My Sister Stole My Mate, And I Let Her

Chapter 511 KILL ME

LUCIAN’S POVShame.

It crashed over me in violent, relentless waves, stealing the air from my lungs, driving me to my knees in the shattered earth, hollowing me out from the inside.

My hands trembled uncontrollably.

They were human hands again—fingers instead of claws—but I could still feel the memory of them, the way they had hovered over Sera’s throat only moments ago.

The way I had almost—

‘That wasn’t me.’

I swallowed hard.

The truth landed with unbearable weight.

It was me.

I had hurt her. I had almost killed her.

Sera knelt next to me, still breathing unevenly, her gaze fixed on me with something that cut deeper than anger.

It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t even pain.

It was understanding. Sympathy.

And that was somehow worse.

“I...didn’t stop,” I rasped, my voice breaking before it could form properly. “I almost—Sera, I almost killed you.”

I could feel her psychic pressure, faint but steady, like invisible hands keeping me anchored in place so I wouldn’t collapse or lunge or break again.

But I didn’t deserve anchoring.

There was only one thing I deserved.

The realization burned through me so fast it turned my stomach.

“Kill me,” I said suddenly.

Sera blinked.

My voice cracked louder as I repeated it. “Kill me. Now. While you still can.”

A bitter laugh almost escaped me, but it died halfway up my throat.

“If I’m still connected to her—if Catherine’s still in me somewhere—then I’m a doorway. A trigger. A second chance she doesn’t deserve.”

My fingers dug into the dirt beneath me. “I won’t let her come back through me.”

I lifted my head fully now, forcing myself to meet Sera’s eyes even though it hurt, like staring into the sun.

“End it,” I said, quieter this time. “Before I do something worse.”

For a long moment, she didn’t move.

Then she shrugged her jacket off her shoulders and gently draped it over me.

“I will do no such thing,” she said softly.

My gaze narrowed to the tear in her sleeve. The injury was already healing, but it did nothing to alleviate the guilt coursing through me like acid in my veins.

I shook my head sharply. “You don’t understand what’s inside me.”

“I do,” Sera replied. Her voice was firmer now, cutting through my spiraling thoughts with something unyielding.

“I felt it, Lucian. I know what Catherine did to you.”

A tremor jolted through me at the mention of her name.

Sera moved closer. I heard Ashar’s warning growl behind me, and I almost turned to ask him to kill me instead—surely, he wouldn’t hesitate—but I couldn’t take my gaze off Sera’s.

“But you came back,” she said. “You fought it. You’re still here.”

“I’m not stable,” I said hoarsely. “I won’t stay like this.”

“Then we stabilize you,” she declared.

My breath hitched.

The simplicity of it—spoken like it was something that could actually be done—almost made me laugh again, except there was no humor, no energy left in me.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” I whispered.

“I know exactly what I’m saying,” Sera replied.

And then her voice softened in a way that made my chest ache.

“Lucian... OTS is still waiting for you.”

The words hit harder than any strike I had ever taken.

For a second, the noise of the battlefield dulled. Only Sera’s voice existed.

“You think they’ll just move on?” she continued. “You think they’ll forget everything you’ve done for them?”

My jaw tightened painfully.

Sera didn’t stop. “Maya is pregnant.”

That sentence cracked something open inside me.

My breath stalled.

“What?” I whispered.

"Maya is pregnant,” Sera repeated. “She’s going to have a little pup, Lucian.”

I felt something...fizzle inside me. Somewhere deep, where instincts and memory and attachment still existed beneath everything Catherine had burned through.

“A child who’s going to grow up in a world you helped protect,” Sera added quietly. “A child who will ask about you one day. Who will want to know the Uncle Lucian who once saved their mom.”

A lump formed in my throat, and I struggled to breathe through it.

Uncle.

The word felt foreign and painful and impossibly distant.

I shook my head again, but weaker this time.

