Chapter 42: Loved
How she knew wasn’t important. Both n would believe she was psychic even without her trying to lie to them about it. What was important was to grovel now and hope they wouldn’t think of killing themselves out of it later.
"Your Majesty, please excuse us," Oathran said solemnly.
Arkai bowed his head, conflicted, not awkward. But when he was about to leave, Cecilia pointed at him sharply. Seeing him freeze, she shook her head at him with such deep pain in her eyes.
She didn’t even need to say anything to fuck up his conscience.
"Do I look like soone you can pass around?" Cecilia seethed, whispering to both n. "Oh, is this because I was another man’s mate before you, Oathran?"
"Cecilia," Oathran hissed, his jaw tight, his eyes burning.
"I see you think so highly of ," Cecilia hissed back. "The two of you."
"Saintess Araceli..." Arkai tried to raise his voice, only to change his mind and stop. The man closed his eyes.
She turned back to Oathran, glaring. "You asked
to take your life by my hand. Of course, this is how you want
to pay. This is how you want
to bear the burden. This is ho—?"
"I love you, Cecilia."
Oathran sharply cut off her question.
"I love you more than death."
The man grasped her shoulders, forcing her to look straight at him. "In God’s na, I don’t want to die anymore, but you guessed I must."
The man’s voice had emphasized the last two words.
He must.
It was inevitable.
Even for Arkai, the ’outsider’ in this conversation, it was impossible to comprehend. If a being as mighty as Oathran, a Dragon Lord who could command the wind and snuff a pyroclastic flow, couldn’t defy this fate... what hope was there for anyone to change it?
"I can bear the burden of killing the Dragon Lord," Cecilia scoffed, "but for you to give another man hope that he can have
after?"
"I didn’t..." Oathran began, then stopped himself. It was technically the truth.
He hadn’t said those words. He hadn’t offered her like a piece of his hoard to be inherited. But the intention, the wish he had laid at Arkai’s feet, even unspoken, was a form of hope.
Arkai was a good man.
Better than him. Much younger, with a life ahead of him. Powerful enough to protect her. Closer to humans. Loyal. Honorable. Dignified, and—
His prophesied death had already passed.
Arkai fit the bill infinitely better than him.
But it was, it would always be, Cecilia’s choice. If Arkai coveted her, and if she one day looked at him and agreed... then Oathran could be happy.
Happy, even if he wasn’t here anymore. Happy, even if he wouldn’t be able to feel his heart crushed without witnessing it firsthand.
"Saintess, please..." Arkai breathed. He had to defuse this, to take the bla that was rightly his. "Listen to
when I say Lord Alicei only brought all of this up, your accidental bond, his approaching death, because he noticed that I..."
How did one finish that sentence with honor?
How did he admit to coveting a married woman, to feeling a pull towards another man’s bonded mate, without sounding like the most dishonorable wolf alive?
And forget about how she was his niece-in-law? A woman who had been married to a boy nad after himself?
"So, a man’s montary wish is enough for you to go, ’Ah, after I die, I prefer you bond with my widow’?" Cecilia sneered. She wiped the tear that escaped her left eye with a swift, angry gesture, as if punishing it for falling.
"n." She shrugged sarcastically. "The two extres of ripping your heart out after marking your environnt with his cum without fucking you, because he love soone else... and loving you so much he’d pass you on to another man after he dies. There’s no in-between."
But then she turned the full, scalding force of her glare onto Arkai. "Either that, or soone who’s on another, similar extre of the spectrum."
With that, she left them. She didn’t look back.
Of course, Arkai caught what she had just said. He turned to Oathran, his eyes wide, horrified.
"Arzhen... he...?"
Oathran was subrged in sha so deep he was in a daze. When Arkai reached out, grasping his arm for confirmation, the Dragon Lord brushed him away with a hollow motion. He turned and walked away without a word, without eting his gaze.
But the silence... it was answer enough.
Arkai felt the solid ground of his world liquefy and swirl away beneath his feet.
The boy nad after himself...
His own blood—
A hot, painful breath escaped him.
Arzhen hadn’t just ripped Cecilia’s heart from her chest and stolen the leth Flower she had found. He was about to give it to another married woman, to break her bond... to be with him.
Coveting another’s mate.
Coveting a married woman.
Look at how similar that sounded with himself.
Arkai brought a hand up, clutching his own face.
He knew he was a beast. It was his nature, his pride.
But apparently, he was more of a beast than he had ever dared to think.
***
DING!
[Capturable Love Interest detected! Would you like to roll for Five Star Love Interest, Arkai Dawnoro? You have 10 free rolls!]
[Yes/No]
"I’m not rolling for him," Cecilia stated.
[Are you sure to skip this exclusive five star banner, Cecilia?]
"I am sure."
DING!
[If you unlock more than one Love Interest, you will unlock more of the system features!]
[For example, you will be able to unlock the Standard Banner!]
Cecilia didn’t answer. She let herself fall back onto the makeshift bed, the straw and canvas offering no comfort. A dull ache throbbed in the hollow of her chest. Not from her missing heart, but the live feedback from her Shared Sense bond with Oathran.
DING!
[You will also unlock the feature ’Delete Bond’ with any Love Interest you want!]
Cecilia’s eyes snapped open.
[It will give you the ability to get rid of a bond with any of your Love Intere—]
"I don’t need it," she sat up sharply, cutting off the explanation. "I don’t want to—"
The protest died on her lips. Her throat tightened. She brought her hands to her face, and the tears ca then, soaking into her palms.
This was toxic from the beginning.
The way it moved at the speed of catastrophe. The way it was accidental. The way every deepening connection was triggered by trauma... her mutilation, his impending death, a volcanic apocalypse.
It had barely been a week since their reunion, and everything had beco so dizzyingly unfair. And now this? Another man, another complication, popping up just like that?
It felt manipulative, the way she had made Oathran fall so hard, so fast. It felt equally manipulative, the way the universe seed to engineer it to make her fall. To bind her with guilt and grief and clinging love.
How could it feel so right the way how wrong it was?
[Cecilia...]
[Congratulations! Oathran Alicei’s Love Points have increased by 10!]
[Congratulations! Oathran Alicei’s Love Points have increased by 10!]
[Congratulations! Oathran Alicei’s Love Points have increased by 10!]
[You are so loved... so easily so... why don’t you understand...?]
[Congratulations! Oathran Alicei’s Love Points have increased by 10!]
[Congratulations! Oathran Alicei’s Love Points have increased by 10!]
[Congratulations! Oathran Alicei’s Love Points have increased by 10!]
[Congratulations! Oathran Alicei’s Love Points have increased by 10!]
"Why are you suddenly turning these notifications back on? Turn them off," Cecilia commanded coldly.
[Congratulations! Oathran Alicei’s Love Points have increased by 10!]
[Congratulations! Oathran Alicei’s Love Points have increased by 10!]
[Congratulations! Oathran Alicei’s Love Points have increased by 10!]
[Congratulations! Oathran Alicei’s Love Points have increased by 10!]
[Congratulations! Oathran Alicei’s Love Points have increased by 10!]
[If you had rolled for Five Star Love Interest, Arkai Dawnoro already, you might get his points too. In the hundreds.]
Cecilia scoffed. "What does that have to do with ?"
[Cecilia...]
[You are so very loved]
[We admire the essence of your soul]
[And so are they]
Even in the middle of the manipulation, the trauma, and the wrongness, there existed a truth in it.
She was loved.
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