Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Elara’s POV

"Mia—Mia, stop. Breathe."

I gripped her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. Her whole body trembled like a leaf caught in a gale. Up close, the damage was worse than I’d thought. A bruise was blooming across her left cheekbone, dark and swollen. Her lower lip was split. The torn blouse hung off one shoulder, exposing scratches along her collarbone—angry red lines where fingernails or fabric had dragged across skin.

"What happened to you?"

She shook her head, gulping air. Her cotton-candy pink hair was matted on one side, clumped together with what looked like dried sweat. Or blood. I couldn’t tell in the dim lantern light.

"Derek," she finally choked out. "Tuesday Derek."

My stomach dropped.

I knew about Tuesday Derek. Mia had mentioned him casually a few times—one of her rotating roster of dates, slotted neatly into her weekly schedule. She’d described him as "fun but clingy." I’d told her clingy was a warning sign. She’d laughed it off.

Nobody was laughing now.

"Come here. Come sit down."

I guided her to the low stone wall at the edge of the carriage yard. She collapsed onto it, hugging herself. I crouched in front of her and waited. Pushing wouldn’t help. I’d learned that much from my own years of being pushed.

The story came out in jagged pieces.

She’d gone to see him after skipping her shift. They’d had dinner at his place. Things were fine—normal—until she’d brought up the idea of keeping things casual. Non-exclusive. No strings.

"I just said I thought we should see other people too," Mia whispered. Her eyes were fixed on the cracked ground between her boots. "That’s all I said. And he—he just changed. Like something switched off behind his eyes."

He’d slapped her. Hard. Across the face. Called her a whore. Called her worse things. When she’d tried to leave, he’d grabbed her blouse and ripped it. She’d fought free and made it to the door, but not before he’d snatched her purse off the table.

"Everything was in there, Ela. All my gold. My identification badge. My work permit."

"Did you go to the city guard?"

She let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. "His father is a magistrate. A judge. Derek told me—he said if I reported him, his father would have me arrested. He said he’d tell them I stole from his house and attacked him. That they’d believe a magistrate’s son over—" She gestured at herself. At her torn blouse and smeared face. "Over this."

The cold anger from earlier—the one sitting low in my gut from Gary’s three-hundred-gold punishment—shifted and expanded. It wrapped around something deeper. Something I recognized intimately.

The helplessness of being small in a world built for people with power.

"How much was in your purse?"

"Everything I had. All of it." She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "I need to get out of this city, Ela. Tonight. I can’t stay here. If he comes looking for me—"

"Where would you go?"

"Spokane. My cousin lives there. She said I could stay with her if things ever got bad." A fresh wave of tears spilled down her cheeks. "I just need enough for a public coach ticket. Around forty gold. That’s all. I’ll pay you back. I swear on everything. I just—I can’t be here when the sun comes up."

Forty gold.

The number landed on my chest like a stone.

I straightened up and took a slow breath. The night air tasted like damp stone and distant chimney smoke. Above us, the street lantern flickered once, twice, then steadied.

I thought about Brenna. About the night she’d opened her door without a single question and let me collapse on her floor, pregnant and broken and owning nothing but the clothes on my back. She hadn’t asked if I could pay her back. Hadn’t calculated the cost. She’d just helped.

I thought about Riley. About the countless small kindnesses—a shared meal, a warm cloak, a hand steadying mine when the world tilted sideways. My imperial sisters. The women who’d shown me that loyalty wasn’t a transaction.

I couldn’t walk away from this.

"Okay," I said. "Let me see what I have."

I dug into my jacket pocket and pulled out my coin purse. It was pathetically light. I unfolded it under the lantern and counted the crumpled notes inside.

Twenty-three gold.

That was it. Twenty-three wrinkled, sad little coins. The remnants of my last pay after food and basic supplies had eaten through the rest.

"I’ve got twenty-three on me," I said. "We need more. There’s a money house across the street. Come on."

Mia grabbed my arm. "Ela, I can’t ask you to—"

"You’re not asking. I’m offering. Move."

We crossed the empty road together. The money house was one of those all-night stone kiosks with an iron-grated withdrawal golem embedded in the wall—squat, glowing faintly blue, humming with low-grade enchantment. I pulled my account token from my wallet and slid it into the slot.

The crystal display lit up with my balance.

Two hundred and forty-seven gold.

I stared at it. My entire life savings, reduced to a number that wouldn’t even cover what Gary was about to dock from my wages. Three hundred gold in penalties. Rent due in six days. And this—this pitiful sum—was all that stood between me and the street.

I pressed fifty on the rune pad.

The golem churned. Then the display flashed red: INSUFFICIENT FUNDS — PENDING DEDUCTIONS APPLIED.

The automatic rent deduction. It had already been flagged for advance withdrawal.

I tried forty.

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.

My fingers were shaking now. I pressed thirty.

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.

"Ela..." Mia’s voice was very small behind me. "It’s okay. You don’t have to—"

"Shut up, Mia."

I pressed twenty.

The golem whirred. Clicked. And then—finally—spat out a neat stack of twenty gold coins into the brass tray.

I scooped them up and added them to the crumpled twenty-three from my pocket.

Forty-three gold.

I turned and pressed them into Mia’s hands. All of them. Every last coin I had left in the world.

"Forty-three," I said. "That should cover the ticket with a little left for food on the road."

Mia stared at the coins in her cupped palms. Her lips parted, but no sound came out for a long moment. Then her face crumpled.

"Ela, I don’t know how to—"

"Don’t." I held up a hand. "Don’t thank me yet. We need to check the schedule."

I walked to the coach board mounted on the wall beside the money house. A flat enchanted parchment displayed the departure times in glowing green script. I scanned the list, my eyes catching the time on the clock tower across the square.

11:15 at night.

The midnight coach to Spokane. Departure at twelve. Arrival early tomorrow morning.

"There," I said, tapping the line. "Midnight departure. You can make it if you go straight to the station."

Mia nodded rapidly, clutching the coins against her chest.

I turned to face her. The lantern light carved deep shadows under her swollen cheekbone. She looked young. Fragile. Like a bird with a broken wing trying to fly anyway.

"Mia. Listen to me." I held her gaze. "I need that money back by Friday. Not Saturday. Not next week. Friday. Do you understand?"

"Yes—"

"I’m serious. I need it by Friday. Do you hear what I’m telling you?"

I kept my voice steady, swallowing back the sheer panic of my looming eviction. I couldn’t let her see how close to the edge I truly was. Mia, consumed by her own trauma, didn’t fully grasp the depth of my desperation. She just nodded frantically.

She grabbed both my hands. Her grip was fierce.

"I cross my heart and hope to die a restless death," Mia said. Her voice cracked but didn’t waver. "I will get you that money by Friday. I swear it, Ela."

And just like that, my imminent financial ruin was left hanging entirely on the fragile promise of a terrified girl.