Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 120: Reckoning

Ruby had spent days trying to bridge the icy chasm that had opened between herself and Nikolas. She’d used soft words, gentle touches, the fragile memories of their shared success... all to no avail.

The man who had once looked at her as if she held all the light in her palms now regarded her coldly.

As expected.

It was, of course, because she no longer dispensed her foreknowledge for him to use. But why would she pour her precious insights into his cup if he wouldn’t even deign to beg for a sip?

She’d humiliated herself enough, trying to placate his coldness. She was done with cold men.

So, she turned her gaze elsewhere. She called a colleague from the Temple and asked for news, subtly steering the conversation toward the one man whose heat, however dangerous, had never felt like winter.

"What? He’s... he’s looking for the former Saintess?" Ruby couldn’t believe it. She widened her eyes to the communication crystal, her knuckles whitening around it.

"Saintess..." the voice on the other end was hesitant. "Do you know where the former Saintess is? Somehow, after Prince Vasiliev raised the question... many others have started asking, too. It’s starting to get... big."

The words ’starting to get big’ landed with a thud in her heart. Her colleague sounded like he knew more of a rumour he didn’t want to share.

"I... I don’t know where she is," Ruby said, layering her voice with innocent confusion and a touch of wifely devotion.

"I’ve always been by Nikolas’ side. He’s my mate, after all. I don’t know about her at all. I just found out she had been divorced from Lord Arzhen at the coronation... and she didn’t come, right?" She let the question hang, concerned, ignorant.

"Is she not being stationed in a different temple or something?" she pressed, feigning a logical guess.

"No, Saintess." The reply had a bit of nervous energy. "She has been missing since the night before the coronation. We truly don’t know where she is..."

Of course no one would look, Ruby thought. No one cared about Cecilia after she was proven fake. The world was merciless that way. When Ruby herself had lost the blessing of foresight, she’d felt the same way. No one would scour the continents for her if she vanished.

But Arzhen was looking? He was the one initiating the search?

Did he truly... seriously... want to find her? Just because his ailing father told him to clean up the mess? It didn’t fit. The Arzhen she knew was calculating, proud. A public search for a disgraced ex-wife was a vulnerability, not a strategy.

A sliver of doubt wormed its way into her certainty.

"Senior," Ruby put on her most winsome, worried look. She let her voice tremble just so. "Can you help me? I think... I need to speak to Lord Arzhen. Will you tell him... that I want to meet?"

The voice brightened immediately, eager to be of use to the true Saintess. "Of course! Should I tell him to visit you at the Delanivis territory? As expected. You just want the Delanivis and the Vasiliev to get along, right?"

"Of course..." Ruby’s smile was warm, all the way to her eyes. Get along? If only these two stubborn, prideful men could love her enough to set aside their feud for her sake!

No.

Her purpose was different now.

"But I don’t think my husband would like it if he knew my plan," she added quickly, layering her words with concern. "I need to speak to him alone. So... tell him to meet me at the capital’s temple. I will return to the capital soon."

"Okay, Saintess! I will tell him to come find you in the temple when you arrive!"

The connection severed, and with a faint click, the spent crystal in her hand shattered into dull, lifeless pieces.

Strange.

Ruby stared at the crystalline dust in her palm. Arzhen was looking for Cecilia? Was it all a ruse? A performance? Hadn’t he already... killed her? Was this... just an act?

It must be an act. To bolster his position, to appear the concerned ex-husband, to muddy the waters. But then what? When the body was inevitably found, her heart torn out, what story would he spin?

That she was killed by bandits? By rivals? Wouldn’t it be better, cleaner, for him to regain his standing through other, less risky means?

The sliver of doubt grew.

What if... Arzhen didn’t actually kill Cecilia?

What if... he truly did use the Meleth Flower, just as he’d said he would, and simply let her go?

She shook her head violently. What was she thinking? She was dead. She must be dead. Arzhen still had the flower. He must. If he didn’t have it, then that day, when he’d come to her, asking to talk... what had that been about?

He had to have another plan. Yes. He must.

That was precisely why she had to meet him. And also... since Nikolas had been so horrible, so cold, he needed a lesson. A reminder of her worth.

Through Arzhen’s attention, through his heat, his danger, his power, she would show Nikolas exactly how valuable she was. More valuable than his pride, his territory, his frozen heart.

Yes.

More valuable than anything and everything.

KNOCK—KNOCK—

The sharp rapping at her door intruded her train of thoughts.

"My lady! Great news!"

Ruby turned, her reverie shattered. Her maid entered, breathless with haste, her face split by a wide, servile smile.

