Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Chapter 75

Isolde’s POV

They dragged me through the forest like a dog on a leash.

The scarred wolf gripped a fistful of my hair, hauling me forward every time I stumbled. I lost my expensive custom heels in the first mile of the trail—first the left, then the right—and after that it was bare feet on rocks, roots, and thorns. I felt my skin split open. Felt the warm ooze of blood between my toes. Didn’t scream. Screaming would give them satisfaction, and I refused to give them anything I didn’t have to.

Branches whipped across my arms. My silk gown caught on a low-hanging limb and tore from hip to hem, exposing my thigh to the cold air. I yanked the fabric free and kept moving.

The scarred wolf didn’t slow down. Not once.

"Keep up, princess." He didn’t look back. "Chief doesn’t like waiting."

The forest opened without warning.

One moment there were trees pressing in from every side, suffocating and dark. The next, I was standing at the edge of a clearing, and the smell hit me before anything else—smoke, rancid meat, wet fur, and underneath it all, the sharp copper tang of old blood soaked into dirt.

The camp sprawled across the clearing like something that had grown rather than been built. Tents of mismatched hide and stolen canvas sagged between crooked wooden poles. Fire pits dotted the ground, their flames throwing orange light across the faces of dozens—no, scores—of wolves. They crouched around the fires. Sharpened weapons. Gnawed on bones. Watched me with those flat yellow eyes.

Every single one of them watched me.

I straightened my spine. Lifted my chin. Blood was running freely from the wounds on my face again—Elara’s parting gift—and my ruined gown hung off me in strips. My feet left red prints in the mud.

I looked like a corpse someone had dressed up and thrown into a pit.

But I walked like I still mattered. Because the moment I stopped pretending, I was dead.

The scarred wolf led me to the center of the camp. The crowd parted for him—not out of courtesy, but out of instinct. The way lesser animals cleared a path for something bigger and meaner.

Then I saw the throne.

It sat at the far end of the clearing, elevated on a platform of packed earth. "Throne" was generous—it was a monstrosity welded together from scavenged carriage parts, broken wheels, rusted axles, and interspersed with bones. Some animal. Some... not. Pale, smooth bones that curved in ways only human or wolf anatomy allowed.

And on that throne sat the chief.

He was enormous. Not just tall—massive. Shoulders wide as a doorframe. Arms thick as tree limbs, roped with muscle and covered in scars that ran in every direction like a map of violence. His hair was black, but threaded through with premature silver streaks that caught the firelight. His jaw was square, brutal, shadowed with stubble. His skin was dark from sun and wind and years of living outside any walls.

His eyes were deep amber. Almost beautiful, in the way a blade is beautiful—cold, bright, designed to cut.

And his teeth.

When he looked down at me from that grotesque throne, his lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile, and I saw that his canines had been filed to points. Sharp. Deliberate. The teeth of a creature that wanted you to know it could tear your throat out before you finished screaming.

The scarred wolf shoved me forward. I stumbled, caught myself, and forced my legs steady.

"Boss." The scarred wolf jerked his chin toward me. "The one I sent word about. Says she has secrets about the emperor."

The chief said nothing. Just looked at me with those amber eyes. Slow. Thorough. The way a butcher examined meat.

Silence stretched. The fires crackled. Somewhere behind me, a wolf laughed low and ugly.

I spoke first. Because waiting for permission would make me prey, and prey didn’t survive here.

"I know Emperor Kaelen Nightfire’s weakness." My voice carried across the clearing. Steady. Clear. I’d practiced steadiness my entire life. "I know the one thing he would burn the world to protect. And I’m offering it to you."

The chief tilted his head. Slightly. Like a predator catching an unfamiliar sound.

"You." His voice was deep. Not a rumble—a vibration. The kind you felt in your sternum before you heard it in your ears. "A little noble bitch in a torn dress. Bleeding all over my dirt." He leaned forward on the bone throne. "Tell me why I shouldn’t have my men eat you and save myself the trouble."

"Because what I know is worth more than my weight in flesh."

He stared at me. One heartbeat. Two. Three.

Then he laughed.

It was a terrible sound. Low and genuine and utterly devoid of warmth. The wolves around the fires laughed with him, though most of them probably didn’t know why.

"I like that." He settled back into the throne. Spread his massive arms across the bone armrests. "Alright, little princess. Talk."

I swallowed. Tasted blood from where I’d bitten the inside of my cheek.

"Kaelen Nightfire has a mate."

The laughter stopped.

Every yellow eye in the clearing sharpened. The chief’s amusement dissolved like smoke. He leaned forward again, slowly, and the bones of his throne creaked under the shifting weight.

"A mate," he repeated.

"Confirmed. Bonded. A woman named Elara Frostfang." I let the name sit in the air. Watched his face for the reaction. "She’s his weakness. His blind spot. She and the child she bore him."

Something shifted in those amber eyes. Something predatory and calculating and deeply, violently interested.

"Frostfang," he said. Quiet. Rolling the name across his tongue like he was tasting it. "That’s a bloodline I haven’t heard spoken in a long time."

My pulse spiked. He knew the name. He knew it.

"That little bitch is a nobody," I said quickly. "A commoner. Weak. Pathetic. Easily taken."

"Is she." It wasn’t a question. The chief’s gaze was distant now, focused on something I couldn’t see—some memory, some plan already taking shape behind those amber eyes. "A little peasant bitch from the Frostfang line."

He said it softly. Almost to himself. Then his focus snapped back to me, sharp as a blade.

"And what do you want in return for this... intelligence?"

This was my moment. I straightened. Drew myself up to my full height, ignoring the blood on my feet, the ruins of my dress, the claw marks screaming across my face.

