Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Chapter 10

Kaelen’s POV

I arrived at the capital hours ahead of schedule.

The carriage had barely stopped before I was striding through the palace’s eastern gate, waving off the steward who rushed forward with a schedule update and a tray of correspondence. None of it mattered. Not the border reports. Not the alliance proposals from the coastal provinces. Not even the intelligence briefing about rogue movement near the northern pass.

Recently, one thing had occupied my mind. One voice.

Twice. I’d heard her speak exactly twice — once through a closed door when the head archivist introduced her to the staff, and once across the corridor when she’d asked a page for directions. Both times, the sound had stopped me mid-stride. A voice like cool water over smooth stones. Quiet. Clear. Carrying an undercurrent of something I couldn’t name.

Elara Frostfang. My new royal archivist.

I hadn’t met her. Hadn’t seen her face. Had only a name on an imperial parchment and a voice that refused to leave my memory.

This was not how I operated.

I ruled three duchies. I commanded the largest standing army in the empire. I did not rearrange travel schedules because a woman’s voice had followed me into sleep.

And yet here I was. Hours early. Walking too fast through my own palace.

You’re pathetic, Alex growled from the back of my mind. My wolf. My inner spirit. He’d been restless, pacing behind my ribs like something caged. Just admit you want to see her.

I want to review the archive reorganization, I corrected.

Liar.

I ignored him.

The archive wing was quieter than the rest of the palace. Cooler. The stone walls were thicker here, built to preserve the ancient documents stored within. My boots made no sound on the worn flagstones as I approached the main chamber.

The door was ajar.

I pushed it open.

And stopped.

She was on the floor. On her hands and knees, half-wedged under the massive oak desk, reaching for something against the far wall. Her ice-blue dress — silk, expensive, completely impractical for crawling under furniture — had ridden up past her knees. I could see the delicate edge of a lace underskirt. Silk stockings that caught the thin light from the high window. The curve of her calves.

The hem slipped higher as she stretched forward.

My hand tightened on the doorframe.

Alex went absolutely still inside my chest. Not restless anymore. Not pacing. Frozen. Every sense locked onto the woman under the desk with the intensity of a wolf sighting prey through winter trees.

Then she began to back out, panting softly, clutching scrolls against her body, and the dress shifted again — silk sliding against silk — and the lace trim of her underskirt was fully exposed, white against the pale skin above her knee.

I coughed. Once. Deliberately.

She froze. Then scrambled backward so fast she cracked her shoulder against the desk. She yanked her skirt down and shot to her feet, blushing fiercely, scrolls pressed against her chest like armor, and looked up at me.

The world tilted.

She was beautiful. Not the polished, calculated beauty of court women who spent hours before mirrors. This was something raw. An oval face with skin that seemed to hold its own light. Silver-white hair, partially escaped from its pins, falling in a loose strand across a flushed cheek. And her eyes —

Ice blue. Pale as a frozen lake under winter sun. Wide with shock and embarrassment and something else, something that flickered in the depths like distant lightning.

Alex detonated.

MATE!

The force of it hit my spine like a hammer blow. My vision sharpened until I could count her eyelashes. Her scent flooded my senses — winter roses and old parchment, sweet and sharp and utterly intoxicating — and every rational thought in my head dissolved into white noise.

MATE. OURS. CLAIM HER NOW.

My fingers bit into the doorframe. Wood creaked under my grip. I could feel my canines pressing against the inside of my lips, threatening to descend. The wolf wanted out. Wanted to cross the room in two strides. Wanted to pin her against the nearest wall and bury his face in her neck and —

No.

I locked Alex down with a force of will that made my temples throb. Shoved him behind iron bars inside my mind and held them shut.

I was the emperor. I did not lose control. Not here. Not like this.

“Miss Elara, I presume?”

My voice came out steady. Barely.

She stared at me. Her lips parted but no sound came out. Color flooded her face — throat, cheeks, the tips of her ears. She clutched the scrolls tighter.

“Your — Your Majesty Nightfire.” Her voice cracked on the last syllable. She attempted a curtsy, which was difficult with her arms full of scrolls, and nearly dropped all of them again.

I wanted to smile. I did not smile. Smiling would mean relaxing, and relaxing would mean letting Alex off the chain.

“You appear to be admiring the stonework.”

“I — the scrolls fell. I was retrieving them.” She straightened, chin lifting with a fragile dignity that did something complicated to my chest. “It won’t happen again, Your Majesty.”

A strand of silver hair clung to her lower lip. She didn’t notice. I noticed. Alex noticed. We both noticed far too much.

