Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 209: Burning All Bridges

The news reached Nikolas.

One of his informants, a presence he especially put in the temple’s shadows, appeared at the Delanivis residence urgently.

He said Prince Arzhen had appeared at the temple. Collapsed in the Saintess’s arms. She screamed for help. He was unconscious. And she hadn’t left his side.

That bastard—

Nikolas didn’t wait for more.

He was moving before the informant finished speaking, his coat snatched from its hook, his carriage ordered with a snap of his fingers. The ride to the temple was a blur of city streets and churning thoughts, each one darker than the last.

Faking it.

He’s faking it. Arzhen Vasiliev, the tiger who had slithered his way back into Ruby’s life, had staged this whole scene. Collapsed dramatically in her arms, knowing she would call for help, knowing she would stay.

It was manipulation. It was theft. It was—

Nikolas’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.

He would expose him. He would walk into that room, see through the act, and drag Ruby out of there by force if necessary. She was his mate. His wife. His property. And no amount of theatrical fainting from that bastard would change that.

The temple loomed before him. He was out of the carriage before it fully stopped, striding through the halls with the cold fury of a man on the edge of violence.

Attendants scattered before him. Doors opened and closed. Someone tried to speak, to direct him, and he ignored them completely.

He found the room, stopping in the doorway.

And everything he had prepared, the accusations, the outrage, the righteous fury, died in his throat.

Arzhen lay on the bed like a corpse.

Pale. So pale. His skin had the waxy, bloodless quality of someone who had not slept in days. Weeks, perhaps. Dark circles carved hollows beneath his eyes, so deep they looked like bruises.

His jaw was rough with days of stubble, untended, wild. His clothes, what he was wearing, were rumpled and stained, the garments of a man who had been wearing the same thing for far too long.

He was a literal mess. Not the calculated dishevelment of a man playing a role. Not the careful staging of a seducer. Just... broken. Empty. Gone.

Ruby sat beside him on the bed.

Her hand rested on the edge of the mattress, not quite touching him, as if she was afraid to make contact. Her eyes were wet. Genuinely wet. Tears traced slow paths down her cheeks, and she made no move to wipe them away.

Around the bed, physicians and attendants hovered. But it also looked as if they were facing something they didn’t understand. One of them, an older woman with steady hands and worried eyes, was speaking in low, urgent tones.

"...extreme stress. Combined with severe mana imbalance. We’ve rarely seen anything like it. His body is... exhausted. Completely. As if he’s been running from something for days without stopping."

"Without sleeping," another added quietly. "Without eating. His reserves are depleted to dangerous levels. It’s shock, or... perhaps horror... he’s very shaken by something."

Ruby nodded, not looking away from Arzhen’s face. "Will he recover?"

"We believe so, with rest and care. But..." The physician hesitated. "It may take time. And when he wakes, he will need calm. Stability. No shocks, no confrontations."

Nikolas stood in the doorway, frozen.

The jealousy that had driven him here had nowhere to go. It hung in his chest like smoke, directionless and choking. There was nothing to fight here. No act to expose. No enemy to confront.

A broken man on a bed.

And his wife, crying beside him.

He knew this was his fate when he bonded with her.

He had known it from the beginning. Known that he was never the man she truly wanted. Known that no matter how much he loved her, how fiercely he devoted himself, how many sacrifices he made in her name, it would never be enough.

She would always look at him and see someone else. She would always reach for him and find him lacking. That was why he was bitter. Even if he tried, it would never be enough anyway.

It had hurt then. It hurt now. Worse.

Now, the pain had curdled into something else. Something uglier. Irritation. Scorn.

Her pathetic display at the banquet yesterday, that desperate, shameful attempt to curry favor with Arkai’s Luna while the whole room watched and judged.

Her failure to simply be what he needed. An obedient wife, a useful partner, a woman who knew her place and stayed in it.

What was he even doing here?

Everything was wasted. His reputation, dragged through the mud by association and because he believed in her. His love, thrown at someone who had never wanted it. And for what?

For this?

"Ruby."

The name left his lips before he could stop it. Flat. Cold. Demanding.

Ruby turned.

She saw him standing there, her husband, her mate, the man she was bound to. And in that moment, Nikolas saw it. The look in her eyes. The blame.

As if this was his fault. As if he had caused this.

Why?

Everything was because of her stupidity. Her failed prophecy. That cursed announcement about Arkai Dawnoro’s death, that was the seed that had sprouted into this entire catastrophe.

And she blamed him?

But Ruby wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her gaze had already slid away, drawn back to the broken figure on the bed. Arzhen’s words echoed in her mind, drowning out Nikolas’s presence.

Oathran Alicei is still alive.

The Dragon Lord. The divine dragon of Isaiah’s line. Supposedly dead by now, his corpse waiting to be harvested, his bones waiting to be forged into world-shaping weapons.

But Arzhen had seen him. Had faced him. And the state he was in now, of how pale, wrecked, and barely conscious he was, spoke of an encounter that had shattered something fundamental in him.

Was Oathran truly still alive? Or was he on the brink of death, dying but not dead, still capable of terrifying a tiger prince into this condition?

She needed answers. She needed to be here when Arzhen woke. She needed to confirm, to plan, to act.

So she turned her face away from Nikolas.

Her conflicted eyes landed back on Arzhen, and she didn’t look away.

Something in Nikolas snapped.

"Ruby!"

Nikolas was about to step forward, his hand already reaching to drag Ruby away from that bedside, from that bastard who had stolen her attention yet again, when his attendant appeared at his side.

"Young Lord." The voice was low, urgent. "The Lord is calling you."

Nikolas turned, a growl building in his chest. His father.

He knew his father had been displeased with him for a while now. The exact reason was murky, sinceDorian Delanivis was not a man who explained himself, but Nikolas was certain it revolved around Ruby.

It must be her fault too.

His father must have blamed him for marrying her, for tying their house to her failures, for everything that had gone wrong since that cursed prophecy.

Nikolas did notice his father had frowned at the miraculous healing potion, the one she had nothing to do with, the one that had actually saved his father’s life, but that had been effective.

So why was Dorian still angry? Why, if not for Ruby’s failure to predict something so beneficial? If she had known about such a potion, if she had told them, if she had been a useful wife instead of a liability—

"Why?" Nikolas finally asked, his voice clipped.

His aide hesitated. A flicker of something. Fear? Reluctance? It passed across his face before he leaned in, close enough that his words would reach no one else.

"Just a moment ago, right after you left, we received news." A pause. "The Lion King has declared that he was the one who attacked the Lord, sir."

Nikolas’s eyes widened.

"And the Lion King is ready for war."