Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Chapter 216

Elara’s POV

Jessica didn’t hesitate.

She rolled her shoulders and stepped onto the mat like she was doing me a favor. The other knights shifted closer. A loose ring formed around us. Eager. Hungry. Waiting for the mortal to fall.

"Rules," I said. "No shifting. No claws. Bare hands only. First to submit or hit the mat three times loses."

Jessica smirked. "Fine by me."

She came in fast.

A straight jab aimed at my jaw. Textbook. Predictable. Her right shoulder had dipped a fraction before she threw it—telegraphing the strike like she was reading from a manual.

I slipped left. Her fist cut through empty air. I drove my elbow into the soft spot just below her shoulder blade. Not hard enough to break anything. Hard enough to send a message.

She staggered forward. Her knee hit the mat.

One.

The murmur that rippled through the crowd was immediate. Confused. Jessica’s face flushed red as she scrambled up. Her eyes had changed. The mockery was gone. Something sharper lived there now.

Good.

She reset. Wider stance this time. More cautious. She circled left, testing the distance between us. Then lunged—a low hook aimed at my ribs.

I didn’t block it. I stepped into her momentum, letting her weight carry her forward past me. My heel hooked behind her ankle. One sharp pull.

She went down hard. The mat shuddered.

Two.

Silence now. Not the uncertain kind from before. This silence was thick with something else. Realization, maybe. Or the beginning of it.

Jessica pushed herself up slower this time. Her breathing had changed. Heavier. Not from exhaustion—from adrenaline. From the dawning understanding that she’d miscalculated. Badly.

She didn’t rush in again. She waited. Watched. Trying to read me the way I’d been reading her since the first second.

But reading takes practice. And I’d had years of it.

She threw a straight punch. Full commitment. Aimed dead center at my sternum. Powerful. Fast. The kind of hit that would crack ribs if it landed.

I caught her fist.

Both hands wrapped around it. Redirected her momentum downward and sideways. My leg swept behind both of hers in the same motion—one clean arc that took her feet out from under her entirely.

Her back slammed into the mat. The air punched out of her lungs in a sharp gasp.

Three.

I released her fist. Stepped back. Offered my hand.

The hall was dead quiet.

Jessica stared up at me. Her chest heaving. Sweat glistening at her temples. Something had broken behind those amber eyes—not her spirit. Her assumption. The wall she’d built between what a mortal was and what a mortal could do.

She took my hand. I pulled her up.

"How—" She swallowed. Reset. "How did you know what I was going to do?"

"Your shoulder drops before every strike. Your weight shifts to your lead foot when you commit. And you favor your right side." I released her hand. "You’re strong. Fast. But strength and speed mean nothing if your opponent knows what’s coming before you do."

Jessica held my gaze. Then she stepped back off the mat and dipped her chin. A small bow. Barely perceptible.

But every wolf in that room saw it.

"Who’s next?"

The silence shifted. Not hostile anymore. Curious. The kind of quiet that fills a room when people are reconsidering everything they thought they knew.

A figure stepped forward from the back. Dark-haired. Lean but densely muscled. She moved with the coiled economy of someone who knew exactly how dangerous she was. Her expression wasn’t mocking. It was serious. Calculating.

"My name is Riley." Her voice was steady. Low. Then she added, with deliberate emphasis: "Not Riley Blackwood."

The distinction landed. I noted it. Filed it away.

"The rules were fair for Jessica," Riley continued. "But you said you fought wolves. Real ones. Not just wolves in human skin." She tilted her head. "I want to shift. Full form. You stay as you are. Same rules—three takedowns. No biting." A pause. "Unless you’d rather not."

A challenge wrapped in courtesy. Clever.

I heard Marcus take a step forward behind me. "Now hold on—"

"Done." I cut him off without turning around.

Marcus let out a breath that sounded like it physically hurt him to hold back. But he stayed where he was.

Riley nodded once. Then she shifted.

The transformation was fast. Violent. Bones cracked and reformed. Muscle expanded. Skin rippled into thick brown fur. Where a woman had stood, a massive brown wolf now crouched on the mat. Easily over two hundred pounds. Her lips pulled back, revealing fangs the length of my thumb. A low growl vibrated through the floor.