I opened my mouth to respond — something professional, something appropriate, something an emperor would say to a new archivist — when boots sounded in the corridor behind me.

“Kaelen!”

Cassian. My Captain of the Royal Guard. My most trusted officer and, at this particular moment, the last person I wanted to see.

He appeared at my shoulder, still in travel armor, sword at his hip, grinning with the specific energy of a man who had been riding hard for hours and found it invigorating rather than exhausting.

“Made good time from the border. The northern pass is clear, no rogue activity for —” He stopped. His gaze had landed on Elara.

I watched his expression change. The military focus drained out of his eyes and was replaced by something I recognized instantly. Interest. Appreciation. The look of a man who has just seen something beautiful and intends to do something about it.

Every muscle in my body coiled, and my vision tinted red with a sudden, violent surge of jealousy.

“Well.” Cassian stepped past me into the room. “You must be the new archivist. I’m Cassian. Captain of the Guard.”

He extended his hand. Elara took it after a brief hesitation. Her fingers disappeared inside his broad palm.

“Elara,” she said. “Elara Frostfang.”

“Elara.” Cassian repeated her name like he was tasting something sweet. He held her hand a fraction too long. “Tell me, Elara — do you always look this radiant, or is it something about archive dust that brings out the color in those extraordinary eyes?”

Her cheeks went pink again. A small, startled laugh escaped her. “I think it’s the dust.”

“Then we should get you somewhere with better air. Perhaps dinner tonight? I know a place in the capital that serves —”

“Miss Elara.” My voice cut through the room like a blade across glass. Both of them turned. I hadn’t moved from the doorway. My hands were still clasped behind my back. My face was perfectly composed. But something in my tone made Cassian’s smile falter. “Captain Cassian, don’t you have a border report to deliver?”

A beat of silence. Cassian’s eyes flickered between me and Elara. Something shifted in his expression — confusion, then the faintest edge of wariness.

“It can wait.”

“It cannot.”

The words carried weight. Not quite the Alpha’s Command. But close enough that Cassian straightened involuntarily, his hand dropping from Elara’s.

“Right. Of course.” He cleared his throat, nodded to Elara. “Another time.”

He left. His footsteps echoed down the corridor and faded.

The silence that followed was thick enough to touch. Elara’s gaze darted between the empty doorway and me. I could smell her nervousness, sharp and bright beneath the winter roses.

Good, Alex snarled. He’s gone. Now claim what’s ours.

I pressed the wolf down harder.

Before I could speak, the air in the corridor shifted. A wave of perfume — heavy, cloying, expensive — rolled into the archive chamber like a silk curtain being dragged across stone.

Isolde appeared in the doorway.

My brother’s wife was all golden hair and painted lips, draped in emerald velvet that probably cost more than most soldiers earned in a season. She swept into the room without waiting for permission, without greeting, without even glancing at Elara.

“Your Majesty.” She curtsied with practiced grace. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. The dinner arrangements tonight — my husband, Prince Gareth, specifically requested —”

Elara flinched.

The reaction was immediate and visceral. At the name Gareth, every trace of color drained from her face, leaving her deathly pale. Her entire body went stiff. Her fingers went white around the scrolls. Her breathing hitched — a sharp, shallow intake that she tried to cover by turning away.

I saw it. All of it.

Why? Alex growled, suddenly alert. Why does that name frighten her?

I didn’t have an answer. But something dark and sharp twisted through my chest at the sight of her fear.

Isolde had finally noticed Elara. Her eyes narrowed, sweeping over the ice-blue dress with the precision of a woman cataloguing threats.

“Oh.” Her lip curled in a cruel mock. “You’re the new archivist.” She said it the way someone might identify a stain on a tablecloth. “I heard they’d hired someone. I didn’t realize they were scraping quite so deep.”

Elara said nothing. Her jaw was tight. Her knuckles were bone-white.

Isolde circled closer. Her gaze dropped to the hem of Elara’s dress, where the lace underskirt was still barely visible.

“Lovely outfit.” The word lovely dripped with acid. She brushed past Elara, deliberately ramming her shoulder hard enough to make her stumble. Isolde glanced back with a smile like cracked ice. “Your underskirt is showing, dear. Tell me — how long do you think you’ll last here? A week? Two days?”

Something inside me snapped.

Alex surged forward and this time I let him.

The Alpha’s pressure exploded outward from my body like a shockwave. The candles on the desk guttered. Scrolls trembled on their shelves. The air itself seemed to compress, thickening with raw, undiluted dominance that pressed down on every living thing in the room.

Isolde staggered. Her painted smile vanished.

“Get out of my archive immediately, Isolde!”