Page 77 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

Margreet flinches. “I didn’t know Edmund was a werewolf.”

I blink.

“What?”

“I swear to you, Kendall,” she says, voice cracking. “When I met him, I thought he was just… broken. Human. Messy. I knew something was off, but I convinced myself it was trauma or grief. Not that he was hiding claws under his skin.”

“You married him.”

“Ilovedhim. Or I thought I did.” Her voice wavers. “And I hoped—God, Ihoped—that if you took after anyone, it would be him. Not me.”

“You hoped I’d be like Edmund?” I say slowly. “Humanlike him?”

Her lips part. Silence stretches like a noose between us.

“You said human,” I press. “Likehim.Not like you.”

She doesn’t answer.

“Mom,” I whisper. “What are you?”

More silence.

“Say it.”

“I can’t.”

“Youwill.”

Her hands shake. “There are reasons, Kendall. Things you don’t understand—things I barely do. When the veil lifted, people like me—thingslike me—we weren’t invited into the new world. We were hunted. Dissected. Forgotten on purpose.”

I feel something tighten in my chest. “You’re not human.”

She nods once.

“You’re not a shifter either.”

Another nod.

“Thenwhat the hell are you?”

“I don’t have a name for it,” she says. “But I was raised tohide it. To bury it so deep I’d forget what I was. And I did, for a while.”

“Until me.”

Her eyes glisten. “Untilyou. You were born, and I thought,maybe she’ll be normal. Maybe you’d never have to know what I knew.”

“…And Adora?” I choke out. “Was it the same for her?”

Margreet’s whole body tenses.

“She’s not like you,” she says, slowly. “She never was. I—I didn’t want her to turn. I didn’t think shewould. Not after…”

Her voice falters, like the ground just opened beneath her and she doesn’t know how deep it goes.

I take a step closer. “Not afterwhat, Mom?”

She closes her eyes.

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