Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother Chapter 234

Kaelen’s POV

The word detonated in the space between us.

Pregnant.

I heard it. I understood the syllables. But my brain refused to process them. Like swallowing a mouthful of broken glass—the body knows sothing is wrong before the mind catches up.

"What did you say?"

Seraphine flinched. Her hands stayed pressed against her stomach. Tears carved wet lines down her hollow cheeks.

"I’m pregnant," she repeated. Quieter this ti. As if saying it softer might lessen the blow.

It didn’t.

"No." The word ca out flat. Final. A wall slamming down. "No, you’re not."

"I am, Your Majesty. I’ve seen physicians. The symptoms started shortly after that night—"

"That night." I laughed. It was an ugly sound. Sharp and brittle. "You an the night I can’t rember? The night I woke up in a bed I didn’t choose, in a room I don’t recognize, with a headache that felt like soone had driven an iron spike through my skull?"

She swallowed. "Yes. That night."

I turned away from her. Walked to the window. My reflection stared back at —dark gold eyes, hollow beneath. A man coming apart at the seams.

"Walk through it." My voice was controlled now. Surgical. "Start from the council chamber eting. Gareth called about Isolde—so supposed intelligence she’d passed to the border clans. I went. He was there. You were there. And then what?"

Seraphine wiped her face with the back of her hand. "After the briefing, Prince Gareth produced a bottle. He said it was imported. Rare. Sothing to celebrate the successful intelligence exchange." Her voice shook. "You drank. He poured generously. I watched you... change. Soon your eyes lost focus. Your words beca thick. Slurred."

My jaw tightened. "And you didn’t think that was worth ntioning to soone? That your Emperor was losing consciousness in front of you?"

"I tried to help. I suggested we call for a physician. But you—" She hesitated. "You pulled toward the door. Said you needed air. We ended up in your carriage. You gave the driver an address. An inn in the city."

"I gave the address."

"Yes."

"While I was drugged and barely conscious."

"You were... functioning. Moving. Speaking. But not—" She pressed her lips together. "Not yourself."

I turned back to face her. Slowly. "And at this inn. What happened."

She looked at the floor. "You know what happened."

"I don’t. That’s the entire problem, Seraphine. I don’t rember a single mont of it."

Silence stretched taut between us.

Then her fingers moved to the collar of her dress. She pulled the fabric aside. There—along the curve of her collarbone, trailing down to her shoulder, climbing up the side of her neck—were bruises. Deep. Purple. Unmistakable.

Bite marks.

My stomach dropped.

I knew those marks. I knew the pattern, the spacing, the pressure behind them. I’d left identical marks on Elara’s skin countless tis. The collarbone first. Then the shoulder. Then the throat. Always in that order. A signature I didn’t even think about—instinct encoded in muscle mory.

"And your back," Seraphine whispered. "When you bathed. You must have noticed the scabs."

I had noticed. Long parallel scratches raked down my shoulder blades. I’d assud—I’d wanted to assu—they’d co from so accident. A training yard injury I’d forgotten. Anything but this.

"This proves nothing," I said. But my voice had lost its edge.

"It proves everything, Your Majesty."

"It proves soone wanted it to look like everything." I stepped toward her. Close enough that she had to tilt her head back. "Gareth. This has Gareth’s fingerprints all over it. The convenient eting. The drugged liquor. You waiting weeks to co forward—"

"I waited because I was terrified!" The words ripped out of her. Raw. Wrecked. She slid down the wall, her knees buckling, and crumpled to the floor. Sobs tore through her thin fra. "Do you think I wanted this? Do you think I woke up that morning and thought, ’What a perfect day to destroy my life?’"

I stared down at her. Unmoved.

"I have loved you," she gasped between sobs, "for years. Years. Before your marriage. Before Elara. Before any of it. I served at your court because being near you was the only thing I—" Her voice broke entirely. She pressed her forehead to her knees and wept.

The sound filled the study. Desperate. Animal. The crying of soone who had been holding themselves together with nothing but wire and willpower, and had finally snapped.

I felt nothing.

No. That wasn’t true. I felt sothing cold and precise clicking into place behind my ribs. The way a lock chanism turns. The way a trap closes.

"Get up."

She didn’t move.

"I said get up."

Seraphine raised her head. Kohl tracked down her face in dark rivers. She looked wrecked. Destroyed.

I walked to my desk. Opened a drawer. Pulled out the imperial seal and a blank promissory note embossed with the crown sigil.

"One million," I said. I pressed the seal into warm wax. The crown stamped clean and deep. "Two million gold coins. Whatever number makes this go away." I set the quill beside the docunt and pushed it toward the edge of the desk. "There’s a private clinic. The physicians there are discreet. The best in the empire. They will handle the procedure, and you will recover comfortably. I’ll arrange a villa abroad. Permanent stipend. New na, if you want one."

Seraphine stared at from the floor. Her tears had stopped. Sothing else had replaced them—sothing sharp and fractured.

"You want to... get rid of it."

"I want you to remove a problem. A cluster of cells. Nothing more."

"It’s not a cluster of cells. It’s a child. Your—"

"Don’t." The word cracked like a whip. "Don’t finish that sentence."

She pushed herself to her feet. Unsteady. Her hands cradled her stomach—the gesture deliberate, pointed. Designed to make look.

I didn’t.

"What if I keep it?" Her voice was different now. Stripped bare. No more tears. No more softness. Just the raw, cornered desperation of a woman with nothing left to lose. "What if I refuse your money and your clinic and your villa, and I keep this child?"

"Then you will do so far from this empire, with no claim on the crown and no acknowledgnt from ."

"And what if I tell Elara?"

The room went very still.

"What if I go to your wife," Seraphine continued, "and tell her exactly what happened? Every detail. Every mark. Every sound you made in that room that you claim you can’t rember?"

I didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

"She’s already left you," Seraphine pressed. Braver now. Reckless. "She’s already living in a separate residence. How much more would it take to end it completely? One conversation. One piece of proof. I have the physician’s confirmation. I have the marks. I have—"

I moved. Faster than she could track.

My hand wrapped around her throat. Very gentle. Without force. Just... right there. A promise of violence.

"Listen carefully." My voice was dead calm. "If you tell Elara about this. If you breathe a single word about this child to anyone. I will kill you."