Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Kaelen’s POV

"Cassian. Wait."

He stopped mid-stride, one hand already on the door frame. His cloak shifted with the halted momentum. He didn’t turn immediately—just paused, reading something in my tone that made his shoulders tense. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"Close the door."

He did. The latch clicked into place, sealing us inside the empty council chamber. Dust motes drifted through the shafts of pale light from the high windows. The silence pressed in.

I didn’t sit. Sitting felt too passive for what I was about to say.

"Forget Isolde." The words came out flat. Cold. "I need you to find someone else first."

Now he turned. His expression was guarded. "Who?"

"My brother."

Cassian’s jaw tightened. He crossed his arms slowly, weight shifting to one leg. "Gareth."

"He’s hiding. Somewhere in the city, or just outside it. He disappeared right after everything fell apart. That’s not coincidence."

"And what exactly are you suggesting?"

"I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you." I placed both hands on the council table. The wood was cool beneath my palms. "Find the coward and drag him out of whatever hole he’s crawled into."

Cassian studied me. That careful, measured stare he used when he was deciding whether to follow orders or push back. I’d known him long enough to read both.

"Kaelen." His voice dropped. Quiet. Private. The voice of a friend, not a knight. "Explain. Because recently you were asking me to track Isolde to the northern border. Now you want me chasing your brother. I need to understand what’s changed."

I let the silence stretch. Let the weight of it build until the air felt thick.

"You also need to find Seraphine."

Something flickered across his face. A crack in the composure. Seraphine was his cousin. His blood.

"I’m going after every single person who conspired to destroy my life," I said. "Every one of them. No exceptions."

"Conspired." He repeated the word like he was testing its edges. "That’s a serious accusation."

"It’s not an accusation. It’s the truth."

He unfolded his arms. Took a step forward. "Then give me the truth. All of it. Right now."

I held his gaze. This was the moment—the hinge point. Cassian was the only man in this empire I trusted without reservation. The only one who’d earned it. But what I was about to tell him would test even that bond.

"Seraphine is pregnant."

"I know. The entire court knows."

"She’s telling everyone the child is mine."

His expression didn’t change. But I saw the muscle in his jaw jump. A single involuntary twitch.

"And?" he said.

"It’s a lie."

The word landed between us like a blade driven into wood. Clean. Final.

Cassian’s eyes narrowed. "How can you be sure?"

"Because I never touched her." My voice was raw now. Scraped thin by endless sleeplessness and fury. "Not once. Not ever. Not that night at the inn. Not any night before it. I have never laid a hand on Seraphine, and the fact that I have to say those words out loud to my closest friend makes me want to tear this room apart."

He didn’t speak. I watched him processing—turning it over, examining it, searching for the flaw. I gave him time. He deserved that much.

"The inn," he said finally. "You said you couldn’t remember—"

"Because I was drugged."

His chin lifted slightly.

"Gareth." I let the name hang. "My dear brother. The one who’s been choking on jealousy since the day our father named me heir. He put something in my wine that night. A compound—wolfsbane derivative, maybe something worse. I woke up in that room with no memory, and Seraphine was already there, arranging the scene."

"Arranging it."

"Like a stage." Bitterness burned in my throat. "Everything positioned to look exactly like what it wasn’t. My shirt. Her hair. The rumpled sheets. All of it designed so that when Elara found out—and she was always going to find out—it would be devastating enough to make her leave."

Cassian’s hand went to the back of his neck. He pressed hard, knuckles white. I could see the war behind his eyes—loyalty to me fighting against the blood tie to Seraphine.

"And it worked," he said quietly.

"Perfectly." The word was acid on my tongue. "Gareth has hated me his entire life. Hated that I inherited the throne. Hated that I had Elara. He wanted to take the one thing that mattered to me most, and he succeeded."

The chamber fell into deep silence. Outside, somewhere in the palace corridors, boots marched in steady rhythm. A changing of the guard. The mundane machinery of empire grinding forward while my world burned.

Cassian moved to the window. He braced one arm against the stone frame and stared out. His reflection was a ghost in the glass.

"My cousin," he murmured. Not a question. Not a defense. Just acknowledgment.

"Your cousin made her choice."

"I know."

"She’s carrying a child. Seven months along, by the court physicians’ estimation. And she’s parading through the palace telling every breathing soul that child belongs to me." I stepped closer. My shadow fell across the table between us. "This whole pregnancy is a trap they orchestrated together."

Cassian turned from the window. His face had gone very still—the kind of stillness that came before either eruption or absolute resolve.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Whatever it takes." I held his gaze without blinking. "I am going to get my wife back, Cassian. I don’t care what stands in the way. I don’t care who stands in the way. Elara left because she believed a lie. Because my brother poisoned everything I’d built with her and handed the wreckage to your cousin to display as evidence. I will not let that stand."

He was quiet for a long time. Then he straightened. The subtle shift of weight, the squaring of shoulders—I recognized it. The posture of a knight making a vow.

"What do you need from me?"

Relief hit me like a physical blow. I didn’t let it show.

"Seraphine first. She’s easier to find—she can’t move fast in her condition. She hasn’t left the capital. She wouldn’t. She wants to be seen. She wants the court to watch her belly grow and draw their own conclusions."

"And when I find her?"

"Bring her to me."

Cassian shifted slightly. Uncomfortable. "Kaelen. She’s pregnant. Whatever she’s done—"

"I’m aware."

"Then what happens when she’s standing in front of you?"

I let the question settle. Let it breathe. My gaze moved to the window where the pale morning light cut sharp angles across the floor.

"She has answers," I said. "She knows exactly what happened that night. She knows what Gareth gave me. She knows the entire plan, every step, every detail. And she is going to tell me all of it."

"And if she refuses?"

"She won’t."

"But if she does?"

I turned back to him. Whatever he saw in my expression made him go still.

"Start with her quarters. Check her correspondence. Interview her handmaidens—quietly. I don’t want the court buzzing until I’m ready. Once you’ve located her, send word directly to me. No intermediaries."

Cassian nodded once. Then he moved toward the door, all business now, the personal conflict locked away behind duty.

He paused with his hand on the latch.

"For what it’s worth," he said, without turning around, "I believe you."

Three words. Simple. They shouldn’t have mattered as much as they did. But in a world where my own mate doubted me, those words were the first solid ground I’d felt recently.

"Find her, Cassian."

He glanced back, his expression tight with apprehension. I let the silence do its work, letting it crawl across the stone floor and fill every corner of the empty chamber.

Cassian shifted uneasily. "Then what exactly are you going to do?"

"I’ll find a way." My voice went cold. "Trust me. I will find a way."