The Lycan King’s Mark (Nevara) by Tiffanie L. Campbell novel Chapter 155

Chapter 155 – The Impossible Choice

Nevara

Thoren’s patience finally snapped.

Not loudly. Not with shouting.

It was colder than that.

+25 Points

“Enough talking,” he said. “Bring out Noah, and we’ll be on our way. You can stay here and live your twisted lives however you see fit, as long as you are not forcing anyone into this lifestyle.”

The room went still.

Brent didn’t bristle. He didn’t look offended. If anything, he looked almost amused, which only made the tension under my skin tighten further.

“No,” he said calmly. “It’s not going to be that simple.”

Thoren’s expression hardened.

Brent clasped his hands behind his back and took a slow step forward, his posture relaxed in a way that felt deliberate.

“You,” he said, looking between the three of us, “are going to turn around and walk out of here exactly the same way you came in.”

I stared at him.

“I’m not leaving without my nephew.”

My voice came out sharper than I intended, but I didn’t care. There was no world in which I walked into

this place, found out Noah was here, and simply turned around and left him behind.

Brent’s gaze settled on me.

“Yes,” he said. “I rather assumed you would be stubborn about that.”

Something in the way he said it made my stomach tighten.

“So I accounted for it.”

A beat passed.

Then Thoren’s voice cut through the room, low and dangerous.

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

Brent’s expression didn’t change.

“It means,” he said evenly, “that you now have a choice to make.”

Chapter 155 – The Impossible Choice

The silence that followed felt sudden and heavy.

I didn’t like the calm in his voice. I didn’t like the certainty of it. Men only spoke like that when they believed they were the ones controlling the next move.

“If you leave,” Brent continued, “Noah lives. He stays here with us. We raise him happy, healthy, and properly.”

My pulse slammed once, hard enough that I felt it in my throat.

“No.”

The word tore out of me instantly.

Brent barely acknowledged it.

+25 Points

“But if you refuse,” he went on, “if you insist on trying to take him, if you decide you’d rather turn this into a fight-”

He paused, not for effect, but because he knew he already had our full attention.

“Then Jonas dies.”

The air in the room disappeared.

Not literally.

But that’s how it felt.

For one blinding second, I couldn’t think past the name.

Jonas.

Beside me, I felt rather than saw Thoren go completely still.

My voice came out thin with disbelief.

“What?”

Brent looked at me almost patiently, which somehow made it worse.

“You heard me.”

Thoren took one step forward.

Just one.

But the entire room shifted with it.

“What do you mean Jonas dies?”

Brent’s gaze moved to him.

“That,” he said, “is not the detail you should be focusing on right now.”

< Chapter 155 The Impossible Choice

Thoren’s jaw clenched.

“How do you even know about Jonas?”

Again, Brent refused to react to the anger in the question. He simply stood there in the center of the room,

calm and steady, as if the answer no longer mattered.

Because to him, maybe it didn’t.

“That,” he repeated, “is also not the detail you need to focus on.”

My heart was beating too fast now, my thoughts tripping over each other as I tried to make sense of what

he was saying.

This didn’t make any sense.

Noah I understood. Noah was here. Noah was leverage. Noah was the reason we came.

But Jonas-

No.

No, that was impossible.

And yet…

The conviction in Brent’s voice didn’t sound like a bluff.

It sounded like someone who had already thought several moves ahead.

“The detail you need to focus on,” Brent said, his eyes resting on Thoren now, “is whether or not you are

going to allow him to die.”

The words hit like a blow.

For a second, no one spoke.

Then I found my voice.

“You’re lying.”

I wanted the words to come out strong. Certain. Final.

Instead they sounded like what they were.

Hope.

Brent’s eyes slid back to me.

“No,” he said quietly. “I’m not.”

I shook my head once.

“Yes, you are. You have to be.”

< Chapter 155 – The impossible Choice

Because if he wasn’t-

My mind pulled itself in two different directions at once.

One toward Noah.

One toward Jonas.

And suddenly Brent had succeeded in doing exactly what he wanted. He had made the room stop

revolving around a single child and split our fear cleanly in half.

Thoren’s voice, when it came, was lower than I had ever heard it.

“If anything happens to my brother-”

Brent cut him off with the smallest lift of his hand.

“If anything happens here,” he said, “then yes. Something will happen to him.”

My stomach turned.

He wasn’t raising his voice. He wasn’t trying to sound threatening.

That was what made him frightening.

He believed in what he was saying. Believed in it enough to remain perfectly calm while dropping a blade

between us.

“If you walk away,” he said, “Noah lives.”

Each word was measured.

“Jonas lives.”

My pulse pounded harder.

“But if you decide to fight…” He gave the faintest shrug. “Then you are choosing what happens next.”

Noah.

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