Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

"DEAREST DAUGHTER, IT IS I, DADDY—"

Rafel scoffed, interrupting Corazón just as soon as she'd started reading.

"It is I, daddy?" He recited sarcastically.

"Who the fuck starts a letter like that? I'll tell you who: a psychopathic, murderous fuck! It makes me, a bonehard narcissist despise the trait. I mean how self-loving is the loathsome prick. Does he think being king means shit this far out at sea? Fuckin' cunt!" Rafel brimmed with fire energy, visible as radiant streaks in his veins.

It lit up his skin, so much that his blood pulsed from the inside like volcanic lava.

His friends looked at one another. Someone had to say something—and quickly—to cool him down.

"Israfel, come on. Let her read, okay?"

Rosa whispered down to him with a smile; the one brave enough, apparently. He went growling low in his throat, and very wolfishly too, but he fell silent. Cora looked at him a moment. Aya stared from her place also. All his friends knew Rafel had not yet forgiven himself for that night at Emberfall.

There was a lot he needed to unpack about that night, first being the fact that it wasn't his fault what happened, but the girls read the room and said nothing.

Tonight wasn't the night for therapy. Perhaps, down the road.

Cora lowered her ocean eyes back to the expensive papyrus script; her silverly buzzcut sparkled in the light of the fireplace as she started again. She went on from where she left off.

"Dearest daughter, it is I, daddy. I could write that I'm sorry a million times in this letter, but I won't. You're a woman who'd take action to words any time. A blossoming young woman. And so it pains me that I can't share this time of your life with you, especially now that our fortunes have turned, immeasurably.

I wish you were here, with me, in Titans Landing: this beautiful world we had always talked about. I named the rebuilded throne room after you.

Ravencrest—you'll like it.

I wish you were here at my side, where you belong, the both of us ruling together from this hallowed place where no hunger or foe can touch us any more. And not with that..." Cora abruptly paused in her reading. And everyone lifted up their heads. She sent Ravenna a look. Something of pity. Or was it, mercy.

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"Go on. I want to hear it.* Rafel urged. His accent was distinctly Scottish. The last two words became almost as one, so that it sounded like 'herrit.'

Cora continued. "And not with that idiot in that stupid school. I can have the best tutors in the continent flown in on dragonback to the city. This is me darling, asking you to come back home. I am sorry I wasn't there when you needed me. I'm sorry for the lies.

There are all the excuses I'm sure you already know by now. But whatever you feel for that lowly demon is a magician's wand.

It's all spark and fake.

And don't think for a second it's reciprocated either. That boy had been shagging innocent girls like you since he learned how to walk straight. He tell you he fucked his aunt too? The Apollyon is merely a tool for our use. I'll tell you what's real, darling. Me.

I'm real. This throne. It's real. This kingdom. Our legacy. Not some runaway scallop.

Lilith is the Dowager of the Court of Whispers, but I am King. She can't hurt you anymore. She won't. Not when she knows you are important to her precious nephew. Please Raven, let me make this up to you. You are princess of the Nine Realms, crown heiress of the Dark Throne.

The girl child of a Helgod and a Seraphim. You don't need a fucking witch academy to enable your abilities.

Please come home. Your mother is nearly always around now—she drops by from Heaven. I will only ask this once Raven. No one will keep my daughter for me. Don't let me have to use the Titans again.

Your loving father, Thebault De Vríes."

Cora sighed audibly as she ended her reading and folded the script. She turned to look at Ravenna. Everyone was looking at her.

Who would've thought? That blackhaired roe in the rain.

Ravenna was bewildered. She didn't even know which part of her father's letter to focus on—it made her cold to even call him that. Ever since she had seen him crack the neck of her bestfriend and just about murder the love of her life. The one who had taken her in when no one else would, when he had literally chased her to Rafel's door.

Ever since that night at Emberfall, Ravenna didn't recognize him as Dad anymore. These days, he was just the Usurper. The slayer of Fae. The demon King.

Oh! About his letter...where to begin?

First he had a lot to say about her love life, her choice of friends, and her school. But not even a complete sentence about the role he had played in the terrors that had befallen the continent's whole capital. The hundreds of lives taken off the earth at the ascent of the Titans. The millions more still agrieved. But he wanted to tell her about her fucking legacy?

He couldn't even mention the name of the young man he had nearly murdered in cold blood. Rafel was right; her father was a cunt.

