Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Kaelen’s POV

He clawed at my wrist. Pathetic. His nails scraped against my skin without leaving a mark. His face turned red, then purple. His eyes bulged. Veins stood out on his temples like cords of rope.

Seraphine screamed behind me. A high, shrill sound that bounced off the rotting walls. "Please! Please, you’ll kill him!"

Good.

I squeezed harder. Gareth’s mouth opened and closed. No sound came out. Just the wet, desperate rasp of a man whose airway was collapsing under my palm. His legs kicked. His body convulsed.

I leaned in close. Close enough to smell the cheap liquor on his breath. Close enough to see every broken capillary in those bloodshot eyes.

"Brother," I said softly. "We need to talk."

I released him.

He crumpled to the floor. Gasping. Retching. Both hands around his own throat as if he could massage the air back into his lungs.

"Cassian."

My knight stepped through the doorway behind me. Armored. Silent. Two guards in black followed, swords drawn.

Seraphine pressed herself into the corner. Her face had gone the color of ash. She was shaking so hard her teeth chattered. "Cassian, please—I’m your cousin, please—"

Cassian didn’t look at her.

"Both of them," I said. "Deep cells."

Cassian nodded once. He jerked his chin at the two guards. They moved forward in unison. One hauled Gareth to his feet by his collar. The other reached for Seraphine.

"No!" She twisted away. "You can’t do this! I’m carrying a child—I’m pregnant—"

"Move," Cassian said. His voice was flat. Dead. Not a shred of family warmth in it. "Now."

She opened her mouth to protest again. Cassian stepped toward her. Something in his expression must have registered, because she flinched and went silent. The guard took her arm and pulled her toward the door.

Gareth was still coughing. The guard holding him had to half-drag him down the narrow staircase. His boots scraped against every step.

I followed them out into the rain.

---

The carriage ride back to the palace was silent.

I sat alone in the enclosed compartment. Rain hammered the roof. The wheels groaned over cobblestones. A messenger intercepted us at the palace gate—a young page breathless from running—and thrust a sealed letter through the window.

I recognized Claire’s handwriting. The palace steward.

Your Majesty, the Privy Council has convened an emergency session and is requesting your immediate presence regarding the status of Lady Seraphine and—

I folded the letter and dropped it on the seat beside me. The Privy Council could wait. They could rot in their council chamber with their tea and their gossip for all I cared. I had more pressing business below ground.

---

The deep cells existed beneath the palace’s main dungeon. Deep underground. Past the common holding pens, past the interrogation rooms used for ordinary criminals, down a spiraling stone staircase that narrowed with each turn until the walls pressed close on both sides.

No windows. No natural light. The air smelled of damp stone and old iron. The only illumination came from enchanted torches that burned cold and blue, casting everything in corpse-light.

Three cells lined the corridor at the bottom. Heavy iron doors with viewing slots. Rune-etched locks that responded only to royal blood.

Cassian stood at the junction, logging entries in a leather-bound ledger.

"Cell one—Seraphine," he said without looking up. "Cell two—Gareth. Cell three remains empty."

"Good." I stopped beside him. "I need recording crystals in cell two. Full array. Multiple angles. Sound and image. The kind that hold up before a tribunal."

Cassian closed his ledger. "Professional-grade enchantments. I’ll handle it personally."

"You have ten minutes."

He disappeared down the corridor.

I waited in the blue-lit silence. Water dripped somewhere. A rhythmic, hollow sound. From cell one, I could hear Seraphine crying. Muffled sobs that echoed strangely in the stone passage.

From cell two, nothing. Gareth had gone quiet.

I flexed my hand. The knuckles ached slightly from where I’d gripped his throat. I thought about Elara. Her face the morning she left. The hollowness in her eyes. The letter she’d written.

Every word of that letter was carved into my memory like scripture into stone.

I trusted you. I believed you. And you destroyed that.

She’d believed what they wanted her to believe. Because Gareth and Seraphine had made the lie airtight. The staged scene. The drug. The false bite mark. The fabricated pregnancy.

They’d stolen my wife from me.

Cassian returned. "Crystals are set. Multiple points. Every angle covered."

"Stay outside cell two. Record everything."

