Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Chapter 68

Elara’s POV

The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime, and I stepped into chaos.

Two royal guards flanked a woman in the middle of the administrative corridor. They gripped her arms firmly, their faces carved from stone, but she thrashed between them like something feral. Her pink dress—a tight, wrinkled thing that looked like it had been slept in—was splattered with dark brown coffee stains down the front. Her hair hung in tangled clumps around her face. Black mascara ran in jagged streaks down both cheeks.

Seraphine.

I barely recognized her.

"Let go of me!" she shrieked. Her voice bounced off the marble walls, sharp enough to cut glass. "You have no right! Do you know who I am? I am his first love! I am his future queen!"

The guards said nothing. They simply tightened their grip and kept walking.

Seraphine dug her heels into the polished floor, leaving scuff marks. She twisted toward the massive oak doors at the end of the hallway—Kaelen’s doors—and screamed at them as if the wood itself could hear her.

"Kaelen! KAELEN! You cannot do this to me! That badge was mine! That night was OURS! You promised me—you—"

Her voice cracked. Shattered. For a fleeting moment, something almost pitiful flickered across her ruined face.

Then she saw me.

Everything changed.

The wild grief vanished. What replaced it was something cold. Focused. Venomous. Her red-rimmed eyes locked onto me with the precision of a predator spotting wounded prey.

"You."

The word dripped with acid.

"This is your doing, isn’t it?" She lunged toward me, or tried to. The guards hauled her back, boots scraping against marble. "You scheming little bitch! You cunning commoner!"

I stood frozen. My fingers tightened around the strap of my satchel.

"Look at you," she spat. "Standing there like you’re innocent. Like you belong in this palace. You’re nothing but a pathetic single mother who doesn’t even know who fathered her bastard child!"

The words hit me like physical blows. Each one a fist to the sternum. I felt the blood drain from my face.

Moonlight, my wolf, stirred inside me. Low. Defensive. A growl building somewhere behind my ribs.

"—and you think he wants you?" Seraphine laughed. It was a terrible sound. Shrill. Broken. "You think the Emperor of the Nightfire Empire would choose damaged goods? You’re delusional. You’re—"

"Ma’am." One of the guards adjusted his grip. His tone was ice. Professional. Final. "That is enough."

"Don’t touch me! I am the future—"

They lifted her. Actually lifted her off the ground, one guard per arm, marched her toward the elevator, and shoved her inside. Seraphine twisted her neck around, mascara-streaked face contorted, and wailed her last volley—not at me, but at Kaelen’s closed doors.

"Remember that night, Kaelen! Remember the badge! You know it was me! YOU KNOW IT WAS—"

The elevator doors closed.

Silence crashed down like a wave.

I stood in the corridor. My hands were shaking. My throat felt like I’d swallowed sand. The echo of her words—bastard child, damaged goods, pathetic—bounced around inside my skull, finding every soft place, every old wound, every scar I thought had healed.

A gentle hand settled on my shoulder.

"Elara, dear."

I flinched. Turned.

Claire stood beside me. The palace steward’s face was drawn with concern, her gray eyes soft. She squeezed my shoulder once—brief, warm, maternal.

"Don’t let her poison get under your skin," she said quietly. "That woman is desperate and unraveling. None of what she said has any truth to it."

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Nodded.

Claire studied me for a moment longer, then gently rubbed my arm. "Are you all right?"

Before I could answer, the oak doors at the end of the corridor swung open.

Kaelen stood in the doorway.

He was immaculate. Dark coat buttoned precisely. Every crease sharp, every line in place. But his jaw was locked so tight I could see the muscles jumping beneath the skin. His dark gold eyes swept the corridor—past Claire, past the scuff marks Seraphine’s heels had gouged into the floor—and landed on me.

Something shifted in his gaze. Something raw. Unguarded. It was there and gone so fast I almost missed it.

"Elara." His voice was low. Controlled. But underneath the control, I heard a current of something that made my pulse spike. "Come inside."

Not a request.

Claire gave my arm one last squeeze and stepped back. I swallowed the tightness in my throat and walked toward him.

The corridor felt endless. Each step echoed. He watched me approach without moving, without blinking, his tall frame filling the doorway. When I reached him, he stepped aside just enough for me to pass. His scent—cedar and smoke and something darker, something wild—washed over me. Moonlight stirred again, but differently now. Not defensive. Something warmer. Hungrier.

I crossed the threshold.

His study was enormous. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the far wall, flooding the room with gray morning light. The entire capital sprawled below in a tapestry of rooftops and spires and distant smoke. Bookshelves climbed every other wall. A massive oak desk dominated the center, its surface buried under scattered papers.

The door closed behind me. The lock clicked.

I turned to face him.

He hadn’t moved from the door. He stood with his back to it, one hand still resting on the handle, watching me with an intensity that made the air feel thin. His dark gold eyes burned—not with anger. With something more complicated. More dangerous.

"Kaelen, what—"

"Don’t." He held up one hand. "Not yet."

I closed my mouth. Waited.

He pushed off the door and walked toward the windows. His reflection moved across the glass—sharp silhouette against the pale sky. He stopped with his back to me. I watched his shoulders rise with a deep breath. Fall slowly.

"I owe you something," he said. "Something I should have said before that woman ever had the chance to open her mouth in your presence."

My heart was hammering. I could feel it in my wrists, my neck, the hollow of my throat.

He turned. The morning light caught the edge of his jaw, the hard line of his cheekbone. His eyes found mine, and for the first time since I’d known him, I saw no mask. No emperor. No authority.

Just a man standing at the edge of something terrifying.

"I was a fool," he continued, his voice laced with bitter, pained self-mockery. "A fool who made a catastrophic error in judgment out of desperation. It made me override every instinct I had. My wolf rejected her from the first breath. Everything in me screamed that she was wrong. That she was a liar. And I ignored it. Because she had the one piece of evidence that connected me to a night I have never been able to forget."

He was closer now. When had he moved? Three paces away. Two. The heat radiating from his body reached me like a physical thing.

"The things she said to you in that corridor—" His voice hardened. "They were the ravings of a cornered thief. Every word was a lie. Every insult was poison manufactured to hurt you because you are everything she could never be."

My eyes stung. I blinked hard. I would not cry. Not here. Not now.

"Kaelen—"

"I’m not finished."

He closed the remaining distance. Close enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. Those dark gold eyes searched my face with something fierce and raw—longing and regret braided so tightly together I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

"There are things I need to ask you, Ela," he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "These things will change everything between us."