Chapter 707: No Taboo

Besides, there were no taboos or implications regarding mother and daughter sharing a single man.

Strength sought strength. Vitality answered vitality.

The same blood that made Kira her daughter also made the girl a warrior of the tribe, and the same law that bound mother and child did not extend its hand into the furs once the night fires were lit.

What lived between a man and a woman in the dark belonged to the dark.

A Warchief who had broken the heavens and a man who had forced those heavens open were simply two forces that had collided and chosen to remain entangled.

That her daughter and she now shared that same man changed nothing fundamental in the eyes of the clan. There was no implication of shame, no ancestral prohibition waiting to be invoked.

So the momentary awkwardness of speaking the invitation in front of them was, in the end, meaningless.

They would adjust. Zeyra already had, in her own quiet way. Kira would wrestle with the strangeness for a time, but the girl was Veynar to the bone.

The feeling would settle, the way all sharp feelings eventually settled beneath the greater demands of survival and power.

And Veylara herself had spent too many years starving every softer hunger for the sake of the tribe to start apologizing now for the one hunger she had finally been allowed to feed.

She had tasted total surrender under the willows.

She had felt the bliss while his body pinned hers to the moss.

Days of restraint had only made the memory sharper, not duller. The embarrassment of a few surprised glances was a small price to pay for the promise of feeling that again tonight.

Completely oblivious to the complex, tangled whirlwind spinning through the three women’s minds, Sol didn’t care about propriety in the slightest.

Beneath his half-lidded gaze, an unhurried, hungry grin spread across his face, his neon-crimson eyes glinting with raw anticipation.

Over the past few days, the entire camp had been run ragged, and Veylara had been the busiest of them all.

Despite her private command on the morning of her ascension to "report" to her lodge that night, the mountain of post-war chaos had swallowed them whole.

Between pacifying the conquered territories, organizing the hostages, receiving frantic border envoys, and fortifying the outposts, there hadn’t been a single quiet hour to spare.

Kira had been buried under supply tallies, Zeyra had been running border scouts, and Zephyra was also busy with her mystical stuff, even though Sol looked like an idle basking in the autumn leaves, the sheer density of the changes across the tribe had kept everyone running in circles.

He had spent the hours moving between the conquered territories in quiet sweeps, using Free Use to settle restless spirits among the new blood-hound packs, reinforcing weak points in the defensive lines with precise applications of force, and making certain no lingering Coalition remnants tried to stir trouble in the chaos of transition.

The leisure under the elm was earned.

And it had been days of dry, unvented tension, and his lust was running uncomfortably hot.

Now, with the treaties sealed, the elders humbled, and the tributary routes locked down, the invitation had finally been delivered.

Sol shifted his broad shoulders against the rough bark of the elm, feeling the familiar heat rising between his thighs.

Looking at Veylara’s lithe, powerful frame wrapped in that crimson leather... and catching the subtle, hungry glint hidden behind her sapphire eyes... Sol silently cursed the lingering afternoon glare.

He wished he could reach out, kick the blazing autumn sun straight over the western horizon, drag the midnight shadows forward by force and dive headfirst into the untamed storm waiting for him behind the closed doors.

Veylara gave him one last lingering look... her sapphire eyes burning with a slow, deliberate promise... before turning on her heel.

The dark crimson leather of her tunic swished against her thighs as she strode back toward the Great Lodge, the sovereign mantle settling effortlessly across her shoulders once more, commanding the respectful bows of every laborer who crossed her path.

Sol watched her walk away, his gaze tracking the rhythmic sway of her hips until she disappeared from his sight.

A feral urge coiled tight in the pit of his stomach, practically daring him to abandon all pretense, march straight up behind her, and take her right over the council table before the sun even thought about dipping.

Yet he reigned himself in with a slow, disciplined exhale, shoved the raw eagerness back down into the guts.

As tempting as it was to drag the Warchief into the dark right now, he still had tasks to attend to before night fell.

Every afternoon, Sol took a wide, solitary sweep through the perimeter of the jungle... partly to hunt fresh, high-tier game, but mostly to provide the Orphos with soul power to recover sooner.

He pushed his broad shoulders off the rough bark of the elm, brushing away a stray dry leaf with an easy flick of his wrist.

"Hunting run," Sol muttered lazily, glancing down at Kira, whose cheeks were still sporting a delicate, lingering rose. "Try not to break that piece of bark before sundown, little hunter."

Before Kira could snap back a retort, Zeyra abruptly stepped up from beside the drying rack.

She hoisted her long spear into one hand, rolling the shaft across her knuckles with sharp, practiced fluidity. Her dark eyes, usually cold and calculating as a winter night, carried a strange, restless flicker.

"I’m coming with you," Zeyra announced, her voice flat, leaving zero room for argument.

Kira’s head snapped up from her inventory slab, her brows pulling together as she fixed Zeyra with a sharp, intensely questioning stare.

For the past three days, Zeyra had complained endlessly about the endless border patrols and aching muscles, insisting she’d rather sleep in the dirt than march an extra league into the brush. Now she was volunteering for a mid-afternoon hunt into the jungle?