My Taboo Harem!-Chapter 257: "We’re Dragons—Dragons Don’t Kneel"
The words landed like a blade slipping between ribs.
Dravenna’s eyes went narrow as slits. That sentence alone told her enough that Phei knew so much or enough of her past... and now he was comparing that past self to the current puppet and he felt... pity? Shame? Or worse?
Five words. Soft as a whisper. And she couldn’t tell if they were aimed at her or at the fools who were making her do this.
Either way, they cut.
And the worst part?
The boy wasn’t wrong.
She knew he wasn’t wrong.
Four years. Four fucking years of bending. Of bowing. Of being the tamed dragon, the domesticated beast, the puppet who danced whenever Heavenchild pulled the strings.
And here was this child—this seventeen-year-old nobody with impossible eyes and an aura that shouldn’t exist—standing in her office, saying out loud what she’d been screaming inside her own skull since the day they’d put the collar around her neck.
Phei reached her.
Stood before her.
And she realized—too late—the mistake she’d made.
Sitting on the desk had felt natural. Comfortable. A power move that put her at ease, legs crossed, posture relaxed.
But Phei was standing now.
Towering over her.
Looking down at her with those amethyst eyes while she looked up at him from her perch on the desk like a student caught out of place.
She almost laughed.
Clever little bastard.
What had seemed like a casual stroll to the mirror—giving her space, letting her breathe—had been part of his strategy.
He’d retreated so she’d advance.
Made himself smaller so she’d feel comfortable enough to abandon her throne and own the room. Let her settle into complacency until she’d handed him the high ground without even realizing it.
And now... here he was, cornering her.
Phei smiled when he realized he’d made her play a game she’d realized way too late.
If she pushed him away now, she’d look weak. Uncomfortable. Like his presence had rattled her so badly she couldn’t bear to be close to him.
She’d have to conquer him from this position.
Looking up.
Well played, she thought, and there was grudging respect underneath the annoyance. Well fucking played.
But...
What is that scent?
It has been there since he walked in, she realized. Something sweet. Something warm. Something that curls through the air and slips past my defences without permission, making me want to lean closer, breathe deeper, to—
She caught herself.
Focus.
"Tell me something."
Phei’s voice had changed. Softer now. Almost gentle. Like he wasn’t talking to the Dean of Ashford Elite but to someone else entirely.
"Are you really going to protect Marcus to the very end?"
She blinked.
"Are you going to fight his battles for him?" He tilted his head. "Forever?"
"I—"
"If Marcus is really a prince," Phei continued, not letting her finish, "and he can’t handle a mere boy like me... what does that say about him?" He leaned closer. Just slightly. Just enough. "Is he really so weak that a small challenge—a charity case wanting to play basketball—sends him running to Daddy and his family name to solve it?"
Each word was a blade.
"Is that the prince you’re protecting?"
Another blade.
"Is this what you’ve been reduced to?"
Twist.
"Solving problems for a spineless child who’s never fought his own battle in his pathetic, pampered life?"
The questions landed like precision strikes—clean, merciless, aimed straight at the soft tissue beneath the armor she’d worn so long it had fused to her skin.
And somewhere beneath her carefully constructed walls, something cracked.
Is it really worth it?
The thought rose unbidden, ugly and honest, like bile after too much wine.
Was this really her life now?
Protecting a boy whose only power was his family name. Running interference for a coward who’d never earned anything, never struggled for anything, never once had to prove he deserved the crown he wore like a cheap party hat.
From what she was—the Dragoness, the Untamable, the Queen who’d made Main Legacies kneel and empires flinch—to this.
A puppet.
A servant.
A dragoness with clipped wings and a collar around her throat, dancing whenever a child said jump.
She realized it, Phei wasn’t asking about Marcus anymore.
He wasn’t asking about the current situation at all.
He was asking her.
Was she choosing to live like this? After Marcus, would she wait and serve the next Heavenchild heir too? And the one after that? Generation after generation of spoiled princes who’d never know what it meant to fight—and she’d be there, bowing, bending, making their problems disappear until the day she died in this gilded cage?
Was the Ashford family’s Elite Academy—her academy, the one she’d bled for—really just here to protect spineless royals who could barely wipe their own asses without calling for help?
"What," she whispered, and her voice was different now—raw, cracked at the edges like ice under too much pressure, "would you know about any of this? My life? Why I am I even doing this? Acting like you know it all?"
Something in Phei’s expression shifted.
The cockiness faded. The verbal fencing stopped. What remained was something quieter. Something almost... gentle.
"I know nothing really why you’re doing this. You have your reasons yes. But I know what it’s like to be collared."
She went still.
"I know what it’s like to wake up every morning and feel the weight of chains you can’t see." His voice was soft. Raw. The voice of someone speaking from a wound that hadn’t fully healed—might never fully heal. "To smile when they want you to smile. Bow when they want you to bow. To be so fucking good at being owned that sometimes you forget there was ever anything else."
The words hung in the air like smoke from a dying fire.
"I know what it costs to survive that." A pause. "And I know what it costs to break free ’cause I have."
He held her gaze.
"I know enough."
His voice had gone almost tender.
"I know it’s not too late. To get your freedom back. All you have to do is know which cards to play." A pause. Something that might’ve been a smile flickered across his face. "And when to play them."
And then—
Before she could react—
His hands were on her shoulders.
Dravenna froze.
For one crystalline moment, every thought in her head went silent.
Then the fury surged.
She grabbed his wrists, tried to shove him away, felt her aura spike with killing intent that should have sent him scrambling for the door—
"What do you think you’re—"
But Phei.
He just... stood there. Hands on her shoulders. That soft smile on his face. Like she hadn’t just tried to throw him across the room. Like her aura wasn’t battering against him with everything she had.
And then—infuriatingly—he started patting her shoulders.
Gently.
Soothingly.
Like he was comforting a skittish animal. Or an older sister having a particularly shite day.
"Let go of—"
"Dravenna."
Her name.
Not Dean. Not Ashford. Not any of the titles she’d wrapped around herself like armour.
Just... her name.
Spoken softly. Gently. Like they were intimate. Like he had any right to use it.
She should have destroyed him for that alone.
She didn’t.
"We’re dragons."
His voice was quiet. Certain. The voice of someone stating something as true as gravity.
"We don’t submit to anyone. We don’t kneel. We don’t bend."
His hands were still on her shoulders. Warm. Steady. An anchor in a storm she hadn’t realized she was drowning in.
"We rule."
Something in her chest—something old, something she’d buried four years ago and tried desperately to forget—stirred.
"I know," Phei continued, and his voice cracked just slightly, just enough to know he was real, "Oh, in the name of Tiamat, I know that the cards are stacked against you. I don’t know what they have on you. I don’t know the details. I don’t fully understand your situation."
He squeezed her shoulders. Gently.
"But I understand enough to know that you can’t face them alone. Not head-on. Not the way things are now."
His amethyst eyes met her jade-green ones.
Dragon to dragon.
Monster to monster.
Two beasts wearing human skin, recognizing each other for the first time.
"But there’s a way."
