Harem System novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: I Don't Want To Do This Anymore
Veyra screams at Nils to get out and he tells her he is done; at the Connection Center he cannot release her alone, and Ruenna Cask slaps her card on the counter and offers any terms.
A pillow hit the doorframe a hand's width from Nils's fingers.
"Get out!" Veyra screamed from the bed. "I don't need you!"
Her voice cracked in the middle, and it came out thin and wrong.
Nils stood in the hallway with one hand on the frame and did not step inside.
She was curled on the white sheets with both arms locked across her stomach.
Her blonde hair was a wet tangle on her cheeks, and her nightgown clung to her ribs with sweat.
She shook in long waves, as she had every night for three months.
Beside his thumb, the wood was scored by three pale grooves at the height of her hands.
They were deeper than last week.
He looked at them for a moment and then looked at her.
Veyra Solenne was an S-rank succubus, the highest rank the registry gave.
Three months ago he had spent five years of savings to be paired with her.
In this world succubi fought and earned and bought the betrothal gifts, and the men they kept only had to rest.
Nils was from Earth, and Earth had taught him that nobody feeds you for free.
"I don't want to do this anymore," he said.
Her head snapped up.
Her amber eyes were red at the rims, and they went hard at once.
"What does that mean?"
"It's been three months, Veyra. You're starving. You can barely sit up."
"So?" Her voice shook. "I need more time."
"For what?"
"To get used to you!" She dragged herself up on one elbow. "Nobody chose this. A clerk drew our names, and I'm supposed to just fall into your arms?"
Nils said nothing.
"I am not a pet you carry home," she went on, louder with every word. "I have to trust you first. I have to be ready. Is that so much to ask?"
It was not much to ask.
If that were all it was, he would have shut the door and kept watch outside it for another three months.
But she had lived in his flat for ninety days.
She ate the food he cooked and wore the clothes he bought.
When the hunger hit her hard enough to shake the bed, she lay in his bed while he sat on the floor outside.
She would not let him touch her fingertips.
She would not sign a trial contract, not even a single week.
Every time he opened his mouth to talk about it, she said he was pushing her.
Nils pulled his hand off the doorframe.
"I paid your rent for three months," he said. "I paid for your food, your painkillers and your backup crystals."
"I never asked you to."
"No. You never asked me for anything." He kept his voice flat. "I work a day shift and a night shift. I haven't been inside the Trial Gate once since you moved in."
"You're a man," Veyra said. "What do you lose by waiting? I'm the one in pain. You should be the understanding one."
He almost laughed.
The woman shaking in the bed was her, and the woman who had screamed at him over a dropped hat last week was also her.
The man who had worked every hour to cover the bills was him.
"How long?" he asked. "A month? Six? A year?"
She opened her mouth and nothing came out.
"A year," he said again, quietly.
"No matter how long, it's my right!"
"It is," Nils said. "That's true."
For one second the fear on her face eased.
"Then I have the same right," he said. "I'm ending it."
All the color went out of her cheeks.
"You're too hungry now," he said. "The crystals only hold you a few days since we paired. If you keep forcing it, you'll collapse."
"Then you can't leave me." Her teeth clenched. "You know what state I'm in, and you still want to hand me back. You're heartless!"
Something cold finally moved behind his eyes.
He had heard every version of this for ninety days.
Not ready, not now, not tonight, and every time it ended with him being the one who was not considerate.
"I'm going to the Connection Center," Nils said.
"You wouldn't dare." Her scream chased him down the hall. "Nils! Nils, you wouldn't leave me like this!"
He took his jacket from the hook and shut the front door behind him.
The Connection Center kept its doors open until midnight.
The lobby was a long hall with a stone counter, a bench along the wall and a queue of nine people.
Most of them were succubi.
Nils waited his turn, and when it came he put his pairing papers on the counter.
The clerk read them.
"Everything in your file is in perfect order, sir," she said. "There is nothing in it to worry about."
"I want to return her."
"I'm sorry." She did not sound sorry. "A release needs both signatures. I can't dissolve a pairing on one."
"She won't sign."
"Then it stays active."
Behind him somebody on the bench laughed softly.
The clerk turned a page.
"The registry does allow a man to hold up to three pairings. You may take a second one today, if you'd like. Nothing in the first stops you."
Nils stared at her.
A chair scraped.
A hand came down on the counter beside his papers, with a card gripped between two scarred fingers.
The woman was tall, in a battered leather jacket, with short red hair and three red stripes across one cheek.
"Ruenna Cask," she said, loud enough for the whole lobby. "A-rank. Eleven men have sent me back."
She slapped the card down on his file.
"Sign me today, whatever the terms are."
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