Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Chapter 8

Elara’s POV

“Mommy!”

The small voice hit me before the small body did. Valerius launched himself at my legs with the force of a tiny cannonball, nearly knocking me sideways on the cobblestone path.

I dropped to my knees and caught him, pulling him tight against my chest. The scent of chalk dust and honey cakes clung to his curls. My arms ached from hours of quill work, but the weight of him — warm, wriggling, impossibly alive — dissolved every ounce of tension I’d been carrying since that golden transmission stone went dark.

“My little knight.” I pressed my lips to his forehead. “Did you conquer the academy today?”

“I made a friend!” He pulled back just enough to show me his face. Those dark gold eyes — his father’s eyes, though he’d never know it — were blazing with pride. “His name is Tomas and he has a pet toad and he let me hold it and it jumped on the teacher’s desk and she screamed and —”

“Breathe, sweetheart.”

“— and then we had lunch and I ate all my bread and Tomas shared his apple and I shared my cheese and the teacher said I have excellent penmanship, Mommy. Excellent!”

My chest ached. The good kind. The kind that reminded me why I dragged myself out of bed before dawn, why I scrubbed ink from my fingers until they were raw, why I endured impossible emperors and their impossible demands.

This. This boy. This miracle.

“I’m so proud of you, little champion.”

Brenna appeared behind him, arms crossed and leaning against the courtyard wall with an expression that said she’d been managing hurricane-force energy for hours.

“He hasn’t stopped talking since I picked him up,” she said. “Not once. Not even to chew his food properly.”

“I chewed!” Valerius protested.

“You inhaled.”

I stood up, hoisting him onto my hip even though he was getting almost too heavy for it. His legs dangled past my knees now. When had that happened?

“How was it?” Brenna asked, falling into step beside me as we left the palace courtyard and turned toward the main road. Her voice dropped low enough that Valerius, busy counting the lanterns along the wall, wouldn’t hear. “And don’t say ‘fine.’ I can see it on your face.”

I exhaled through my teeth. “I might be dismissed from my post.”

“Already? You just started.”

“The Emperor — His Majesty Nightfire — he’s...” I searched for a word that wouldn’t traumatize my son. “Intense.”

“Intense how?”

“He called through the transmission stone and demanded I organize a full formal dinner for a large group of royal guests by tomorrow evening. Dietary restrictions. Wine pairings. Seating charts. And when I pointed out that was unreasonable, he essentially told me that Alphas don’t make requests, they give commands.”

Brenna’s eyebrows climbed. “So he’s one of those.”

“He’s worse than those. He’s testing me, apparently. Claire — the senior archivist — she said the last archivists in my position all quit after their first interaction with him. One cried. One just vanished.”

“And you?”

“I yelled at him.”

Brenna stopped walking. Then a grin split across her face. Slow and dangerous and delighted.

“Ela. You yelled at the Emperor.”

“It wasn’t yelling exactly. It was... forceful disagreement.”

“You yelled at an Alpha Emperor on your very first day.”

“Please stop enjoying this.”

She threw her arm around my shoulder. “I will never stop enjoying this. That man has no idea what just walked into his palace.”

“What walked into his palace is a single mother with ink-stained fingers and a headache the size of the capital.” I shifted Valerius higher on my hip. “He’s going to eat me alive, Brenna.”

“Or you’re going to eat him alive.” She squeezed my shoulder. “You’re not the same scared girl who showed up at my door with nothing. You survived worse than some angry royal with an obsession with royal protocol.”

Valerius tugged my collar. “Mommy, can we get my writing quills tonight? The teacher said I need proper ones.”

“That’s exactly where we’re headed, little champion.”

The commercial district was still buzzing despite the late hour. Lanterns hung from iron brackets along the storefronts, casting warm pools of gold across the cobblestones. Street vendors called out final prices on bread and dried herbs. A woman with a cart of roasted chestnuts waved at Valerius, who waved back with enthusiastic intensity.

We found the supply shop easily enough. Valerius selected his quills with the gravity of a general choosing weapons — testing each nib against his thumb, holding them up to the light, rejecting several before settling on a set with dark blue handles.

“These ones,” he announced. “Because blue is the color of important things.”

I paid and tucked the package under my arm. “What important things?”

“The sky. The ocean.” He thought for a moment. “Your eyes, Mommy.”

Brenna made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a groan. “This child is going to be devastating when he grows up.”

We were cutting through a side street toward the main avenue when I saw it.

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