Page 118 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

“You think I wanted this? To be forgotten? Left? I didn’t ask to feel likethis—like I’m everything and nothing all at once. But doingthis?The Brood needs me. The world needs me. And I love that feeling.”

I take a step forward. “I didn’t ask for any of this either. But we don’t get to burn the world down just because it hurt us.”

“I’m not burning it,” she says, finally turning to face me. Her eyes are glowing. Her pupils—gone. “I’mreshapingit.”

“No. You’re letting it use you.”

“Then maybe Iamit,” she snaps. “Maybe that’s the point.”

“Do you know what this will do to us? All of us? Don’t let it consume you, Adora. Don’t let the Brood turn you into something you hate, something we all don’t want to be. Don’t let us lose us.”

She laughs and shivers run through me. “Are you serious? We lost ourselves long ago. Why can’t we just let fully go and embrace what we are supposed to be? Wild and untamed. Un-rulable.”

I close the distance slowly, heart pounding. Her threats scare me knowing that if we go, we don’t only lose ourselves, I lose Callum. I lose Adora. I lose everything. We all do.

“Adora, you’re still my sister.”

“You don’t know that anymore.”

“Yes,” I say, voice cracking. “Ido.”

She lifts her hand. Energy crackles at her fingertips.

She turns slowly, and I can already tell—this isn’t just Adora anymore.

She looks like my sister, but her eyes burn white-hot, no irises, no humanity. Her body crackles with energy that shimmers like oil over water, and the ground beneath her feet fractures like it can’t bear her weight.

“Adora,” I whisper.

She doesn’t speak.

Shelaunches.

I barely duck in time. Her hand slams into the stone pillar behind me, and itshatterslike glass, chunks flying. She whirls, unnaturally fast, her mouth open in a snarl that isn’t hers.

I shift mid-breath, fur exploding along my skin, bones snapping into place with sharp precision.

And still—she’sfaster.

We clash in a blur of motion. Claw against spell. Wolf against ancient power. I dodge her first strike, circle, and try to pin her, but she ducks under and slams her elbow into my ribs. Pain shoots through me.

“You were always stronger,” she snarls, voice warped and doubled, as if something else is speakingthroughher. “But I was alwayssmarter.”

She lunges again. I twist, catching her arm in my jaws, not hard enough to break—just tostop her.

But the second I taste her blood, everything in me rebels. It’swrong. Bitter. Heavy with magic that doesn’t belong in our bloodline.

She screams and sends a blast of raw energy into my side, throwing me back.

I crash into the ruins, stone cracking beneath my shoulder.

Stars spin in my vision.

Adora stalks forward, eyes bright and wild.

“I’m not letting them use me again,” she growls. “Not Mom. Not Edmund. Notyou.”

“I’m not using you,” I rasp, shifting halfway back, hands bloody and shaking. “I’m trying tosave you.”

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