Page 66 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

“How’d you get in?”

“Window.”

“You scaled a two-story?”

Her eyes flick toward me. Hazel. But off. They shimmer with an amber tint that catches the moonlight, like something ancient swimming just behind the surface.

“I needed to talk to you,” she says.

“Yeah. No shit.”

She glances down, and I follow her gaze. Her hands are shaking—barely—but her fingers twitch like live wires. Like they’ve been dipped in static. Her nails are longer than they should be. Sharpened. The skin around her knuckles looks rubbed raw, like she’s been fighting herself in her sleep.

I reach for the lamp, but she flinches at the sudden light, shadows carving hollows in her face. So I switch it back off.

The soft moon glow casts her in silver-blue light, and for a second, she looks… haunted. Beautiful, sure. But eerie. Like someone caught between two worlds.

“Adora,” I say slowly, “what’s going on?”

She breathes out through her nose. “Something’s wrong with me.”

I sit on the bed, careful not to crowd her.

“Talk.”

She’s silent for a beat.

“I hear things now. Not like voices. Just... frequencies. I can hear when someone’s heartbeat shifts from calm to rage. I smell lies—sickly sweet. Like dead roses. And I can see things. Trails. Emotion trails.”

I stare at her.

“That’s not werewolf stuff.”

“No,” she whispers. “It’s not.”

I feel it now—something coiled inside her, something pushing at the seams. Not like my wolf, buried but steady. This is louder. Jagged. Chaotic.

This isn’t a transformation. It’s a fracture.

She’s splintering.

“Do you feel... like you’re still you?” I ask.

She looks at me then. And for a second—just a breath—I swear her face shifts. Not literally. But her expression warps. Like there’s something else behind her eyes. Watching.

“I don’t know,” she says. Her voice is a whisper. “Sometimes I feel like I’m floating above myself. Like I’m watching a version of me I can’t control. A crueler one.”

My chest tightens. “What do you mean?”

“I had a dream last night,” she murmurs. “I was standing over a body—mine. And I was smiling. Laughing. But it wasn’t me doing it. It felt... ancient. Familiar. Like it belonged in my bones.”

I swallow hard. “You’ve felt this since... he bit you?”

Her jaw clenches. “Don’t say his name.”

“Okay.”

Her hands flex again. Fingertips glowing faintly. A glimmer of something like energy, but too faint to catch fully. I see it—just for a second—and then it vanishes.

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