Beast Gacha System: All Mine

Damon froze at the door.

The moment Stevan saw the visage of the emperor, all the drunkenness in his veins vanished. It evaporated like morning mist before the sun, or more accurately, like a man’s will to live before his lover’s older brother, who also happened to be the most powerful human in the known world.

Angela too, seeing her brother standing there, pushed Stevan away and said, "Get up and kneel. Now."

There was something profoundly undignified about the way they scrambled. Limbs tangled. Sheets twisted. A very unfortunate wet sound that Angela would remember with mortification for the rest of her natural life, which, depending on how this went, might not be very long.

While the two scrambled, Damon was standing there, expressionless, looking their direction. But while his face didn’t move one bit, his hand had reached toward a big decorative vase near the door and lifted it up to his waist.

It was a very nice vase. Porcelain and expensive. Angela had always admired it.

Now she was admiring the way her brother’s knuckles had gone white around its neck.

THUMP! THUMP!

Two pairs of knees fell on the ground in front of the emperor, and the vase had been lifted up his chest. The sound of their knees hitting the marble floor echoed through the room like a death knell.

"Your Majesty, please quell your ange—" Angela shut herself the moment she saw the vase cease moving. She went pale.

No matter what people say, her brother could let go of a lot of things. Including seeing his sister getting fucked by a warden in the dungeon.

But this wasn’t the dungeon.

This was the Imperial Princess’ Palace.

Even though Damon himself had fallen into Ivy’s trap in his own palace, a fact that Angela would absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent not bring up right now because she wasn’t suicidal, Angela was his sister, the one he cherished most in this entire wide world.

And apparently, that cherishing did not extend to being okay with her getting railed in her own bed by a man he had let slide doing the same thing in a different location.

"Coming here directly, deep into my Imperial Palace to bed one’s sister, did you grow arrogant because you had her in your authority for years, Warden?" Damon asked.

His voice was calm and Angela knew that was the terrifying part. When Damon got loud, people usually lived. When Damon got quiet, people found themselves staring at their own headless bodies from a very strange angle.

Stevan’s forehead was practically kissing the floor. "I’ve transgressed, Your Majesty. Please throw the vase at me and punish me severely."

Angela wanted to slap him. Not because he was offering himself up for sacrifice, but because he’d just given her brother permission to escalate. Why would he give the man with the vase permission to throw the vase?

"So you’d rather have me throw this vase at you and receive more punishment than admitting what you did wrong?" Damon asked again.

Stevan was speechless. He was admitting it as they speak! What did he mea—

"Who are you to enter my sister’s room and pleasure yourself in her presence?"

Stevan’s head was blank. His pupil shook so bad the world blurred at the edges.

"I-I’ve sinned—"

"WHO ARE YOU?!"

"I’m the princess’ kept man, Your Majesty!"

...

...

...

...

What the fuck did he just blurt out?

Angela’s brain, which had been doing a rather admirable job of keeping her alive and not screaming, abruptly short-circuited.

Kept... man?

He’d called himself her kept man.

In front of the emperor.

Her brother.

While still on his knees.

Angela wanted to crawl into the vase Damon was holding. She wanted to live in that vase. She wanted to become the vase. She wanted to be thrown out a window and shatter into a thousand pieces and never have to look her brother in the face again.

Her face turned so red people might think placing a pot of water on top of her head would boil it instantly.

She slowly, carefully, lifted her head to look at Damon.

The vase was no longer moving.

But Damon’s expression had shifted from "I am about to commit regicide via pottery" to something far, far worse.

"Kept man," Damon repeated, tasting the words carefully. His gaze slid from Stevan’s trembling form to Angela’s pale face. "Angela."

"Fine," she snapped, face even redder now. Because if she was going to die from embarrassment, she was going to die with some dignity. Or at least with the satisfaction of having the last word. "Yes. He’s my kept man. I keep him. He’s kept. Very kept. Exquisitely kept, actually, I think you’d approve of the upkeep—"

Damon set the vase down.

He set it down very, very carefully.

Angela had never been more terrified in her life. She’d seen her brother execute men with less ceremony than he was currently using to place a decorative object on a side table.

The vase was porcelain, yes, but Damon’s movements were those of a man handling a live explosive. Or perhaps his own self-control, which was clearly hanging by a thread.

"Is this how little you see of my authority, Stevan?"

Suddenly, Stevan felt that something was wrong. Until now, he only saw the anger. But at that moment, he finally sensed the disappointment.

While slowly raising his face, he found the Emperor’s face frowning from betrayal. Not fury. Not even indignation. Betrayal. As if Stevan had personally reached into Damon’s chest, pulled out his heart, and used it as a doorstop.

"Before I become the emperor, I understand why you did what you did. But after?" Damon looked down on him coldly.

The words hit Stevan. Before. Before, when Damon was just the crown prince, when Angela was just the emperor’s daughter, when the succession was still uncertain and the political landscape was a minefield of competing loyalties.

Back then, Stevan’s refusal had been prudent. Necessary. A man of his station couldn’t possibly—

Beside him, Angela gasped. Her blushing face was finally able to be controlled. But her newfound shock continued. She had not been prepared for this.

For Damon, her brother, who had never once in his life expressed an opinion about her romantic entanglements, to suddenly...

"You refused her advance before for your loyalty to the empire. But now, the empire is mine, and you still think loyalty is refusing her advance?" Hatred bloomed on Damon’s face. "So much so that you treat her imperial chamber like her dungeon?"

Stevan felt literally like the sky collapsing on him. This... that’s not...

But it was. That was exactly what he’d done. He’d spent years convincing himself that his devotion to the empire meant keeping Angela at arm’s length, as if his cock was somehow a threat to national security. As if loving her would somehow undermine the very institution he’d sworn to protect.

And now the emperor was looking at him like he’d just confessed to treason. Because in a way, he had. What was more treasonous than loving the princess and making her believe he didn’t? What was more disloyal than giving her everything in the dark and nothing in the light?

"You’re not worthy of my sister," Damon coldly said. "Never show your face in front of me anymore."

Stevan’s throat constricted. His hands, still pressed to the cold marble floor, trembled. Not from fear.

Shame.

Because the emperor wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t worthy. He’d never been worthy.

He’d known it the first time he’d laid eyes on her. He’d seen her once, years ago, at a procession. She’d been seventeen, riding through the capital on a white horse, smiling at the crowd like she genuinely meant it.

He’d known it then. He’d known it when she’d kissed him for the first time, when she’d whispered his name like it meant something. He’d known it every time he’d pushed her away and every time he’d pulled her back.

He wasn’t worthy because he didn’t trust how far both siblings could go to achieve something. Angela for his love—the emperor for her happiness.

He’d looked at them and seen obstacles, not allies. He’d looked at the throne and seen a cage, not a key. He’d spent years convincing himself that the world was immutable, that his station was fixed, that love was a luxury for people who didn’t have to worry about losing their heads.

He’d been wrong.

He should’ve known that now, with Damon on the throne, everything can happen.

Including a Warden marrying the Princess.

He had thought so little of the man’s authority that he thought it still wasn’t possible.

The silence stretched. Damon’s shadow loomed over him, cold and unforgiving. Angela’s hand hovered near his shoulder, not quite touching, not quite reaching. She was frozen, caught between her brother’s judgment and her lover’s collapse.

And Stevan realized that he had two choices.

He could crawl away. Accept the banishment. Retreat back to the shadows where he belonged, where it was safe, where he could tell himself he’d done the right thing.

Or he could finally stop being a coward.

"Your Majesty, please—"

His voice trembled.

He didn’t care.

"—please let me have the Princess’ hand in marriage."

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