All Chapters of The Billionaire’s Marked Mate: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The music throbbed beneath chandeliers that glittered like galaxies. Perfumed air hung heavy, laced with rose and smoke, while courtiers laughed too brightly, their jewels flashing as though they could drown the tension flooding the room. Zaria’s pulse still raced from Kael’s words—“the most dangerous jewel of all.” He had dropped them like a blade wrapped in silk, and she felt the edge cut even as she held her poise. Lucien had not moved. He stood near the marble column, glass untouched in his hand, his gaze never leaving her. But beneath his composed mask, she knew there was something sharp, something breaking. Kael leaned closer, lowering his voice so only she could hear. “There are alliances that shift empires. And there are women who become empires.” His smile lingered, predatory yet alluring. “Why not be both?” Her lips parted, but no sound emerged. The violinists swelled into a furious crescendo, as though they too strained beneath the weight of unsaid things. ⸻ By dawn,

The moonlight spilled across silken drapes and gilded mirrors, every inch of the room whispering temptation, wealth, empire. Yet beneath the silk and gold, Zaria’s mind was already moving in shadows. They thought they had her cornered. They thought silk could strangle. But she had been raised in shadows. She knew how to breathe when others suffocated. She could still hear his voice, smooth and venomous: “Beauty belongs to no one. Power belongs to those who dare to claim it.” Power. Not love. Not loyalty. It was a truth that chilled her—and yet… it was also a truth she could wield. ⸻ By dawn, the silken trap had only deepened. Maids entered with armfuls of gowns, shimmering like liquid fire—sapphire, crimson, ivory. Jewels spilled across trays: pearls heavy as moons, emeralds sharp as leaves after rain, rubies like drops of fresh blood. “His Highness requests you wear the emerald for the feast,” one whispered. “The color of renewal. The color of brides.” Zaria force

The betrayal had not yet been named aloud, but Zaria felt it bleeding through the walls like smoke—slow, acrid, suffocating. Somewhere in the council’s golden hall, a secret had slipped free. Kael’s knowing smile, too precise, too sharp, betrayed the truth: someone close had opened their mouth, handed him a piece of the bond she had fought so desperately to shield. And in the silence that followed, the bond itself wavered. Lucien’s presence—once constant, steady as heartbeat—now throbbed unevenly within her. Each pulse was jagged, like a tether stretched thin across a battlefield. When their eyes met across the hall, his were fevered with rage and something rawer, something almost pleading. But Kael moved between them like a shadow draped in silk. The envoy led her away, not by force, but by the inexorable pull of spectacle. One moment she stood beneath the council’s searing torches, and the next she was stepping across a threshold into a chamber unlike any she had ever seen.

Zaria felt it before she saw it—the air shifting, weighted with expectation. The Imperial Banquet was about to begin. Every stone of the great hall thrummed with power. Goldleaf patterns glittered on vaulted ceilings; silk banners unfurled, each one painted with the sigil of a noble house. Light spilled from chandeliers dripping with crystals like frozen fire. Beneath them, courtiers swayed in jeweled masks and gowns so rich they glowed. Yet beneath all the shimmer, danger prowled. Her pulse tripped. She wasn’t ready. Not for this hall, not for the weight of hundreds of eyes trained to catch weakness, and certainly not for the shadow stalking her heart: Lucien’s absence. They had been torn apart—by politics, by the fracture widening through the council, by the envoy who had slithered into the estate like poison. Zaria’s skin still burned from the memory of Lucien’s touch, yet the void beside her felt unbearable. Stand tall, she told herself, fingers brushing the embroidered wa

The estate did not breathe the same way the next morning. The chandeliers in the great hall still dripped with crystal light, the velvet runners on the long banquet table shimmered in their deep garnet shade, and the line of chauffeured cars idled at the base of the Wolfe gates, their engines purring like sleek cats. Yet beneath all that luxury, a raw tension simmered—like the walls themselves had inhaled Kael’s threat and were still holding their breath. Servants spoke in clipped whispers. Sponsors who had not yet fled muttered about “security concerns,” their designer heels clicking too quickly across marble. Even the distant hum of private jets preparing to depart from the airstrip sounded sharper, more urgent, as if the sky itself wanted to shake off last night’s shadow. Lucien had barely left Zaria’s side since Kael’s retreat. He stood near her now at the breakfast table, not eating, not drinking, just existing beside her in a way that was equal parts protector and storm. His