Ancestral Lineage - Chapter 455
Chapter 455: Love in a Destroyed World
Ethan’s gaze drifted upward, not with urgency or fear, but with that gentleness he reserved only for them. His golden and silver eyes softened, and the brutal battlefield reflected inside them like a half-forgotten nightmare.
His voice slipped out like warm gravity, subtle yet impossible to disobey.
“Come to me.”
High above, Barki, the colossal orange-scaled dragon whose wings had once cast shadows over continents, stirred. Her blazing lava eyes flickered in immediate recognition of his tone, her great heart thrumming like the heartbeat of a mountain.
She nodded.
A dragon nodding, an entire omen in itself.
Barki began her descent, wings folding in as she spiraled downward with impossible grace. The wind bowed around her. The ruined sky parted for her. The ground trembled in reverence.
As she neared the surface, her body shrank, not simply in size, but in density, compressing ancient draconic majesty into a more contained form. Her scales folded inward like molten plates. Her massive horns pulled closer. Her wings thinned and curled.
By the time she landed, she was still gargantuan, about the size of a hill, but no longer world-covering. She lowered her great head, bowing to Ethan in a gesture none but an ancient dragon would understand: submission, respect, devotion.
Then…
Light burst from her body.
The dragon form melted into a humanoid silhouette, heat rippling off her like a dying star shedding its old skin. When the light dimmed, Barki stood as her human self: fierce, beautiful, eyes burning with molten gold… and lined with tears she didn’t bother hiding.
Behind her, the other ten wives dismounted, each carrying a storm of emotion, fear, relief, rage, heartbreak, all of them still trembling from watching Ethan nearly die.
But Barki didn’t wait.
The instant her feet touched the ground, she sprinted.
No grace.
No poise.
Just raw, desperate emotion.
She leaped into Ethan’s lap, tears streaming down her cheeks as if she had no intention of ever letting him stand again.
Her arms wrapped around his neck, tight enough that a lesser being would’ve died. She buried her face in his chest, shaking, sobbing, whispering incoherent fragments of:
“Don’t do that again… don’t… You idiot… my king… my love… Ethan… Ethan… Ethan…”
Ethan’s arms slid around her, holding her with a tenderness that contrasted sharply with the devastation around them. A faint silver-gold aura embraced her like a warm blanket, easing her trembling.
Behind her, the other wives approached slowly.
None of them looked at Leon.
He no longer existed in their world.
Not compared to Ethan, alive, awake, ascended, and holding the one who reached him first.
The battlefield fell silent.
Only Barki’s sobs filled the space, and the steady heartbeat of the man she thought she’d lost.
Barki clung to Ethan as if she were trying to anchor herself to existence, because for a moment, she truly believed she had lost him. Ethan stroked the back of her head, slow and reassuring, his touch soft enough to calm a dragon’s heart.
The other wives stood frozen for a heartbeat.
Then Harley broke.
Not with words, her breath just hitched, her knees buckled, and she stumbled forward with both hands pressed protectively over her nearly full-term belly. Clara and Christel darted to steady her, but Harley brushed them away, determined, frantic, desperate.
She reached Ethan next.
She fell against him, head pressed to his shoulder, tears rolling silently down her cheeks. Ethan tightened his arm around her, careful of her belly yet somehow enveloping her fully. Harley’s fingers curled into his coat like she feared he’d vanish again.
Clara came right after; her expression was a crumbling mix of fury and heartbreak. She smacked Ethan’s chest once, hard enough to echo.
“You stupid… stupid man…”
The words broke into a sob halfway through, and she collapsed against his other side. Ethan chuckled faintly, warm, forgiving, and kissed the top of her head.
Andriel approached next, silent as a shadow, but her eyes were red. She knelt beside him, forehead pressing to his knee in a quiet vow of relief and loyalty. Ethan brushed his fingers through her hair, lifting her chin so she could crawl into the growing embrace.
Carmen did not bother with restraint.
She jumped directly onto his right side, arms wrapping around his torso so tightly the air trembled. “You scared us,” she muttered, voice low, trembling. “You scared me.”
Behind her, Lisa arrived with a rigid jaw and trembling hands. She stood before Ethan for a moment, trying to maintain composure… then it shattered. She leaned in, forehead pressed to his shoulder.
“Never again,” she whispered, an order born from terror.
Pisces approached slowly, not with hesitation, but with a weight no one else carried. The battle was still reflected in her eyes. Her little brother. Her husband. Both nearly dying.
Her steps were deliberate.
When she reached him, she cupped Ethan’s cheek with trembling fingers and kissed his forehead, soft, reverent, shattered.
“I would’ve lost both of you…” she whispered, voice cracking. “Don’t make me choose which heartbreak kills me.”
Ethan held her to him, letting her breath calm against his collarbone.
Elaine approached next, her eyes glowing faintly, but soft. She touched Ethan’s chest, her fingers lingering over the beating heart she had nearly watched stop.
Then she hugged him, arms slipping around his neck with a quiet sigh of relief.
Christel approached with elegance that crumbled the moment she touched him. She wrapped herself around his back, resting her cheek between his shoulder blades.
“You’re alive,” she murmured. “Finally… finally.”
Asteria followed, walking with the poise of a goddess but the eyes of a grieving woman. She placed a gentle hand over Ethan’s heart, then leaned in, brushing her forehead against his temple.
“Don’t make your goddess mourn you,” she whispered, though her voice shook.
Vaeloria arrived after, her usual regal calm nowhere to be seen. She crouched beside him, taking his hand, squeezing it hard, too hard, but Ethan squeezed back, grounding her.
“You return to me,” she said softly, “Not as legend… but as you.”
And then…
Seraphis.
She approached last.
Silent.
Graceful.
Eyes full of ancient dread and overwhelming love.
She lowered herself onto Ethan’s lap beside Barki, her arms sliding around both of them. She pressed her forehead to his, her breath warm, trembling.
“You promised,” she whispered. “You promised me you wouldn’t die until I said you could.”
Ethan smiled, gentle, luminous, sovereign.
And then he wrapped all of them, every wife, every soulmate, every piece of his heart, into one impossible embrace.
Golden and silver light gathered around them like a protective mantle, warding away the shattered sky and ruined earth.
For a moment…
There was no battle.
No Chaos.
No Leon.
No pain.
Just Ethan.
And the women whose love had kept him alive long before power ever did.
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