Page 11 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

“You can hear me?”

I nod, breath stuck in my lungs.

The hand drops from my mouth. My back’s still pressed to the wall, adrenaline shaking through every limb. I finally get a look at him.

“Dad?”

Edmund Bolvi looks like hell.

Worse than usual. His eyes are sunken making his pale blue eyes even paler, his beard overgrown, skin sallow under the low light. There’s a silver streak in his hair that used to look cool. Now it just looks like stress made flesh.

“What thefuck, Dad?” I hiss, shoving at his chest. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“I had to,” he growls. “You’re being watched.”

“What?! By who?”

“Not who.What.”

He leans in close, eyes burning. Not metaphorically.Literally. For a second, they flash a sickly gold, and I stagger back.

“Nope. No. Absolutely not,” I say, voice shaking. “I’m done with this cryptic nightmare bullshit. You’ve been gone for days, Adora’s in the hospital with bite marks, and now you’re here whispering in mybrain? What the hell is happening?”

He stares at me, chest rising and falling fast. He looks like he wants to say a million things and none at all.

“You were always the one who could hear,” he mutters, almost to himself.

“What?”

“You had the spark,” he continues. “Adora didn’t. Not until—” He cuts himself off. His jaw tightens. “You were always meant to change.”

I take a step back.

“Changeinto what, Dad?”

He closes the space between us, gripping my shoulders. “You won’t survive the coming months if I don’t awaken it in you.”

“Awakenwhat? You’re not making sense!”

He hesitates, eyes searching mine like he’s looking for permission.

Then he lets go. Takes one step back.

“I’m sorry, Kendall.”

“For wha?—”

His hands shift before I see it.

His fingers twist, stretch, darken. Nails become claws.

And then he lunges.

I scream.

Pain explodes in my shoulder. Burning, searing,splitting. It’s like fire and electricity are racing through my veins, tearing everything apart from the inside out. I collapse to the ground, writhing, gasping for air.

“What—what did you—what the fuck did you do?”

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