Wedding Day (3)
Seona lay face-down on the ground, unable to draw a proper breath.
The orc that had floored him seized him in one massive hand and hoisted him onto its shoulder.
If he was dragged off like this, he would be violated until he died—there was no doubt of it. While the drug still burned through his veins he had to resist with everything he had.
Clinging to the single thought that he would not be taken, Seona focused with ferocious tenacity and forced his ability to answer. He sealed the wound the blow to his stomach had left, then thrashed against the orc that carried him.
All he managed was a futile flailing of arms and legs. The orc simply clamped a heavy hand across his back and held him down as if the struggle were a joke. No matter how hard he strained or kicked, he could not break free.
Terror flooded him. The fate waiting if he were carried away was too clear, too hideous.
"Let go of me! No!"
The desperate scream still hung in the air when Yurin—having just finished butchering every orc that had stood against her—caught sight of the scene.
The moment the orc with Seona on its shoulder felt her gaze, it bolted toward the succubus. The three remaining orcs that had been fighting Seona moments earlier planted themselves in Yurin's path, determined to keep her from interfering with the abduction.
Yurin had already pushed her ability past its limit; her stamina was nearly gone. Yet the instant she saw Seona about to be stolen, raw panic drove her to wrench every last scrap of power from her body once more.
No. Seona is mine. I will not give him to anyone. He will not be defiled by those filthy monsters!
The swordsmanship she had been using was useless in this crisis—she had never mastered it. She simply swung the blade in wild arcs, relying on her ability to dodge the weapons the orcs hurled at her, and threw herself at all three at once.
The weapon she had already clashed against them several times finally shattered. It snapped clean in half the moment she crossed blades with the last orc. She drove the broken half into its throat and tore it free.
Breath clawing at her throat, she snatched the sword from the fallen orc's hand and flung it with everything she had left. The blade flew true and buried itself in the skull of the orc carrying Seona. Instant death.
The orc toppled; Seona was flung hard onto the ground.
Covered in fresh cuts from the fight, Yurin cried out for her lover in a voice raw with desperation. Her strength had finally failed. Face pressed to the dirt, she crawled toward him, calling his name again and again.
"Seona! Seona!"
The urgency in her voice was pure fear that he might be hurt. Even after battling the succubus until moments ago, the thought of Seona being taken had mattered more than anything.
And while her attention was elsewhere, the succubus had closed the distance without her noticing. Yurin's body, drained past its limit, simply refused to rise any longer, as though it only wanted rest.
For the first time in her life the succubus had nearly died.
That human woman had come for her throat with a speed no one could have predicted. Faced with the raw terror of death, she had shoved her subordinates forward to deal with the threat.
Instead the monstrous bitch had slaughtered every last one of them.
They had been precious troops gifted by her mother—private soldiers of a noble house. Rookies on their first real deployment, yes, but their training and equipment had made them near-elite. Sixteen orc soldiers, wiped out by a single woman.
The fault was hers. When the orcs charged she should have supported them with magic from the rear, yet her hands and feet had shaken so violently she could not even focus long enough to cast.
Now every orc was dead. That monster would come for her next. Even if she fled, what excuse could she possibly give her mother?
The despair lasted only a moment. The monstrous woman seemed to have spent the last of her strength; she was crawling across the ground, breathing in ragged gasps. At the end of her gaze lay the human male the succubus had noticed earlier.
An opportunity.
Losing sixteen soldiers was a bitter wound, yet if she brought that human male back, replacing them would be simple. Not merely replacing—using him as a seed-spreader she could breed far more troops than she had lost.
There was no other way to erase the disgrace of this failure except to return to the Demon Realm with that human in her possession. First, though, the monstrous bitch had to die. Because of her, the succubus's maiden sortie had become a catastrophe; she would kill the woman, avenge the humiliation, and honor the spirits of her fallen subordinates.
With that resolve she lengthened her nails into gleaming blades and advanced on Yurin. Once the bitch was dead, carrying the male home would be nothing at all.
Seona hit the ground hard when the orc carrying him collapsed without warning. Pain flared, yet he forced himself to assess the situation with cold clarity.
A sword jutted from the orc's skull. In the direction the blade had come from, Yurin lay face-down in the dirt.
"Seona! Seona!"
She was crawling toward him, calling his name in frantic gasps. And beyond her the succubus was drawing closer—slowly, carefully, as though she herself were afraid.
Her nails were fully extended. She approached with the stealth of a predator that did not want to be noticed. Unease coiled tight in Seona's chest. If he did not reach Yurin this instant, she would die.
He sprinted.
Whether the succubus failed to notice his approach or simply chose to ignore him, she continued her unhurried advance. Before she could reach Yurin, Seona planted himself squarely between them.
