Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 204: Tarnished Regret

"Then... did you fuck his mom too?"

Arkai froze.

"Your... sister, Sienna?"

The man burst into a wet, bubbling laugh. Blood flecked his lips, sprayed from his ruined mouth, but he didn’t seem to care. His eyes gleamed with malicious triumph.

"You thought you could cleanly marry a new woman after everything, brother?" The word was a mockery, a sneer wrapped in familiar address. "After years of calling your sister’s bastard son your own?"

He smiled lopsidedly, the expression grotesque.

"Is it your way of repenting? Because I know you had been rutting for her for yea—"

"LIAR!"

The scream tore through the courtyard.

Cecilia flinched at the voice. High, broken, absolutely devastated.

Rinne burst from his hiding place behind an arch near her, his young body a blur of motion, his face a ruin of tears and rage. He was here first, earlier—

He had heard everything.

Arkai turned.

His eyes found them both. Rinne, running, sobbing. Cecilia, frozen in the archway, her red lips pressed into a thin line. The color drained from his face, leaving him pale as bone, as ash.

"Rinne—" The name escaped him.

But Rinne was already gone, disappearing into the shadows of the corridor, his sobs echoing behind him like the cries of a wounded animal.

Arkai stood petrified. His hands hung at his sides.

Cecilia’s eyes met his. Even behind the veil, he knew what kind of eyes were staring back at him.

And he... he looked at her like the sky had collapsed. Like everything he had built, everything he had protected, was crumbling to dust around him. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

She clenched her jaw. Her lips, the only part of her face visible, pressed together until they were a thin, bloodless line.

Slowly, she shook her head.

Then she turned.

"Rinne!" Her voice rang through the corridor. "Rinne, wait!"

She ran.

Behind her, Arkai remained frozen in the moonlight.

The courtyard was silent, save for the heavy breathing of the wolves and the distant, muffled echo of the banquet’s music.

Slowly, Arkai turned to the man suspended in his aides’ grip. The bloodied man looked back at him, and his expression was as pale as his.

He hadn’t meant to—

"Lock him in the basement." Arkai’s voice was cold.

Borak’s brow furrowed with concern. "Alpha..."

"No one is hosting." Arkai’s gaze swept over the scene. The blood on the stones, the wreckage of the man’s face, the shadows where his son had disappeared. "I need to return to the banquet. Clean it up. Quickly."

The beaten man was silent. He didn’t struggle when the wolves dragged him away, his feet leaving smears of blood across the courtyard stones.

Arkai didn’t spare him another glance. He simply turned and walked toward the banquet hall, his expression smoothing into something presentable, something royal, as if the last few minutes had never happened.

But his hands, clenched at his sides, were trembling.

Meanwhile, Cecilia hurried.

The delicate jewelries all over her body bristled and chimed as she ran, golden chains catching the dim light, bangles singing with each urgent step.

She looked and looked.

Every room she passed, she checked. Every door slightly ajar, every shadow that might hide a small, trembling body. The residence was vast, a labyrinth of corridors and chambers, and Rinne could be anywhere.

Then she stopped.

Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. Her mind, racing through possibilities, suddenly still.

His room.

Of course. When the world crumbled, when everything you believed turned to ash, where else would a child go but the one place that was his?

She turned and ran toward Rinne’s room.

When she arrived, she found silence.

She stood before the closed door, her hand hovering inches from the wood, unsure. Through the thick panels, she could hear nothing. No sobs, no movement, no sound at all.

She tried the handle anyway.

Locked.

Cecilia pressed her forehead briefly against the cool wood, gathering herself. Then she spoke, her voice soft through the door.

"Rinne, this is mother. Can I come in, baby?"

Silence.

She waited. Counted. One. Two. Three. Four.

Nothing.

Cecilia hesitated. Even if he let her in, even if she crossed this threshold, what would she say? What comfort could she offer when she herself knew nothing about any of this?

The scene replayed in her mind. The accusations, the laughter, the name Sienna. Rinne’s mother. She knew about her, vaguely. Sienna Dawnoro, Arkai’s stepsister from his father’s second marriage. No blood relation, but family nonetheless. A woman who had died, leaving behind a son.

But the man... the bloodied man in the courtyard, the one who had spoken those poisonous words. Who was he?

He had called Arkai ’brother.’ But Arkai had no biological siblings. At least none in the official Dawnoro family tree, none recorded in the histories Cecilia had studied. Someone close enough to claim that title, to wield it like a weapon.

Rinne’s biological father?

She pushed it aside.

Later. She could unravel mysteries later. Right now, a child was alone in the dark, his world shattered, and she was the only one who had followed.

"Baby." Her voice was gentler now, coaxing. "I’m coming in, alright?"

She didn’t wait for an answer she knew wouldn’t come.

Her palm pressed against the lock. She closed her eyes, reaching with her power, thin, precise threads of telekinesis slipping into the mechanism, finding the tumblers, pushing.

CLICK.

The door swung open.

Darkness greeted her. The curtains were drawn, the lamps unlit.

And on the bed, a small bundle under the blankets. Still. So still. But as her eyes adjusted, she saw it. A faint tremble, barely perceptible, running through the lump of covers.

"Baby?"

Cecilia stepped inside, closing the door softly behind her. The darkness wrapped around her.

"I’m alone." Her voice was a whisper, carrying through the black. "Your dad’s not here. You can come out."

No response. The bundle on the bed didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge her presence.

She walked to the bedside, her steps silent on the floor. The tremble under the blankets continued.

Slowly, carefully, Cecilia lowered herself to her knees beside the bed. Her chains settled with a soft whisper. Her veil brushed against the edge of the mattress.

"Rinne..."