I pushed open the iron door.

---

Gareth sat on the stone floor with his back against the far wall. His wrists were chained to iron rings set into the stone. The bruise on his throat was already darkening. Purplish-black. Shaped like my fingers.

He looked up when I entered. His eyes were glassy with residual terror, but underneath that—defiance. The stupid, stubborn defiance of a man who had nothing left to lose.

"Tell me about the Sapphire Inn," I said.

He spat blood onto the stone floor. "Go to hell."

I hit him.

A single punch to the jaw. His head snapped to the right. Blood sprayed from his split lip in a thin arc that spattered the wall. He slumped sideways against his chains. Groaned.

I stepped back and looked toward the open door. "Send them in."

Three men entered. They wore no insignia. No identifying marks. Each carried a thick wooden baton. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Gareth’s eyes widened. "Wait—"

The first blow caught him across the ribs. He screamed. A raw, animal sound that echoed through the stone corridor. The second blow landed on his shoulder. The third struck his thigh.

He screamed again. And again.

After the third round, the men stepped back. Gareth hung from his chains like a puppet with cut strings. Blood dripped from his mouth and nose. His breathing came in wet, shuddering gasps.

I crouched in front of him.

"The Sapphire Inn," I said again. Quiet. Patient. "Tell me everything."

He broke.

Tears cut through the blood on his face. His voice came out in ragged fragments, hitching and cracking between sobs.

"She—Seraphine—she had this drug. Something like wolfsbane but different. Refined. She put it in your wine that night. It made you—confused. Foggy. You couldn’t think straight, couldn’t remember properly—"

"And the bite marks."

"Fake." He coughed blood. "She carved them herself. Pressed a mold into the skin while you were barely conscious. Made it look like you’d—like you’d marked her."

"The pregnancy."

A bitter, choked laugh. "The child is mine. Not yours. Never yours. She’s been sharing my bed for months." His voice rose, cracking into something between a shriek and a sob. "We planned it for months, do you understand? Because I hate you! I’ve hated you since we were children! You got everything—the throne, the empire, even her—and I got nothing!"

His head dropped. His shoulders heaved. The sound that came from him was barely human. Grief and rage and self-pity all tangled into one wretched noise.

The crystals hummed softly in their mountings. Recording every word. Every tear. Every damning syllable.

I stood.

Cassian stepped into the cell. He looked down at Gareth for a long moment. Then he drove his fist into Gareth’s face with enough force to snap his head back against the stone wall.

He turned and walked out without a word.

---

Seraphine lasted less than five minutes.

The moment I entered cell one, she started talking. No bravado. No defiance. Just a flood of desperate, stumbling words pouring out of her as the crystals recorded from every angle.

"Yes—the drug, yes—I prepared it myself. A modified wolfsbane compound. It suppresses higher cognition and memory formation. I administered it in his wine at dinner. Then I brought him to the inn and—and staged the scene. The bite marks were fabricated. A wax mold pressed into heated skin. The pregnancy—the child is Gareth’s. We planned the timing to coincide with—"

She kept going. Every detail. Every step. Names, dates, methods, motivations. The crystals captured it all.

When she finished, she sat there shaking, tears streaming down her face. Waiting.

I said nothing. I took the primary crystal from its mount. Held it in my palm. The evidence I needed.

A sudden burst of wings echoed down the corridor. A messenger hawk, enchanted to navigate even the underground passages. It landed on Cassian’s outstretched arm. A sealed letter was fastened to its leg.

Cassian broke the seal. Read it. His face went still.

He handed it to me.

Marcus’s handwriting. Urgent.

Your Majesty. Emergency. Rogues are massing at the northern border. Massive in numbers. Leader confirmed as Malakor. Isolde is also among them.

I read it twice. The words settled into my bones like frost.

"Cassian." I pocketed the crystal and turned toward the stairs. "Mobilize every available knight. Full war footing. Send riders to every garrison between here and the northern frontier."

Cassian was already moving. "And the prisoners?"

I paused at the bottom of the staircase. Looked back down the blue-lit corridor. Two iron doors. Two traitors behind them.

"Find someone to watch these two. I’m not finished with them."