The Crown's Entrapment

At Cordon Arena

The tournament moved along smoothly, and almost every pack had its representative to fight for the position of Queen. Currently, Cordon had a total of around 96 packs, so after sorting out the representative for each pack, they would then continue on with the tournament, downsizing the numbers into twelve packs by the end of it.

Moving forward, Clara was finally declared as the representative of Midnight Pack to move on to the next round of the tournament after a bit of work. Soon, Bella followed, being declared as the representative of the Lock Heart Pack. The two women stood by each other's side as they watched the final fight for the Silver Crescent Pack's representative close to the makeshift stage.

None of them uttered a word, but the two of them obviously had the same thing in mind, and that was that they needed to study every movement Pinra made to see if they could find something that they could use against the woman should she become their opponent.

"Damn, isn't she the epitome of a rogue werewolf hidden underneath a beautiful facade?" Bella commented as she watched Pinra maniacally and sadistically slash away at her opponent with cold precision.

"Every move is deadly... No wonder the Admiral wanted me to watch out for her. Good thing my mother isn't here, or else she'll probably make a fuss for me to quit right now."

"Aren't you scared to fall victim to her?" Clara asked as she turned to Bella. "You can still back out, Bella. It's not too late. Pinra isn't the only opponent here that's very dangerous to your continued living."

Bella didn't respond to her. Instead, her eyes remained fixed upon the fight playing out before them.

Clara was aware that Bella was simply nitpicking on her, which was why the woman joined the selection in the first place, but things would turn bloody soon enough with Pinra and some of the other suspicious participants lurking around every corner.

After some time, Bella turned to her with her wicked smile and said, "Hmm... I've already come this far, Clara. I might as well give everyone a good show." She chuckled, "You do know that I love the spotlight, so I won't let you have it all if I can help it."

That wasn't exactly true, and Clara knew that. Bella was someone who most definitely didn't love being the center of attention. She was simply doing this to annoy her and get on her nerves, and Clara was honestly aware of why that was the case.

Clara shrugged. Taking a deep breath, she stared at Bella closely as she genuinely said, "I'm sorry, Bella..."

She was sure it was those exact words that Bella was waiting for her to utter. If that was what it took to finally stop this nonsense, then she might as well get it over with.

She had hurt Bella in the past. She intentionally ignored her and jeopardized their friendship before, but she honestly didn't expect that it would have such an impact on Bella to the point that the latter refused to stop annoying her whenever she could.

She was way too focused on Darius and his family for her to even care. Because of that, she ignored Bella and their friendship. Looking back, Bella was right... She did try so hard that her world ended up revolving around how to make the royal family like her. She did everything just to make sure she would look good to them and be on their good side and she ignored everything else.

"Hmm... Since you're sorry, then that's more of a reason for me to not back down... unless you do it yourself, but I doubt you would since you've already reached this far," Bella said with a genuine yet mischievous smile, one she that used to give her before back when the two of them were still good friends. "I kind of feel bad watching you getting hurt now after seeing how sorry you are."

Bella then chuckled...

,m "Hahaha! Look at your face right now, my dear. Are you so used to my sarcastic and mocking smiles that seeing me smile sweetly like this is making your jaw drop?" Bella teased.

It was a fleeting moment however as those smiles quickly disappeared as blood splashed towards their direction.

"Damn!" Bella cursed as she wiped some of the blood splatters on her face.

Clara did the same before they looked at where it came from. There, right before them, Pinra stood mightily on the makeshift stage with a cold smile on her face. Blankly, she licked at her bloodstained sword, the corpse of her decapitated opponent still oozing blood right beneath her.

"Gross!" Bella cried out.

Pinra was unbothered by the outburst. Turning to them, she even licked her lips as she arrogantly said, "I wonder how the two of you would taste in my blade... This one is dull, but I bet Lady Clara and Lady Bella would have a delectable taste being from prominent families."

She coldly smirked, "I can't wait to grace my precious sword with your blood. Or maybe it would bring it more delight if I did it directly with my fangs buried deep into your precious flesh."

Bella scoffed and burst out, "Hah, In your dreams, freak!" Her eyes then narrowed at Pinra before a smirk formed on her beautiful face as she chided, "Hmm... I do wonder if the ground would be pleased to taste such poisonous blood from you once I slit your throat... Oh, right, I have to decapitate you to make sure that your poison would no longer spread throughout this kingdom."

Pinra's face fell ever so slightly, but it was more than enough to make Bella laugh. It was only a good thing that Admiral Osman approached and called Lady Pinra up to announce her as the winner and representative of the Silver Crescent Pack, or else Clara felt like the woman probably wouldn't have hesitated to strike Bella at that very instant with how much hate her eyes harbored.

"You should be careful," Clara scolded. "Why are you inviting in trouble so carelessly? You're aware of how dangerous Pinra could be, right?"

Looking at her friend, she saw a familiar flicker in Bella's eyes that told her that she was pleased with her scolding. It meant that she cared for her, so Bella loved hearing more chiding coming from her like Bella always used to say before.

Bella had that sweet smile on her face before she snorted, "That woman is gross. If she loves blood that much, she should've converted herself into a vampire ages ago." She then wiped the remaining splash of blood off her before giving her a wink. "This won't do... I'll be leaving to get cleaned up. By the way, congratulations, and see you in the finals, Big Sis!"

Clara let out a genuine half smile to Bella as she watched the woman's back. It had been a while since Bella called her that, and it honestly felt great hearing it from her again after all this time.

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