Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 80

Chapter 80: Chapter 80

Kaelen’s POV

"You should have run."

The words came out before I could stop them. Rough. Barely a whisper. Directed at the woman lying motionless on the bed who couldn’t hear a damn thing I said.

I rubbed my thumb across the back of Elara’s hand. Still cold. Still limp. Still that terrible, waxy stillness that made her look more like a marble effigy than a living person.

"You should have taken Valerius and disappeared." My voice cracked on his name. "Gone somewhere I couldn’t find you. Somewhere no one could drag you into this."

The diagnostic crystals hummed their low, monotonous song around her bed. Unchanged. Always unchanged.

"I am so sorry for putting you in so much danger over the past week. I never gave you a chance to be happy." The confession tasted like ash. "From the moment you walked into my palace, all I’ve done is pull you deeper into this perilous life. Every threat. Every attack. Every scar on your body exists because of me."

I lifted her hand. Pressed my lips to her knuckles. They were ice against my mouth.

"I told myself I was protecting you. That keeping you close was the safest option. But the truth is—" My throat seized. I had to force the next words through it like swallowing glass. "The truth is I was selfish. I wanted you near me. I needed you near me. And I dressed it up as duty because admitting the alternative meant admitting I was willing to risk your life just to keep you in mine."

The bond whispered. That gossamer thread. Barely there.

I closed my eyes.

"Wake up, Ela. Please. I’ll do anything. I’ll let you go if that’s what it takes. Just wake up."

Nothing.

The silence pressed in from every side, heavy and suffocating. Outside the window, the sky was iron-gray. It had been gray for days. As if the weather itself had decided to mourn alongside me.

A knock. Light. Tentative.

I didn’t answer.

The door opened anyway. Cassian’s voice came first, low and careful. "Your Majesty. Lady Brenna is here. With the young prince."

I straightened. Wiped my face with the back of my hand. Composed myself the way emperors are taught to compose themselves—by locking everything behind the mask and praying the cracks don’t show.

"Let them in."

Brenna entered first. She looked wrong. The woman I’d grown accustomed to seeing—loud, fierce, perpetually ready to argue with anyone including me—had been replaced by someone smaller. Quieter. Her dark hair was pulled back in a hasty knot. Her eyes were swollen and rimmed red. She’d been crying. Not just today. For days.

She glanced at Elara on the bed and pressed her lips together hard. Looked away.

Then Valerius appeared from behind her legs.

My son.

He stood in the doorway clutching a crumpled piece of parchment in one fist. His dark curls were messy—someone had tried to comb them and failed. His uniform from the academy was slightly rumpled, one collar askew. But his eyes—those dark gold eyes, identical to mine—were filled with confusion as they swept the room.

They landed on me first. Then on Elara.

"Daddy?"

The word still hit like a fist to the chest every time. My five-year-old son, this small person with my eyes and his mother’s stubborn chin, calling me the name I’d only earned a short while ago.

"Come here, son."

He crossed the room with deliberate steps. Not running. Not hesitating. Measured, careful steps that belonged to someone much older. When he reached the bed, he stopped and stared at Elara’s face.

"Is Mommy sick?"

I pulled him onto my lap. He was warm and solid against me. Real. Alive. A counterweight to the cold stillness of the woman beside us.

"Mommy is sleeping," I struggled to explain, the words catching in my throat. "She’s just very tired, so she needs to rest for a while."

Valerius studied Elara’s face with unnerving intensity. Then he looked at me. Those gold eyes, sharp and clear and far too perceptive for a child his age.

"She’s been sleeping a long time, Daddy."

"I know."

"Can I talk to her?"

My chest constricted. "Of course you can."

He slid off my lap and climbed onto the edge of the bed with the careful agility of a child who had been told repeatedly not to jostle anything. He settled beside Elara’s arm, tucking his small body against her side, and leaned close to her ear.

"Hi, Mommy."

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