"An alliance," I said. "Your army. Your strength. I want Elara Frostfang destroyed. I want her stripped of everything she’s stolen from me—her position, her mate, her child, her life. And I want to be there when it happens."

He studied me. Those amber eyes moved across my face—lingered on the wounds, the torn silk, the bare feet caked with mud and blood.

"An alliance," he echoed. The word sounded absurd in his mouth. Like a child’s toy placed in a bear’s paw. "You come to me. Bleeding. Alone. In a stolen dress. With nothing but a name and a grudge." He paused. "And you propose an alliance."

He moved fast.

One moment he was on his throne. The next his hand was around my neck, and my feet were off the ground.

I choked. Clawed at his wrist. His fingers were iron—thick, scarred, immovable. He held me at arm’s length like I weighed nothing. His face was inches from mine, and those filed teeth gleamed in the firelight.

"Let me explain something to you, little princess." His breath was hot against my skin. "You don’t come into my camp and propose terms. You don’t negotiate. You don’t offer alliances." He squeezed. Just enough to make my vision blur at the edges. "You beg. You kneel. You prove you’re worth keeping alive. And if I decide you are, then I tell you what happens next."

He dropped me.

I hit the ground hard. Mud and stones drove into my knees. I gasped—ragged, desperate gulps of air that burned going down.

"Kneel," he said.

I was already on my knees. But I understood what he meant. This wasn’t about position. It was about submission.

I lowered my head. Pressed my palms into the mud. Felt the cold slime of it squeeze between my fingers.

"Please." The word scraped my throat raw. "Please. I’ll do whatever you want. Just let me live."

"You want to live?" He sat back down on his throne. Crossed one massive leg over the other. "Then stay like that. And beg for water."

I stayed.

Time blurred. For an hour, I knelt in the mud, the cold slime soaking through my torn silk gown. My arms trembled. My neck ached from holding my head bowed.

My lips cracked from thirst. My tongue was sandpaper. "Water," I pleaded, my voice scraping my raw throat. "Please, just a sip of water."

Around me, the camp continued its business—wolves laughing, eating, sharpening blades—mocking my humiliation. I had never been reduced to this, a princess begging scavengers for a drop of water. The wounds on my face throbbed with each heartbeat, a constant reminder of the woman who put them there.

Elara.

I held that name like a coal in my fist. Let it burn. Let the hate keep me upright when my muscles screamed to collapse.

I will destroy you. Whatever it takes. Whatever it costs me. I will watch you lose everything, the way I have lost everything, and I will smile while it happens.

After an hour of begging, a boot appeared in my line of sight. Massive. Caked with mud and old blood.

"Look at me."

I raised my head. My neck protested, stiff and aching.

The chief stood over me. His arms were crossed. His expression was unreadable.

"You’re still conscious," he said. He nudged my chin up with the toe of his boot. Examined my face the way one examines a horse before purchase. "Good." He stepped back. "Stand up."

My legs nearly buckled. I locked my knees. Rose.

He circled me. Slow. His gaze dragged over every inch of me—the torn dress, the bare feet, the mud caked up to my thighs. I stood perfectly still and let him look.

"You want to prove your loyalty to me," he said. Conversational. Almost pleasant. "You want me to believe you’ll be useful."

"Yes."

"Then strip."

The word landed like a slap. The wolves nearby went quiet. A few leaned forward, anticipation sharpening their features.

"Strip," he repeated. Slower. "Every piece of that pretty little noble costume. And do it slowly." A smile that showed his filed points. "Make it entertaining."

My fingers were numb. My hands shook. Every instinct I had left screamed refusal—screamed that this was degradation, humiliation, the final shredding of whatever dignity I had left.

But dignity was a luxury for people with options.

I had none.

Elara. I held the name. Held the hate.

I reached for the torn shoulder of my gown and pulled.

The silk slid down. Slowly, the way he wanted. I peeled it away from my skin in pieces. Pearl beading scattered into the mud with soft, final little sounds. The gown pooled at my feet, and I stood in nothing but the cold and the firelight and the stares of every wolf in the camp.

The chief watched. His expression didn’t change. He gave a small nod—the way one acknowledges a servant who has performed adequately.

"Continue."

I unclasped what remained. Let it fall. Stood bare under the open sky, shivering, silent, while the camp stared and the fire crackled and the wind moved across my exposed skin like cold fingers.

I did not look away from him. Not once.

Hours later, I lay in his den.

The space was a hollowed-out shelter of stone and hides, deeper in the camp, away from the fires. The furs beneath me were rough and smelled of smoke and musk. My body ached in places I didn’t want to catalogue. Bruises layered over bruises. My wrists were raw. The wounds on my face had reopened and dried again in streaked lines.

The chief lay beside me. Not touching. Just close. His massive frame took up most of the space. His amber eyes were half-lidded, but alert. Always alert.

"You have guts, little princess," he said. His voice was almost lazy. Satisfied. "Most nobles who stumble into my territory don’t survive the night. Certainly not in one piece."

I said nothing. My throat was too dry. Too raw.

He reached over. Picked up a waterskin and held it to my lips. I drank—long, desperate swallows that hurt going down.

He took the skin back. Set it aside.

"Your information about the Frostfang woman." He turned his head to look at me. The amber eyes were cold again. Business. "It better be good. Because what you just went through? That was the easy part."

"It’s good," I rasped. "Everything I told you is true. She’s his mate. She’s vulnerable. And she’s the key to bringing Kaelen Nightfire to his knees."

He stared at me for a long time. Then he smiled—slow, wide, those filed teeth catching the dim light that filtered through the hide walls.

"That means you’ve earned a place in my tribe. If your intel proves useful..." His smile revealed his sharpened teeth. "After all, every king needs a queen, doesn’t he? Even the King of Rogues."