Page 126 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

We regroup in the ruins of what used to be a town square. Fires still smolder in cracked barrels. The wounded rest in makeshift tents. The leaders—what few we have—gather around a long slab of stone.

Tension thrums like a live wire.

The dragons won’t sit beside the witches. The wolves from the Hollow snarl every time a werewolf walks too close. No one trusts the quiet. Peace feels like a fluke.

And I feel it, the shift, the turning.

The unity we bled for is already splintering.

Callum leans close to me at the edge of the circle, whispering, “We need something to hold them together.”

“Or someone.”

He looks at me. “You don’t need to be their answer.”

“No,” I say. “But maybe I’m the reason they haven’t torn each other apart yet.”

He slips his hand into mine beneath the table. Warm. Solid.

“Then let’s hold them together until we find the next move.”

I nod. But my skin prickles. Something’s wrong.

And then it hits like lightning through my skull.

The world around me blurs.

The stone turns to black glass.

The voices vanish.

I see a forest—dense, dark, rotting. And in the center of it, a figure. Hooded. Kneeling.

A voice like ice whispers my name—not aloud, but inside my bones.

“The vessel has not vanished. Only changed.”

The hooded figure lifts their head. I can’t see their face. But they smile. I wake with a start, gasping.

Callum catches me. “Hey, hey. What happened?”

“It’s not over.”

“What?”

“The Hollowed. It’s not done. It’slooking. Your dad was right.”

“Looking for what?”

I swallow. Hard.

“For someone new.”

Later, after the chaos simmers down and the factions go back to biting each other’s heads off, I leave the war room. My boots echo down the tunnel that leads to the lower ruins—past the torches, the moss-eaten stone, the scent of blood and ash still clinging to the walls.

The holding cells are cold. Quiet.

No one stops me when I ask to see him.

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