Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Isolde’s POV

She was supposed to be tied up.

She was supposed to be broken. Bruised. Whimpering in that damp little room while my rogue soldiers did whatever they wanted. I was the powerful queen of the rogue pack now, joyfully waiting by the metal bridge to welcome my men. That was the plan. That was how this was supposed to go.

Instead, Elara stood at the far end of the bridge, bathed in shadow and moonlight, smiling at me like death wearing a familiar face.

"Hello, sister. Miss me?"

Her voice rolled across the metal grating, low and calm and wrong. Not the voice of a girl who’d just been bound with silver-threaded rope. Not the voice of someone who should have been screaming.

The voice of something that had woken up hungry.

I took a step back. My hip bumped the railing. Cold iron bit through my cloak.

"Ela." I forced the name out, forced it to sound steady. Casual. Like we’d run into each other at a market stall. "How did you—"

"Your men weren’t very cooperative." She took a step forward. Then another. Each footfall rang against the bridge like a heartbeat. "At first."

My throat tightened. I could feel it—the pressure rolling off her in waves. Not just anger. Not just rage. Something heavier. Something that pressed against my chest and made my wolf cower, belly-down, in the deepest corner of my mind.

Sovereign energy. Alpha energy.

Impossible. She was nobody. A discarded orphan. A charity case my parents had taken in out of pity and duty. She didn’t have this kind of power. She couldn’t.

But my knees were shaking.

"We’re sisters," I said quickly. The words tumbled out, tripping over each other. "Ela, we’re family. Whatever happened between us—we can talk about this. We can—"

Her hand closed around my throat.

No warning. No wind-up. One moment she was three strides away, and the next her fingers were wrapped around my neck, and my feet were no longer touching the grating.

She lifted me like I weighed nothing. Like I was made of paper and straw. Her grip wasn’t even tight—not yet—but the promise of it was enough. Those fingers could close completely at any moment. I understood that in the most primal, wordless part of my brain.

"Family," she repeated softly. The word dripped from her mouth like something rotten. Her ice-blue eyes burned in the dark—actually burned, luminous and pale, like twin moons set into a face carved from stone.

"You sold me to those rogues in a basement, Iso." Her thumb pressed against my pulse. "You tied me with silver rope. You stood there and watched them put their hands on me."

"I didn’t—I wasn’t—"

"Don’t."

One word. Quiet. Final. The Alpha command behind it slammed into my wolf like a physical blow, and every excuse I’d been manufacturing died in my chest.

My vision started spotting. Black flowers blooming at the edges. My lungs burned. I clawed at her wrist, my nails scraping uselessly against skin that felt like iron beneath warm flesh.

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t speak.

But I could still think.

Malak.

I reached inward, past the terror, past the shrieking animal panic, into the bond—that dark, twisted thread that connected me to him. The mind-link. It was always there. He kept it open. Not out of affection. Out of possession. The way a man keeps a leash tied to his belt even when the dog isn’t pulling.

Malak! I screamed through the link. The cellar bridge—south corridor—she’s free—she broke loose—

Silence. For one horrifying second, nothing.

Then his presence flooded in. Dark. Vast. Like stepping into a room with no walls and no floor.

What? His voice was a low snarl inside my skull.

She’s killing me! I shrieked. Bring the tainted water—the silver-laced wolfsbane—the syringe—the bridge by the cellars—HURRY—

His presence vanished from the link. Not gradually. Instantly. Like a door slamming shut.

He was coming. Or he wasn’t. With Malak, you never really knew until he arrived.

Elara’s fingers tightened. Just a fraction. Just enough to make my windpipe creak.

"You always were a coward, Iso," she murmured. Her face was close to mine now. Close enough that I could see every detail—the sharp line of her jaw, the silver-white hair that whipped around her shoulders in the river wind. "Even when we were children. You never fought your own battles. You always found someone else to do the hitting."

Black spots multiplied. My chest was on fire. I kicked weakly, my boots scrabbling against nothing.

Please hurry. Please.

"Do you remember," Elara continued, conversational, almost gentle, "the first time you locked me in the root cellar? I was so small. I screamed for hours. And you sat upstairs eating honey cakes and laughing."

I remembered. Of course I remembered. I remembered the satisfaction of it. The delicious, hot power of knowing someone smaller than me was suffering because I willed it.

That satisfaction felt very far away now.

A sound. Behind her. Behind us both.

The storage room door at the far end of the corridor exploded inward. Not opened. Not pushed. Blown off its hinges entirely, the metal shrieking as it slammed into the wall.

Malak filled the doorway.

He was enormous. Shoulders nearly touching both sides of the frame. His scarred face was split in a grin that had nothing to do with joy and everything to do with appetite. His dark eyes—flat, bottomless, predator’s eyes—swept across the bridge and found us immediately.

"Well," he drawled. His voice was deep. Slow. Like gravel dragged across bone. "Look at my little toy getting herself into trouble. You useless little piece of trash."

Toy. He called me toy. Always had. The way someone might name a dog—casually, possessively, without affection.

Once, that word had made me feel chosen. Protected.

Now it just made me feel owned.

But he was here. He was here, and in his hand—

The syringe. Glass barrel. Long needle. The liquid inside was milky-white with a faint silver shimmer. Wolfsbane. Refined. Concentrated. Laced with silver powder in precise, lethal proportions.

Elara’s head snapped toward the sound. Her grip on my throat loosened—barely, a fraction—as her attention split.

Malak moved.

I had seen him fight before. Had watched him tear through trained soldiers like wet cloth. But I had never seen him move like this—a blur of mass and violence that shouldn’t have been possible for something his size.

One stride. Two.

The syringe plunged into the side of Elara’s neck.

Deep. The needle sank to the hilt, and Malak’s thumb drove the plunger down with savage, deliberate force. The milky liquid disappeared into her bloodstream.

Elara’s eyes went wide. Her mouth opened in a silent gasp. Her fingers sprang apart, and I dropped, crumpling to the metal grating in a heap, coughing and retching and sucking air through my bruised throat.

The effect was almost instant.

The pressure—that crushing, overwhelming Alpha energy that had been pouring off Elara like heat from a forge—vanished. Snuffed out. Like a candle pinched between wet fingers.

Her legs buckled. She staggered sideways. One hand groped blindly for the railing, missed, and she collapsed onto the concrete beyond the bridge. Hard. Her palms scraped against the gritty surface. Her silver hair spilled around her like water.

"There she goes," Malak murmured. He yanked the spent syringe from her neck and tossed it aside. It shattered on the concrete. "Dumb bitch."

He crouched beside her. His massive hand closed around her left wrist. He pulled her arm straight, pressing her hand flat against the ground. Palm down. Fingers splayed.

Then he placed his boot on top of her hand.

Malak smiled. He leaned harder, intentionally grinding his heel into her left hand until the bones snapped completely.

Elara let out a raw, agonizing scream.

"Listen to the mighty duchess’s daughter scream," Malak taunted over her cries, crushing her broken fingers. "Kaelen’s precious little empress, reduced to nothing."