He wanted a daughter he could hold in subservient attitude. A wallflower. He wanted hush fucking hush. He wanted to soak all his sins into one letter. And to cup it all, he'd gone so far as to place a kindling threat at the end of it. 'Don't make me have to use the Titans again?' Was he shitting her?

The only person she felt guilt for was her mother, who like her had almost fallen prey to the shadow of a trigger-happy megalomaniac god.

Thank the Martyr her mum was just as powerful enough to divorce his ass.

"Are you okay, love?" Cora's voice cut into the din in her head.

Ravenna blinked. Then she collected back the letter. And she reached up on her calves and tossed it into the fireplace. She watched the orange flames lick up the writing and turn it to ash in seconds. She turned back to her friends.

"Fuck the King."

The others grinded back. "Fuck the King!"

That night, they all slept in Rafel's dorm room. No one wanted to leave Ravenna alone. The suite was quite large, and Rafel, Aya and Ravenna took his bed. Percival and Brunhilda took his on the other side of the split chambers. Corazón happily took the couch in the common area. As for Rosamunde, she stealthily crept in to join with Rafel, Aya, and Ravenna at sometime during the night.

Dawn broke with fresh news. The bells from the Rosestone tower came tolling at fifteen past six. Despite being a wholistic college of wizardry, the Corynthian Academy still kept to military standards. The bugle sounded while Israfel was a mile into his early morning jogging. He was by the southern moors with Cora in matching blue shorts and white kicks. And turned when he heard the sound.

The both stopped on the woodside to catch their breaths as the dong-dong of the bell tower pierced the morning. There was a sudden cry in the campus corners. A First Year kid went running in the cobbled streets with new information.

"Dragons!" He yelled and waved wildly. "The dragons are here."

"Whoeeee!" Another fella whistled.

Unlike back at the other isles where the sighting of a dragon signified raiding and fiery death, at [C.A.W], the appearance of the great winged creatures signified one thing, especially during the week of the Spring Games: DRAGON RIDING. The third round of the exciting event.

Rafel ran laughing with Cora from the woodsy trails all the way back to Salem Hall. She had been staying at his since Skyla's death. Cora just couldn't bear the smell of her everywhere in the dorm room they'd shared at Brightburn. So for the mean time, she stayed with the ruddy Hel prince. It was nearly imagined for her to be this close to Rafel again.

Cora tumbled in through the door of his room and kicked off her jogging shoes. Percival was already bathed and out with the other girls, in a long carriage bus heading for the amphitheater where they would watch the [Dragon Riding] spectacle. The dorm room had only them in it. Perhaps, the entire floor even.

Rafel stopped laughing when Cora drew down her blue shorts. Outside, students in passage to the college's largest holding facility: the Colosseum, were cheering for the dragons as they swooped in fast from the sky.

The creatures were brought in by their training masters who rode in the flight saddles, and the dragons flew close enough to the rosy sun that wondrous shadows of each one was cast on the campus streets below whenever each one went past.

SKRREEEE! The magnificent beasts screeched, unfurling and stretching out wings that spanned miles. One green dragon passed right over the roofs of Salem Hall. A Gorgon female yelled and tried to grab at its low, swinging tail. It twirled in the air like a bird, did a great wingflap before continuing on its way to the colosseum, and the girl screamed louder in excitement.

Dragons were the kindest and paradoxically, deadliest of Familiars on record. Plus, they had telepathy, and some of the evolved ones could even speak out loud.

But Rafel wasn't listening to the outside world. He was shocked to a standstill at the shimmy of Cora's hips when she bent low to drop the shorts. Her tiger-print panties was tight in the crack of her ass. Rafel felt his cock come to full attention. Cora heard a sharp intake of breath and turned around to catch him staring.

He didn't look away.

"What?" she smiled sweetly.

"You she-devil...grrrrhhh." He lunged for her.

Cora giggled and ran into the bathroom. Through the glass, Rafel saw her shrug off her shirt. She tossed her bra in his face before drawing the curtain shut. She was still laughing, much to the evident tenting in his own shorts.

Rafel pulled the thrown sports bra off his face. "You are very lucky we have somewhere to be, witch. Or I'll have taught you some manners."

"Fuck off." Cora chuckled under the hot water.

Rafel forced himself to turn away just as Peitho entered his head with a new notification about the Games about to begin.

[Ding!]

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