I adjusted my stance. Lower. Looser. Let my weight settle into my hips.

The underground pits had taught me many things. But the most important lesson was this: a wolf in full form is faster, stronger, and more durable than any mortal will ever be. Fighting one head-on is suicide.

So you don’t fight head-on.

You fight smart.

Riley lunged. A blur of brown fur and bared teeth. Massive paws hit the mat where I’d been standing a heartbeat before.

I was already moving. Sideways. Letting her momentum carry her past me. The instant her body extended—fully committed to the lunge—I grabbed the thick scruff at the back of her neck with both hands and used her own forward momentum against her. Over my hip. A clean throw.

She hit the mat with a sound like a tree falling. The entire hall shook.

One.

A gasp swept through the crowd. Someone cursed under their breath.

Riley scrambled up. Shook herself. Her golden wolf eyes locked onto me with something new in them. Not anger. Respect adjacent to disbelief.

She came again. Faster this time. Lower. Trying to get under my center of gravity.

I pivoted hard. As she passed, I drove my heel into the gap between her ribs—not with brute force, but with surgical precision. Targeting the nerve cluster. Her legs buckled sideways and she crashed onto the mat.

Two.

The growl that ripped from her throat was involuntary. Frustrated. She was learning the same lesson Jessica had learned, but it was costing her more to accept it. She was bigger. Stronger. Faster. And none of it mattered.

She charged one last time. All power. All fury. Every ounce of wolf muscle driving forward like a battering ram.

I waited until the last possible second. Then I grabbed the scruff at the back of her neck—both fists buried in dense fur—and twisted sideways, using her own mass as the lever. She flipped. Her back hit the mat so hard dust erupted from the seams.

Three.

Riley lay there for a moment. Panting. Then she shifted back. Human again. Dark hair wild around her face. She was staring at the ceiling like it held answers.

"What the hell," she breathed.

I extended my hand. She took it. I pulled her up.

"You’re fast," I told her. "Faster than most wolves I’ve faced. But you commit fully to every attack. That makes you predictable. A smaller opponent can use that weight against you every single time."

Riley just shook her head. A disbelieving half-laugh escaped her. "I’ve never been thrown like that. Ever."

I hadn’t even broken a sweat. I turned to face the room. Every set of eyes was fixed on me. The doubt had been scoured from their faces, replaced by something raw and hungry.

"What you just saw," I said, voice carrying to the back of the hall, "is a combination of judo, aikido, wrestling, and street fighting. Techniques designed for exactly one purpose—to let a smaller, weaker fighter defeat a larger, stronger opponent." I paced along the edge of the mat. "You are all women. In this empire, you will always face men who are bigger than you. Stronger. Faster. That is reality."

I stopped. Met their eyes one by one.

"But bigger does not mean better. Stronger does not mean smarter. And faster means nothing if you’re running straight into a trap." I let that settle. "I’m going to teach you how to fight the way I fight. With technique. With strategy. With control. So that when the day comes and some massive wolf charges at you, you put him on the ground before he knows what happened."

Jessica’s voice came from the front. Quiet now. Stripped of all defiance.

"Yes, ma’am."

The response that followed was immediate. A chorus of agreement, loud and fierce. Fists against chests. Feet stamping the floor. The kind of sound that rose from the belly, not the throat.

Marcus appeared at my side. That scarred face split wide open in a grin so big it must have hurt.

"Ela." He shook his head slowly. "Mere minutes. Took you a matter of moments to earn what most instructors spend ages begging for."

I almost smiled. Almost.

Then the hair on the back of my neck prickled.

I looked past Marcus. Past the ring of eager faces. To the far wall of the training hall, where shadow pooled between two stone pillars.

Kaelen stood there. Arms crossed. Shoulder braced against the wall.

He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t intervened.

He’d just watched.

Our eyes met across the hall. His expression gave away nothing. Not pride. Not anger. Not approval. Nothing I could name or hold onto. Just those dark gold eyes, fixed on me with an intensity that made the air between us feel like a held breath.

I stared back. Neither of us looked away.