He stood there to protect her—and also because the orc earlier had tried to abduct rather than kill him. If the succubus wanted him alive, she would not dare strike him down.
When he blocked her path the succubus looked faintly startled.
"You might die yourself, yet you still shield your woman. You seem different from the human males I've heard about."
She had been told, in passing, how frail and selfish human males were—pathetic creatures who could not fight, who needed constant protection from their own females, who simply stopped resisting once they were pinned beneath someone's hips. This one was doing the exact opposite: trying to protect his female.
The stories had come from trustworthy demons; they could not be wrong. This male was simply special.
Yet beneath that specialness something else stirred—an inexplicable irritation. Even for a lover, one's own life should come first. That was true of every living thing. The faint agitation in her chest made the human male suddenly grating.
Still, if she struck too hard and killed him by accident, everything would be ruined. The revenge was only a side dish; the main course was this male. She had heard endlessly how fragile they were, but this was the first one she had ever seen. She had no idea how much force would subdue him without breaking him.
She remembered the woman earlier screaming what must have been the male's name in raw desperation. From that desperation she had sensed the truth: this male was the woman's lover.
A sly, vicious idea bloomed.
What if she left the woman alive, toyed with the male right in front of her eyes, then dragged him off to the Demon Realm? The sadistic pleasure of the thought made her smile.
She turned that smile on Seona.
"If you come along quietly, I'll spare the woman."
Both Seona and Yurin stared in shock. Neither had ever heard of a monster offering to negotiate with humans.
As the threat of abduction hung over Seona, Yurin forced the words out.
"No! Seona, you can't go with her."
There was no real solution, yet she still begged him not to follow. Seona knew better. If he refused, Yurin would die. The succubus would simply not attack him; she would kill Yurin without hesitation.
"Then… please spare my girlfriend."
Even though this was the woman who had violated him so cruelly and inflicted every kind of torment, she was still the lover he had shared fifteen years with. He did not want her to die.
"Wise choice."
Looking thoroughly pleased, the succubus began to run her hands over Seona's body the moment he stepped close. Curiosity about a male she was seeing for the first time played a part—but more than that, she wanted to watch the jealousy twist across the human female's face.
At the balls noble demons sometimes attended she had witnessed a delightful spectacle: lovers captured from Earth, the man forced to be violated again and again by subordinate demons while the woman watched. The tears of jealousy and agony, the desperate cries of the man's name—no stage play could match that raw entertainment. Watching a man soaked in aphrodisiacs and drugs be milked dozens of times until he died in agony, seeing the woman's face contort with explosive jealousy and helpless pain—it was more vivid than any performance.
She had always wanted to stage that scene herself: to violate a man without mercy right in front of a human woman and watch her suffer. But a noble appearing in such a show like a common clown would have been beneath her dignity. Now the perfect chance had fallen into her lap.
Still, she feared the woman might recover enough stamina to attack, so she contented herself with groping. Even that was enough. The woman glared at her with a face twisted by murderous rage.
"Fuck—get your hands off him, you son of a bitch! Stop touching him with those filthy hands! He's mine! Seona is mine!"
The raw fury in those eyes, the way Yurin looked ready to hurl herself forward that very second, sent a thrill through the succubus she had never felt in her entire life.
"That should be enough. I'll take this one with me and put him to good use."
Hearing Seona spoken of like an object, Yurin foamed at the mouth and forced herself upright with the last of her strength. Her body had already been pushed past every limit by overuse of her ability, yet her obsession and sheer will for Seona overrode the collapse.
The sudden rise of that monstrous woman terrified the succubus. She had teased enough, enjoyed herself enough; the smart move was to flee at once. She seized the male and began casting the spell that would return her to the Demon Realm.
In the final instant of the casting, Yurin lunged close enough to clamp her hand around the edge of Seona's shoulder.
When the magic finished, the succubus confirmed that her prize was still held tightly in her arms. Beyond the male she saw the face of the monstrous bitch whose hand still clung to the prize's shoulder.
The woman who had forced her to taste death for the first time was terrifying. That furious expression made the succubus flinch; she almost released the prize in pure fear—
—and then the monstrous bitch simply collapsed, as though her stamina had truly reached its absolute end.
The prize tried to reach for the fallen woman with a startled expression. The succubus seized him and held him fast.
She was still afraid of that monster, yet the woman had lost her weapon, spent every drop of strength, and now they stood inside the succubus's own stronghold. Compared to the heavy air of Earth, her body here felt light, brimming with power. If they fought again, that woman would never defeat her.
The certainty of it made the lewd, sadistic desire from earlier rise once more, thick and insistent, inside her mind.