Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Chapter 98

Elara’s POV

My back pressed hard against the rough bark of a massive pine tree, and I screamed, “Riley! Marcus!” into the dead forest.

My voice cracked against the silence. Swallowed whole. Not even an echo returned.

I spun my head, scanning the tree line. Every direction looked the same—towering pines, dense undergrowth, a canopy so thick it strangled the light into a sickly gray. The moss beneath my boots was undisturbed. No trail. No footprints. Nothing to suggest anyone had ever walked here.

Dead air. The kind of absolute silence that made me feel like anyone within a mile radius could hear the frantic beating of my heart.

I pressed against the bark, steadying myself, forcing my breathing into a controlled rhythm. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Again. Again.

Something is wrong, Moonlight whispered from deep within me. Her voice was thin. Strained. Like she was speaking through water. This environment—it isn’t natural. I can’t sense the others. Can’t smell them. Can’t hear them.

I noticed it then. The heavy fog.

It hadn’t been there moments ago. Now it crept between the trunks like something alive, rolling in from every direction simultaneously. Thick. White. Impenetrable. Within seconds, it had swallowed everything, making it impossible to see in any direction beyond a few feet.

The fog is dampening sound, Moonlight said. And scent. I can’t catch anyone’s trail. Not Riley. Not Marcus. Not the knights.

“Can you sense anything at all?”

Wrongness. Chemical. There’s something in this mist that shouldn’t be here.

My heart hammered. I pressed harder against the tree, letting the bark bite into my shoulders through the fabric of my cloak. Grounding myself.

Think. Think.

I was separated from my squad. Disoriented. Surrounded by an unnatural fog that suppressed both sound and scent. My enhanced senses—the sharpened hearing, the amplified smell that had been a constant companion—were blinded. Useless.

A howl pierced the white. Distant. Then another. Closer. Then three more, overlapping, coming from different directions. Circling.

Rogues.

They were herding me.

The realization hit like cold water. I was trapped. This wasn’t an accident. The path hadn’t simply disappeared. The fog wasn’t a natural weather phenomenon. This was orchestrated. Deliberate. A trap designed with terrifying precision.

I had walked directly into it.

We need to signal the others, Moonlight urged. The retreat call. Now.

Right. The pre-arranged signal. The universal fall-back command we’d established before leaving the palace.

I tilted my head back. Drew the deepest breath my lungs could hold. And released it.

The howl tore from my throat—raw, primal, carrying every ounce of Alpha authority I possessed as I let out the pre-arranged retreat signal howl to alert my squad.

The fog swallowed it. Ate it whole. I couldn’t even hear the tail end of my own voice.

But I’d done it. If anyone was close enough—if the fog had limits—they might hear. They might come.

Or they might already be trapped in their own pocket of white nothing.

I waited. Counted heartbeats for a few moments.

No response came.

The Rogue howls circled tighter. I could feel them closing—not through scent or sight, but through some deeper instinct. The predator’s awareness of being prey.

I pushed off the tree. Staying still was death. Staying still meant waiting for them to find me.

I moved. Chose a direction at random—or what felt like random. The fog made navigation impossible. Every step forward looked identical to the one before. Pine trunks materialized from the white and vanished behind me. The ground was soft, muffled, giving nothing back.

Then I stopped.

Every muscle in my body locked simultaneously.

A scent suddenly threaded through the dead, chemical blankness of the fog like a single note of music in absolute silence.

Sandalwood and masculine warmth. The unique fragrance of my mate that made my blood sing and my bones hum.

Kaelen.

My pulse spiked so hard it hurt. My hands began to shake.

Wait. Moonlight’s voice was sharp. Urgent. Something is wrong with it. That scent—it’s him, but it’s not right. There’s something underneath. A pungent, chemical component.

I knew she was right. Some rational corner of my mind registered the wrongness. The scent was too clean. Too isolated. Like a single instrument playing without an orchestra. Kaelen’s real presence always came layered—the sandalwood mixed with leather and steel and the faint smoke of whatever fire he’d last sat beside. This was distilled. Purified. Stripped down to its most essential, most devastating components.

But knowing it was wrong and being able to resist it were two very different things.

“Kaelen?”

His name left my lips before I could stop it. A desperate hope thrown into the void.

The scent intensified. Pulled at me like a physical hand wrapped around my ribs, dragging me forward. My feet moved. I didn’t consciously command them. They simply followed, drawn toward that fragrance the way a moth spirals toward flame.

Elara, stop! Moonlight snarled. This is a lure! His scent shouldn’t be here! He is nowhere near here! This is fabricated!

“But what if it’s not?” My voice was barely a whisper. “What if he escaped? What if he’s hurt and he’s close and I—”

It’s not him! I would feel him through the bond if he were this close! The bond is still stretched thin—he’s not here!

She was right.

I knew she was right.

But the scent.

God, the scent. It wrapped around me like arms I’d been aching for. Filled my lungs with warmth I’d been starving for. Every inhale was a reunion. Every breath was a lie dressed in the truth of the man I loved.

My feet kept moving. I blindly followed that fragrance deeper into the mist. Faster now. Branches scraped my arms and I didn’t feel them. Roots caught at my boots and I stumbled forward without stopping.

“Kaelen! Can you hear me?”

Nothing answered. But the scent grew stronger. Richer. Closer. So close I could almost feel him. Almost touch—

A sudden wave of dizziness hit me without warning.

One moment I was moving. The next, the world tilted sideways like a ship caught broadside by a wave. It caused my vision to blur—the gray-white fog splitting into overlapping layers that refused to resolve.

My limbs turned to water, completely devoid of strength.

I reached for a branch. Missed. Reached again and my fingers closed on nothing but air.

The air, Moonlight gasped. Her voice was fading. Growing distant. The scent—it’s carrying something. A toxin. In the fog. We’ve been breathing it—

I clawed at the moss as I fell to my knees. The impact sent shock waves through my bones but the pain was muffled. Distant. Like it was happening to someone else.

My arms trembled violently, then gave out. I collapsed forward, cheek pressing into cold, damp earth.

The scent of Kaelen was everywhere now. Drowning me. Suffocating me. And beneath it—sharp, chemical, burning—the poison doing its work.

“Well, well. Look who it is,” an unknown female voice sneered, making the blood freeze in my veins.

It was a woman’s voice, dripping with satisfaction and dark amusement. I tried to lift my head to see who was speaking, but my neck muscles refused to obey. I couldn’t move. As the last ounce of strength drained away, and consciousness slipped through my fingers like water, I struggled to send one final, desperate message through the mate bond before the darkness completely swallowed me.