Page 61 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

She swallows hard. “And me?”

“You probably feel it too,” I say. “But for shifters, it’s stronger. All-consuming. It kicks in almost immediately. That’s why I couldn’t stay away. Why I kept finding you even when I told myself I shouldn’t.”

She hugs her arms around herself like she’s holding in pieces. “Why me?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “But it’s not about power or bloodlines or politics. It’s soul-deep. And it only ever happens once.”

“Once?” she echoes.

“Once,” I say. “One person. One connection. That’s it.”

She closes her eyes, like she’s trying to hold that truth in her hands and it keeps slipping through her fingers.

“What if I can’t do it? What if I can’t feel it the same way? What if I’m broken?”

“You’renotbroken,” I say firmly. “You’re just waking up. You’re trying to carry too much, too fast. And the bond? It’s patient. It doesn’t demand. It justis.”

Her breath stutters.

“I don’t know what I want,” she says. “If I’m scared or pissed or just tired of pretending like this isn’t real.”

I step closer. “Then don’t pretend. Justfeel. Whatever it is. I’m not asking you to choose anything tonight. I just wanted you toknow.”

She looks up at me, eyes full of panic and something deeper. And then, slowly, she reaches for my hand. Not tight. Just enough.

“I don’t know what this means,” she says. “But I know I didn’t feel safe until I saw you again.”

I squeeze her hand. “Then that’s enough for now.”

For once, in this fucked-up world of bloodlines and politics and prophecy, it actually is.

25

KENDALL

Idon’t move for a long time.

Not even after Callum lets go of my hand and steps back like he’s afraid to push. The night settles thick around us, quiet except for the wind brushing through the trees and my own pulse thundering like a war drum in my ears.

Fated.

The word feels too big in my mouth. Too final. Like a sentence I didn’t get to plead against. I keep repeating what he said in my head.

One person. One connection. That’s it.Forever.

Who the hell decided that for me?

And why does it feel so terrifying and safe at the same damn time?

“Are you cold?” Callum asks gently, almost like he doesn’t expect an answer.

I nod, even though I’m not sure if that’s what this is. It’s not the kind of cold that seeps into your skin—it’s the kind that coils under it. In your chest. Your bones.

He shrugs out of his jacket and hands it to me. I slip into it without thinking.

It smells like stale smoke and pine, even over the overwhelming factory smells of the city. Something thatfeels like him.

We sit on a fallen tree, not touching, but not far apart either. A space where the silence isn’t awkward. It’s just heavy.

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