Chapter 157: Duchess Katarina

Azriel swept his dark violet gaze across the grand gallery, drinking in the wide-eyed, stunned expressions of the noblewomen gathered in the hall.

Beneath his calm, aristocratic mask, his warrior senses were firing on all cylinders.

The sheer density of martial power concentrated in this single concourse was staggering.

His perception brushed against six, no, seven distinct presences that radiated the same crushing, suffocating gravity as Vesperia, true Overlord-tier sovereigns whose casual movements stirred the ambient aether.

Below them were dozens more hovering firmly in the Grandmaster tier, matching Rosalind’s formidable depth.

Every woman in this hall was an apex pillar of Gorgorath, seasoned, mature matriarchs, duchesses, and ancestral clan heads who had arrived to watch their daughters or granddaughters tear each other apart for glory.

Azriel kept his expression indifferent and relaxed, subtly cloaking his feral aura to avoid prematurely triggering the defensive instincts of seven Overlords at once.

Yet deep within his chest, a dark, primal fire flared to life.

The intoxicating variety of beast bloodlines, scented with winter pine, burning brimstone, wild musk, and desert spice, stirred a conqueror’s hunger.

Every single one of these proud, untouchable matriarchs was a mountain waiting to be climbed and brought to heel.

The tense silence of the gallery was suddenly shattered by the sharp, rhythmic clack-clack-clack of heeled boots against the polished granite.

A tall woman swaggered toward them, her entire presentation completely out of place amidst the sweeping silks and formal court brocades.

She wore barely more than battle-leathers crafted from stripped dire-boar hide and trimmed in coarse, golden-brown fur.

The skimpy halter and low-slung warrior’s pelt left almost her entire torso exposed, flaunting a deeply tanned, sculpted stomach marked by defined abdominal ridges and hardened, sun-bronzed muscles.

Twin tiger ears, vibrant orange ringed with black, twitched atop a thick mane of fiery orange hair, and a thick, ringed tiger tail swished lazily behind her toned thighs.

Azriel’s eyes narrowed slightly as his gaze locked onto her face.

A sharp jolt from this body’s original memories surfaced with crystalline clarity.

This was no stranger.

She was Duchess Katarina of the fearsome Tigris Clan, a pureblooded tiger-kin warlord.

Months ago, after gambling away a high-stakes duel and losing a bitter wager to Rosalind, Katarina had casually handed Azriel over like a branded, exotic trinket to settle her debt.

Katarina halted a few paces away, resting a calloused, claw-tipped hand casually on the pommel of a massive curved blade at her hip.

Her amber slit-pupils raked slowly down Azriel’s broad frame, lingering on the sculpted breadth of his shoulders and the chiseled line of his jaw before flicking toward Rosalind with bold, unapologetic arrogance.

“Well, well,” Katarina purred, her feral gaze returning to Azriel with raw, undisguised lust.

“I never imagined the branded mutt I tossed your way would end up paraded through the royal concourse. And look at him… the stray has turned into an absolute stallion.”

A slow, predatory grin exposed the sharp edges of her canines as she took half a step closer, her tail curling behind her tanned, muscled thighs.

“What do you say, Rosalind? Care to put him on the table for another wager?”

The private mental stream detonated in a frenzy of glowing gold and crimson alerts across his vision:

[LIVE CHAT]

[Nine_Tailed_Vixen] (Cyan): A muscle-bound tiger duchess with abs and an attitude! Oh, Azriel, please conquer her next and turn that arrogance into whimpers!

[Lusty_Sera] (Golden): Look at her sizing him up with that brazen lust. She regrets tossing that ‘stray mutt’ so badly right now.

[God_Slayer_Klara] (Red): Don’t you dare give him up, Rosalind! Let her watch who actually commands this stallion now!

[Moon_Priestess] (Cyan): A fated reunion… The tiger who discarded the dragon, now desperate to taste him.

Rosalind’s golden slit-pupils narrowed slightly, her posture stiffening with an icy, aristocratic chill.

“I have no intention of putting him, or anything that belongs to House Bastet, up for a wager,” Rosalind replied, her voice smooth, cutting, and entirely unbothered.

“And even if I did, Katarina… you would simply lose him back to me, just like you lost your pride last time.”

The air in the gallery thinned instantly.

Nearby noblewomen paused mid-step, sensing the sharp friction between two grandmaster-tier clan heads.

Katarina’s amber eyes locked onto Rosalind’s face, unblinking, the boisterous smirk fading into an intense, evaluating glare that stretched into a tense, suffocating minute of silence.

Then, the cold standoff shattered.

