Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Chapter 187

Elara’s POV

The referee grabbed my wrist and yanked my arm skyward.

"Winner! Ela!"

The crowd erupted. Hundreds of voices bouncing off stone walls, crashing into each other until the sound became something physical. A pressure against my skull. A vibration in my teeth.

I could taste copper. My lower lip had split open again—the same spot as last time, the skin too thin now to hold. Blood ran down my chin and dripped onto the mat in fat, lazy drops.

Good.

The pain was bright. Specific. A clean, honest thing that lived in my body and nowhere else. Not like the other pain. Not like the one that crawled through my chest in the dead of night and whispered his name.

My opponent was still on the mat. Face down. Not moving. The medics were already jogging toward her with a stretcher, and I watched them with the detached curiosity of someone watching rain hit a window.

I’d taken too many hits to get here. I knew that. The right side of my face was swelling shut. My ribs screamed every time I drew breath. Somewhere above my left eye, something was bleeding badly enough that my vision on that side had gone pink and blurry.

But she was down. And I was standing.

That was all that mattered.

"Ela! Ela! Ela!"

The chanting rolled through the underground arena like thunder. I didn’t acknowledge it. Didn’t raise my other fist. Didn’t smile. I just stood there with blood on my face and nothing in my eyes and let them scream.

Then Zane was there.

He materialized at my corner the way he always did—fast, furious, already talking before he’d fully stopped moving. A towel appeared in his hand and he pressed it hard against my bleeding eyebrow. The pressure sent a white spike of agony through my skull.

"Hold still—" He tilted my head back, examining the cut with grim efficiency. "This needs stitches."

"It’s fine."

"It is not fine. Nothing about this is fine." His voice dropped low enough that only I could hear it beneath the crowd’s roar. "You let her hit you. Deliberately. I watched you drop your guard multiple times during the match."

I pulled my head away from his hands. "I won."

"You won like someone trying to die and accidentally surviving." He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. His eyes were dark. Searching. Angry in the way that meant he was scared. "What the hell is going on with you?"

I didn’t answer.

The medic appeared at Zane’s shoulder, a thin man with quick hands and a nervous mouth. "The cut above her eye is deep. She needs—"

"I know what she needs," Zane snapped.

"I need another fight." The words came out flat. Mechanical. Like someone else was operating my mouth. "Tomorrow night. Nine o’clock."

Zane stared at me. The towel in his hand was already soaked through. Red on white.

"Tomorrow." He said the word like it was something foul. "You want to fight tomorrow."

"Yes."

"You’ve fought six times in the last two weeks, Ela. Six. Do you understand how insane that sounds? Most fighters in this pit do a fraction of that and think they’re pushing it."

"Book it."

"Your body can’t—"

"Book. It."

The medic shifted uncomfortably. "I really should look at that eye—"

"She said book it," I told him without looking away from Zane. Then, quieter, just to Zane: "Tomorrow. Nine. Or I’ll find someone else who will."

Something in his expression cracked. Just a fracture. Just enough for me to see the exhaustion underneath the anger. He’d been watching me do this for weeks now. Watching me walk into that cage and offer myself up to fists and elbows and knees like a penitent seeking absolution through suffering.

He didn’t understand why.

He couldn’t.

"Fine," he said. The word was hollow. "Tomorrow at nine. But you’re seeing the medic tonight."

I was already walking away, ignoring the physician entirely.

The corridor behind the arena was narrow and dim. Flickering torches hung from iron wall sconces, casting everything in a dim orange glow. The walls were damp. The air smelled like sweat, rust, and stagnant blood.

The changing room was empty. I preferred it that way.

I sat on the wooden bench and looked down at my hands. With a sharp, ruthless tug, I ripped the bandages off my knuckles. The fabric stuck where blood had dried, but I tore it away without caring, leaving my hands completely bare.

My knuckles were raw. Swollen. The skin across them had split open, and fresh blood welled up in thin red lines.

I stared at them.

His hands on her waist. His head tilted down. The two of them standing in the street like they belonged together. Like they’d always belonged together. Like I had never existed at all.

My stomach lurched. I pressed my fists against my thighs until the broken skin screamed.

Stop. Stop thinking. Stop remembering.

I turned the shower on as hot as it would go. The water hit my shoulders like scalding rain, and I flinched hard before forcing myself to stay under it. I grabbed the rough cloth from the hook and scrubbed. Arms. Neck. Collarbone. Ribs. Scrubbed until my skin turned angry and red, until the heat became its own kind of violence, scrubbing hard to block out the images of Kaelen and her in the street that plagued my mind.

Not his face.

Not her face beside his.

Not the way they looked together.

I stayed under the water until it ran cold. Then I dried off with mechanical precision, pulled on a clean T-shirt, jeans, and a loose hoodie. The hood came up. The zipper went to my throat. The fabric covered the bruising on my arms, the swelling along my jaw, the purple shadow blooming across my cheekbone.

Just another woman walking through the night. Nothing to see.

I grabbed my bag and headed for the back exit. The heavy metal door groaned when I pushed it open, and the night air hit my face like a slap. Cold. Clean. Nothing like the stale atmosphere of the pit.

Zane was leaning against the wall outside.

Of course he was.

"Move," I said.

"One minute." He didn’t move. His arms were crossed. He had that look—the one that said he’d stand there all night if he had to. "I need to tell you something."

"Tell me tomorrow."

"It can’t wait." He pushed off the wall and stepped into my path. "Word’s getting around about you, Ela. Your name. Your record. People are talking."

"People always talk."

"Not people. Big players." His voice dropped. Careful now. Deliberate. "I’m hearing whispers that some wealthy nobles—powerful ones—are sending scouts to the pits. Looking for talent. Real talent. Fighters they can sponsor, train, put into the legitimate circuit."

I adjusted my bag on my shoulder. "So?"

"So—they could be here as soon as next week. Maybe sooner. This is the kind of life-changing opportunity that doesn’t come twice. The kind that changes everything." He stepped closer, lowering his voice further. "But they’re not going to invest in a fighter who looks like she’s trying to get herself killed. If you want this, you have to stop this reckless fighting style. You understand what I’m saying?"

I looked at him. Through him. My expression remained completely detached and cold, ignoring his concerns. I looked past him into the dark street beyond where my carriage waited.

"I hear you, Zane."

"Do you? Because the woman I watched in that cage tonight wasn’t fighting to win. She was fighting to feel pain. And sponsors don’t bet on broken fighters."

The word landed somewhere distant. Broken. Like a stone dropped into deep water.

"Goodnight, Zane."

I walked past him. He didn’t try to stop me again. I could feel his stare on my back all the way to the carriage—heavy, worried, frustrated. The stare of a man watching someone walk toward a cliff and being unable to do anything about it.

I climbed up into the driver’s seat. I steered out of the alley and onto the empty dirt road. The moonlight threw pale silver stripes across the path at regular intervals. Light. Dark. Light. Dark.

My hands gripped the leather reins so tightly that my knuckles turned white and my split wounds reopened. I felt the warm trickle of blood between my fingers and the leather.

I didn’t loosen my grip.

Tomorrow night at nine. And the night after that. And every night after that. I would keep fighting until the memory of his face stopped ambushing me in quiet moments. Until her silhouette beside his dissolved into nothing. Until I couldn’t remember why any of it had ever hurt.

I snapped the reins, driving the carriage into the dark, my hands trembling on the leather, and swore to keep fighting tomorrow and every day after, until I could no longer remember why I was in pain.