Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Chapter 73

Elara’s POV

I caught his hand before he could pull it away.

His palm was warm against my cheek. Rough from years of gripping sword hilts and reins and the weight of an empire. I pressed into it. Held it there with both of mine.

"Don’t," I whispered. "Don’t pull back from me. Not now."

His dark gold eyes searched mine. Guarded. Vulnerable. A man who commanded armies and bent nations to his will, standing in the moonlight looking like he was terrified I might vanish.

"I’ve loved you since that night," I said again. Louder this time. Steadier. Because he needed to hear it without the tremor in my voice. Without any room for doubt. "Since the masquerade. Since before I knew your name or your face or anything about you except the way you held me like I mattered."

His jaw tightened. A muscle ticked beneath his ear.

"I hated you after," I continued. "For leaving. For disappearing. For making me feel something so enormous and then just—gone." My throat burned. "I hated you for years, Kaelen. And I loved you through every single one of them."

He made a sound. Low. Almost wounded. His thumb swept across my cheekbone, catching a tear I hadn’t felt fall.

"Ela." His voice was wrecked. Sandpaper and smoke. "I love you. I have always loved you."

The words broke something open inside my chest. Not broken like shattered glass. Broken like a dam giving way—everything I’d held back for years flooding through at once. Relief and grief and joy and hunger all tangled together until I couldn’t tell them apart.

I rose onto my toes and kissed him.

It started hesitant. Soft. Our lips barely brushing. A question asked and answered in the same breath.

Then his hand slid from my cheek to the back of my neck. His fingers threaded into my hair, fisted, and pulled me closer—and the hesitation evaporated like mist in sunlight.

I gasped against his mouth. He swallowed the sound. Deepened the kiss until my knees buckled and his arm clamped around my waist to keep me upright. His tongue swept against mine, hot and demanding, and every nerve in my body lit up like a struck match.

Years. Years of loneliness and longing and sleepless nights and aching emptiness, all of it compressing into this single, desperate point of contact.

I grabbed the front of his shirt. Pulled, loosening the fine fabric under my desperate grip.

He broke the kiss long enough to look at me. His pupils were blown wide. Almost black. The dark gold reduced to a thin, burning ring.

"Are you sure?" he rasped.

I pulled his shirt open and pressed my palms flat against his chest. Warm skin. Hard muscle. The wild, hammering beat of his heart beneath my fingers.

"I’ve never been more sure of anything."

Something snapped behind his eyes.

He kissed me again—no hesitation this time, no gentleness. His mouth was hard and claiming. Possessive. His hands found the hem of my blouse and yanked it upward. I raised my arms and let him tear it off. It landed somewhere behind us.

Cool air hit my bare skin. Then his hands were there—calloused palms sliding up my ribs, thumbs tracing the curves beneath my breasts, and I arched into his touch with a whimper that would have embarrassed me if I’d had any capacity left for shame.

"Kaelen—"

"I know." He kissed my jaw. My throat. The hollow behind my ear. "I know."

His hands found the waist of my skirt. Shoved the fabric up around my hips in one rough motion. I heard something tear and didn’t care.

He spun me around.

My palms hit the bed. The mattress dipped under my weight. His chest pressed against my back—hot, solid, overwhelming—and his breath scorched against my ear.

"Tell me again," he said. Low. Ragged. His hips pressed forward and I felt exactly how much he wanted this. How long he’d been holding back.

"I love you." My voice broke on it. "I love you. I’ve loved you for years and I’m done pretending I don’t—"

His hand slid down my spine. Over my hip. Between my thighs. I cried out at the contact—sharp, electric, almost too much after so long without being touched.

"Here?" His fingers moved. Slow. Deliberate. Torturous.

"Yes." I dropped my forehead to the sheets. Fisted the blankets. "Yes, right there, please—"

He stroked me until I was trembling. Until my legs shook and my breathing came in ragged gasps and the only word left in my vocabulary was his name.

"Kaelen—please—I need—"

"I’ve got you."

He withdrew his hand. I heard the rustle of fabric behind me. Then his palms gripped my hips—hard enough to bruise, hard enough to anchor—and he pressed forward.

I cried out.

He groaned—deep, guttural, torn from somewhere primal.

For a moment neither of us moved. Just breathed. The feeling of him inside me after all those years was so intense it bordered on pain. Full. Complete. Like a missing piece of myself clicking back into place.

Then he moved.

The first thrust drove a sound from my lips I didn’t recognize. The second made me grab the headboard. By the third I was pushing back to meet him, matching his rhythm, lost in the raw, desperate cadence of it.

"God—" His fingers dug into my hips. "Ela. You feel—"

"Don’t stop." I arched my back. Took him deeper. Stars burst behind my closed eyelids. "Don’t you dare stop."

He didn’t stop.

He set a pace that was wild and deep and relentless. Each thrust drove the breath from my lungs. Each withdrawal left me hollow and aching. His hand snaked around my hip and found me again, his fingers working in tight, knowing circles while he drove into me, and the dual sensation ripped a moan from my chest that I couldn’t have silenced if I’d tried.

"Yes! God, Kaelen, please!"

"Let go," he growled against my shoulder. "I want to feel you. Let go for me."

The command shattered whatever thin thread of control I had left. The climax hit like a wave—sudden, blinding, crashing through me with an intensity that bowed my spine and ripped his name from my throat. I clenched around him, shaking, and heard his sharp intake of breath behind me.

"Damn! Ela!"

His rhythm broke. His hips stuttered, slammed forward one final time, and he buried himself deep with a raw, guttural roar. I felt him pulse inside me, felt the heat of his release, felt his forehead drop against my shoulder blade as his entire body shuddered.

For a long moment, neither of us moved. Just breathed. His arms were braced on either side of me, trembling slightly. My fingers were still locked around the headboard. The room smelled of sweat and skin and something that was purely, fundamentally us.

Slowly, he withdrew. Gently. I winced at the sudden emptiness.

He turned me over. Pulled me down onto the mattress beside him. Dragged the tangled blanket over us both and wrapped his arms around me so tightly I could feel his heartbeat against my back.

"That," he murmured into my hair, "was real."

I turned in his arms. Pressed my lips to his jaw. His cheek. The corner of his mouth.

"It was real," I confirmed.

He kissed me. Slow this time. Tender. The fierce urgency was spent, replaced by something softer. Something that felt like permanence.

I settled deeper into his arms. My head fit perfectly in the hollow of his shoulder. His chin rested against the top of my skull. One of his hands traced idle patterns on my hip. The other stayed pressed flat against my lower back, holding me against him like he was afraid the morning might steal me away.

Across the hall, our son slept soundly. Safe and warm.

I burrowed deeper into his embrace, realizing that despite the uncertain future waiting beyond these walls, our love and our sleeping son were enough to make it all feel insignificant.