Page 36 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

She tilts her head. “And what’s that?”

I look her dead in the eyes.

“Free.”

She blinks, thrown off. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I’ve got.”

She stares at me, like she’s trying to read a language written across my skin.

“Why are you helping me?” she asks, quieter now. “Why are you risking your life—your place—for someone like me? Dad says you’re supposed to be the next alpha. I know what that is, what it means. Why would you risk that?”

I want to lie. Ishouldlie because the truth feels like a cliff I’m not ready to fall off.

Instead, I say, “Because the second I saw you, I knew you’d ruin me if I let you.”

Her breath catches.

For a second, we’re not hunter and hunted.

Not shifter and werewolf.

Just two people caught in the space betweenwhat’s allowedandwhat already is.

She shifts against the pillar like she’s about to say something else, like her mouth is working around a question she doesn’t know how to phrase. There’s a flicker of something in her eyes—fear, maybe, or need—but it dies before it fully forms.

That’s when Edmund reappears—silent as a shadow, slipping from the darkness like he never left.

“It was nothing,” he says before we can speak. “Just a rat too loud for its own good. We’re good.”

He pauses. Looks between the two of us. His gaze lingers. Eyebrow up, eyes sharp. Not accusatory—but close.Curious.

He senses it. Theshift. The crackling tension in the air that wasn’t here when he left.

“So?” he asks slowly. “What have we got left to cover?”

Kendall straightens, rubbing her hands down her thighs like she’s grounding herself, and I scrub a hand over my face to clear the heat still coiled tight behind my ribs.

I clear my throat, and we both glance down at the ground like it might swallow the moment whole if we don’t look directly at it.

“Backtrack drills,” I say, voice rougher than I want it to be. “We haven’t run the loop yet.”

Edmund gives a small nod but doesn’t stop watching me.

I force myself to step back, putting physical space where emotional space has completely caved in.

“Let’s run it,” I say. “Twice. No shortcuts this time.”

Kendall meets my eyes for just a second before nodding.

Whatever almost happened between us? It’s buried—for now.

But the ground we’re standing on is far from stable.

15

KENDALL

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