Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 45: Second Bond

If it wasn’t clear enough, there were reasons for Cecilia’s anger.

She understood why Oathran did what he did, no matter how fatalistic it was. She understood, on a biological level, the inevitable and instinctual pull Arkai felt towards her.

They were beasts, after all.

Just that Oathran, bonded to her, spent his energy defying his own draconic nature to do the "right" thing by arranging a successor, while Arkai, unbonded, was helplessly succumbing to his lupine nature by fixating on another’s mate.

They were two sides of the same coin, each failing spectacularly in opposite directions.

Yes, although their intentions, buried under layers of male stupidity and grandiosity, were arguably pure, and yes, they wanted to protect, to provide, to ensure safety in a future they feared...

...there was one line they shouldn’t have crossed.

"Scheme behind me again," she stated, calm as a frozen lake, "and I will rip your balls off you in your sleep."

It was the planning. The quiet, unilateral decision-making about her life, her future, as if she were a prize to be strategically bequeathed or a fortress to be garrisoned after the war. They had conspired in the ashy dark, building a blueprint for her widowhood without her consent.

In the right context, with full honesty, she could tolerate almost anything. She had, after all, once been willing to hunt a mythical flower so her husband could run off with his true love.

Oathran wanted to die by her hand? Fine. An oath she had accepted. To hide the true reason? Unacceptable. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Oathran wanted Arkai to be her shield and companion after he was gone? Fine. To set the wheels in motion and expect her to simply accept the arrangement when it was presented as a fait accompli from beyond the grave? Impossible.

Arkai wanted her? Fine. To only consider acting on it, or confessing it, because another man had granted him tacit permission from a deathbed he wasn’t even on yet? Pathetic.

Of the two, her fury burned hottest for Oathran. He knew her. He, of all beings, should have understood that her autonomy only functioned if the foundation was truth, no matter how ugly, how brutal, how inconvenient that truth might be.

"Scheme behind me again," she repeated, "and I will rip your balls off you, cook them, and eat them right in front of your eyes."

The two men lessened the gap between their knees where they met the hard ground.

"Scheme behind me again," she concluded, "and I will rip your balls off you and stuff them in your asses."

The point was made. The two men nodded, their heads moving vigorously.

The Dragon Lord and the Wolf King, brought low by their own disastrous attempt at gallantry.

Two of the world’s most powerful beings, knelt at her makeshift bed, begging to both be her... something. Mates. Protectors. What, a dual-regent of her personal security and complicated affections?

But she knew, in the marrow of her being, that they never meant harm.

One was a god who saw in her the only worthy end, and who had spent seventeen years juggling apocalyptic threats while diligently keeping track of her saved villages and averted famines.

The other was a king who had recognized an equal strength in a glance by a river, and who, for years, had been the sole northern lord who never complained, never doubted, simply heeded her warnings with the steady faith of one who understands vigilance.

They had known her intimately for less than a week. Yet their respect, for her power, her will, her very essence, ran deeper and truer than the fealty of those who had bowed to her title for years.

Love? She didn’t know about love. It was a fickle, slippery thing.

But it didn’t mean she wouldn’t believe it when they, in their own catastrophically flawed ways, said it.

"I can’t believe I’m about to be responsible for two beasts..."

The two beasts in question shared the sentiment. They couldn’t quite believe the reality they had, through a combination of devotion, idiocy, and raw instinct, somehow manifested.

They did wrong. They had been trying to orchestrate her future while also coveting her present. Now, in the atonement they’d negotiated, responsibility was the only currency they had left. They would be responsible to her, for her, and with each other.

They watched as Cecilia sat upright. The first blade of dawn was crawling over the horizon, the light finding the gaps in the tent’s canvas. It sliced through the dimness, illuminating motes of dust and the severe, beautiful planes of her face.

She had set her terms. She had accepted their impossible proposal. Now came her part of the bargain. She closed her eyes.

"Ten rolls."

