Chapter 8

<p>Charlotte pov</p><p>Elias found me in the library two days later with an old book already open on the table.</p><p>"This symbol." He tapped a page covered in silver script. "It matches the mark on your wrist."</p><p>"You've been studying my wrist?"</p><p>"I've been studying everything about you I can find," he said, without a trace of embarrassment. "Someone should."</p><p>Before I could ask what it meant, Lucien dropped a manila folder in front of me, all trace of his usual grin gone.</p><p>"You should sit down for this."</p><p>I didn't sit down. I opened it standing up.</p><p>Adoption records. My name, my birth date, and a blank space where biological parents should have been listed.</p><p>"Where did you get this?" My voice didn't sound like mine.</p><p>"Doesn't matter," Lucien countered. "What matters is you needed to see it before Selene found a way to use it against you first."</p><p>"How would Selene even have this?"</p><p>"Selene's family sits on the council," Elias said quietly. "There isn't much they don't eventually get their hands on."</p><p>I called my mother that night, hands shaking so badly I could barely hold the phone.</p><p>"Tell me it's a mistake."</p><p>Silence on the other end, long enough that I knew it wasn't.</p><p>"Charlotte." Her voice broke. "You were given to us. Nineteen years ago. I've wanted to tell you your whole life."</p><p>"Given to you by who?"</p><p>The line went dead before she answered.</p><p>I tried calling back three times. It went straight to silence each time, like the line itself didn't want me to have the answer yet.</p><p>Elias sat with me while I tried, not saying anything, just staying close in the way he had a habit of doing. Lucien paced. Neither of them offered me comfort I didn't want. They just stayed, and somehow that was enough to keep me from falling apart completely in the middle of the library.</p><p>"We'll find out," Elias finally offered. "One way or another."</p><p>"I know," I told him. "That's what scares me."</p><p>"It should," Lucien admitted, dropping into the chair across from me. "But you're not doing it alone. That part I can promise you."</p>