"What the fuck are you doing here?" Cora wasn't smiling.
"I just wanted to see you."
"Don't bullshit me. You don't just do anything. You forget, I have got my memories back now," Cora explained, "while I now have revived love for you, it is nothing but platonic, the kind we had at Emberfall. I worship you, Your Eminence. I admire you. But fuck!
You need to stop behaving like a pussy-whipped boyo, making impromptu booty calls at my place."
Rafel met the calm blues of her eyes. He watched them soften. Her demeanor swayed. This was the first time anyone accused him of being pussy-whipped. He should be mad. Beyond angry.
He would, if it wasn't the truth. Yep! Cora had got him addicted to that hot slender body of hers. Plus, he couldn't stay mad at her for more than five seconds. Nearly losing her to the jaws of fucking afterlife had only solidified in his head how much he needed her.
He would never admit this to her though. NEVER!
Not too long ago, Peitho had mentioned her as one of his prime concubines; he considered Cora more of the totally-out-of-bounds girlfriend he couldn't get out of his head. Right now, he was thinking of how good she'd look with her pretty little white tennis skirt hiked up as he lifted and sat her on his cock. But she was staring at him. Her cold marine iris siftered, burned into his mind.
He had to clear his thoughts—if he wanted to keep visiting privileges.
He was glad for the [Divine Mana Creator Source] the Corynthian Academy had, which made it possible for her to hold a corporeal form.
His sexy limber ghost girl—
"Ahem!" Cora cleared her throat.
Rafel's gilded eyes found his way up her honey swan neck and lips to her deep eyes. Pure and stormy, like the Cold Sea. He finally replied her statement earlier. "Corazón, this is not a booty call." She scoffed and leaned against the door. Rafel maintained, "It's not."
Cora's blue eyes took on an edge. "So if I were to drag you in here and pull off my knickers, swear you wouldn't try some shit—like bending me over a fucking sofa?"
"Well, I...that is quite the offer." He smiled.
Cora shook her head, struggling with her own grin. "Yeah, that's what I thought."
"Smashing every time we meet is only half my fault, and you know that—"
"Babe!" A voice called from inside. "Who's at the door?"
Rafel peeked in. "Is that Skyla?" Cora raised her finger to silence him. She called back to her werewolf girlfriend: "Just someone who's leaving!" And then she pushed at Rafel's chest. "Go!" It was a cosmically bad idea; touching a wildly hot demon. Her entire body in that white lit on fire. Invisible [Lustfyre].
Rafel was smiling, knowingly. "Go, please." Cora pushed the door shut. But Rafel's one leg was already in. His brown meridian boot stopped the door.
"Let me in, servant. I'm not asking."
Cora breathed at the hardened baritone of his voice. Like a mortal, compelled by a vampire, she eased her hand off the door and stepped back. "As you wish, Your Eminence." She braced for Skyla's harangue as his towering form shadowed past her.
Cora's girlfriend was just coming out the shower; the lupine beauty had a towel turbaned in her hair, and clutched tighter to the one around her wet body. Skyla looked from the standing male to Cora's downcast eyes. "I thought he was leaving?"
"Baby?" Cora tried.
"Don't baby me?" Skyla held up a hand. The gold of her [Beta wolf] glowed out. "He put me in the fuckin' infirmary, and you just let him in? Oh well, what am I to expect, from the Apollyon and his bitch." Cora actually did smile at the insult. Fury was part of Skyla's love language. Most of the times she was angry, she sure as hell was horny too.
The gory head, shredded at the jaw landed on the floor. A headless body one second later.
Blood leaked out the gruesome mess in a rapidly expanding circle.
Rafel, Cora, and Skyla were right under the blood rain and caught the splatter all over their clothes and faces. Red seeped into their badminton whites.
Before anyone could wonder much, out of the smoky entrance—like a yawning gate into the abyss stepped the Persuada.
"Shit."
"By the Martyr!"
"What the fuck is that!"
The couple of young witches in the bedarkened courts scrambled for the exit. The Persuada stood at the only doors in sight: 20ft. Monstrous. Crimson-eyed. Tentacles sprouting in its head. Flies buzzing around the many mismatched corpse parts.
A total fright. It held no weapon, but its night clawed hand took out two girls as they attempted to maneuver under the dark beast.
It caught the first girl in her stomach, fist ripping a giant hole through her. Her guts spilled in her hands, bloodied and twisting. With its other hand, it grabbed the second girl's head and rammed her into the white wall.
She shrieked and jerked to be set free.
"Help! Somebody help me!"
One of the tentacles on the Persuada's head shot into her neck, wrapping around her vocal cords from behind. It pulled.
"Fuck!" Cora gasped.
Thick wet blood showered down on the monster, bathing in it a macabre glow. Both girls dropped to the floors, stained scarlet and made slippery by their own sanguine essence. Their dead eyes' stared out. Glassy. Gone. The first with her entrails all over the place.
And the second with a destroyed throat and missing voice box.
The dark sigils of occult rituals danced around the giant monster's bulk in obsidian runes.
"SKRRAAAAAAR!!!"
The tentacles stretched in the air as it shrilled out a piercing screech. The lips had rotted down to the gums: black, infested by maggots. The other players made their way to the furthest ends of the courts. The vampires among, with [Nightwalker] abilities phased through the walls. Rafel, Cora, and Skyla were left alone on the benches.
When the monstrosity leveled crimson eyes on Rafel, it was clear whom it sought.
The umpire and those two girls were just collateral damage. Appetizers.
Skyla, who had been silently brimming with fury watching the slaughter opened her mouth and let out a long howl. Before Rafel or Cora could react, she leaped from the bleacher seats with a feral snarling. "YOU DEAD FUCKER!!!"
Skyla shifted to full dire wolf in the air. The sound of bone breaking. The shifting. The ripping of skin. Cora would never forget. Skyla had known the umpire.
He was part of her pack. A [Gamma]. She knew his mate too. Her reason to avenge was warranted. But the odds were against her. The Persuada had a three hundred pounds on her grey wolf.
Another thing Cora would never forget that day was the sound of her girlfriend's head splitting like firewood as the octopus-headed giant grabbed her head; the furry head of the squirming shewolf, and tore the skull right through the center.
"Yooowwl!" Skyla landed like a sack next to the other girls. Dead.