Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Chapter 280

Kaelen’s POV

The morning air tasted like iron and endings.

I stood on the palace steps, arms crossed, watching the transport wagon creak to a halt at the bottom of the stone staircase. Two imperial guards flanked the gate. The sky hung low and grey—fitting weather for a farewell no one would mourn.

Elara stood beside me. Her silver-white hair caught what little light broke through the clouds. She was calm. Composed. The kind of stillness that came not from indifference but from absolute certainty.

Through our bond, I could feel Elara’s silver-white wolf humming with deep satisfaction. Inside my chest, my wolf Alexis paced in response. Warm. Complete. I could feel her pulse alongside mine if I focused hard enough. Every breath she took echoed somewhere beneath my ribs.

The wagon door opened.

Seraphine emerged.

I barely recognized her. The woman who had once swept through court in silk and calculated smiles was gone. What remained was hollow. Her cheekbones jutted sharp beneath papery skin. Her eyes—once cunning, once dangerous—stared at the ground with the vacant focus of someone who had already left this world in every way that mattered.

In her arms, bundled in undyed cloth, a baby slept.

The infant’s face was small and pink. Peaceful. Unaware of the wreckage her mother had caused. Unaware of the wreckage her mother had become.

Seraphine stopped at the bottom of the steps. She didn’t look at me. Her gaze lifted—slowly, painfully—to Elara.

"Thank you," she whispered. Her voice cracked on the second word. "For letting me keep her."

Elara descended three steps. No more. Enough to be heard clearly without shouting.

"The border monastery has been stocked with supplies for a few months," Elara said. Her tone was measured. Professional. Not cruel, but not kind either. "After that, you provide for yourself. There will be no further contact with the capital. No letters. No messengers. If you attempt to return to imperial territory, the sentence will be upgraded to permanent imprisonment."

Seraphine’s throat bobbed. She pressed her lips to the baby’s forehead.

"I understand."

She turned without another word and climbed into the wagon. The door closed behind her. The driver snapped the reins, and the wheels groaned forward across the cobblestones.

I watched until the wagon disappeared through the outer gate. The sound of hooves faded into nothing.

Beside me, Cassian cracked his neck.

"One down," he muttered. "One to go."

The guards brought Gareth out through the east corridor.

Chains. Wrists. Ankles. A connecting length that forced him to shuffle in short, humiliating steps. The sound of metal scraping stone echoed through the courtyard.

He looked worse than Seraphine. Far worse.

Months since I’d stripped him of the Nightfire name. Months since the blood ritual severed every thread of royal lineage from his veins. He’d been imprisoned beneath the palace since then—no sunlight, minimal food, nothing but stone walls and the slow erosion of everything he’d thought he was.

His hair hung in matted clumps. His prison tunic was stained and torn. But it was his eyes that disturbed me most. Wild. Darting. The look of a trapped animal that still hadn’t accepted the cage.

The guards dragged him to the center of the courtyard.

"Elara!" He lunged sideways—or tried to. The chains yanked him back with a vicious clank. "Elara, please—you know me! You know I was desperate! I never meant—I never—"

Elara didn’t flinch. "You meant every bit of it, Gareth. And this is what you earned."

His head swiveled toward me. Something crumbled in his expression. The wildness collapsed into something pathetic—raw, unfiltered desperation.

"Brother!" He strained against the chains. His voice broke. "Brother, please—we share blood! You can’t do this!"

I walked down the steps. Slowly. Each footfall deliberate. I stopped close enough to smell the filth on him. Close enough to see the veins bulging in his neck.

"Bastard," I said. The word landed like a slap. "And that means nothing now."

His face crumpled.

"The prison is three territories away," I continued. "Maximum security. You will work the salt mines until your body gives out. There will be no trial. No appeal. No visitors." I leaned closer. Dropped my voice. "And if you ever speak her name again, I will come there myself and remove your tongue."

Gareth’s knees buckled. The guards hauled him upright and dragged him toward the waiting prison transport—a windowless iron carriage reinforced with wolfsbane-laced steel.

His screaming continued long after the carriage door slammed shut. Muffled. Fading. Then gone.

The courtyard fell silent.

I exhaled.

Cassian clapped a gauntleted hand on my shoulder. "It’s done, Your Majesty."

Done. The word felt too small for what it contained.

I spent some time with Marcus at the eastern training grounds. Twenty-three former rogues—surrendered members of Malakor’s scattered forces—moved through formation drills under the afternoon haze. They were rough. Unpolished. But they followed commands, and their aggression had been channeled into something productive.

Marcus stood beside me, arms folded, watching a lanky rogue fumble a shield maneuver.

"That one’s actually improving," Marcus said. "Couldn’t hold a blade right when he arrived. Now he’s only terrible instead of hopeless."

I almost smiled. "Keep pushing them."

"Always do."

I left the training grounds as the sun began its descent. The walk back to the palace was quiet. Too quiet. Usually by this hour, I could hear the chaos from two corridors away—Valerius arguing with his tutor, Lyra shrieking at a volume that rivaled an entire wolf pack. That girl produced enough noise for ten wolves on her own.

Today—silence.

My boots echoed against marble floors. I passed the library. Empty. The drawing room. Empty. The playroom where Lyra usually left a battlefield of scattered toys—empty and spotless.

My wolf stirred. Not alarmed. Not exactly. But... attentive.

I pushed open the door to our chambers.

The room was dim. Curtains half-drawn. No fire in the hearth, though the evening chill had already crept in. The bed was made with military precision. No one had been in it since morning.

No Elara.

No children.

My eyes swept the space—and landed on the writing desk.

A note. Folded once. Placed beside a small white box tied with a red silk ribbon.

My heart stopped.

The last time I’d found a note in an empty room, it had destroyed me. Her handwriting on parchment, telling me she was leaving. That she couldn’t stay. That trust between us had died and she was taking our child with her.

Years. Years of that letter burning a hole through my chest.

My hands trembled as I reached for the folded paper. Alexis howled inside me—not warning, not quite—something more confused. Something raw.

I opened the note.

Two words, in her elegant script: Open it.

I stared at the white box. The red ribbon gleamed like fresh blood in the fading light.

My fingers fumbled with the knot. Twice I nearly dropped it. The silk fell away. I lifted the lid.

Inside, nestled on a square of velvet, sat a small glass stick. Alchemical runes etched along its surface glowed faintly blue.

Two lines.

Two unmistakable, unambiguous, parallel lines.

The breath left my body.

Everything left my body—the exhaustion, the lingering dread, the ghost-weight of every scar, every war, every sleepless night spent wondering if the world would let me keep what I loved.

Gone. All of it. Obliterated by a joy so fierce it felt like being struck by lightning.

"ELARA!"