I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

Chapter 540: Elin’s and Freja’s hesitations

Ameriah’s lips curved into a teasing grin as she looked at Elin. “Then tell me,” she said lightly, her tone laced with mischief, “do you love Lord Nathan too?”

The question struck like a thunderclap.

“W…What?!” Freja’s startled cry echoed through the tent, louder than she had intended. Her face flushed instantly, and she shot to her feet, her hands flailing as if she could physically swat away the words hanging in the air.

Ameriah tilted her head, her grin widening as Auria began to giggle beside her. “Guess that’s a yes,” Auria teased, covering her mouth in mock innocence. “Your reaction said it all, Freja.”

Freja opened her mouth, but no words came out. She could feel the heat rising from her collarbone to her cheeks.

Meanwhile, Elin—quiet and usually composed—was turning a soft shade of crimson herself. Her fingers fidgeted with the edge of her sleeve before she cleared her throat awkwardly. “T–This… can’t be,” she muttered, glancing up at Ameriah. “Lord Septimius—Nathan—he already has one or two wives, doesn’t he?”

“One or two?” Freja echoed in disbelief, her embarrassment quickly giving way to curiosity.

Ameriah hummed thoughtfully and began to count on her fingers, her tone light but deliberate. “Let’s see… there’s my elder sister, of course. Then Medea, Scylla, Charybdis, Helen, Kassandra…”

“W…Wait!” Freja gasped, her eyes widening. “How many does he have?!” She half expected Ameriah to keep going until she ran out of fingers.

Ameriah’s expression remained perfectly serious, though the corners of her lips twitched. “Enough to make even a king envious,” she said with a soft chuckle.

Freja blinked rapidly. “Are you… serious, Princess?”

Ameriah nodded, her tone suddenly gentler. “I am. You see, if you spend just a few days with Lord Nathan, you can’t help but fall for him. He has that… presence. That quiet authority that draws you in before you even realize it.”

Elin exhaled slowly, still trying to wrap her mind around the idea. “But… so many women? They all agreed to share him? Without any problems?” Her voice carried disbelief but also a faint, involuntary curiosity.

“Well,” Ameriah said, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear as her cheeks turned pink, “not all of them are friendly with each other. Some… don’t get along at all. But Lord Nathan—he’s fair. He doesn’t play favorites, even if his affection shows in different ways. He loves each of them, gives each one what she needs. That’s what makes him so different.” Her voice softened, and for a brief moment, she looked down, her confidence melting into quiet longing. “I hope… I’ll be one of them someday.”

A hush fell over the group. Freja and Elin exchanged a look, unsure what to say.

“I… I can’t believe it,” Freja finally murmured. She wasn’t angry—just bewildered.

And yet, beneath the disbelief, she couldn’t deny the faint stab of jealousy that lingered in her chest.

They had all been born and raised in a world where monogamy was the unspoken law—where love was meant to be shared between only two. Polygamy was something out of dusty old myths, not living reality. And yet, here they were, in a land that followed an entirely different rhythm, where bonds were formed by power, fate, and affection that could stretch beyond the boundaries of tradition.

After two years in Alexandria, they had already seen things that defied everything they once believed. Men like Axel and Isak—handsome, powerful, and reckless—boasted of multiple wives, sharing homes filled with laughter and chaos alike. But even so, Nathan was nothing like them.

Freja had seen it herself—the way his expression softened whenever Medea was there, how his tone shifted from commanding to tender in an instant. There was a depth in his eyes when he spoke to his women that none of the other men possessed. Ruthless though he was, he had a warmth that shone through his brutality—a paradox that made him impossible to ignore.

“Who cares how many women the Lord Commander has?” Auria said suddenly, her voice firm yet dreamy. Her eyes shimmered with admiration. “A man like him can have anyone he wishes. The Lord Commander is… wonderful.”

Freja glanced at her, not knowing what to say.

Auria clasped her hands over her heart. “We were kidnapped, but I never once doubted him. I knew he’d come for us.”

Ameriah smiled then—soft, radiant, sincere. “Yes,” she said, her voice carrying a quiet conviction. “I knew it too. Lord Nathan always comes.”

Her words lingered in the air like a promise.

A soft sigh escaped Ameriah’s lips as her gaze settled upon Elin and Freja. She couldn’t help but feel the corners of her mouth curl into a faint, knowing smile once more. Their internal turmoil was written plainly in the language of their bodies: in the way Elin worried the fabric of her tunic between nervous fingers, and in the defiant, yet uncertain, set of Freja’s jaw.

She could understand them. Truly, she could.

