Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 141

Chapter 141: Chapter 141

Kaelen’s POV

The report crumpled in my fist like it was made of nothing.

"Say that again."

Sir Marcus stood at rigid attention. Tyler and Jack flanked him, faces carefully blank—the professional sympathy of men who’d learned not to show fear in front of their emperor.

"Your Majesty." Marcus kept his voice level. Measured. "Every inn, waystation, and posting house within a 200-mile radius has been checked. Twice. There is no record of her passage. No one matching her description has been seen."

The paper compressed tighter in my palm until my knuckles whitened.

"Then you weren’t looking hard enough."

"Sire, we’ve expanded into the smaller townships. Blind searches. Door to door where feasible. But without a confirmed direction of travel—"

"I don’t want excuses, Marcus."

The room went very still. My voice hadn’t risen. It had dropped to a deadly whisper. That was always worse, and every man in this study knew it.

"I want results. Expand the perimeter again. Double the scouts along the northern trade roads. And send word to every border garrison—discreetly. No official dispatches. Use personal couriers only."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Go."

They filed out in silence. The heavy oak door clicked shut behind them.

I unclenched my fist. The crumpled report fell onto the desk in a misshapen ball. Ink smudged my palm—a blur of coordinates and negatives. No sighting. No trace. No lead.

Three weeks. She’d been gone three weeks, and the greatest tracking network in the empire had turned up nothing. As if she’d walked off the edge of the world and the ground had sealed itself behind her.

I pulled open the top drawer of my desk.

The letter was there. It was always there. I carried it with me during the day—folded in my breast pocket, pressed against my chest like a wound that needed constant pressure—and placed it in the drawer only when I sat down to work. Not because I wanted distance from it. Because if I held it any longer, the paper would disintegrate.

I unfolded it carefully. The creases were soft now, almost translucent from repeated handling. Her handwriting had been steady at the top—Elara’s precise, elegant script—but by the final lines, the letters blurred and staggered. Tear-warped. Ink bleeding into the fibers where drops had fallen.

Don’t look for me.

Four words. As if those four words could erase the bond that lived in my blood. As if I could simply stop.

I read the letter again. All of it. Every line I’d memorized but couldn’t stop revisiting, searching for something I’d missed—a clue, a hint, a coded location hidden between the sentences.

There was nothing. There never was.

I pressed the paper against my forehead and closed my eyes.

Where are you, Elara?

Silence answered. The mate bond—that invisible thread between us—was stretched so thin I could barely feel it anymore. Not severed. I would know if it were severed. But muted. Distant. Like hearing someone call your name through a blizzard.

A knock at the door.

I refolded the letter. Slid it under a stack of official correspondence. Straightened my posture. Set my jaw.

"Enter."

Sir Cassian backed through the door, a cup of coffee in each hand. He turned with that easy grin of his—the one that made him look like he’d never suffered a single day in his life, even though I’d personally stitched the scar on his left shoulder after a battle that should have killed him.

"Thought you could use this." He set one cup in front of me and dropped into the chair across the desk. "You look terrible, by the way."

"Thank you, Cassian. Always a comfort."

He took a long sip, watching me over the rim. His eyes were sharp. Too sharp for a man who was supposedly just here for coffee.

"So," he said casually. "How’s Elara? And the little one—Lyra, right? Sleeping through the night yet?"

My hand found the coffee cup. I lifted it. Drank. The liquid was too hot and tasted like ash.

"Elara’s exhausted," I said. The lie came out smooth. Practiced. I’d been telling variations of it for weeks. "New baby. You know how it is."

"I absolutely do not know how it is, which is why I’m asking."

"She’s barely sleeping. Lyra has her up at all hours. Valerius is adjusting." I allowed a small, tired smile—the kind a sleep-deprived father might wear. "It’s chaos."

"The good kind, though." Cassian’s expression softened. Genuine warmth. It made something behind my ribs crack.

"The good kind," I echoed.

"Tell her I said hello. And that I’m bringing that wooden horse I promised Valerius. The carver just finished it."

"He’ll love that."

Cassian leaned back, stretching his long legs out. "Speaking of domestic matters—Riley and I set a date."

A sound escaped my throat. Low. Barely human. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

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