Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 145

Chapter 145: Chapter 145

Elara’s POV

The darkness smelled like damp earth and old stone.

I pressed my spine against the cellar wall. My knees were drawn up to my chest, arms locked around them so tight my fingernails bit into my own skin. The space was barely wider than a coffin. Rough wooden beams formed the ceiling just above my head—the underside of the guest room floor.

His footsteps shook dust loose from the boards.

Each one landed like a hammer blow directly over me. Heavy. Frantic. The stride of a man unraveling.

"ELA!"

My name ripped through the house. Through the floorboards. Through my ribs. It burrowed into some deep, primal place inside my chest and pulled.

I clamped my hand over my mouth. Bit down on the flesh between my thumb and forefinger until I tasted copper.

Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t make a sound.

Margaret’s voice filtered down, anxious but firm. I could almost picture her wringing her hands. "There is no one else here, young man," she insisted. "Only family members are present."

She was lying. For me. This sweet old woman who baked bread every morning was standing in front of the most powerful man on the continent and lying through her teeth.

Because I was a coward.

Heavy boots strode up the stairs. Kaelen burst into the guest room directly above me. The wardrobe doors crashed open. I heard hangers scraping across the rail. He was touching my clothes. The woolen shawl I’d worn yesterday. The linen dress I’d hung up that morning.

A sound escaped him. Low. Broken. Like something had cracked inside his throat.

He was smelling my shawl.

My eyes burned. I squeezed them shut. Tears slid down my face anyway, tracking hot lines through the grime on my cheeks.

Through a narrow crack between the floorboards, I caught a sliver of movement—his dark gold eyes searching frantically, wild and devastatingly desperate.

"Don’t lie to me," Kaelen snarled, the vibration of his voice rattling the dust in my hiding place. "My wolf is on the edge of breaking. I know she’s here. I heard a woman’s laughter."

Finnian’s voice drifted in, incredibly calm and smooth. "You must have heard the comedy playing on our magical memory stone, Your Majesty."

He was lying too. Smoothly covering for me.

The comb clattered onto the washstand above me. I flinched, pressing harder against the wall. A violent, desperate urge to reveal myself clawed at my throat. I ached to be found by him. To let him tear through the floorboards and pull me into his arms. But I bit down harder on my hand, forcing myself to maintain absolute silence.

A few inches of wood between us. Just a few inches.

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