Their worlds were built upon foundations foreign to many. For them, for nobles of their standing, a man having multiple wives was not a scandal but a standard of power, lineage, and political strategy. Her own mind drifted to her father. So many faces, beautiful and stern, had looked down from those walls—his wives. The relentless wars had carved their number down like a winter frost, until only the hardiest, the most legitimate, remained: herself and Azariah. The memory was a ghostly touch, cold and familiar. To her, such an arrangement was not just normal; for a man like Nathan, it was an inevitability.

He was not merely a man in Tenebria. He was a living legend, a figure already being woven into songs and whispered about in reverent tones in shadowy corners. To some, he was practically a God walking among mortals. For such a person to take multiple wives? It was not just accepted; it was expected, a given consequence of his stature.

“You can have hesitation,” Ameriah said, her voice cutting through their silent fretting, its tone gentle yet laced with an unyielding reality. “But do not let the roots of your indecision grow too deep. We are soon to depart for Tenebria after all.”

The words landed with the weight of a portcullis slamming down. Both Elin and Freja stiffened as if physically struck. The reality they had been passively contemplating had just been given a deadline.

That was right.

Nathan was the Lord Commander of Tenebria. This sojourn in Rome was an interlude, a mission. Once his business here was concluded, the anchor would be raised, and he would return to the Tenebria. The thought was a cold splash of water. Of course, it wasn’t as if they would never see him again. Rome held Fulvia and Servilia, ties that would undoubtedly draw him back to check on the empire’s pulse. And Alexandria, in which Cleopatra was Queen. There would be visits, surely.

But there was a vast, emotional chasm between a future, planned visit and the potent, tangible now. The present moment was a fragile, heated thing. Nathan’s focus was here, his attention was on them. The emotions simmering between them—the raw, unspoken attraction—were like embers glowing brightly in a dark room. A separation of weeks, of months, was a long, cold wind that could easily turn those hot embers to cold, gray ash. The window of opportunity, they realized with a jolt, was not just open; it was beginning to swing shut.

Freja and Elin exchanged a frantic, wide-eyed look, a silent conversation of panic and confusion. Words failed them, lost in the storm of their predicament.

“T…That’s not it,” Freja stammered, her voice a desperate, thin whisper. She crossed her arms, a defensive gesture against the weight of their collective gaze. “I don’t… I don’t love him…” The declaration trailed off, weak and unconvincing, even to her own ears.

Elin then thinking about something blushed, a brilliant, hot crimson that flooded from her cheeks down to her neck. She fidgeted, unable to meet anyone’s eyes directly. “Then, Freja…” she began, her voice barely audible. “Why did you… why did you touch and… hum…” She swallowed hard, gathering every ounce of her courage. “…stroke Septimius’s… thing?”

The air in the room seemed to vanish.

“Freja?!” The twin exclamations from Ameriah and Auria were sharp with stunned disbelief. Freja felt the world tilt. A wave of pure, undiluted mortification washed over her so powerfully she wished the marble floor would crack open and swallow her whole. She wanted to scream, to vanish.

Why did Elin have to say that?! Why?!

Her face burned as if held over a forge. Yet, as humiliating as the exposure was, she could not form a denial. The memory was too vivid, too physical. The damning truth sat between them, naked and undeniable.

Why had she done it in the first place? If she felt nothing for him, then what did that make her? The thought was a serpent coiling in her gut. A woman who would perform such an intimate act without affection or intent… the label was ugly and cruel, and it hovered in the silence.

She briefly, wildly, considered the flimsy excuse of being caught in the current of the moment, of Servilia’s guiding hand. But it was a lie, and she knew it. She could have pulled away. She could have slapped her hand, Servilia’s hand, anything. But she hadn’t. When Servilia’s guidance had ceased, her own hand had continued. Of its own volition, driven by a deep, curious, and thrilling compulsion she had been too overwhelmed to name.

And then, the final, searing image branded itself onto the back of her eyelids.

Freja’s breath caught in her throat, her cheeks igniting with a flush so fierce it rivaled the dawn. The memory crashed over her like a tidal wave, unbidden and merciless, dragging her back to that night with Nathan. Days had passed but the recollection was sharper now, more humiliating, more shocking, as if time had distilled its raw intensity.

She could still feel the heat of his dick in front of her face as she stroked it. And then came the moment—his cum erupting in hot, thick spurts, splattering across her face, her cheeks, her lips, her closed eyelids. It had smeared into her hair, matting the silken strands with his sticky, musky mark, a claim that felt both degrading and strangely intimate. The warmth of it had clung to her skin, dripping down her chin, pooling in the delicate hollow of her throat, a stark contrast to the cool air of the room.

Freja’s hands flew to her face now, as if she could wipe away the memory, her fingers trembling against her flushed skin.

“Touch what?”

The voice cut through the air like a blade through silk.

Every head in the room turned at once.

Nathan stood by the doorway, his presence filling the space before he had even taken a step forward. The faint light from the oil lamp behind him traced the edges of his white hair and the sharp lines of his jaw, making his expression unreadable and almost divine.

