Page 4 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

I shrug. “Territory lines don’t mean much when a kid’s running through Walgreens half-shifted and screaming. You seen her?”

“No.”

“Right,” I mutter. “Helpful.”

She moves again—faster this time. I tense, ready to dodge, but she stops short. Real short. Close enough that I smell the blood on her breath.

“You should go,” she says, voice low and dangerous. “Tonight’s not safe for your kind.”

“And whose kind would that be, exactly?”

She leans in. “The kind who think hiding makes them better.”

I bristle. “The Veil dropped ten years ago. You think every shifter wants to pose for TikTok and get cuffed by PEACE every time they sneeze wrong?”

Her eyes narrow. “Then stay out of our way.”

Before I can say anything else, a rustle behind me draws both our attention.

Elias steps out of the shadows, arms crossed. “We good here?”

The werewolf glances between us, nostrils flaring.

She turns and bolts, vanishing into the dark like she was never there.

I let out a long breath.

“That could’ve gone worse,” Elias says.

“Could’ve gone better too.”

We start walking again, but I can’t shake the tension in my chest.

“She wasn’t just pissed,” I say. “She was spooked.”

Elias nods slowly. “Yeah. Like something’s hunting all of us.”

I glance up at the moon again. Bright. Full. Watching.

“You still think this is just another trigger spike?” I ask.

“Nope,” Elias says. “Something’s shifting. Something deep.”

“Guess we wait and see what crawls out of the dark.”

We might not be ready when it does.

3

KENDALL

Iwake up to the smell of burnt toast and panic.

For a second, I think I’m still dreaming. My head is swimming in leftover moonlight and teeth. The nightmare clings to my ribs like smoke—something about running and snarling and?—

I sit up too fast. My head throbs.

The sunlight’s too bright, all sharp angles slicing through my blinds. I squint at the time. 9:46 AM. Which means it’s already late. Which means something’s off.

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