Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 101

Chapter 101: Chapter 101

Elara’s POV

Cold hit me like a fist.

Not the gentle cold of winter mornings or palace drafts. This was violent—a wall of ice water slamming into my face, flooding my nose, my mouth, dragging me up from the black nothing I’d been floating in.

I choked. Gasped. Tried to cough the water out, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. My arms wouldn’t move. My legs—

Rope. Rough, thick, biting into my wrists so tight my fingers had gone numb. More around my ankles, lashing them to the legs of a chair. A wooden chair. Splintered. Old.

The room came into focus in pieces. Bare concrete walls stained with something dark. A single bulb hanging from a frayed wire overhead, swinging slightly, casting shadows that lurched and swayed like drunken things. The smell hit next—mildew, rot, and something sharper underneath. Sweat. Urine. The unmistakable reek of a place where bad things happened and no one cleaned up after.

My head was splitting. Whatever they’d used to drug me was still clinging to the edges of my consciousness, making the room tilt sideways every time I blinked.

"There she is."

The voice slithered out of the shadows to my left. Familiar. Horribly, impossibly familiar.

"Good morning, dear sister."

She stepped into the circle of sickly light, and for a moment I thought I was hallucinating. The drugs. The cold. My mind playing tricks.

But no. That face was real. Those sharp cheekbones. Those dark eyes glittering with something that went beyond hatred into territory I didn’t have a name for.

Isolde.

She looked different. Wrong. Her hair—once meticulously styled for court functions and garden parties—hung loose and tangled past her shoulders. Her clothes were rough, practical, stained at the hems with mud and something darker. But she wore them like armor. Like a statement.

And she was smiling. The kind of smile that had nothing to do with joy.

"You know," she said, circling my chair slowly, her boots scraping against the gritty floor, "I practiced what I’d say to you. Rehearsed it in my head for a long time. All these clever, devastating things." She stopped in front of me. Tilted her head. "But now that you’re here, tied up and bleeding, I realize I don’t need clever."

I tested the ropes again. Tight. Professional. Whoever had tied these knots knew what they were doing.

"Isolde." My voice came out cracked. Raw. I swallowed blood. "What is this?"

"This?" She spread her arms wide, gesturing at the filthy room like a hostess showing off a ballroom. "This is my kingdom, Ela. My domain. Isn’t it lovely?"

She laughed. The sound bounced off the concrete walls.

"The Rogue tribes, dear sister. They appreciate strength. Ambition. Things your precious palace courtiers wouldn’t recognize if it bit them." She leaned closer. Close enough that I could smell woodsmoke and something animal on her skin. "I am their new queen."

The words hit me, but I kept my face still. Showed nothing. Gave her nothing.

"You left court," I said flatly. "For this."

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