Then: "’There’s a reason for that.’"

"’What is it,’" he said.

"’I feel—’" She paused. The specific, measured pause of someone who does not pause often and is doing it because she is choosing her words with care. "’That I know you. Somewhat. In a way I can’t explain by the current timeline.’"

He was very still.

"’And,’" she continued, "’that you could be—’" Another pause. "’A blessing. To my life specifically.’"

The sitting room.

Morning light.

He looked at her for a moment with the specific, arrested quality of someone whose interior state has just received information that they were not prepared to receive.

"’Sit,’" he said.

The word came out without its usual architecture. Low. Not quite a command. Something more honest than a command.

She raised an eyebrow.

He seemed to hear himself.

"’Am I falling in love,’" he said. Murmured. Half-meant for her, half private.

"’What?’"

He blinked. Cleared his expression.

"’Nothing,’" he said. "’I say that to everyone.’"

"’I’m certain you do,’" she said. With the specific, dry quality of someone who is not certain of that at all and has no interest in pretending otherwise.

She turned.

The arm of the sofa was not comfortable for extended sitting, and her leg — the prosthetic, the one that had been fine in the car and fine in the foyer and was now, in the specific way of limbs that had been carrying more weight than they should, registering the full accounting of the last hour — was wrong. The socket, slightly off. The pressure, in the wrong place. The specific, low, grinding discomfort that she managed by not mentioning it and by finding a seat and by moving the leg by hand when nobody was watching.

She moved toward the sofa proper. Sat. Pulled the hem of her skirt and did the specific, private adjustment — her hand finding the joint, the angle wrong, her fingers finding the releases.

A shadow.

He had moved without making a sound.

He was kneeling in front of her.

She looked at him.

His hands — finding the prosthetic, the socket, the specific, technical architecture of the release with the specific, unhesitating competence of someone who had done this before. The releases clicked. He took the prosthetic off with the specific, careful ease of someone who was doing a practical thing and was doing it correctly.

He set it beside the sofa.

His hands, remaining. At the end of her left leg — the real end of it, the specific geography of where bone became absence, the upper thigh, the soft skin there where the socket had been pressing. His thumbs, finding the edge of the compression marks the socket left. Rubbing. Not clinical. Not impersonal. Warm. The specific, quiet warmth of someone who is tending a thing.

"’What are you doing,’" she said. Not alarmed. The flat, genuine question of someone who wants the answer.

"’I need a priestess to heal you,’" he said.

He was looking at her leg, not her face. The specific, focused attention of someone who is both doing a thing and thinking about the thing they need to do.

"’A priestess,’" she said.

"’Yes,’" he said. "’The right one. I know where she is.’" He paused. "’I’m sorry.’"

The word landed simply. No decoration. Not sorry about the leg — she’d had the leg for years, it was not a new loss, it didn’t require new sorry. Something else. The specific, other sorry of someone who has the ability to address a thing and has not yet addressed it.

She looked at him.

He straightened.

"’If I heal your legs,’" he said, "’will you marry me?’"

She stared at him.

He said it the way you said other reasonable things — the same register as ’I need a priestess,’ the same register as ’I know where she is.’ Entirely calm. Entirely direct. Looking at her with the specific, waiting quality of someone who has asked a real question and is prepared for a real answer.

"’Do you need my permission,’" she said. The specific, careful question of someone who has run the calculation on this man and is wondering how honest the question is. "’Or my consent.’"

He considered this.

"’Not technically,’" he said. "’But.’ " A pause. "’To be honest. I want you to be able to spread your legs properly.’"

She looked at him.

"’Wouldn’t it be good,’" he said, the purple eyes entirely direct, "’if I eat you after we’re married?’"

The sitting room.

The morning light.

Her hands, in her lap.

Something happened in her chest — not the pounding, not the obvious panic-register. The specific, quieter thing. The warm, involuntary tilt of something that had not been tilted in a very long time.

She controlled her face.

"’You’re being very generous,’" she said. The specific, dry delivery that was not quite a deflection and not quite acceptance.

"’Maybe a past life debt,’" he said. The same simple register. "’That I want to return.’"

She looked at him.

The words — the specific, impossible precision of them. ’Past life.’ Said by a man who had appeared in her car from nowhere. Who had been on a deserted island for four days and looked exactly the same as he would have looked in a boardroom. Whose eyes were a color eyes weren’t.

Her probability calculations ran.

Every variable she had.

She breathed.

"’Fine,’" she said.

He waited.

"’I promise,’" she said. The specific, direct quality of a woman who makes promises rarely and precisely. "’If you heal my legs. I will marry you.’"

He was already standing.

The specific, fluid motion of someone who has received what he came for and is arranging his next move.

"’I’ll come back to claim that,’" he said. Turning.

"’You’re leaving,’" she said.

"’I have something to find,’" he said. "’I know where it is. I’ll need a few days.’"

He was at the center of the room.

"’Then I’ll return,’" he said. "’And claim your virginity.’"

She stared at him.

Her mouth opened.

"’How do you—’"