Chapter Four — Case Gray

The rain didn’t stop all morning.

It came down in thin, endless threads, turning the city into a blur of steel and motion. From the window of her car, Evelyn watched the drops chase each other down the glass, her reflection breaking apart with them.

She hadn’t slept more than a few hours. The flash drive still sat in her coat pocket, heavy in the way guilt was heavy—quiet, undeniable. Every time she replayed the footage, Helena’s face appeared sharper, more deliberate.

She couldn’t decide what was worse: that the Valehart matriarch had been in that hospital archive, or that it no longer surprised her.

“Miss Cross?” Her driver’s voice was soft through the partition. “We’ve arrived.”

Evelyn nodded and stepped out into the drizzle. The hospital looked different now—smaller, less sterile, the kind of place that hid things not because it wanted to, but because it had learned to.

She walked through the lobby with her hood up. The smell of antiseptic mixed with wet stone. No one stopped her this time.

Maris was waiting in the archive room, sleeves rolled, a pen behind one ear. “You again,” she said, not unkindly.

Evelyn placed the flash drive on the table between them. “You know what this is?”

Maris studied it like it might bite. “Should I?”

“It shows someone accessing the Gray files. Last month. Someone who shouldn’t have clearance.”

Maris’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes sharpened. “Who sent it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then you shouldn’t have it.”

Evelyn hesitated. “Maris, please. You told me last time—people with money, people who think the rules don’t apply. What if one of them still has something to hide?”

The older woman sighed, rubbing her temple. “You sound like the girl from the report.”

“What girl?”

Maris didn’t answer right away. She crossed to a locked cabinet, entered a code, and pulled out a thinner folder—older, its edges soft with time. “H. Valehart authorized this report,” she said quietly. “But it wasn’t hers to sign. The real author’s notes were removed before the final version went public.”

“Do you know who wrote them?”

Maris shook her head. “Only the initials—‘R.D.’. The handwriting was sharp. Military. Someone who knew too much.”

Evelyn opened the folder. The pages smelled faintly of smoke and ink. One note, scribbled at the edge, stopped her breath cold:

The mark responds to truth before touch.

Her pulse fluttered. “What does that mean?”

Maris only said, “You’re not the first to ask.”

Across the city, Lucien stood at the edge of the Valehart terrace, phone still cold in his palm. The rain had stopped, but the sky hadn’t remembered. Everything felt half-finished—the kind of silence that comes after a confession not yet spoken.

He hadn’t slept either. His mind kept returning to Helena’s signature, the neat precision of it, the way she’d built an empire out of secrets.

And beneath it all—the bond.

It pulsed faintly, steady as a metronome. No pain, no warmth. Just presence.

When he closed his eyes, he saw her face the moment before she fell, that flicker of fear followed by something he couldn’t name. He could still feel the ghost of her pulse against his fingertips.

He told himself it was the mark reacting to proximity.

He didn’t believe himself.

The door behind him opened. He didn’t have to turn to know who it was.

“Enjoying the weather?” Helena’s voice slid into the air, calm and unbothered.

Lucien pocketed his phone. “You were at Elaris General.”

A pause. “I see the reports reach you quickly.”

“You signed Case Gray.”

“I did what was necessary.”

His jaw tightened. “You burned a woman alive.”

Helena’s tone didn’t shift. “I preserved the bloodline. You think our nature comes without cost?”

“She was human.”

“So are you—half,” Helena said, eyes sharp as polished steel. “And half is a dangerous thing to be. You of all people should know that.”

Lucien’s pulse stuttered once. He took a slow step closer. “What was she to you?”

Helena smiled, the kind that didn’t reach her eyes. “An experiment that forgot its place.”

He exhaled hard through his nose, a sound close to a growl. The scent of rain sharpened around him.

“Careful, Lucien,” Helena murmured. “Your instincts are showing.”

He turned away before his control slipped. “If Evelyn finds out—”

“She won’t,” Helena said simply. “She’s a girl caught in a story she doesn’t understand.”

“She’s my problem.”

