Chapter 5: The Empty Room

By the time Lucien returned to the Hart estate, the house was silent.

He had expected to find Evelyn waiting exactly where he had ordered her to stay.

Instead, the hallway was empty.

“Evelyn?”

His voice echoed through the house.

No answer came.

Lucien walked upstairs and pushed open the door to her bedroom.

The room looked strangely untouched.

There were no clothes scattered across the floor, no jewelry on the vanity, no photographs lining the shelves.

Everything that had once announced Evelyn's presence had disappeared.

He stood in the doorway for a long moment.

For ten years, this room had been the place where he could always find her.

Whenever they argued, she eventually came back here.

Whenever he ignored her, she waited here.

Whenever he promised that things would be different after he became Alpha, she believed him here.

Now there was nothing.

Lucien stepped inside.

His wolf stirred uneasily.

Something was wrong.

He walked toward the cabinet beside the bed.

The cheap vow bracelet Evelyn had left there was still sitting exactly where she had placed it.

Lucien picked it up.

For some reason, seeing it made his chest tighten.

He remembered Vivian laughing when she exposed the bracelet as a fake.

At the time, he hadn't cared.

Now he couldn't understand why Evelyn had looked so calm.

She hadn't screamed.

She hadn't cried.

She hadn't begged him to stay.

She had simply taken off the bracelet and walked away.

His fingers tightened around the cheap stones.

“She must have taken the real one,” he muttered.

But he knew that wasn't true.

The real vow token was with Vivian.

And suddenly, another memory surfaced.

Evelyn's hand had become transparent when he grabbed her in the backyard.

Lucien's breathing stopped.

He looked down at his own hand.

Why had he been able to see the fire through her?

Why had her skin been colder than a dead wolf's?

Why had there been no pulse?

He had dismissed all of it as another one of Evelyn's attempts to manipulate him.

But now, standing alone in her empty room, the explanation he had refused to consider became impossible to ignore.

What if she hadn't been pretending?

A sudden knock interrupted his thoughts.

One of the estate guards stood outside.

“Alpha Lucien.”

“What?”

The guard lowered his head.

“We searched the estate and the surrounding roads. We couldn't find Miss Evelyn.”

Lucien's expression darkened.

“Search again.”

“We already have.”

“Then search farther.”

The guard hesitated.

“There is one thing.”

Lucien looked up.

“What?”

“The security crystal recorded something unusual shortly before you left.”

The guard handed him a small memory crystal.

Lucien activated it.

The image flickered to life.

It showed Evelyn standing in the living room with her suitcase.

Her parents were shouting at her.

Vivian was crying.

Then Evelyn spoke the formal words of severance.

Lucien watched his own face on the recording.

He watched himself grab Evelyn's wrist.

He watched her refuse to apologize.

He watched himself throw her away.

Then the suitcase fell open.

The memorial photograph appeared.

Lucien's face went pale.

He replayed the moment.

Again.

And again.

There was something he hadn't noticed before.

As Evelyn crouched beside the suitcase, the light from the window passed directly through her fingers.

Lucien's wolf suddenly snarled inside his mind.

Not anger.

Fear.

“Stop,” Lucien whispered.

But the recording continued.

Evelyn looked toward the camera.

Her expression was strangely peaceful.

Almost as if she knew someone would eventually watch this.

Then her body faded.

First her fingertips.

Then her hands.

Then her arms.

Until there was nothing left.

The crystal slipped from Lucien's fingers.

It struck the floor and cracked.

The guard stared at him in confusion.

“Alpha?”

Lucien didn't answer.

His mind was racing.

If Evelyn had truly disappeared like that, where had she gone?

And why had the pack bond vanished at the exact same time?

He suddenly remembered the memorial photograph.

“Where is the suitcase?”

The guard looked startled.

“It was left in the room.”

Lucien rushed downstairs.

The suitcase was still there.

He opened it with trembling hands.

Inside was the framed photograph of Evelyn.

A black mourning border surrounded her smiling face.

Lucien stared at it.

The date printed beneath the photograph made his blood run cold.

It was dated ten days earlier.

His fingers began to shake.

Ten days.

That was exactly how long Evelyn had supposedly been missing.

His wolf gave a low, terrified whine.

Lucien whispered the only word that came to his mind.

“Dead.”

Behind him, his father appeared in the doorway.

“What did you say?”

Lucien slowly turned around.

He held up the photograph.

“I think Evelyn died ten days ago.”

The room fell silent.

His father stared at the photograph as if it were impossible to understand.

Then his mother's face drained of color.

“No.”

She shook her head violently.

“She was standing right here this morning.”

Lucien looked toward the empty staircase.

His voice was barely audible.

“Maybe she wasn't.”

For the first time, the Harts had no answer.

And somewhere beyond the walls of the estate, the second night of Evelyn's three-night return was already beginning.