My Sister Stole My Mate And I Let Her (Seraphina) novel Chapter 528

Chapter 528: Chapter 528 A SECOND CHANCE (BONUS Chapter 6)

EVELYN’S POV

’Gods, I hope my breath isn’t stale.’

That was probably not the appropriate thought to have when Lucian stood so close that I could feel the uneven rhythm of his breathing in the space between us, could see the conflict tearing through him with every rise and fall of his chest.

Moonlight spilled through the windows beside us, washing the corridor in silver and shadow, and beneath it, his silver-ringed eyes looked unreal.

Wild. Dangerous.

There was so much...need there. And fear, too.

From the little I knew about werewolves, I understood enough to know that the full moon was affecting him. That, beneath its light, the wolf and the man blurred together in ways humans and witches would never comprehend.

I knew I should have been afraid of the look in his eyes.

I knew I should have pushed him away and run for the hills.

Instead, warmth spread through me in slow, bewildering waves even as my heart pounded a wild rhythm against my ribcage.

Because here, trapped in the cage of his body, I wasn’t afraid.

I felt warm. Safe.

Hungry.

The realization startled me enough that my breath caught.

I wasn’t a wolf subject to the full moon’s pull, but I wasn’t a wolf who should have been subject to the concept of mates either.

I had no frame of reference for the heat warming my skin, the sudden, almost painful desire setting my nerves aflame.

"Push me away." Lucian’s voice emerged rough and strained enough that it barely sounded like him.

His forehead lowered until it rested against mine, and a shiver ran through me as electricity coursed through my veins.

"Please."

The word broke something inside me.

He should have been asking for permission; instead, he was asking for rescue.

As if he believed I needed saving from him.

As if he still couldn’t see the difference between the monster Catherine had tried to turn him into and the man standing in front of me now.

I really should have pushed him away. That was the rational course of action.

But rationality and whatever was happening between me and Lucian did not exist in the same plane of existence.

I shook my head.

His eyes widened as I slowly, uncertainly reached forward and curled my fingers into the fabric of his shirt.

Then I pulled him closer.

The startled sound that escaped him was so soft I almost thought I’d imagined it.

His scent enveloped me instantly, and my mind was too hazy to untangle the individual notes from the unmistakable wolfness threaded through them—something wild, masculine, and uniquely, devastatingly him.

The warmth spreading through me intensified until it felt as though my own magic had awakened beneath my skin, restless and curious, reaching toward something it had spent my entire life searching for without ever realizing it.

Emotions rose inside me that I didn’t have a frame of reference for: longing so intense it hurt, an impossible sense of recognition, deep and absolute, that didn’t ask for proof or logic or understanding because it had already decided the answer long before the question had been asked.

Lucian closed his eyes, and the anguish in his voice nearly undid me. "Stop me, Evelyn, please.”

As though every instinct inside him was pulling him toward me while every piece of guilt he carried tried desperately to drag him away.

As though he expected me to choose distance. Rejection. Fear.

Instead, I rose onto my toes and kissed him.

For one electrifying heartbeat, the world seemed to hold its breath with us.

Then it exploded.

The bond between us roared awake, turning the space between and around us into something vast and overwhelming and impossibly bright.

Emotion surged between us in a wave so powerful it stole the air from my lungs.

Relief tangled with longing, guilt collided with desire, and somewhere in the chaos of it all, I lost track of which feelings were mine and which had come crashing across the bond from him.

In that moment, it didn’t matter. It felt as if I stood outside myself, watching two people who couldn’t be more wrong for each other fit perfectly together.

Lucian made a sound low in his throat and pulled back, barely a hair’s breadth.

His forehead rested against mine as he looked into my eyes.

"Evelyn..." Gods, the way he said my name, as if those three syllables were made only for his voice. "Are you sure? You can still make a different choice."

Even now, despite how much I knew he wanted this, he was giving me a way out.

But I didn’t want a way out.

I wanted him.

So I wrapped my arms around his neck and stood up on my tiptoes.

"I choose you," I whispered feverishly against his lips, pouring every certainty I possessed into the minute space between us.

Something in him softened beneath that answer.

The walls he had spent years building around himself didn’t collapse all at once, but I felt the first stones fall away beneath my fingertips.

For the first time since I had met him, Lucian looked less like a man bracing for impact and more like someone allowing himself to believe he might survive what came after.

The bond between us hummed beneath my skin, warm and luminous and alive in a way I didn’t know I could feel.

For all my years studying magic and rules and theories and systems that governed the world, nothing had prepared me for this.

For certainty.

For recognition.

For the dazzling, overwhelming feeling of finding something I hadn’t realized I had been searching for my entire life.

And in that moment, I understood why werewolves crossed continents and fought wars and killed and died for their mates.

Because if this was what it felt like, how could they not?

Some things were bigger than logic and caution and fear.

Outside, somewhere beyond the walls of the packhouse, Nightfang ran beneath the full moon.

Inside, wrapped in silver light and ragged breathing and the thundering beat of another heart answering my own, the world narrowed to a single undeniable truth.

That perhaps every loss, every mistake, every heartache, every impossible choice that had brought me to this moment had been worth it.