"What great news?" Ruby stood from her seat.

The maid bowed deeply, the words tumbling out with joy. "Our Lord has recovered!"

...

...

Huh...?

Recovered.

Did the suspicious elixir... actually work?

The question felt like a frantic drumbeat in her head, in time with her rushing footsteps. Dread churned in her chest as she ran with her maid through the austere halls of the Delanivis keep.

If it worked... why did it never surface in her past life? What thread had she pulled, what ripple had she caused, to alter the weave of fate so drastically?

Who—

She skidded to a halt in the doorway of the lord’s chambers. The scene before her stole her breath.

Nikolas stood rigidly beside the great bed in disbelief. And there, propped against a mountain of pillows, was Dorian Delanivis. He was breathing deep, even breaths that moved his broad chest.

Color had returned to his pallid cheeks, and though he looked weary, the clinging shadow of death had been scrubbed away. He was, against all odds, alive.

Before she could form a word, Dorian’s voice cut through the silence. It was weaker than his old roar, but it had lost none of its cutting edge.

"I saw the one who attacked me."

Nikolas’s eyes flew wide. He dropped to one knee beside the bed urgently, his hand instinctively reaching for his father’s, then stopping short, hovering. "Who is it, Father?"

Dorian’s gaze, cold and clear as a shard of winter sky, fixed on the window. He stared at the world outside as if he could still see the face of his assailant etched against the glass.

"It’s the Golden Lion King. Eastiel Edengold."

***

"Mmhh... mm..."

A gasp, bitten back and half-swallowed, escaped into the silence of his bedchamber.

"Ugh...!"

Another jolt.

The phantom sensation... an invasive, rhythmic tide of in and out that had no business being in his body, yet mapped itself onto his nerves... clear... brutal...

Eastiel gasped, then moaned, his head thrashing against the sweat-dampened silk of his pillow. He’d come to his rooms, attempting to sleep, but there was no peace to be found.

Not when they had apparently decided to switch their nocturnal activities to broad daylight.

His body was strummed by distant hands. Every shift, every slide, every deep thrust from a world away scraped dry in the hollow of his bones. His... urethra—

"Cecilia... Elder... Brother... aaaahhh..."

A pressure of being clamped at the base... a strange, filled feeling of being plugged...

"Aaaahhh—"

Tap—tap—

From the window, a sound emerged. It was gentle and polite. Quite a contrast to the sensations wracking him. It was the pre-arranged signal, knuckles on the wooden lattice of his palace window.

Fuck...

He had to do it. He had to. It was unfair, but he sourly knew that Arkai up north had already been forced to sever the same tie. This gentle knock was duty calling, and duty, for a king, trumped even this exquisite torture.

Gathering himself, he focused inward.

"Cecilia..." he whispered into the empty room. "I want to sever the connection for now..."

He didn’t know if the thought could travel that far, or if the connection needed mutual consent. He only knew he had to try. He held his breath, muscles coiled tight against the next phantom stroke.

And then... it stopped.

The vibrant sensation was snipped clean. The silence in his own body was sudden and deafening. Aaahhhh... it was almost painful.

"Haa—" Eastiel sagged, taking a deep, shuddering breath. It felt like emerging from deep water. He dragged a hand down his face, cleared his throat of its ragged edge, and willed the insistent, painful bulge at his crotch to subside.

He finally managed to shove the feverish heat back into a locked box deep inside.

"Come in," he called.

The window slid open silently, and a figure clad in a black desert robe, face obscured by a woven mask, entered as soundlessly as a shadow. The man crossed the room and knelt gracefully beside the bed, head bowed.

"News from the Delanivis, my Lord."

Eastiel didn’t move from where he lay propped against the headboard. He simply nodded. "Let me guess," he said, his voice flat. "He’s awake?"

The masked intel agent’s head snapped up in shock. "Yes, my Lord." There was a touch of awe in his muffled voice. "As expected of you... you knew."

"Hm." Eastiel acknowledged. He knew because of Qinryc’s earlier report. Nikolas Delanivis had shown an interest in the Healing Elixir Cecilia had produced. He’d known the moment that vial changed hands that the clock on Dorian’s ’miraculous’ recovery had started ticking.

And that recovery meant one inevitable thing. The old wolf would start pointing his fangs at him.

Others around that office he ambushed Dorian in might have only caught a glimpse of his painted striped tail. A vague hint of a tiger-kin. But the man who looked death in the face, the one whose life was literally draining into the dirt? He would have seen a face. His face.

A sneer curved Eastiel’s lips.

He pushed himself up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

"Time to take pride in the responsibility of the warmonger."