Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL) Chapter 257: Chapter 251: Impromptu medical checkup (2)

He stepped inside with the practiced elegance of soone who had endured far worse under brighter lights.

"Consort," the physician greeted, voice clipped but not unfriendly. He was just a man forced to work in his free ti.

Gabriel raised a brow, shrugged out of his coat, and draped it over the nearest armrest like it was a throne. He didn’t sit imdiately.

"I assu I’m the highlight of your evening."

The physician adjusted his gloves with the sa asured care he used on surgical instrunts. "I was enjoying a book and a ginger biscuit."

Gabriel let out a dry hum. "Apologies for replacing your biscuit."

"You’re not the worst patient I’ve had today," the physician said. "But you’re in the running."

Gabriel snorted and finally lowered himself into the chair. "I’m your only patient now."

The physician didn’t look up as he adjusted his gloves. "Exactly."

Gabriel gave a tight smile, one corner of his mouth twitching with just enough sarcasm to make it feel earned. "Good to know I’m still winning in sothing."

The physician gestured for his arm. "You win in everything, Consort. That’s why we’re all here at midnight."

Gabriel offered his arm without further comntary, still under the impression that this was a quick and clinical inconvenience—two vials of blood, maybe three if soone got ambitious, and then he could go sulk in the bath until Damian showed up pretending it was all under control.

The first vial filled.

Then the second.

Then the third.

Gabriel narrowed his eyes.

"All right," he said, tone deceptively polite, "we’ve passed the polite threshold. Is there a reason I’m being drained like a decorative swan?"

The physician didn’t look up. "We need separate samples for endocrine analysis, hormone consistency, potential allergen traces, and a secondary for cross-confirmation."

Gabriel blinked. "You’re testing twice?"

"Imperial standard."

He stared at the man for a mont. "I thought this was just bloodwork."

"I’ve never said that."

The physician didn’t even look up from the tray. He reached for the fourth vial with the sa calm he might use to stir his morning tea.

Gabriel’s jaw tightened. "Edward said it was a checkup."

"I’m sure he did," the physician replied, affixing the next label with precision. "That doesn’t an it wasn’t going to be thorough."

"I assud that ant two samples, maybe a passive scan. Not the full vault inventory."

"You assud wrong."

"I tend to do that when I’m kidnapped in formalwear and marched across half the palace without explanation."

"If it helps," the physician said, finally eting his gaze, "your formalwear did survive. That’s more than I can say for most poisoned nobles."

Gabriel narrowed his eyes, then leaned back in the chair with a sigh of theatrical suffering.

"I’m going to rember this," he muttered.

"I hope so. We’ll be repeating it in two weeks."

The physician reached for a sleek diagnostic reader—an ether-core handheld model with dual-thread calibration and a resonance cradle to track bond signal strength and hormonal gradients. Gabriel had seen it used before. On injured soldiers. On captured traitors.

He did not appreciate it being aid at him.

"You’re joking," Gabriel said flatly.

The physician didn’t pause. "I rarely do."

Gabriel’s brows lifted, unimpressed. "That’s the interrogation model."

"It’s the high-fidelity bond scanner," the physician corrected, as if that sounded less threatening. "Regulation for pregnant ogas undergoing imperial-level screening."

"I have a schedule for that screening."

"And this is an unscheduled threat."

Gabriel held still, spine straight, eyes locked on the reader like it had insulted him personally. If Damian specifically requested that scan, it was a bad sign.

"I’m three months pregnant. I’ve passed every check, every panel, every scent stabilization."

"Then it will pass cleanly," the physician said, tone maddeningly calm. "And you’ll have nothing to worry about."

"That would be more convincing," Gabriel said, "if I didn’t just watch you calibrate it like you’re expecting a foreign agent hiding in my bloodstream."

The physician said nothing.

Gabriel lifted his hair slowly, exposing the bond mark at the nape of his neck, the golden threads of it still warm, still holding.

"Scan what you must," he said quietly. "But don’t mistake compliance for comfort."

The physician didn’t respond.

The reader humd to life, light settling against the skin beneath the mark—faint pulses of ether weaving their way through a bond that very much belonged to soone powerful, soone possessive, soone watching.

The scan completed.

The screen was red.

The red didn’t flash. It didn’t scream or pulse or spit out a printout marked critical. It simply stayed there—quiet, steady, and unbothered. An anomaly wrapped in calm.

And that, of course, made it worse.

Because red, in a room like this, should an sothing. It should an danger, or malfunction, or imdiate containnt. But when the device was silent, when the ether lines didn’t flicker and no ergency locks engaged, it stopped being a threat.

It beca a question.

The physician didn’t say anything at first. He only frowned, the faint lines around his mouth tightening, and began recalibrating the reader with a level of care normally reserved for explosive devices or direct orders from the Emperor himself. He tapped through the manual overrides, narrowed the ether range, and dialed the reader into sothing more precise, more intimate—like trying to catch the whisper of a heartbeat through a fortress wall.

Gabriel sat perfectly still, one hand braced against the chair, the other curled around the edge of his coat. His expression didn’t change, but his breathing did—slightly slower, asured in the way one did not out of calm, but out of focus. Watching. Listening.

The reader ca back to life with a low, concentrated hum. The light swept over the nape of Gabriel’s neck again, tracing the lines of the bond mark like a signature being re-read.

This ti, the screen didn’t flash red.

It shifted—gold, then blue, then green.

No warnings. No flags. Nothing but silence.

The physician stared at it for longer than he should have.

Gabriel raised a brow, voice clipped. "Well?"