Dylan smith's Arc

Chapter 4 of 12

Voracia walked Dylan back through the trees and did not stop until the castle gate shut behind them. She sat him on a low couch in the main hall and put a cup of water in his hand. The collar at his throat pulsed steady blue. She watched him drink. When he set the cup down, she sat beside him and lifted his palm onto her belly. The skin was hot. She let out a small burp, more sound than force, and waited. Dylan rubbed slow circles low on her stomach. He felt the muscle move under his hand. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. "You are quiet," she said. "Tell me what you want. The real thing. Not what you said in town." Dylan kept his hand moving. He thought of the woman in the purple dress, and the rule that had grown teeth, and what he had wanted before any of it started. He told her. He said he wanted more than one. He wanted women who came back for him on their own. He wanted to choose. Voracia did not answer for a long breath. She burped again, louder, and the cup on the table rattled. Then she stood and walked to a side table. She came back with a rolled sheet of parchment and a quill. "I can give you that," she said. "I am the demon of gluttony. I do not share. But I can build a thing that looks like sharing if the floor under it is mine." She unrolled the page on his lap. The top read Contract of One-Year Promise and Exclusive Marriage. She read the rules out loud, one at a time. One year to gather them. No touching her without her asking first. The collar stays on. Any woman who tries to take him gets erased, same as before. At the end of the year, he marries her, and only her, and the others stay as his harem under her roof. "Sign," she said, "or do not. Both are answers." Dylan read it twice. He thought about the watch on his wrist and the rule with teeth and the way she had not lied to him once. He signed. She pressed her thumb to the wax and sealed it. Then she set the page on the table and put both his hands back on her belly. She took him outside before the ink dried. In the field past the gate stood a small house with a painted sign that read Dylan's house. Beside it, on flat ground, a wooden stage rose with a red banner stretched across the top. The banner read Dylan harem auditions. "They will come," Voracia said. "Word travels. I made sure." A green-skinned woman in a red sports bra was already walking up the path, a pizza box balanced on her belly. She belched without breaking stride. "Heard there were auditions," Belinda said. "I brought lunch." Voracia's mouth went flat. The year had started.