Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Chapter 96

Elara’s POV

“Your Majesty, the Emperor is dead.”

The words hit the air and hung there, obscene, impossible. My vision tunneled. The edges of the room warped and curled like parchment catching flame.

My knees buckled.

I caught the edge of the desk. Fingernails scraped mahogany. The sound was distant—everything was distant—drowned beneath a roaring in my ears that swallowed thought and breath and reason.

“No.”

The word left my mouth before my mind formed it. Low. Guttural. Not a denial born of logic. Something deeper. Something animal.

“No. He’s not.”

The terrified young knight, no older than nineteen, flinched. His tear-streaked face crumpled further. “Your Majesty, the camp at East Ridge—it’s gone. All of it. Tents shredded. Weapons scattered. Blood everywhere. So much blood—”

His voice broke. He pressed a fist against his mouth and made a sound that was half sob, half retch.

I forced my spine straight. Locked my knees. My hand found the place over my heart where the bond lived—that thin, gossamer thread connecting my soul to Kaelen’s.

I reached.

The void screamed back at me. Cold. Vast. Endless.

But underneath—beneath the silence, beneath the emptiness, beneath the terror—there was something. A filament. A single trembling strand, so faint it could have been imagined. So faint it could have been nothing more than a dying woman’s desperate wish.

But it was there.

I pressed harder. Pushed every ounce of awareness I possessed into that fragile connection.

A pulse. Weak. Irregular. Like a heartbeat heard through deep water.

Alive.

“He’s alive.” My voice didn’t shake. It cut through the room like a blade drawn from its sheath. “I can feel him.”

The young knight stared at me. His hollow eyes held nothing but grief and confusion.

Behind me, Marcus stepped into the study. His weathered face was carved from stone, but I knew him well enough now to read the fault lines. The tightness in his jaw. The way his hands hung rigid at his sides, fingers curled inward.

“Ela.” He used my name. Not the title. The name. And the gentleness in his gravel voice nearly undid me. “The boy has ridden for days without stopping. What he saw—”

“I heard what he saw.” I turned to face Marcus fully. My chest heaved. My pulse hammered against my ribs. “Blood. Destroyed tents. I heard every word. But he didn’t say he found a body. Did you?” I looked at the knight. “Did you find his body?”

The boy’s lips parted. Closed. He shook his head slowly.

“No, Your Majesty. We—there was too much destruction. The Rogues were still in the area. We couldn’t—”

“Then he’s not dead.” I pressed my palm harder against my chest. The pulse was still there. Barely. A candle flame in a hurricane. “Our bond hasn’t broken. It’s weak. It’s fading. But it’s there, and that means he’s breathing somewhere in those mountains, and I am going to find him.”

Marcus moved between me and the door. Not aggressively. Carefully. The way one might approach a cornered wolf.

“Ela. Listen to me. East Ridge is deep in contested territory. The Rogues who hit that camp didn’t retreat—our scouts confirmed they’ve dug in. Fortified positions. They’re waiting for exactly this kind of response.” His voice dropped. Measured. Controlled. “You are pregnant. You are the acting sovereign. If you ride into that valley and die, this empire loses its Emperor and its Empress in the same week.”

“Then what do you suggest?” The words came out sharp enough to draw blood. “That I sit behind this desk and sign requisition forms while my mate bleeds out in a ditch?”

“I suggest we send a reconnaissance unit. A small, fast team—”

“How long?”

Marcus hesitated. That hesitation told me everything.

“Several days to reach the ridge. Possibly longer, depending on—”

“He doesn’t have several days.” I slammed my palm against the desk. The inkwell rattled. Documents scattered. I straightened, drawing a breath so deep it pressed against the limits of my ribs. When I spoke, my voice carried something I hadn’t summoned deliberately. Something that rose from my blood, from my bones, from the ancient Alpha lineage coiled in my marrow. My sovereign aura exploded into the room, heavy and absolute.

“I am the Empress of this empire,” I snarled, eyes flashing, asserting my absolute authority. “I will not stand down, and I will not be told what I cannot do.”

Marcus took an involuntary half-step back, the raw power of my command forcing his submission.