Katarina threw her head back and let out a hearty, booming laugh that echoed off the high-arched dragon-glass ceiling. A beat later, Rosalind’s cold facade broke into a matching, amused smirk.

“Bwahaha! Well, damn it, I probably would!” Katarina wheezed, wiping a tear from the corner of her amber eye before slapping her leather-clad thigh.

“The dice have never loved me against your cursed feline luck!”

Her laughter settled into a low, predatory hum as her gaze dragged back over Azriel, lingering on the broad breadth of his chest under the void-drake coat and the sharp line of his jaw.

Her striped tail twitched with restless agitation.

“Still… I have to say, Rose, the bastard really turned into an absolute stunner. I’ve bedded quite a few men, and he might legitimately be the most handsome male I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Taking a brazen step forward, Katarina leaned toward the Duchess, lowering her voice with scandalous familiarity.

“Can’t you lend him to me for just one night, Rose? Just one night of pure roughhouse.”

Standing half a pace behind, Azriel watched the exchange with cool, sharp violet eyes.

The casual pet name didn’t escape him. In all of Gorgorath, almost no one called Duchess Rosalind ‘Rose’, except for Vesperia in private, and himself when he had her pinned beneath his hips.

These two women weren’t just court rivals; their history ran far deeper than the superficial arrogance they flaunted for the grand concourse.

Rosalind tilted her chin up, offering a cool, dismissive scoff that only fueled Katarina’s boisterous smirk.

“Lend him to you?” Rosalind murmured, smoothing down the crimson silk over her hip.

“Keep dreaming, Katarina. I don’t share what is mine, especially not with a wild cat who doesn’t know how to keep her claws sheathed.”

Katarina laughed again, unbothered by the rejection, and turned slightly to snap her fingers toward the pillar behind her.

“Boran! Get your hulking ass over here,” she barked.

From the shadows of the marble colonnade, a young tiger-kin stepped into the light.

The boy was an absolute colossus, broad-shouldered, thick-necked, and possessing a hulking, muscular frame that looked like it could crush a war-drake with bare hands.

Heavy tiger stripes rippled across his exposed, corded arms, but the contrast with his demeanor was jarring.

His ears were pinned flat against his messy orange hair, his head bowed, and a soft, flustered blush stained his cheeks.

Despite his monstrous physique, he carried himself with the timid, submissive posture of an obedient hound terrified of stepping out of line.

“This is Boran,” Katarina said with a casual wave, smacking the boy’s rock-hard tricep hard enough to make a dull thud.

“My girl Lyra’s partner. Big enough to take a beating, obedient enough not to talk back.”

She turned back to Rosalind, crossing her tanned, toned arms over her bare midriff and arching an eyebrow.

“Speaking of which… where is Eleanor’s partner? Don’t tell me the little prodigy showed up to the Tournament without one?”

Rosalind’s lips curved into a sharp, smug smirk.

She didn’t look toward the concourse corridors, instead, she tilted her head back toward the man towering directly behind her.

“He’s standing right here.”

Katarina froze. Her amber slit-pupils dilated in absolute, unvarnished shock as her gaze snapped from Rosalind to Azriel.

“No way,” Katarina blurted out, her voice dropping all courtly pretension. “Are you insane, Rose? Are you honestly telling me you’re pairing a fragile, unawakened mortal with Eleanor Van Bastet? In the highest-tier academy arena on the continent?”

“He has awakened,” Rosalind answered smoothly, her golden eyes gleaming with pure satisfaction.

“Bullshit!” Katarina’s voice rose, drawing sharp, curious glances from neighboring noble retinues.

“When I tossed that hound to you, the boy was nineteen, past the limit! You know as well as I do that anyone who hasn’t awakened by eighteen cannot awaken normally!”

“Well… he did,” Rosalind replied simply, offering a radiant, infuriating smile that made Katarina’s twitching tail whip violently against her leather skirt.

“How?!” Katarina demanded, leaning in, her fierce warrior pride visibly bristling at the mystery.

“That’s nearly impossible without an ancient relic or divine blood! How the hell did he wake up?”

“Luck, maybe,” Rosalind teased, tilting her head.

Katarina snorted, crossing her arms tighter across her sculpted abs.

“Yeah, right. Pure, dumb feline luck. It has to be.”

Her sharp amber gaze locked onto Azriel once more, scanning the impenetrable depth in his dark violet irises, trying and failing to measure the strange aura humming beneath the void-drake leather.

She narrowed her eyes at Rosalind.

“Fine. What’s his class rank, then? F? E? or D?”

Rosalind’s smile widened into something tantalizingly mysterious, her voice laced with absolute, mocking confidence.

“You’ll see in the tournament, Katarina.”