My Sister Stole My Mate And I Let Her (Seraphina) novel Chapter 455

Chapter 455: Chapter 455 THE ENEMY’S SIDE

SERAPHINA’S POV

The shock hit so hard that I forgot how to breathe.

For one impossible second, the world narrowed to him.

Lucian.

The man who had once stood beside me when I was at my lowest. The man who had given me a new path, new strength.

The man whose motives I had questioned, doubted, defended, resented, and, in some wounded corner of myself, hated.

‘And if somehow, someway, I ever stand in front of you again... Do not trust me.’

Lucian’s gaze held mine across the lit distance, and there was something in it I could not name.

He started to turn—

“Lucian—stop!”

The command tore out of me before I could think, before I could stop the instinct that surged up from somewhere deeper than thought and sharper than restraint.

Power followed it, slipping into my voice without permission, threading through the sound of his name, shaping it into something not merely heard, but felt.

Across the shimmering barrier of the delay trap, Lucian’s body went rigid.

It was subtle at first. A tightening through his shoulders. A pause in the motion of his hand where it gripped Thomas’s arm.

Then it deepened, locking his spine, rooting him as if the ground claimed him.

The forest fell utterly still.

The light from the trap pulsed between us, casting fractured shadows across his face, catching in his eyes in a way that made them look almost...haunted.

For one suspended second, the distance between us collapsed, not physically, but in recognition. Connection.

The echo of something we had once been to each other.

My chest tightened painfully as I held his gaze, the force of my command still humming through the air between us.

“Let him go,” I said, quieter now, but no less absolute. “Lucian...don’t do this.”

His fingers loosened slightly, relaxing their grip on Thomas’s arm.

Hope sparked, cutting through the shock that had rooted me in place.

Hope that he might choose differently.

That he might stop.

That he might come back from whatever darkness had pulled him to this moment.

Lucian’s jaw clenched.

I watched the conflict move through him like a storm beneath the surface, tightening the lines of his face, dragging his breath uneven.

“Sera,” Kieran warned quietly, his hand tightening around my waist.

I barely heard him.

“Lucian,” I pressed, the name softer this time, but threaded with something deeper than command. “You don’t have to—”

His eyes flickered.

And then something inside him snapped.

The shift was violent in its suddenness.

Where there had been hesitation, there was now cold, impenetrable resolve. His grip on Thomas tightened again, as though he had forced every stray impulse back into submission.

The connection I had felt vanished like a door slammed shut.

Lucian’s lips parted slightly, and for a moment, I thought he might speak.

Apologize.

Explain.

But whatever words might have existed died before they could reach the air.

Instead, he stepped back.

Out of the reach of my voice.

Out of the influence of whatever fragile hold I had managed to grasp.

Thomas staggered as Lucian pulled him, then regained his footing, casting one last look over his shoulder toward Brett.

Then they ran. Fast.

Too fast for the distance we were trapped behind to matter.

“No!” Brett lunged forward, slamming into the invisible barrier with a snarl that tore through the forest. “Thomas!”

The trap surged in response, the air thickening again, dragging him back, forcing him to his knees as the energy fed on his resistance.

“Brett, stop!” Maya snapped, grabbing his arm.

He wrenched against her hold, fury and anguish bleeding through every movement. “Let me go!”

They disappeared into the trees together, shadows swallowing them whole as the last pulse of light from the delay trap flared and dimmed.

“They’re gone,” Corin said sharply, though his own frustration was evident in the tightness of his voice.

Kieran’s arm was still around me, solid, grounding, but I barely felt it.

He let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh, though it held no humor. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

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