Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 203

Chapter 203: Chapter 203

Elara’s POV

I counted the days by the meals he left.

Seven trays. Maybe eight. I’d stopped being sure. Time moved differently in a cage suspended above the clouds.

The city sprawled below like a living map—carriages the size of insects, people reduced to specks, smoke curling from chimneys I would never warm my hands by. Forty floors between me and the ground. Forty floors between me and freedom.

I kept my back to the door when it opened.

His footsteps. Measured. Deliberate. The faint rustle of fabric as he entered. I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and watched the specks below move through their ordinary lives.

"Ela."

I said nothing. My reflection stared back at me—hollow-eyed, gaunt. A ghost trapped behind glass.

He stood there. I could feel him behind me like a storm front, the pressure of his presence distorting the air. Then he left. The lock clicked shut.

I exhaled.

---

He returned at dusk.

The sky had turned the color of a bruise—purple bleeding into black at the edges. I was still by the window. My legs ached from standing so long but I refused the bed. The bed was where he sat. Where he lingered. Where his scent seeped into the sheets and ambushed me in sleep.

"I brought dinner."

The smell of roasted meat and bread. My stomach cramped. I hadn’t eaten properly in days. But accepting his food felt like accepting his terms.

I spoke without turning.

"I want my communication stone back."

Silence. Then the soft thud of a plate being set down.

"Ela—"

"Zane Thorne." I made my voice flat. Empty. "He’s my manager. He’ll be looking for me. People will notice I’m gone."

More silence. It stretched long enough that I thought he might simply leave again.

Then his voice came, low and careful. "I’ve already spoken with Thorne."

My blood went cold.

I turned.

Kaelen stood near the table. Tall. Immaculate. His dark hair pushed back from his face, those gold-flecked eyes watching me with something that might have been tenderness in another life. In this one, it looked like possession.

"What did you say to him?"

"I told him you were recovering. With family. That you needed rest and wouldn’t be reachable for a while."

The floor shifted beneath me. Not physically—nothing moved. But the ground I stood on, the last thin thread connecting me to someone who might come looking, someone who might notice—

Severed.

"He believed you." It wasn’t a question.

"Why wouldn’t he? I was concerned. Polite. I told him about the argument, that you’d been upset, that your family was taking care of you." A pause. "He wished you well."

My nails bit into my palms. The pain was distant. Everything was distant now.

"You had no right."

"I had every right." He stepped closer. One step. Then another. "You are mine, Ela. You’ve always been mine. And I will not let you slip away into some—some underground pit where men pay gold to watch you bleed."

"I’m not yours." The words came out hollow. Even I didn’t believe them anymore. Not because they weren’t true—but because truth didn’t seem to matter here. Only his will. Only these walls.

"I never stopped looking for you." His voice dropped. Raw. Scraped bare. "Every day. Every night. For years I tore this empire apart trying to find you. I never wanted anyone else. Not once."

I stared at him. At this man who kept me in a gilded cage forty floors above the earth and called it love.

"Then let me go," I whispered.

Something flickered behind his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or rage.

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