Sera was in the tub. She was standing now. The water ran off her body. Her breasts were bare. Her nipples were stiff. Her stomach was flat—muscled, defined, the belly of a fighter. Her pussy was visible—dark hair, swollen lips, the gap of a recently-fucked cunt. The seed was on her chest. On her breasts. Running down her stomach.

She was looking at him.

Her eyes were wet. Her face was red. Her lip was trembling. The girl who had never been ashamed of anything in her life—who had swung swords and fought boys and walked onto platforms built for men without a flicker of doubt—was standing naked in a bathtub covered in a man’s seed, looking at her grandfather with the expression of someone who has been caught doing something they cannot explain.

"Grandfather," she whispered. "I— I can—"

She looked at the seed on her chest. She looked at his wet hand. She looked at the door where Raven had walked through.

She trembled.

She walked toward the bathroom basin. The small one. The one with the pump and the basin and the rough soap that Old Tomas used for his own washing. She pumped the water. It came out cold. She cupped it in her hands. She washed her chest. She washed the seed from her breasts. She washed her stomach. She washed her pussy—gently, wincing, the swollen flesh tender from the fucking.

She looked at the seed on her fingers.

She looked at the door.

She looked at her grandfather—at his face, at his wet hand, at the horror and grief and confusion in his old eyes.

She licked her finger.

She licked the seed from her finger. Quickly. Defiantly. Her eyes met his as she did it. Her tongue ran along her knuckle. She swallowed.

"It is delicious," she whispered again.

She turned. She picked up a towel. She wrapped it around her body. It covered her chest, her stomach, her thighs. Her wet hair hung down her back. Her feet were bare on the tile. She walked past her grandfather.

She walked into the hallway.

She walked toward the room where Raven had gone.

Old Tomas followed.

He walked through his own house like a ghost. Through the bathroom. Through the back hallway. Through the shop with its mirrors and chairs and tools. Into the front room—the room where he received clients. Where he cut hair. Where he massaged shoulders. Where he had raised his granddaughter.

Raven was sitting in the barber’s chair.

He was still naked from the waist down. His coat was on. It hung open. His cock was visible—thick, dark, hanging between his thighs, the head still swollen, the shaft still glistening with the remnants of the bath and the seed. He sat with his legs spread. His arms rested on the armrests. His violet eyes were on the ceiling.

His posture was that of a king on a throne.

Old Tomas entered the room. He was trembling. His hands were shaking as while moving, he had touched his clothes—still smeared with the seed that Raven had wiped on them. He grabbed a cloth from the counter. He wiped his hands. He threw the cloth into the laundry basket. He stood before Raven.

He reached beneath the counter. He pulled out a rope—a thick, rough length of hemp that he used for tying parcels. He wrapped it around his waist. He looped it around his hips. He pulled it tight. He tucked the end in. The rope covered his cock—his thick, old, heavy cock that hung between his legs, the cock of a man who had sired a daughter who had sired Sera, the cock that was now hidden beneath rough hemp because a stranger was in his house and his granddaughter was walking around in a towel and the world had gone mad.

Raven looked at him.

"It is Raven," he said. He said it the way one introduces oneself at a dinner party. Calm. Polite. Unhurried. As if he were not sitting half-naked in a barber’s chair with his cock hanging out. As if the old man had not just watched him fuck his granddaughter in a bathtub. As if the seed on the old man’s hands had been soap.

Old Tomas trembled.

His knees were weak. His hands were shaking. His face was the color of old parchment—gray, lined, the veins visible at his temples. He looked at Raven. At the violet eyes. At the sharp jaw. At the dark hair. At the cock beneath the coat.

He had seen those eyes through the glass. He had seen what those eyes could do. He had heard from queen— prince’s shoulder, the knights’ bodies, the noblemen’s legs. He had heard the rumors that were spreading through the capital like plague—a devil with violet eyes, a man who could erase things from existence, a power that even the Ninth Circle mage Calodios could not sense.

This man—this devil—was sitting in his barber’s chair.

"Greetings," Old Tomas said. His voice was barely a sound. A whisper. A breath shaped like a word.

Raven chuckled.

It was a low sound. Warm. Amused. The sound of a man who finds something genuinely funny—not cruel, not mocking, but funny. The sound was at odds with everything Old Tomas had seen and heard. It was the laugh of a man, not a devil. But Old Tomas knew that the two were not mutually exclusive.

"Why are you trembling?" Raven said. He tilted his head. The same tilt—the fractional, predatory tilt that preceded the erasure of shoulders and the removal of legs. But his eyes were not predatory. They were curious. Amused.

"You are fierce of someone who can kill the prince. And there were other nobles too." Old Tomas swallowed.

His throat was dry. His mouth was dry. His tongue was a dry, thick thing that barely moved. He looked at Raven—at the violet eyes, at the calm face, at the cock beneath the coat—and he tried to find the words.

"Thank you," he said. The words came out cracked. Broken. Like stones dragged across dry ground. "For saving my granddaughter."

Raven looked at him.

The amusement did not fade. But something shifted in his eyes—something subtle, something that Old Tomas almost missed. Recognition. Acknowledgment. The look of a man who has been thanked and who considers the thanks beneath him.

"You do not have to thank me," Raven said. His voice was the same—quiet, unhurried, conversational. "I took my payment directly from her."

The words landed on Old Tomas like a physical blow.

He felt them in his chest. In his stomach. In his knees. Payment. Directly from her. From Sera. From his granddaughter. From the girl he had raised and massaged and told the world will try to break you.

He had seen the payment. He had watched the payment through the fogged glass. He had seen her body—naked, wet, flushed, her nipples stiff, her pussy swollen, her anal used, her mouth swollen. He had seen the seed on her chest. He had heard her say "Master." He had heard her say "delicious."

He trembled.

"I hope you can leave now," Old Tomas said. His voice was stronger. Not strong—stronger. The voice of a grandfather who has found the bottom of his fear and has decided to stand on it, even if it breaks. "You have taken your payment. You have— done what you have done. Please. Leave."