Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Kaelen’s POV

Blood. Everything smelled like blood.

Mine. Theirs. The horses’. It had soaked into my armor so deeply that the leather had gone stiff, cracking at the joints with every movement. The leading carriage jolted over a rut in the road, and pain lanced through the gash across my ribs—half-healed, badly stitched by a field medic’s shaking hands somewhere in the dark between ambush and dawn.

I didn’t care.

The gates of the estate materialized through the grey morning fog. Tall. Iron. Familiar. I pressed my forehead against the carriage window, my dark gold eyes burning with exhaustion, and my breath fogged the glass.

Almost there. Almost back to her.

Behind me, Sir Derek lay unconscious on the opposite bench. His face was the color of old parchment. The fluid bag hanging from the ceiling hook swayed with each bump, dripping steadily into the needle taped to his forearm. His heart had stopped twice during the emergency surgery. Twice they’d dragged him back.

He was one of the lucky ones.

Of the twelve knights who had ridden out with me days ago, only five returned.

The carriage lurched to a stop. I was already moving—shoving the door open, boots hitting gravel. My left leg almost buckled. I ignored it.

"Get the wounded to the medical wing. Now." My voice came out raw. Shredded. Days without proper sleep had ground it down to something barely human. "Derek first. He needs a full transfusion."

Guards scrambled. Stretchers appeared. I didn’t wait to watch.

I turned toward the main building and walked. Then faster. Then I was nearly running, each stride sending fresh agony through my side, my shoulder, my thigh where an arrow had punched through before I’d snapped the shaft and kept fighting.

None of it mattered.

Elara.

I reached for the bond. That golden thread inside my chest that connected me to her—warm and alive and constant, the only thing that had kept me sane during those days of hell in the forest.

Static.

Faint. Muffled. Like trying to hear someone speak through layers of thick wool.

The rogues’ disruption magic. It had surrounded us during the ambush, cutting us off from everything—communication, reinforcement, the mind-link. I’d assumed it would clear once we left their territory. But the bond still felt... wrong. Distant. Like grasping at smoke.

She’s inside. She’s safe. The disruption hasn’t fully faded yet. That’s all.

I shoved through the main doors. The entrance hall was empty except for two servants who flattened themselves against the walls as I passed, eyes wide at the blood painting my armor.

"Where is she?" I didn’t stop walking. Didn’t look at them. "My mate. Where?"

No answer. Just frightened silence.

I took the stairs two at a time. Our quarters. She’d be there. Probably reading. Probably with her feet tucked beneath her the way she always sat, one hand resting absently on the swell of her belly—

The room was empty.

The bed was made. Untouched. Cold.

Something cracked inside my chest. A fissure. Hairline thin but spreading fast.

I turned. Descended. Corridor after corridor, my pace building, my breathing coming harder. The library. Empty. The gardens. Empty. The kitchens—

"Your Majesty!"

Cassian’s voice. Behind me.

I spun.

He stood at the far end of the corridor. Two senior pack members flanked him. Their faces told me everything before a single word left their mouths.

Cassian was pale. Not just pale—grey. The kind of color a man turns when he knows the news he carries might get him killed.

"Where is she?" Low. Quiet. The kind of quiet that comes before something detonates.

Cassian opened his mouth. Closed it. His jaw worked silently.

"Cassian." I took a step forward. "Where. Is. My. Mate."

He flinched. Actually flinched. The man who’d stood beside me through a dozen battles, who’d taken a sword meant for my heart without blinking—he flinched.

"Kaelen—"

"Don’t." Another step. "Don’t hedge. Don’t soften it. Tell me where Elara is. Right now."

The fissure in my chest widened. I could feel it—the beast inside me clawing upward, straining against whatever fragile control I had left. My vision sharpened. Everything became too clear. Too bright. The grain of the wood paneling. The individual threads in Cassian’s collar. The rapid pulse jumping in his throat.

"She left," Cassian said. The words came out flat. Forced. "Yesterday morning. She—the mind-link went silent, and she—she went to find you, Kaelen. We tried to stop her. She wouldn’t listen."

The world tilted.

"What?"

"Six search parties have been out since nightfall. All night. They’ve found nothing. No trail. No scent. The disruption magic is—it’s everywhere in those woods. We can’t track—"

I didn’t hear the rest.

The pressure erupted from my chest like a shockwave. Not a choice. Not deliberate. Just raw, uncontrolled power flooding outward in every direction—a sovereign command with no words behind it, only fury and terror compressed into something physical.

Every wolf within a fifty-foot radius dropped.

Cassian hit one knee. The two senior pack members crumpled completely—hands and foreheads pressed to the stone floor. Down the corridor, I heard bodies hitting the ground. A crash of shattering glass—the windows along the eastern wall exploding outward. Then the alarm bells. Triggered automatically by the pulse of Alpha energy.

Their ringing filled the silence I’d left behind.

"Get up," I snarled. My voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded like something dragged from the bottom of a pit. "Get up, Cassian."

He rose. Slowly. His nose was bleeding—a thin crimson line tracking down his upper lip. He didn’t wipe it.

"How long." I advanced on him. "How long has she been gone?"

"Since yesterday morning. Just after dawn—"

"And you’re telling me now?"

"You were unreachable! The disruption magic—we sent riders, messengers—none of them got through—"

"Six parties." I was shaking. I could feel it in my hands, in my jaw, in the muscles of my thighs. Not from cold. Not from blood loss. From something far worse. "Six parties and nothing?"

"The forest is saturated with interference. Scent trails dissolve within a hundred yards. We—"

"Double them." I grabbed his collar. Pulled him close enough that he could see what was happening behind my eyes—the unraveling, the disintegration of every rational thought. "Triple them. Send the griffins. Every magical courier we have. Wake the mages. I don’t care if they haven’t slept. I don’t care if they bleed from the effort. Find her."

"Kaelen." His voice went careful. Measured. The voice you use with wounded animals. "You need medical attention. You’re still bleeding. You haven’t slept in—"

"My pregnant mate is missing!" The word tore from my throat like something alive. Like something with claws. "She’s carrying our child, alone in a forest full of rogues who just killed seven of my men. Don’t tell me I need to sleep!"

Cassian said nothing. There was nothing to say.

I released his collar. Stepped back. My hands were trembling so violently I couldn’t make fists.

I closed my eyes and reached inward. Past the pain. Past the exhaustion. Past the animal howling inside my skull. Down, down into the bond—that golden thread—searching for warmth, for presence, for anything— 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Elara.

Static. Distant. Like calling into a void.

Baby, please. Answer me. Tell me where you are.

Nothing. Just that horrible, muffled silence where her voice should have been.

My knees hit the floor. I didn’t remember deciding to kneel. But the stone was cold beneath me, and my palms were flat against it, and somewhere behind me Cassian was giving rapid orders—griffins, mages, triple deployment—

"She’s carrying our child, Cassian. Our baby. And I wasn’t there to protect her."

Elara, please. Please answer me. I can’t... I can’t lose you.