Freja froze where she stood, her heart skipping a beat. “N…Nothing!” she blurted out, far too quickly.

Nathan’s eyes lingered on her—steady, unreadable, and just intense enough to make her knees feel weak. For a moment, no one dared breathe. Then, as though dismissing the matter entirely, he turned his gaze toward Ameriah and Elin.

“How is she?” he asked, his tone calm, clipped, and commanding as always.

“I…I have nearly finished her treatment,” Elin stammered, her voice trembling ever so slightly. Her hands, still faintly glowing from the remnants of her healing Skill, fidgeted at her sides as she avoided his eyes.

Nathan strode closer, his movements deliberate and sure. The faint sound of his boots against the floor echoed softly through the quiet room. Ameriah straightened, forcing herself to meet his gaze, her heart fluttering with an emotion she couldn’t quite name.

“Lord Nathan, it’s true!” Ameriah said quickly, her tone eager yet reverent. “Elin has done wonderfully. The pain’s almost gone, and I feel… lighter—stronger. Far better than before.”

Nathan reached out his hand, his fingertips brushing against Ameriah’s cheek with a care that seemed almost at odds with his usual composure. The contact was brief, clinical even, but Ameriah felt her breath catch in her throat all the same. A faint warmth spread where his skin met hers, followed by a soft pulse of energy.

Nathan’s expression shifted slightly—focused, analyzing. He could sense it clearly. The curse that had clung to Ameriah’s soul for so long was nearly gone. The malignant energy had receded, its threads dissolving under Elin’s persistent healing and Ameriah’s own will to live.

A faint smile touched his lips. It was rare, subtle, and fleeting, but it carried enough warmth to make Ameriah’s heart race.

She hadn’t seen him smile like that before—not since Tenebria.

“Good,” Nathan murmured under his breath. “Azariah will be pleased to see you well again.”

Ameriah could barely focus on his words. The faint smile, the way the light caught in his crimson eyes—it was enough to leave her momentarily breathless. And she wasn’t alone. Freja and Elin both found themselves staring for a moment too long, drawn to something they couldn’t quite explain.

There was something magnetic about him—something that pulled at the edges of their minds.

Then Nathan blinked and frowned slightly, realization dawning.

He exhaled through his nose, half in annoyance with himself. Of course. He had forgotten to suppress it again—Aphrodite’s divine charm, the passive aura embedded within him he had activated for Pandora. It was still radiating at a quarter of its full strength, enough to sway even disciplined minds. He had left it at twenty-five percent instead of the usual ten.

With a silent mental command, he dimmed the aura. The invisible pressure lifted like a sudden gust fading into calm air. The entranced looks disappeared.

Ameriah, Elin, and Freja blinked rapidly, their cheeks flushed as if waking from a dream. Elin looked away immediately, mortified by the sudden rush of awareness. Freja’s hand instinctively went to her chest, feeling her heartbeat hammering there. None of them spoke.

“You’re improving well,” Nathan said finally, his tone once again steady and composed. He turned to Elin. “Just a few more days before we leave. Will that be enough time to finish purging the curse?”

Elin’s earlier embarrassment vanished beneath renewed determination. “Yes! I can do it, Lord Nathan,” she said firmly, her blue eyes glowing with conviction.

Nathan nodded approvingly. “Good.”

He was about to turn away when Freja suddenly spoke up, her voice uncertain but resolute. “W…Wait. Before we leave…”

Nathan’s gaze fell on her.

Freja hesitated, gripping the edge of her cloak. “I… want to check on my classmates.”

Nathan’s brows lifted slightly. “The same classmates who sold you out?” His tone carried a faint, biting sarcasm.

Her shoulders tensed, but she didn’t back down. “It… it wasn’t all of them,” she said, her voice soft but earnest. “The girls—some of them—didn’t know anything. They weren’t part of it. I have to see them, at least to tell them they’ll be alright.”

Nathan studied her for a long moment, his eyes cold and unreadable. Behind that gaze, however, was a flicker of something—respect, perhaps, or understanding. Freja’s loyalty, even after betrayal, was reckless but sincere.

After a long silence, he sighed. “It’s dangerous,” he said finally, “but you’re not a fool. Fine.”

He reached into his spatial storage and pulled out a dark hooded mantle. The fabric shimmered faintly, enchanted to obscure the wearer’s presence. With a practiced motion, he tossed it to her.

“Don’t take too long,” he said. “And wear that.”

Freja caught it clumsily, blinking in surprise. “Thank you,” she murmured, a small, genuine smile tugging at her lips.

Without another word, she draped the cloak over her shoulders and pulled up the hood. The shadows wrapped around her like a second skin. With a last glance toward Nathan—his expression still unreadable—she turned and slipped quietly out of the house.