Page 108 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

“Then we’ll benot okaytogether.”

That gets the smallest twitch at the corner of her mouth.

I move to her side and slide an arm around her waist. She leans in without hesitation.

“I was scared you’d hate me,” she says. “After what happened down there. After what I opened.”

I pull her closer. “You didn’t open it. Yousurvivedit. If anything, I think you being awakened triggered it, not you going there.”

Her eyes lift to mine. “Do you believe I’m a key?”

“I believe you’re more than that.”

“What if it was meant to be me? What if I’m part of whatever’s coming?”

“Then we fight it together.”

“And if it changes me?”

I touch her face, thumb brushing her cheek. “Then I’ll fall in love with every version you become.”

That’s it.

She leans in and kisses me—slow and aching and full of the kind of fear you only feel when you’ve finally found something you don’t want to lose.

We stay like that for a long time. No answers. Just stars. And warmth. And the promise ofsomething worth fighting for.

43

KENDALL

The voice slips through sleep like smoke through a cracked window.

Not loud. Not sharp. Butcertain.

Kendall Lysira Bolvi.

My eyes snap open.

I’m breathless before I’m even fully awake, heart pounding like I just came back from something deep—like I wasunderand didn’t know it.

It echoes again.

Kendall Lysira Bolvi. Come.

I sit up in the cot, the blanket falling off my shoulders, sticky with sweat. My hands tremble.

That name—my name—notthe one I grew up with, but the one buried in my blood—it shakes something loose.

My voice is hoarse when I whisper it aloud.

“Kendall… Lysira… Bolvi.”

The air stills.

And then something inside meignites.Not fear. Not magic. A calling.

But it’s not the runes this time. Not the dark weight of the Hollowed. This is... different. This is personal.Blood.

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