Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 86: Tease

"You want a piece of Ark’s cock too?"

Cecilia sneered.

It wasn’t the sharp, guarded expression of the Saintess. It was wider, crueler, a blade finally drawn from its sheath after seven years of being sheathed in patience and compromise. She deliberately stepped half a pace from Arkai’s shadow, no longer hiding the state of her dress.

The tear at the bodice gaped, revealing not just fabric rent by clawed hands, but skin beneath. Skin marked with the vivid and possessive evidence of what they’d been doing.

A faint scratch along her collarbone. The bloom of a fresh bruise at her throat, still darkening. Older, fainter marks, silvered lines and faded blooms from a different kind of claiming.

She let Elara see it all.

"You’re just a lucky minor noblewoman who married high," Cecilia said, her voice dropping from its coy lilt into something low, smooth, and merciless. Each word was a stone dropped into still water. "A social climber who caught the eye of a beast and clawed her way into a title she was never born to wear."

She tilted her head.

"A bitch should remember her place."

Arkai went still beside her, his blood burning hot in adrenaline and pride. He didn’t move to shield her, didn’t soften the blow. He just watched, his own breath held.

Cecilia took another deliberate step forward, into the thin winter light. She gestured dismissively at Elara’s own exquisite gown, the artful drape of her fur-trimmed cloak, the cloud of expensive, floral perfume that surrounded her.

"My Arkai doesn’t like cheap things disguised in expensive silk and perfume." Cecilia continued. "He has a wolf’s nose. He can smell the desperation under the jasmine. The ambition under the ambergris."

She paused, letting her gaze rake over Elara from head to toe, a look of judgment, the way one might look at a piece of overpriced, gaudy jewelry.

"Without all of that... what are you?"

Cecilia’s lips curved into a smile that held no warmth, only contempt.

"A wench at most."

The garden seemed to freeze around them. The very air grew brittle with the shock of it. The insult, the delivery. The calm. The utter lack of fear.

Who the fuck is this woman?!

"You—" she sputtered.

"Now," Arkai’s voice cut through. As usual, it was a low, deceptively gentle baritone that somehow carried more weight than a shout. He simply interjected, his tone that of a man mildly correcting a social faux pas at a boring dinner party.

"That was some unprompted bold tease from you, my love." His arm slid possessively around Cecilia’s waist, pulling her back against him. He let out a soft sigh.

"I’m a bit insulted that you’re accusing me of having such a great cock that my own cousin-in-law would covet it. You make me sound like some common stud for hire."

"—who are you to say such vulgar things to me?! I am the Lady of Vasiliev’s Household—" Her tirade choked off abruptly, her brain finally catching up to Arkai’s sentence.

Her eyes bulged.

Tease? G-great cock?! Covet?!

The sheer vulgarity of it, stated so casually, so indulgently, left her momentarily speechless.

"Unprompted?" From under the hood came a scoff, dripping with disdain. "What is the lady doing anywhere other than the guest wing she was hosted in?"

Cecilia’s head tilted. "Entering your private inner garden, unannounced, without permission... I’m sure such a proper noblewoman would never overstep so brazenly."

Elara exploded. The last vestiges of control shattered. "I AM ELARA VASILIEV! I CAN BE ANYWHERE I WANT IN THIS FORTRE—"

"Cousin-in-law," Arkai’s voice turned to winter. The indulgent amusement vanished, replaced by the cold authority of the Black Wolf King in his own domain. "That’s enough."

He looked at her with disappointment. "What a disgusting move you did right after receiving such harsh correction from my brother. You should’ve stayed in your chamber and repented for your family’s failings. Not skulk in gardens where you don’t belong."

The dismissal was absolute. He was judging, not arguing.

Cecilia chuckled, the sound dark and rich. She leaned back into Arkai’s chest, tilting her hooded face up as if to whisper, but her voice carried. "See, Uncle...? Your cock is so desirable, even the high-and-mighty Lady Vasiliev can’t keep herself in check."

Arkai looked down at her. His glare held no real heat, only a helpless, torrential mix of arousal, exasperation, and a dizzying, reckless pride.

He could feel his own heart hammering against his ribs again, a wild drumbeat syncopated with hers. This woman would be the death of him, and he’d thank her with his last breath.

"Cousin..." Elara seethed, forcing her voice back into a semblance of control. It was thin, strained, a wire about to snap. She shifted tactics, her tone dropping into a condescending, almost pitying lilt.

"Answer me—who is this... vulgar maid?" She waved a dismissive hand, her smile returning. "You shouldn’t lower yourself by summoning this kind of... call girl into your palace. This kind of cheap adventure... it truly doesn’t suit a man of your stature."

She smiled her most elegant, triumphant smile, believing she had regained the high ground, until she saw the hooded woman’s sneer again. A—amusement...?!

"Yes, yes, I’m indeed being called here for many things," Cecilia agreed airily. She snuggled deeper into Arkai’s side. "Of course, mainly for Arkai’s pleasure... among other... services."

Then, as if struck by a thought, Cecilia turned her hooded face fully toward Arkai, her voice shifting into something brisk and practical. "Oh, right. I also came here to tell you that the man you asked me to heal, Anton Vasiliev, needs two of my elixirs instead of one because he was poisoned. You better find out who did it to him. And quickly."

Poiso—

The word hit Elara’s brain like a lightning strike. Her thoughts short-circuited.

This woman—she knew Anton was poisoned...?! How?! Who—

No.

A memory sliced through the panic. Arkai’s explanation in the hall—Anton’s survival was the work of a Dragon’s physician.

Could it be... this vulgar, hooded slut in a torn dress, smelling of sex and sin... was the Dragon’s physician? The source of the miracle?

Arkai frowned, acting like this was the first time he heard that. He acted his part flawlessly. "Poison?" he repeated, his voice tight.

He looked from Cecilia to Elara, his gaze sharpening with an accusatory suspicion he let her see. "You’re saying, my brother was poisoned?"

Elara didn’t answer. She couldn’t. The blood drained from her face so completely, so rapidly, that her skin turned a deathly shade, whiter than the snow clinging to the garden branches.

The elegant smile was gone. The condescension vanished. All that remained was the feeling that the ground had just fallen out from beneath her feet.

All that remained in Elara’s eyes was a hollow, widening terror.

Cecilia let the silence stretch. Let the weight of the revealed poison, the implication, the sheer knowledge sink its claws deep into Elara’s carefully constructed world.

"Now, an old bitch..."

From the shadow of the hood, her voice emerged again.

"...better go back to her kennel..."

Arkai felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold race down his spine. Awe. Heat. The thrill of watching a queen execute a usurper without ever lifting a royal hand.

"...before eeeeeveryone becomes more suspicious of her~"