“I don’t deserve—”

“You don’t get to decide what you deserve,” Sera cut in.

A strange, fragile silence fell between us—around us. As if the entire island was holding its breath.

Then Sera exhaled slowly, and when she spoke again, her voice was gentler.

“We’re going to fix this,” she said. “Not by killing you. We’re going to break whatever Catherine left inside you. She doesn’t get to win.”

A bitter pressure rose in my chest.

“I can feel it still,” I admitted, voice barely audible. “It’s not gone. It’s just...quieter.”

That was the worst part.

The silence didn’t mean absence.

It meant waiting.

Sera’s expression tightened, but she didn’t move away.

“Lucian, I swear we’ll fix it,” she repeated.

My hands curled into the dirt again.

I wanted to believe her.

Gods, I wanted to believe her more than anything.

But something inside me kept pulling in the opposite direction, like a hook lodged beneath my thoughts, dragging at them whenever I tried to focus.

The strain blurred the edges of my vision.

“I can’t hold it off forever,” I whispered.

“I know,” Sera said. “But you don’t have to do it alone.”

Before I could respond, a new presence entered the edge of awareness.

Sera gasped before I could react. “Corin?”

He stepped into view with measured urgency, his gaze immediately locking onto me—not with concern alone, but analysis. The kind that stripped you down before you had time to hide anything.

“The barrier collapsed,” he murmured, lowering himself to one knee. “Looks like you guys had a little too much fun.”

I heard a snort a distance away. Kieran had shifted back to human form and was watching the whole exchange with equal parts wariness and vigilance.

Corin returned his attention to me, and I winced. It felt like a probing needle was poking around in my mind.

“That’s...a lot,” he said, like a diagnosis.

“We can help,” Sera said quietly, “...right?”

“It’s not physical instability,” Corin said. “It’s cognitive fragmentation. Your neural-psychic alignment is collapsing under residual imprint pressure.”

Sera tensed.

Corin continued, voice precise. “You’re not going to last long like this.”

I let out a short, broken breath. “I know.”

“No,” he said. “You don’t.”

He stepped closer, eyes narrowing like he was squinting inside me.

“If Catherine’s imprint fully reasserts itself, there won’t be resistance left. Just execution.”

A cold silence followed.

Then Corin exhaled slowly. “There’s only one way to fix him.”

My eyes flickered up.

“What are you saying?”

“You need a stabilizing anchor.”

Sera’s eyes lit up.

“I’m already—”

Corin cut her off with a sharp shake of his head.

“Not just proximity stabilization. Not psychic dampening. I’m talking about full bond-level anchoring.”

His gaze shifted toward Sera, then back to me.

“The kind only a mate connection can provide.”

The word landed like a physical blow.

Mate.

Sera fell silent.

And I felt it then—the unbearable truth pressing against everything else.

Even if I wanted to live, even if she wanted me to...

It might not be enough.

And then I heard movement behind Corin.

Zara.

She had been silent until now.

Watching. Holding herself together in a way that looked almost like control, but wasn’t quite.

That word snapped her composure, and she moved before anyone could stop her, crossing the distance in a blur of urgency and dropping to my side.

Her hand hovered just above my arm, as if she wasn’t sure she had the right to touch me.

“I can help,” she said quickly. “I can stabilize him. I’m his mate. I can—”

Her voice faltered.

Because even as she spoke, something in her expression began to change.

Not confusion. Realization.

Her hand lowered slowly.

Her eyes flickered toward Sera.

Then back to me.

I saw it clearly—truth settling into place too heavy to resist.

Her voice came quieter now. “It...won’t work.”

Zara swallowed once.

And then she added, barely audible, “I’m not the real Zara.”

Silence dropped so hard it felt like the world itself had paused.

Her fingers curled against her palm. And when she looked at me again, there was something unsteady in her eyes—something stripped of certainty.

“It won’t work because the bond between us isn’t real,” she whispered.

And in that moment, I understood just how alone I truly was.