Before he could argue further, the door burst open again. Three officers stumbled through—armor dented, faces gray with exhaustion. They spoke over each other, words tumbling out in frantic, overlapping waves.

“—lost contact with Outpost Seven—”

“—Outpost Twelve went dark recently—”

“—no response from either garrison. That’s three camps now, Your Majesty. Three.”

Three camps destroyed. Sixty soldiers missing.

The room fell silent. Every eye turned to me.

Shortly after, an emergency council meeting was convened. The grand hall buzzed with frantic tension as I stood at the head of the long table, facing the military leaders.

“I demand a rescue operation. Immediately,” I declared, my voice echoing off the stone walls.

Marcus planted his hands on the table, shaking his head. He outright refused to permit it. “I cannot allow this. It is a suicide mission to infiltrate an entrenched Rogue territory. You are carrying the heir, Ela! I will not authorize it.”

“My mate is alive, my soldiers are missing!” I shot back, ignoring the gasps from the council at his informal tone. “One of my children is down the hall playing with his wooden wolf, and he made me promise I’d bring his daddy home. The other one is right here—” I pressed my hand against my stomach. “—and if their father dies because I was too afraid to move, then what kind of mother am I? What kind of queen?”

Despite my passion, Marcus held firm, his pragmatic instinct to protect me overriding everything else.

Then, a voice rang out from the back of the room.

“I’ll go with her.”

Riley stepped forward. Her expression was calm. Set. The stillness of someone who had already calculated the risks and accepted them.

“You saved my life, Ela. At the border. When the fever took me and every healer in camp had given up.” She crossed the room and stopped beside the table. “I owe you a debt that can’t be repaid with words. So I’m repaying it now. I volunteer to accompany you. Wherever you’re going, I’m going.”

Marcus looked between us. His shoulders dropped—not in defeat, but in the grim resignation of a man who recognized an immovable force.

“A small extraction team,” he compromised finally. His voice was rough with surrender. “Twelve riders, three supply wagons. You go in, you find the Emperor, you get out. No engagements. No heroics.”

“Agreed.”

“And you stay in the lead wagon at all times. No exceptions.”

I nodded. My heart hammered wildly, but my hands were steady now. “I want the team assembled immediately.”

Marcus turned on his heel and strode out, already barking orders.

Sometime later, I went to the nursery. Valerius sat cross-legged on the floor with his carved winter wolf clutched against his chest. Those dark gold eyes found me the instant I stepped through the door.

“Mommy.”

I knelt before him. Took his small hands in mine.

“I have to go somewhere, sweetheart. Just for a little while.”

His chin trembled. But he didn’t cry. He pressed his lips together the way his father did when he was holding something back.

“Are you going to find Daddy?”

“Yes, baby. I’m going to bring him home.”

“Can I come? I can smell really good. I could sniff him out.”

A laugh escaped me—wet, broken, raw. I pulled him against my chest and held on so tight he squeaked.

“I need you to stay here and be brave for me. Can you do that? Can you be my brave little man?”

He pulled back. Studied my face with that terrible, knowing gaze.

“Pinky promise you’ll bring him back?”

I held out my pinky. His tiny finger hooked around mine.

“Pinky promise.”

He nodded, solemn. I held him once more. Breathed him in—wax and soap and little boy warmth. Then I kissed the top of his dark curls, handing him over to Brenna’s care before the tears could fall.

Shortly after, the extraction team was assembled in the courtyard. Twelve knights in riding armor. Three covered wagons loaded with supplies and medical provisions. Horses stamped and snorted in the gray morning air.

Riley waited beside the lead wagon. She offered her hand and helped me up onto the bench.

I turned back toward the palace. In a high window, a small figure stood pressed against the glass. Brenna’s arm was wrapped around his shoulders. Valerius’s hand raised in a wave.

I waved back.

Then the driver snapped the reins, and the convoy lurched forward through the gates.

As we drove away, I pressed my hand to my chest once more, searching for that thin thread connecting me to my mate.

Still there. Fragile but unbroken.

I’m coming, I sent into the darkness. Hold on, Kaelen. I’m coming.