Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 201

Chapter 201: Chapter 201

Kaelen’s POV

The ride back was silent.

My hands gripped the leather reins hard enough to whiten my knuckles. The scent of her still clung to my shirt—iron and sweat and something underneath that was unmistakably her. Frost and moonlight. The same scent that had haunted me for years.

I pulled the carriage into the estate’s drive and halted the horses. For a long moment, I just sat there. Eyes closed. Breathing through my mouth so I wouldn’t smell her anymore.

You locked her in a room.

The thought slithered through me, cold and factual.

You pinned her down. You took her things. You locked the door from the outside and walked away.

My jaw clenched until my teeth ached.

She’d looked at me like I was a monster. Those ice-blue eyes—hollowed out, bruised, burning with a hatred so pure it could have cut glass. And beneath the hatred, something worse.

Fear.

She’d been afraid of me.

The woman who’d spent years fighting in underground pits, who’d taken blows that would have felled trained soldiers, who’d earned her survival with blood and broken bones—she’d been afraid of me.

Because I’d made her afraid.

I exhaled. Slow. Controlled.

She was going to run again. She would have disappeared by morning. You did what was necessary.

The justification tasted like ash.

I got out of the carriage and walked toward the front door. The estate was quiet. Soft golden light spilled from the kitchen windows. The porch lamp cast a warm halo over the stone steps.

Normal. Safe. Home.

I turned the handle and stepped inside.

The foyer smelled like cinnamon and warm milk. Someone had left the hall lanterns burning low—amber pools of light stretching across the hardwood floors. From somewhere upstairs, the faint creak of floorboards. The house settling into its nighttime rhythms.

I shrugged off my jacket. Hung it on the hook by the door. My hands were steadier now. The mask was already sliding into place—fitting over the jagged edges of what I’d done like armor over a wound.

"Daddy!"

The word hit me like a fist to the chest.

Lyra appeared at the top of the staircase. Pink pajamas printed with tiny unicorns. Wild black hair falling in tangles around her face. One sock on, one foot bare. Her ocean-blue eyes—her mother’s eyes—were enormous with delight.

She launched herself down the stairs with the reckless confidence of someone who had never been dropped.

I caught her. Scooped her up before she could tumble past the lower steps, and she locked her arms around my neck so tight I could feel her heartbeat drumming against my collarbone.

"Daddy, you were gone forever."

"I wasn’t gone forever, little star."

"Was too." She pulled back to examine my face with the brutal scrutiny only a three-year-old could manage. Her small fingers poked at the shadow under my left eye. "You look tired."

"I am tired."

"Did you fight a dragon?"

"Something like that."

She considered this with the gravity of a high court judge. Then she pressed both palms against my cheeks and squished my face together.

"You need ice cream."

"It’s early morning, Lyra."

"Chocolate ice cream. With frosting. And gummy bears." She held up her fingers very close to my nose. "Because you were gone a lot of hours and that means a lot of toppings."

A sound came out of me—something between a laugh and a breath. The tightness behind my ribs loosened by a fraction. Just a fraction.

"We’ll see."

"That means yes." She grinned, triumphant, and buried her face in my neck.

"I know. I’m sorry." 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

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