Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 255

Chapter 255: Chapter 255

Kaelen’s POV

"Sire, movement in the eastern tree line. Hundreds of them. Coming fast."

I was out of the tent before the guard finished his sentence. The sword was already in my hand.

The camp erupted. Men scrambled from bedrolls, reaching for weapons with sleep-clumsy fingers. Torches guttered in the sudden rush of bodies. Someone knocked over a supply crate. Iron rations scattered across frozen ground.

"TO ARMS!" I roared.

Too late.

The first wave hit before half my knights had their blades drawn.

They came pouring through the gaps between the tents like water breaching a dam. Dozens. More. Eyes wild and foam-flecked, teeth bared in snarling faces that barely looked human anymore. Some were already shifted—twisted, half-formed wolves running on all fours with their spines arched wrong.

No formation. No discipline. Just raw, shrieking violence.

A rogue lunged at the supply wagon. Another barreled into a knight still fumbling with his sword belt. I watched him go down. Heard the wet sound of teeth finding flesh.

I didn’t think. I shifted.

The transformation was instantaneous—bones cracking and reforming, muscle expanding, silver-white fur erupting across skin. Alexius surged forward with a fury that burned like wildfire in my veins. Four legs. Claws tearing through frozen earth. The world sharpened into scent and instinct and the overwhelming need to kill.

Three rogues were on Marcus before I reached them.

He was fighting—one arm pinned, shoulder torn open, blood soaking through his armor in a spreading black stain. His blade swung wild and one-handed, catching the nearest rogue across the muzzle. Not deep enough.

I hit them like a siege engine.

My jaws closed around the first rogue’s spine. Snapped. Threw the body sideways into the second. The third turned toward me with a snarl—too slow. My claws raked across its throat. It crumpled. Done.

Marcus staggered upright, pressing his good hand against the shredded mess of his shoulder. Blood pulsed between his fingers.

"Get behind me," I growled in the low rumble of my wolf form.

He didn’t argue.

I turned back to the chaos. The camp was a slaughter. Rogues everywhere—more than I could count. They moved in packs of three and four, converging on clusters of my knights. No strategy. No coordination. Just overwhelming numbers thrown against us like a fist against a wall.

But they were converging on me.

I felt it. The subtle shift in the swarm’s direction. Every rogue within sight angle adjusted. Eyes locked. Snarling mouths turning my way.

They were targeting the leadership.

Four of them hit me at once.

Teeth sank into my left flank. Claws raked across my ribs. I twisted, snapping, throwing one off with a vicious shake of my body. Another latched onto my hind leg. Pain—white hot. I roared. Kicked. Bone cracked under my paw. The weight released.

But the other two pressed harder. One on my back. One at my throat.

I went down.

The ground slammed against my ribs. Air punched from my lungs. Weight crushed me from above. Jaws snapped at my neck—missing by an inch, then half an inch, then—

Elara.

Her face. Ice-blue eyes. That stubborn set of her jaw when she was angry. When she was trying not to cry. When she looked at me like I was the only thing standing between her and the dark.

Valerius. Lyra.

My son’s serious gold eyes. My daughter’s wild laughter.

The rage that erupted from somewhere beneath my ribs wasn’t born of battle. It was born of everything I had left to lose.

I opened my jaws and roared.

Not a sound. A command. Alpha’s Command—raw, unfiltered, dragged up from the marrow of my bones and hurled into the night like a thunderclap.

STOP.

Every wolf on that battlefield froze.

My knights. The rogues. Every creature with wolf blood in its veins locked rigid where it stood. The rogues on top of me went stiff—muscles seizing, ears flattened, bodies trembling against the primal compulsion to submit.

One heartbeat of perfect silence.

Then my knights broke free. Their training overrode the instinct. The rogues couldn’t.

"NOW!" Cassian’s voice cut through the night. Sharp. Controlled. "Form on the command tent! TIGHT FORMATION! MOVE!"

The knights surged. Blades flashed. Three rogues fell before the command’s hold shattered and the rest began to recover. But those precious seconds of paralysis had shifted the tide.

I threw the stunned rogues off my back and rose to my feet. Blood ran down my flank in hot streams. Pain was a distant thing—present but irrelevant.

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