Helena’s voice cooled further. “No, dear. She’s your reminder.”

When she left, the space felt colder. Lucien stood alone again, staring at the city, the pulse of the mark thrumming beneath his skin like a question he didn’t want answered.

By late afternoon, Evelyn’s nerves were a live wire. She left the hospital with the folder tucked beneath her coat. The words responds to truth before touch replayed over and over until they became rhythm.

Truth.

Not touch.

She didn’t realize she’d been walking until she found herself standing outside the Valehart tower.

The guards recognized her immediately. One of them radioed ahead. The doors opened.

Lucien was waiting in the lobby, as if he’d known she’d come. His expression was unreadable, all calm surface and dark undertow.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“You keep saying that,” she replied, stepping closer. “And I keep coming anyway.”

He almost smiled. “Stubbornness isn’t bravery.”

“And silence isn’t control.”

For a moment, neither spoke. The air between them shifted—the same strange pull, invisible and immediate.

“I found something,” she said finally. “About Case Gray. About your family.”

Lucien’s jaw flexed once. “You shouldn’t be digging there.”

“Why? Because it’s dangerous, or because it’s true?”

His eyes met hers then, silver edged, sharp enough to cut. “Because it’s both.”

Evelyn held his gaze. “You already knew.”

It wasn’t a question.

He exhaled, the sound low, tired. “It was before my time. Before—” He stopped, swallowed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then explain it.”

He stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating off him, the faint trace of that clean, wild scent that never seemed to fade. “You want the truth? Fine. The mark binds instinct to honesty. It reacts when one of us lies—to ourselves, or to each other. That’s why it hurts.”

Her breath caught. “Hurts?”

He nodded once. “When I lie about you, it burns.”

The words fell between them like static. She could feel the mark hum in response, a faint vibration in her chest.

“What did you lie about?” she asked softly.

Lucien’s eyes flicked away. “Everything that keeps you alive.”

The silence that followed was too thin to hold. She could hear the rain again, or maybe her pulse. The air smelled like ozone—charged, waiting.

Then he said, almost too quietly, “If you keep digging, Evelyn, you’ll end up like her.”

She didn’t move. “Like who?”

He hesitated. That was all the answer she needed.

“Your family covered up a death,” she said, voice trembling but steady. “And your mother signed it away.”

“Helena does what she must.”

“And what about you?”

Lucien’s control slipped just enough for her to see it—the flicker of guilt, anger, something deeper. He closed the distance between them before she could step back.

“Stop trying to save what doesn’t want to be saved.” His voice was low, a whisper wrapped around a growl.

“I’m not trying to save you,” she said. “I’m trying to save myself.”

Something in him went still. The mark burned faintly—hot enough that both of them felt it.

Lucien’s breath hitched. “You shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why?”

“Because now it knows.”

“The mark?”

He nodded. “And once it knows, it won’t stop.”

Their eyes met again, and for the first time, neither looked away. The tension between them wasn’t fear, or even anger—it was something older, rawer, written into the space their hearts shared.

The lights above flickered. The bond hummed louder.

Then the elevator chimed, breaking the spell. Evelyn stepped back first.

“Then maybe it’s time I stop running from it,” she said quietly.

Lucien didn’t answer. But when she turned to leave, he said her name like a warning and a promise in one breath.

“Evelyn.”

She stopped, glanced back.

“Whatever you think you’re chasing—it’s already chasing you.”

That night, Evelyn sat in her room, the folder open beside her. Outside, the rain had finally stopped. The city shimmered under a pale, rising moon.

The words responds to truth before touch echoed again.

She wrote them on a page, then added a question underneath:

Whose truth?

Her phone buzzed.

Unknown Number: You found the author. You just don’t know who he became.

Evelyn froze. He.

Before she could reply, another message came.

Unknown Number: Be careful, Eve. The mark remembers its first master.

She stared at the screen until the glow faded. Somewhere deep in her chest, the bond stirred like a heartbeat out of sync.

Outside, the moon climbed higher, spilling silver across her window, and the world held its breath—waiting for someone to break it.