Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother Chapter 166

Elara’s POV

The training floor slled like old blood and concrete dust.

I arrived at 5:55 the next morning. The underground space was cavernous. Low ceilings. Enchantnt lamps casting a sickly yellow glow across stained mats and hanging bags patched with tape. Sowhere, a pipe leaked. Steady drip, drip, drip against the concrete.

Zane was already there, wrapping his hands with strips of cloth. He didn’t look up.

"Early," he said. "Good, Ela."

"You said don’t be late."

"I also said I don’t repeat instructions." He finished wrapping, flexed his fingers, and finally looked at . His eyes swept from my boots to my face. Assessing. "The n will try to push you out. Not because you’re weak. Because you’re a woman. They’ll hit harder than they need to. Talk louder than they should. They want you to quit so they don’t have to look at you and wonder if they’re not as special as they think."

"I won’t quit."

"We’ll see."

At six sharp, they filed in.

Eight of them. Every one carved from violence. Thick necks. Scarred knuckles. Eyes that didn’t blink enough. They moved like predators entering a territory they owned, rolling their shoulders, cracking joints. The space shrank with them in it.

The first one through the door was impossible to miss. He was enormous—standing at six foot four and towering over everyone else, built like a siege engine given flesh. His nose had been broken so many tis it sat crooked on his face, barely recognizable as a human feature. He scanned the room, saw , and stopped.

"Zane." His voice was a low rumble. Gravel dragged over stone. "What the hell is this?"

"New recruit, Flint," Zane said flatly. "Treat her like anyone else."

Flint stared at . Then his mouth split into a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. "Sure. I’ll treat her like anyone else. She’ll last a few minutes."

Behind him, a bald man covered in scars—each one like a line on a road map—folded his thick arms across his chest. His accent was heavy, Eastern European, vowels rolling like stones in a river.

"There is yoga studio," he said, jerking his thumb toward the ceiling. "Three blocks north. Very nice. Good for little girl."

A few of the others snickered.

I said nothing. Just stood there with my hands at my sides and my feet planted shoulder-width apart.

Zane clapped once. The sound cracked through the room like a whip.

"Ladies," he said. "Warm-up. Now."

The warm-up was designed to break people. Burpees. Sprints across the mat. Then more burpees.

By the third set, my vision was swimming. My lungs were on fire. I dropped to my knees on the mat, gasping, sweat pouring down my face and pooling in the hollow of my throat.

"Oh no," Flint called from across the room. He wasn’t even breathing hard. "Princess is tired."

I got back up. My legs shook so badly I could barely stand.

I got back up anyway.

Then ca sparring.

Zane pointed at Flint first. Flint grinned again—that sa dead-eyed grin—and stepped onto the center mat.

I stepped on across from him. He outweighed by a massive amount. His reach was longer. His fists were the size of my face.

"Ready?" Zane asked.

I wasn’t.

"Go."

Flint ca at like a collapsing wall. No finesse. No hesitation. Just raw, crushing force. His first hit caught in the ribs. I felt sothing shift. Pain exploded white behind my eyes.

I tapped the mat in twenty seconds.

"Again," Zane said.

Second round, I lasted thirty seconds. I managed to dodge his first swing, got under his guard, and landed one hit—a sharp jab to his floating rib—before he grabbed by the collar and slamd into the mat so hard my teeth rattled.

I tapped.

"Again."

Third round. I made it close to a minute. Not because I was fighting better, but because I was learning how to fall. How to roll with impact instead of bracing against it. How to cover my face when his fist ca whistling down.

By the tenth round, my right eye was swollen shut. My nose was streaming blood. I could taste copper and concrete dust. The room was spinning in slow, lazy circles.

I hit the mat and didn’t get up.

Sowhere far above , Flint’s voice drifted down like ash.

"She didn’t cry."

That was it. That was all.

But sothing in his tone had shifted. Just barely. Just enough.

---

Sir Marcus had taught to fight with honor.

I rembered his voice, steady and asured, correcting my stance in the palace training yard. "We fight to protect, Elara. Not to destroy. Discipline is the sharpest weapon."

Zane’s world had no room for discipline. No room for honor. There was only survival—the willingness to bite, gouge, and claw when clean technique failed. Every morning at six, I dragged myself down those stairs and let these n take apart piece by piece so I could learn how they did it.

The Eastern European man was the worst. Relentless. chanical. He hit with the precision of soone who’d been doing this since before I was born.

Three weeks in. He put on the mat for the fifth ti in a single session. I lay there, staring at the stained ceiling, tasting blood.

Then I pushed myself up.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Teach ," I said. My voice was ragged. Broken glass wrapped in cotton. "That thing you do with your shoulder. Before the hook. Show how to block it."

He stared at for a long mont. Then he laughed. Deep. Genuine. The first real laugh I’d heard from any of them.

"Little gladiator," he said, shaking his head. He dropped his guard and walked toward . "Okay. Co. I show you."

He showed how to angle my forearm so the impact rolled off instead of driving straight through. How to read the twitch of a shoulder before a hook ca. How to turn a block into a counter in one motion.

Day by day, the bruises layered. Purple over yellow over green. My body beca a canvas of damage and recovery. Every morning I woke up stiff, aching, certain I couldn’t do it again. Every morning I did it anyway.

Zane’s money rested in my landlord’s hands. The threat of eviction was gone. I had food. Equipnt. Wraps that slled like leather and sweat.

But I didn’t quit the grocery store.

Zane had told to. I hadn’t listened. If the fights didn’t work out—if I broke sothing that wouldn’t heal, if Zane decided I wasn’t worth the investnt after all—I needed a fallback. A safety net. Sothing.

So I kept my night shifts. Stocked shelves in the blue-white glow of enchantnt lamps long after the store closed to custors. Dragged crates. Organized inventory. Moved like a ghost through aisles of preserved goods and dried at.

The bruises were getting harder to hide.

I’d started wearing long sleeves. High collars. But the face was the problem. You couldn’t cover a swollen eye. Couldn’t explain away a split lip.

Gary noticed during a shift.

He was the store manager—a fussy, middle-aged man who liked to lean against the counter and comnt on everyone’s business. Harmless enough, usually. Just nosy.

I was unloading a crate of grain sacks when he appeared beside .

"Sarah," he said.

That was the na I’d given when I applied. Not my real one.

"What."

"Look at ."

I didn’t want to. But I turned my head. The bruise around my right eye was fading from purple to a mottled yellow-green. There was a fresh cut along my jawline from yesterday’s session. My lower lip was still swollen.

Gary’s face did sothing complicated. Concern warring with curiosity. That particular expression n wore when they were trying to seem sensitive but really just wanted the story.

"You look like you went ten rounds with Sir Tyson," he said.

I said nothing. Turned back to the crate.

"Sarah."

"I’m fine, Gary."

"You’re not fine. You look like hell, and it’s getting worse every week." He lowered his voice. Leaned closer. "Your husband. Boyfriend. Whatever you want to call him." Gary’s voice carried that tone n use when trying to appear sympathetic, while really just wanting the gossip. "Is he hitting you?"

"I don’t have a husband," I snapped through clenched teeth. My hands curled into fists at my sides.