***

Rinne’s mouth fell open in an ’O’. This... woman...!

The ethereal blonde from the ashen valley, the one who had floated amidst glowing beacons of undug survivors like a goddess of miracle.

"Hello, Rinne, my name is Cecilia Araceli. It’s my pleasure to meet you," she said, curtsying to him.

Wait. Wasn’t she the other dragon? Her scent was... subtle, complex, layered with something ancient and powerful, yes, but now it was tangled with Dad’s scent!

Not just a passing trace, but woven through it, like two threads in a single cloak. The olfactory contradiction short-circuited his young brain.

"Rinne, for now, don’t tell anyone about her real name, okay?" Arkai interjected, his voice firm but low. "We’ll tell everyone she’s my new Luna, Cece."

Wait. Cecilia Araceli...? That name... He’d seen it before. On official parchments, on the reports his father pored over late into the night...

His eyes widened. "You’re the old Saint—mmmph—mmmh!"

Arkai’s large hand clamped over his son’s mouth like a bear trap, cutting off the title before it could fully escape.

Cecilia turned her serene smile toward Oathran. "Do I look old, Your Majesty?"

Oathran, who was currently in the process of smothering himself for a different reason, choked slightly. "No, my love—pffffff—" He disguised the rest as a cough.

"Mm—pwah!" Rinne finally wrestled free, gasping for air. He looked up at the two adults, his gaze darting between them. One was divinely gorgeous. The other was... majestically intimidating, with an aura that made the air feel thinner.

"...wow..." he breathed, his voice full of pure awe. "So only one of you is a dragon..." His glittering eyes turned to Cecilia. "And one of you... is the one who keeps saving everyone..."

Cecilia’s composed smile faltered for a heartbeat.

Rinne was ten. He was starting to grasp the thorny vines of politics and the jagged edges of family dynamics, but in some corners of his heart, innocence still held court. His view of the Saintess was one such corner.

His father had never treated Cecilia Araceli’s prophecies as anything less than gospel. He’d grumble if the seasonal bulletins were late, spend hours analyzing them by firelight, and mobilize entire packs for her emergency warnings.

To Rinne, she had been a distant, divine consultant. A brilliant, infallible problem-solver in the sky who helped his father keep their world from crumbling.

But then, another, older piece of information slammed into the first. His brow furrowed. "But you’re also Arzhen’s mat—mmmmphh—mmmphmph!"

Arkai’s hand was back to smother him. Rinne struggled, looking up at his father with horrified eyes, accusing, ’Did you just marry Older Cousin’s mate?! Then aren’t you the monster here?!’

"That’s why," Arkai said as he finally released his grip, "we tell everyone she’s Cece, my Luna. Not her real name."

Rinne felt that just yesterday, his world had crystallized into one simple truth. His father was his sun, his world, the only thing that truly mattered.

But this? This was... wild. No, this was strange.

How did someone who, by the tangled rules of blood and marriage, he should have awkwardly addressed as "Older Cousin-in-law" suddenly become his... mom?

Also, the title ’Mom’ didn’t fit. It was too soft, uuuh... too domestic for the woman who can see the future and smelled like starlight and winter moon.

And then there was the dragon. The majestic, white-haired man who made the air taste like ozone. Who...?

"And this is His Majesty, Oathran Alicei," Arkai’s voice cut through his thoughts. "He’s... Cece’s other mate. Call him Sir, boy."

Oathran Alicei, the Dragon Lord...?

No, forget that—

Other mate?

The two words hit Rinne’s ten-year-old understanding of the world like a meteor.

Other implied a first. His dad was the first(?).

Mate implied a bond. A sacred bond.

Other mate implied... sharing.

His dad... shared a mate... with the Dragon Lord?!

His eyes, wide as saucers, darted from his father’s stern, resigned face, to the ethereal woman who was somehow at the center of this, to the legendary being.

WHAT IS HAPPENING?!