Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Chapter 41

Elara’s POV

The silence after my words was deafening.

Kaelen’s hands stilled on my face. His thumbs stopped their gentle stroking. Those dark gold eyes locked onto mine—burning, searching, as if he needed to be absolutely certain he’d heard me correctly.

I didn’t look away.

My pulse was hammering so hard I was sure he could hear it. The apartment was dark except for the pale wash of moonlight spilling through the living room window. Somewhere behind the almost-closed bedroom door, Valerius breathed softly in his sleep.

Kaelen’s jaw tightened. A muscle jumped beneath the stubble along his throat.

“Say it again.” His voice was barely above a whisper. Raw. Strained, like a rope about to snap.

“I said—”

He didn’t let me finish.

His fingers slid into my hair—both hands, deep, gripping at the roots—and his mouth crashed into mine. The kiss started with a devastating softness that lasted a fleeting heartbeat before it turned into something else entirely. Something consuming. His lips parted mine. His tongue swept in, hot and demanding, and I tasted salt from the sea air and underneath it all, just him.

The air between us thickened. It was everything at once—the brine of the harbor still clinging to our skin, the lingering sweet scent of my child on his shoulder where Valerius had slept against him, and that deep, warm sandalwood musk that was purely Kaelen. It hit the back of my throat like smoke.

I broke first.

My hands moved on instinct, sliding beneath the thin cotton of his rolled-up shirt, palms flat against his stomach. The muscles contracted under my touch—hard ridges of heat, tensing and releasing. I dragged my fingers upward, tracing every line, every scar I didn’t yet know the story of, pulling the fabric with me.

He groaned into my mouth. Low. Guttural.

I pulled him closer. Felt the unmistakable, rigid evidence of how much he wanted this pressing against my hip. My stomach clenched. Heat pooled low and liquid between my thighs.

Kaelen moved.

He walked me backward. Blind. His mouth never left mine—dropping from my lips to my jaw, teeth grazing the hinge, then lower. His lips found the column of my throat and I gasped, my head falling back. He kissed a hot, open-mouthed trail down to the curve of my shoulder, tongue pressing against my pulse point until I whimpered.

My back hit the wall beside the window.

Moonlight flooded across us both. It turned his dark hair silver-blue. Made his gold eyes glow almost feral when he pulled back just enough to look at me.

His chest was heaving. So was mine.

He didn’t speak. Just hooked his fingers into the hem of my wool sweater and pulled it over my head in one rough motion. It dropped to the floor. Cool air hit my bare stomach, my collarbones, and I shivered—not from cold.

His gaze raked down. Slow. Deliberate. Like he was memorizing every inch.

“Kaelen—”

“Quiet.”

The command in his voice sent a bolt of electricity straight down my spine. Not cruel. Not cold. Just absolute.

His hands found the buttons of my denim trousers. He undid them with rough haste, peeling the heavy fabric over my hips, taking the thin scrap of fabric underneath with it, and I stepped free of both, kicking them aside.

I stood before him in nothing but moonlight.

He made a sound. Deep in his chest. Almost a growl. His hands trembled—actually trembled—as he gripped my hips and lifted me.

I wrapped my legs around his waist on instinct. My bare back pressed against the wooden window frame. The grain was rough and cool against my heated skin. He pinned me there with his body, one hand braced on the frame beside my head, the other gripping the underside of my thigh hard enough to bruise.

I didn’t care. I wanted the bruises.

“Look at me.” His forehead pressed against mine. His breath came in harsh bursts against my lips. “Elara. Look at me.”

I opened my eyes. Met his.

The gold was nearly swallowed by black. Pupil blown wide. Predator-focused.

He shifted his hips. Found me. And drove in.

My spine arched off the wood. A choked cry tore from my throat—half pain, half blinding relief, because I’d been aching for this, craving it with a ferocity that terrified me, and now he was there, buried so deep I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began.

“Elara.” He said my name like a prayer. Like a curse. His forehead pressed harder against mine, his breath ragged. “Born.” A slow withdrawal that left me gasping. “For.” He thrust forward. Hard. “Me.”

Stars scattered across my vision. My nails dug into his shoulders—through the shirt, into skin, deep enough to draw crescent marks—and I didn’t care, couldn’t care, because everything had narrowed to the place where our bodies met and the devastating rhythm he was building.

A sob tore from my throat as I answered his claim. Wrecked. Desperate. My fingers dragged down his back, pulling him impossibly closer. “You’re mine, Kaelen.”

A snarl ripped from his chest. Not human. Something ancient and primal that vibrated through my bones.

He answered by gripping the window frame so hard the wood groaned. His other hand slid up my thigh to the curve of my waist, holding me open, holding me still, and he drove into me with a force that rattled the glass behind us.

“All of it.” His voice was a wreck. A dark, shattered command. “Take all of it.”

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. Could only feel—the stretch, the fullness, the white-hot friction that was building at the base of my spine like a wave gathering height before it broke.

Each thrust shoved me higher against the frame. The moonlight striped across his jaw, his clenched teeth, the tendons standing out in his neck. Sweat gleamed on his collarbone. His shirt was bunched and half-torn from where I’d clawed at it.

“Kaelen—I can’t—”

“You can.” He shifted the angle. Deeper. Sharper. Hitting something inside me that made my vision white out. “Let go.”

The wave broke.

It crashed through me—violent, total, tearing a sob from my chest that I couldn’t have silenced if I’d tried. My entire body clenched around him, pulsing, and I heard myself crying out his name in a voice that didn’t sound like mine.

He followed me over the edge moments later, his rhythm shattering as he met his explosive release.

He shuddered against me, his whole body spasming, burying his face in the crook of my neck as his teeth scraped hard against the tender skin where a mate mark would go in the future. “Elara... mine... fucking... mine!”