Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Elara’s POV

Following the heavy trail of blood and the violent pull in my chest, I pushed through the thick brambles until the small clearing stretched before me. About twenty paces wide. Morning light bled through the broken canopy in thin, watery streams, painting everything in shades of gray and pale gold. The copper stench of fresh blood hung thick in the air.

Two figures stood at the center.

One was enormous. Broad shoulders, thick arms, a chest like a war barrel. His hair was a dull grayish brown, cropped close to his skull. He stood with his legs apart, his chin tilted up—like he owned the ground beneath him. Like he owned the air itself.

Malakor.

The other figure was smaller. Leaner. A woman. Dark hair pulled back from a face I knew better than my own reflection. A face that had smiled at me once, when we were children. Before she’d learned that cruelty was its own kind of currency.

Isolde.

My stepsister.

Between them—dragged like a slaughtered deer across the blood-soaked earth—was my husband.

The breath left my body.

Kaelen’s armor was torn open at the side. His shirt beneath was drenched—not dark, not brown, but red. Wet, glistening red. His arms hung limp. His legs trailed behind him, boots dragging shallow furrows in the mud. His head lolled forward, chin against his chest. Black hair matted with blood and dirt, falling across his face.

His skin was wrong. Gray. Almost blue at the edges, like something vital had already drained away. The wide shoulders I’d slept against. The hands that had held our children. The jaw that had clenched when he was trying not to say something he’d regret.

Still. All of it was still.

No.

My fingers tightened around the dagger until the hilt bit into my palm. The mate bond in my chest screamed—not a pull anymore but a shriek, a tearing, a wrongness so profound my vision blurred at the edges.

No. No. No.

Isolde laughed.

The sound was bright. Casual. Like she’d just heard a mildly amusing joke at a royal banquet. She shifted her grip on Kaelen’s left arm, adjusting her hold the way someone might adjust the handle of a heavy bag.

"Gods, he’s heavier than he looks," she said. Her voice carried clearly across the silent clearing. "You’d think all that Alpha muscle would make him easier to move, not harder."

Malakor didn’t laugh. He was dragging Kaelen’s other arm, and the veins in his neck bulged with effort. His jaw was set in a hard line.

"Stop complaining," he snapped. "And move faster. His wolves will notice the silence eventually."

"Let them notice." Isolde tossed her hair over one shoulder with her free hand. The gesture was so familiar it made my stomach lurch. "What are they going to do? Their precious emperor can’t even open his eyes."

"That’s the point." Malakor adjusted his grip and pulled harder. Kaelen’s body shifted across the ground, leaving a fresh smear of red across the pale leaves. "The poison does exactly what it needs to do. He feels everything. Every drag. Every stone under his back. Every second." A pause. Something almost like satisfaction crept into his voice. "He just can’t move."

The world tilted.

I pressed my fist against my mouth. Bit down on my knuckles until I tasted copper. My vision swam.

He’s alive.

The thought punched through the horror. He was alive. The poison had paralyzed him but it hadn’t killed him. Not yet. His heart was still beating—I could feel it through the bond now, impossibly faint, like a pulse at the bottom of a deep well. Barely there. But there.

He can feel everything.

Malakor had said it with pleasure. Like it was a feature, not a side effect. Designed cruelty. A poison mixed with precision—not to kill quickly but to trap a man inside his own body while they did whatever they wanted to it.

My husband. My strong, powerful emperor. Trapped inside himself. Feeling the stones tear at his back. Feeling his blood leak away. Unable to scream.

Rage rose in me like a tide. Black and burning and absolute. Every muscle in my body coiled. The dagger was in my hand. Twenty paces. I could cross twenty paces. I could drive this blade into Isolde’s throat before she finished her next sentence—

And then Malakor would kill you.

The rational thought landed like cold water.

I forced myself to breathe. One breath. Two.

Think.

Malakor was twice my size. An Alpha wolf in his prime. Isolde was a wolf too—her senses sharper than any human’s, her strength leagues beyond mine. And I was... what? A woman with no wolf. No supernatural strength. No healing power that could stop a blade. Just a pitifully inadequate dagger and a body that hadn’t slept in days.

If I charged out there, I would die.

And Kaelen would still be in their hands.

Cassian. The thought was immediate, desperate. Get back. Find Cassian. Bring the knights.

I eased backward. Slowly. Controlled. One inch. Two. The branches pressed against my spine.

"Where exactly are we taking him?" Isolde asked. She sounded bored. Bored. While her hands were wrapped around the arm of a dying man.

"The ravine. South edge." Malakor grunted with effort. "His body goes over. Easy. Clean. No one finds him for days—maybe never."

"And if his wolves track the blood?"

"In this forest? With the dense undergrowth?" Malakor’s laugh was a short, ugly bark. "They’ll track in circles until their noses bleed."

Isolde smiled. Wide and bright and terrible.

Three years ago, this woman had stood in my home. Worn my mother’s jewelry. Slept in my bed after I’d been thrown out like refuse. Three years ago, she’d helped destroy everything I’d built. And now she was dragging my husband’s dying body across a forest clearing with a smile on her face.

The rage was a living thing in my chest. Clawing. Screaming.

Not yet. Not yet. Get back. Get help.

I moved another inch backward. My knee shifted in the undergrowth. My thigh muscle trembled—exhaustion and adrenaline fighting for dominance.

Control it. Control—

My hand shook.

Not a little. Not a slight tremor. A full-body quake that started at my core and radiated outward. My jaw clenched but my teeth still chattered. The dagger rattled against the leather of its sheath. My knee pressed into dead leaves and—

Rustle.

Soft. Barely audible. The sound of dry leaves compressing under shifting weight.

In a city, in a market, in a camp full of wounded soldiers—the sound would have been nothing. Less than nothing.

But the clearing was silent.

The dawn held its breath. No wind. No birdsong. Nothing but the wet drag of a body across earth—and that had stopped too.

Isolde’s head snapped toward me.

Her body went rigid. Her nostrils flared as she straightened.

"Did you hear that?" Her voice sliced through the silence.

Malakor stopped dragging. Lifted his head. "Hear what?"

"That sound." She dropped Kaelen’s arm. Let it fall. Careless. Indifferent. "There. In the bushes."

She pointed.

Directly at me.