Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Chapter 4

Elara’s POV

“Mommy! Mommy, mommy, mommy!”

The front door had barely closed behind me before a small body collided with my legs. Two arms wrapped around my knees with the ferocity of a bear trap, and a face pressed into my thigh.

“Hey, sweetheart.” I dropped my bag and crouched down, gathering him into my arms. He smelled like honey and firewood and the faintest trace of flour — Brenna must have been baking with him again.

My four-and-a-half-year-old son, Valerius, pulled back just enough to look at me. Those dark curls were wild, sticking up in every direction like he’d been wrestling the cat. And his eyes — deep, warm brown in the dim light of the cottage, but when the afternoon sun caught them just right through the window, they flickered with that unmistakable dark-golden shimmer.

Every single time, it knocked the breath from me.

“Can I have a honey cake?” he asked, deadly serious. “Auntie Bren said I have to ask you first.”

“Did you eat your soup?”

“Most of it.”

“How much is most?”

He held up his fingers, thought about it, then spread them wider. “This much.”

I kissed his forehead. “One honey cake. After dinner.”

He cheered like I’d handed him a crown and scrambled off my lap, bare feet slapping against the stone floor as he raced back toward the kitchen.

I stayed crouched for a moment, watching him go. That shimmer in his eyes. The same shade I’d seen five years ago, in a dark alcove behind a tapestry, on a man whose name I never learned. It had been five years since I left my adoptive parents and that life behind, but the memory of that passionate encounter remained. Shortly after, I had learned that Isolde and Gareth were married.

I shook it off. I’d gotten good at that.

Ella, Moonlight murmured. You’re doing that thing again.

What thing?

The thing where you disappear inside your own head and forget you have legs.

I stood up. My knees cracked.

There she is, Moonlight said approvingly. Now go deal with the real problem.

The real problem. Right.

I pulled the folded letter from my apron pocket and stared at it for the dozenth time. The seal of Lord Harwick’s estate — a stag over crossed quills — pressed into faded red wax. The words inside were polite, measured, and devastating.

While your work has been exemplary, Elara, the position of senior archivist requires a candidate of appropriate standing...

Appropriate standing. A polished way of saying: You’re common-born, and no amount of talent will change that.

I’d worked in Lord Harwick’s household for over a year now. Cataloguing his library. Restoring water-damaged records. Translating correspondence that his own steward couldn’t read. The old lord called me by my first name, patted my shoulder when I brought him particularly well-organized documents, and told me I had “a remarkable mind for someone of your background.”

For someone of your background.

He meant it as a compliment. It landed like a slap every time.

And now, after a year of late nights and careful work, the promotion I’d been quietly hoping for had been handed to his nephew’s wife. A woman who, to my knowledge, had never opened a book that wasn’t about table settings.

The stipend stayed the same. Barely enough to cover rent on this cramped cottage and keep Valerius fed. Never enough for new shoes when he outgrew the old ones. Never enough for the medicines he needed when the winter coughs came.

I folded the letter and tucked it away.

The kitchen door swung open, and Brenna appeared, wiping flour-dusted hands on her apron. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the oven, dark hair pulled back in a messy knot.

“He asked about the honey cake, didn’t he?” she said.

“Before he even said hello.”

“That’s my boy.” She leaned against the doorframe and studied my face. Her smile faded. “You got the letter.”

I nodded.

“And?”

“And nothing. Lord Harwick appreciates my service but regrets that the position requires someone of — and I quote — appropriate standing.”

Brenna’s expression darkened. “That pompous old—”

“He’s not wrong, Bren. That’s how it works. Common-born wolves don’t get promoted into noble households. We get patted on the head and told we’re remarkable for our background.”

“That’s garbage and you know it.”

I did know it. Knowing didn’t change anything.

She crossed the room and took my hands. “Ella. Listen to me. I heard something yesterday at the market. There’s a posting — at the palace.”

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