My Sister Stole My Mate, And I Let Her

Chapter 514 IT’S OVER

SERAPHINA’S POVLucian collapsed at the same time Zara did.

Zara’s body hit the ground first with a dull thud, her eyes wide and lifeless as if a switch had been flipped to turn off whatever had animated her.

Lucian followed an instant later, falling into Evelyn’s arms before she could even fully process what had happened.

I saw her catch him. Saw her buckle under the weight.

And I saw her refuse to let go.

For a moment, I could not move.

Lucian had fallen unconscious—the steady rise and fall of his chest confirmed that.

But Zara—

My breath caught, and I couldn’t finish the thought.

It was Colin who broke the stillness first.

He stepped forward slowly, eyes narrowed with a look of disbelief refusing to give way to acceptance.

The air around him shifted as he extended his awareness outward, probing the remnants of the psychic battlefield like a surgeon checking for a pulse.

Then he exhaled, and I knew what he would say before he said it.

The oppressive pressure that had haunted the air since we stepped foot on the island simply...vanished, like a weight lifted so suddenly that the body beneath it struggled to remember how to stand upright without it.

“It’s gone,” he said quietly. “Catherine’s influence is completely severed.”

I didn’t know how my legs had held me up before then, because suddenly, they had no strength to bear my weight. I would have crashed to the floor if Kieran’s arms hadn’t slipped around me.

The moment he drew me into him, something inside me broke in a way that had nothing to do with injury or battle and everything to do with endurance finally running out.

I folded against his chest without thinking.

And then I sobbed.

Inelegant, uncontrollable, big, fat, ugly sobs.

They came out of me in uneven waves, shaking my entire body as if everything I had been holding together since the very beginning had finally found a crack large enough to escape through.

Kieran just held me tight, one hand pressed against the back of my head, the other steady at my waist. His scent enveloped me, grounding me in a way that almost felt wrong compared to everything we had just survived.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured.

I burrowed deeper, wishing I could sink into him and block out the rest of the world.

Alas.

Around us, movement resumed slowly, as if the world remembered it had a duty beyond witnessing grief.

Alois arrived, his presence sharp and immediate, cutting through the emotional fog like a blade of structured logic.

Tobias, after carefully transferring my mother into Maxwell’s arms and a brief introduction, followed closely behind Alois, both of them moving toward the center of the ridge where the remnants of the psychic collapse still lingered like heat after fire.

They did not speak much at first.

Alois crouched beside the fractured ground where Catherine’s influence had been most concentrated, his hand hovering just above it as faint, controlled energy traced invisible patterns in the air.

Tobias stood slightly behind him, eyes scanning the horizon, the island, the distant facility ruins still smoldering beneath a sky that now looked almost indecently calm.

“There’s nothing structured left,” Alois said finally. “No central anchor. No recursive pattern. Whatever Catherine was maintaining...it has fully collapsed.”

Tobias exhaled once through his nose, as if that was the only acceptable form of relief he allowed himself to show.

“Then it’s over.”

Alois nodded. “It’s over.”

The words should have felt like victory.

Instead, they felt like the moment after a storm when you realize how many things it destroyed while you were still inside it.

After receiving the all-clear, more of the Allied forces began to arrive.

Boats cut through the coastline below, their engines loud against the unnatural quiet that still lingered over the island.

Helicopters circled overhead, their searchlights sweeping across fractured terrain and ruined structures, marking positions, securing perimeters, mapping what remained.

Soldiers moved in organized waves, careful yet urgent, securing entrances and identifying and detaining threats that were no longer under Catherine’s control but still dangerous by virtue of what they’d done.

The rogues were the first to be restrained.

Then Jack.

He was dragged out from the archway, his body limp, his consciousness fractured, his expression caught somewhere between rage and absence.

The corruption that had once made him terrifying was gone, leaving behind something worse in its simplicity: a man who could no longer recognize what he had become.

Victims followed.

Some walked under their own power, disoriented but alive. Others had to be carried, their minds still struggling to return fully to themselves.

Each one was accounted for slowly, painstakingly, as though the island itself was reluctant to relinquish its final claim on them.

Corin moved among them at one point, his expression tight but focused, speaking softly to someone who had clearly just regained awareness.

Alois coordinated with medical teams, and Tobias issued orders with the precision and authority of someone who’d always been part of our team.

The only occupant of the island unaccounted for was Damian Rooke.

According to Maris and Brett, they’d engaged him until the moment when Catherine imploded—and then he’d disappeared in the midst of all the confusion and ensuing chaos of Lucian’s eruption.

Trackers had already been dispatched to determine his whereabouts.

During all this, Lucian did not wake.

Evelyn was still holding him, her hands cradling his face.

Her expression was locked somewhere between disbelief and defiance. Her lips moved rapidly, but I couldn’t tell if she was talking to Lucian or trying to cast a spell.

My feet moved of their own accord toward her.

When I reached them, I stopped just short of kneeling and forced back the sob that had built in my throat.

Lucian’s chest rose and fell. His eyes flickered wildly behind his closed lids.

Alive.

But gone somewhere I could not reach.

Evelyn looked up at me when I approached.

“I don’t know if I did it right,” she whispered.

I dropped to my knees then.

“You did,” I said, though my voice felt distant to my own ears. “You held him. That’s what mattered. We’ll fix him, I promise,” I added.

Her eyes fluttered shut, and she took in a shaky breath.

Kieran crouched behind me, one hand resting on my shoulder again, steadying me as if he could sense how close I was to unraveling again.

We stayed like that for a long moment, none of us willing to be the one to move first.

Eventually, Evelyn lowered her head and pressed her forehead gently against Lucian’s. She whispered something I couldn’t hear—something that was for Lucian only.

And then she let him be taken by a medic.

The world continued to function without asking for permission.

Reports came in.

Secured zones.

Cleared sectors.

Medical extraction updates.

Names of the recovered.

And then finally, the evacuation orders were issued.

We were leaving.

The path down from the ridge felt longer than it should have, every step pulling me further away from something I did not yet have a name or an appropriate emotion for.

Kieran stayed beside me the entire time, his presence the only steady thing around me. I didn’t once let go of his hand.

Alois’ words echoed in my head.

’It’s over.’

Not cleanly.

Not without loss.

Not without scars that would outlive the memory of what caused them.

But it was over.

I closed my eyes as the wind moved across the water.

And I reminded myself to breathe.