Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 187

Chapter 187: 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."

Not her face beside his. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

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