Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Chapter 16

Kaelen’s POV

“You’re an idiot.”

Cassian’s voice hit me like a slap. I stood frozen in the banquet hall doorway, staring at the space where Elara had been standing moments ago. Her scent still lingered. Winter roses. Parchment. Salt from tears she’d refused to shed in front of me.

And fury. Pure, white-hot fury.

She’d looked at me like I was a stranger. Worse—like I was someone who’d just driven a blade between her ribs and twisted it.

Because that’s exactly what I’d done.

“Did you hear me?” Cassian stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the corridor. His jaw was tight. His eyes held none of their usual deference. “I said you’re an idiot. A complete, staggering fool.”

Behind us, the banquet hall still buzzed with whispered scandal. Guards were dragging Isolde toward the east wing. She shrieked the entire way—venomous, shrill, like a banshee being hauled from a crypt. Her accusations still rang in my ears.

That child belongs to Gareth. Everyone knows it. Your precious little mate spread her legs for your brother long before she crawled into your bed—

My fists clenched so hard my knuckles cracked.

“She organized your entire state banquet in under twenty-four hours,” Cassian continued, his voice low and brutal. “Every course. Every seating arrangement. Every diplomatic slight corrected before it could become an incident. She handled your impossible demands without a single complaint. And the moment that viper opened her mouth, you just stood there.” He jabbed a finger into my chest. Hard. “You stood there and waited for Elara to defend herself. Like she owed you proof.”

The words landed like hammer blows. Each one accurate. Each one deserved.

I had frozen. Not because I believed Isolde. Not fully. But the poison had found the crack it was looking for—that ancient, festering wound buried deep beneath my ribcage. The fear that I wasn’t enough. That my mate, my beautiful, brilliant mate, had belonged to someone else first. To Gareth. My father’s bastard son. That worthless, simpering waste of blood who somehow still haunted every corner of my existence.

For three heartbeats, jealousy had swallowed me whole.

Three heartbeats too many.

“Where did she go?” My voice came out raw. Scraped.

Cassian’s expression shifted. The anger remained, but something else crept in beneath it. Concern.

“She ran. Barefoot. Through the east courtyard and past the outer gates. The guards didn’t stop her—they assumed she’d been dismissed.”

My wolf stirred. Not stirred. Surged.

Find her, Alec snarled. His presence flooded through me like a wall of black water. Find her NOW. Something is wrong.

I was already moving. Down the corridor, through the servants’ passage, out into the frozen courtyard. The cobblestones glistened with a thin layer of ice. Her scent trail cut through the frigid air like a silver thread—winter roses, parchment, the sharp tang of adrenaline, and beneath it all, tears. Not the quiet kind. The desperate kind.

I followed it past the gate. Down the lamplit boulevard. Through a narrow lane where the merchant stalls had been shuttered for hours.

Six blocks.

She’d run six blocks in bare feet on frozen ground.

Then her scent changed direction. Sharply. Unnaturally. It veered toward the curb, where a silver carriage had recently departed. And there—mingled with her winter roses—was another scent.

Jasmine. Sweet. Heavy. Cloying.

And beneath the jasmine, something chemical. Something that made Alec’s hackles rise and his lips peel back from his teeth.

Enchantment scent, he growled. Black-market sedative. Someone drugged our mate.

The world went red.

Not figuratively. The edges of my vision actually bled crimson. My heartbeat slowed to a deep, war-drum rhythm. Every sound sharpened—the distant clatter of a merchant’s cart, the whisper of wind through bare branches, the faint creak of carriage springs moving away from me.

Southeast. Moving fast.

SHIFT, Alec commanded. Not a request. An order from the most primal part of me.

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