Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 212

Chapter 212: Chapter 212

Elara’s POV

The first thing I felt was warmth.

Not the damp, clinging heat of fever. This was different. Small. Alive. A tiny furnace pressed against my ribs, radiating the kind of warmth that only comes from another body.

I opened my eyes.

Lyra. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

She was curled into me tightly, her face buried against my chest, one fist twisted into the fabric of the oversized shirt I was wearing. Her braids had come half undone during the night. Loose strands of dark hair fanned across the pillow between us. Each exhale was a soft, whistling sound through her slightly parted lips.

My arm was around her. I didn’t remember putting it there.

My throat closed.

How many nights had I lain on a filthy cot in the fighting pits, staring at a cracked ceiling, trying to remember what it felt like to hold my children? And here she was. Real. Warm. Mine.

I didn’t move. I barely breathed. If I shifted even an inch, this might shatter. She might dissolve like smoke and I’d wake up on that cot again, alone, with blood under my fingernails and the roar of a crowd still ringing in my ears.

But the light was wrong for a dream. Pale grey morning filtered through the curtains. I recognized those curtains. Heavy damask. Silver thread in the weave. I’d chosen them myself, a lifetime ago.

This was the bedroom. Our bedroom. The one I’d walked out of years ago and never looked back.

My gaze drifted past Lyra to the rest of the room. The silver hairbrush on the vanity, exactly where I’d left it. The book on the nightstand, spine still cracked open. The dried lavender above the window, brittle and faded to nothing.

He hadn’t moved anything.

In all these years, he hadn’t moved a single thing.

Something cracked behind my sternum. I pressed my face into Lyra’s hair and breathed through it.

Then I saw him.

Kaelen was slumped in the vanity chair he’d dragged to the bedside. His head was tilted at an angle that would leave his neck screaming when he woke. His legs were stretched out, crossed at the ankles, arms folded loosely over his chest. Even in sleep, there was tension in his jaw. A crease between his brows that hadn’t smoothed.

He’d slept in that chair. All night. Guarding the door.

Guarding us.

I needed to get up. My body was stiff, my bladder aching, and the remnants of fever had left a sour taste coating my tongue. I shifted carefully, sliding my arm from beneath Lyra’s head.

The chair scraped.

Kaelen’s eyes snapped open. Not the slow, groggy surfacing of normal sleep. Instant. Total. Like a predator startled from a light doze. His dark gold gaze locked onto me with an intensity that made my pulse jump.

Then his hand shot out and closed around my wrist.

Tight. Not painful. But absolute.

"Where are you going?" His voice was raw. Scraped hollow by exhaustion. But beneath the roughness, I heard it—panic. Pure, undiluted panic.

I went still. Looked down at his fingers wrapped around my wrist. Then up at his face.

The Emperor of the Nightfire Empire was looking at me like I was a ghost about to vanish.

"The washroom," I said quietly. "That’s all."

He didn’t let go. His thumb pressed against my pulse point, feeling the beat of my blood. Confirming I was solid. Real.

"Kaelen." I kept my voice low. Lyra was still sleeping. "I’m going to the washroom. I’ll be back."

A muscle ticked in his jaw. His fingers loosened. One by one. Reluctant. Like peeling his own skin away. When he finally released me, his hand hung in the air for a moment before dropping to his knee.

I stood. My legs trembled but held. I took a step toward the washroom.

He stood too.

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