Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 275

Chapter 275: Chapter 275

Elara’s POV

The howling stopped.

Silence crashed over the camp like a wave. My body seized—muscles locking, bones grinding, silver fur retracting in sharp, agonizing pulses. The shift back was never gentle. It tore through me like a blade being pulled from a wound.

I gasped. My knees buckled.

A hand caught mine. Warm. Steady. Fingers lacing through my own with a grip that said I have you without a single word.

Kaelen.

I squeezed back and found my footing. The cold dawn air bit into my bare, blood-streaked skin, but the heat radiating from him was enough.

Boots crunched through dirt and debris. A figure limped toward us from the circle of kneeling wolves—armor dented, one leg dragging, dried blood crusted along the left side of his face. But his spine was straight. His chin was lifted.

Cassian.

He stopped several paces away. Pressed his fist to his chest and bowed his head.

"Your Majesty." His gaze shifted to me. Something flickered in his eyes—respect, raw and unguarded. "Your Highness."

The title landed on me like a physical thing. Your Highness. Not "my lady." Not "the archivist." Not "the baron’s ward."

Your Highness.

I didn’t correct him.

"Report," Kaelen said. His voice was rough. Battle-worn. But the authority in it was absolute.

Cassian straightened as much as his battered body would allow. "Seventeen injured among our ranks, Your Majesty. Three critically. But no deaths." A pause. His jaw tightened. "We also have twenty-three rogues who surrendered during the final assault. They’re under guard."

Kaelen released my hand. He walked forward—bare feet on scorched earth, blood drying on his chest, moving with the unhurried certainty of a man who owned the ground beneath him. The surrendered rogues were clustered together near the edge of the destroyed camp. Some in wolf form, ears flat. Some had shifted back to human—gaunt, filthy, hollow-eyed.

Twenty-three of them.

The Alpha pressure rolled off Kaelen before he even spoke. I felt it—a heaviness in the air, a vibration in my chest. The rogues felt it too. Their bodies stiffened. Several pressed their foreheads back into the dirt. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

"Look at me."

They obeyed. Every single one. Slowly, reluctantly, with the trembling obedience of creatures who understood they were alive only because someone had chosen not to kill them yet.

Kaelen studied them. His dark gold eyes moved from face to face.

"Malakor is dead," he said again. Quieter this time. More dangerous for the quiet. "His war is over. His promises were lies. Whatever he told you—about glory, about reclaiming territory, about burning down the empire—it ends here."

Silence.

"I’m giving you a choice." He let the words settle. "Swear loyalty to the empire. Accept the laws that govern it. Work. Contribute. Live under the same rules as every other citizen." His voice hardened. "Or leave. Walk away now, freely. But know this—if you return with hostile intent, there will be no second offer."

A long, breathless moment.

Then a young rogue—thin, barely more than a boy, brown-furred and trembling—crawled forward on his hands and knees.

"He lied to us." The boy’s voice cracked. "Malakor said the empire would fall. Said we’d have territory. Homes." His forehead touched the dirt. "We just wanted homes."

Something in my chest twisted.

"Then earn one," Kaelen said. Not cruel. Not warm either. Just fact.

The boy pressed his forehead deeper into the dirt. Full submission.

Shortly after, every one of the twenty-three rogues had followed. One by one. Foreheads to the ground, palms flat. Cassian began assigning them tasks with calm efficiency—carrying the wounded, dismantling what remained of the camp, sorting supplies.

Just like that, the war was over.

The long ride back stretched on. The knights flanked us in a loose formation, battered but buzzing with a restless energy that wouldn’t fade. I heard fragments of their conversations drifting through the column like sparks from a fire.

"—did you see that silver wolf—"

"—ripped the throat clean out—"

"—never seen anything like it—"

"—the Empress, that was the Empress—"

I stared straight ahead. My hands were still shaking. Not from fear. Not from cold. From the aftershock of what I’d become. What I’d done.

You tore a man apart with your teeth.

My wolf stirred inside me. Not with guilt. With satisfaction. A low, rumbling contentment that settled into my bones like sunlight into stone.

We are Alpha.

Kaelen rode beside me. Close enough that our knees almost touched. He glanced over, and something softened in those dark gold eyes.

"You’re thinking too loud," he murmured.

"I killed someone with my jaws, Kaelen."

"You killed an enemy who murdered your parents’ bloodline and threatened your children." His voice was steady. Certain. "You are Alpha. That is what Alphas do."

My wolf purred.

I wanted to argue. Wanted to cling to the version of myself that had once flinched at raised voices and apologized for breathing too loudly. But that girl was gone. She’d died somewhere between the first shift and the last howl.

The woman riding back toward the palace had silver in her blood and fire in her lungs.

And she was done apologizing.

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