Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 231: Across the Hall **

"Mr. Dawnoro."

"Accept my help."

"Let me help you."

"Brother Arkai..."

Arkai jolted awake.

The world snapped into focus. His bedroom, the grey light of early dawn filtering through curtains, the familiar weight of blankets and pillows.

But the transition was violent, jarring, his body wrenching itself from sleep with a gasp that tore through the quiet.

And the immediate sensation that flooded his awareness was release.

Warm. Wet. Spreading. It was still... splurting out...

"Ha—ha... ha... ha..."

His breathing was ragged, uneven, each exhale a struggle. He stared at the ceiling, at the familiar patterns of shadow and light, and tried to remember how lungs worked.

Then he looked down.

His pants were ruined. The fabric clung to him, damp and cooling, and when he pulled them down, his cock lay limp and spent against his thigh, glistening with evidence of a dream he couldn’t quite remember.

But he remembered the voice.

"Brother Arkai."

That hadn’t been Sienna’s voice.

It had been Cecilia Araceli’s.

Low. Warm. Teasing. Calling him brother in a way that made his blood heat and his heart race and his body respond even now, even after release, even with the evidence of his shame still cooling on his skin.

That woman had planted images in his head.

Images of her walking differently. Of her as his sister. Of her instead of Sienna. She had taken the twisted fantasy his sister had constructed and rewritten it, replacing Sienna with herself, replacing everything bad with everything worse... in the best way.

And his body had responded exactly as she had predicted.

Arkai was sure he was done with the hot period of puberty. Those years of uncontrolled urges, of waking up hard and frustrated, of having to manage himself in ways that were embarrassing to acknowledge. He had thought they were behind him.

Apparently not.

Apparently, his hormones were still very much through the roof.

"Cecilia..." The name escaped his lips in a whisper, barely audible in the quiet room.

He tried it again. Shaped it differently.

"Cec... Cece..."

His face reddened immediately.

Cece. It was perfect. Short. Intimate. The kind of nickname you only used for someone close, someone yours.

His cock stirred again.

Arkai’s hand moved before he could stop it. Reaching down, grasping, his thumb finding the tip and stroking in slow circles. The sensation was electric, a jolt of pleasure that made his hips twitch and his breath catch.

"Cece..." He whispered it again.

Cece.

His baby sister, Cecilia.

His eyes squeezed shut as images flooded his mind. Cecilia in his room, wearing something too short. Cecilia brushing against him, her scent filling his lungs. Cecilia pinned beneath him, looking up at him with those impossible sea-glass eyes, calling him brother in that low, teasing voice.

"Fuck—"

The word escaped him on a groan, his hand moving faster, his body arching toward release.

It was wrong. It was so, so wrong.

But it felt so impossibly right.

"Cece... Cece..."

The name was whispered into the quiet of his room with each stroke of his hand. His hips moved in small, involuntary thrusts, chasing the pleasure that built low in his belly, coiling tighter and tighter with each passing second.

His sister.

Cecilia.

The images in his mind were vivid. Too vivid, too detailed, too real. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Her voice in his ear, calling him brother. Her sea-glass eyes looking up at him with something that wasn’t horror or disgust but want.

He was so close.

So close—

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

Arkai froze.

His hand stilled mid-stroke. His body, caught on the precipice, screamed in protest. Every muscle locked, every nerve fired, every instinct urged him to finish, to ignore the interruption, to chase the release that was barely a heartbeat away.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

"Arkai? You awake?"

The voice was familiar.

Roarke.

His right-hand man. His best friend. The one person in this world he trusted above all others.

"Conference starts in an hour. Your father’s asking where you are."

Arkai’s eyes flew open.

His father. Why?

The conference, yes, he knew. The world, waiting outside his door while he lay here, pants around his ankles, hand wrapped around his dick, whispering the name of a woman who was not his sister but had somehow become the star of his most shameful fantasy.

"I—" His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, tried again. "I’m awake. Give me a minute."

A pause. Then, Roarke’s voice, tinged with concern. "You alright? You sound strange."

Strange. Yes. That was one word for it.

"Fine." Arkai forced the word out, steady as he could manage. "Just—didn’t sleep well. I’ll be out soon."

Another pause. Longer this time.

"...Alright. I’ll tell your father you’re on your way. Unless... he wants to talk to you. I don’t know what he wants, man. Stop making him contact me instead of you."

"Sorry man," Arkai managed.

"Get your ass up."

Footsteps retreated. The corridor fell silent.

Arkai stared at his ceiling, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his body still thrumming with unfulfilled need.

Cecilia.

How many more of his soiled pants in her wake?

He was in so much trouble.

Yesterday, he had brought Sienna back home.

He hadn’t explained anything to his step-mother, Ines, as planned. So he had simply said that Sienna was tired. Exhausted, even. And that he had brought her home instead of to her dorm. Perhaps she missed home.

Ines had accepted it. Had smiled, thanked him for being such a good brother, and ushered her unconscious daughter inside.

After that, he had returned to the Athenaeum. Late. So late that the halls were empty, the conference preparations silenced for the night. He had collapsed into bed, body heavy with exhaustion, mind still churning with everything that had happened.

And then he had dreamed.

Of... of—

He couldn’t even think it without his face heating.

But at least he wouldn’t see her at the conference today. Her work was finished. Nikolas had confirmed it, however reluctantly. She had no reason to be there.

What a silver lining. If she was just a bit less competent, just a bit more ordinary, he might have had to face her. To look into those sea-glass eyes and remember everything. The drug, the room, the frozen cemetery, the words she had spoken, the images she had planted in his head.

His soul might not have survived it.

The moment he attended the conference, he had to eat his own words.

She was there.

Cecilia Araceli stood in the middle of the bustling hall, checking something on a display she had already finished, her movements unhurried and calm.

She walked among the booths and clusters of students with the easy grace of someone who belonged, who had every right to be there, who was simply present in a way that drew the eye without trying.

She was checking her work. The work she had already finished. Because apparently, being done wasn’t enough for her. She had to verify, to confirm, to ensure that everything was perfect even when perfection was already achieved.

If she was just a bit less competent... 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

This woman was even more competent than competent.

Even when her work was done, she was still here.

The hall was vast, filled with hundreds of students and professors and visitors from across the continent. The noise was a constant hum, the movement a chaotic dance of bodies and magic and conversation.

And yet, across that crowded space, across the sea of faces and forms, their eyes met.

For one frozen moment, the world stopped.

Cecilia’s gaze found his. They held him in place like the telekinesis she had used to freeze an entire cemetery.

Arkai wanted to die.

He wanted to sink into the floor, to disappear into the crowd, to cut off his own dick and hide it behind his back where those eyes couldn’t see the evidence of everything she had done to him.

His face burned.

And Cecilia Araceli simply smiled.