Page 80 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

“Don’t give me that,” she hisses. “Youknew.Even before that.”

“I swear I didn’t.”

“Bull shit! That’s why you wouldn’t date me!” She shoves me.

“Adora!” I grab her wrists. “I swear. It wasn’t until Kendall brought you.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asks, voice cracking. “Why the hell would you let me keep thinking—keep wondering—when youknew?”

“Because it wasn’t mine to tell,” I say. “Because once that secret is gone, everything else starts crumbling with it. Trust me.”

She spins away from me, pacing, pulling her fingers through her hair like she’s trying to rip the thoughts out of her skull. Her hands are trembling—barely—but I see it. Ifeelit.

“You’re lying,” she mutters. “You’re all liars.”

She looks over her shoulder, and her hazel eyes glow faintly gold. Not from power—but from pain. A light born of fire and fury trying not to drown in itself.

“I didn’t ask for this,” she says. “To be his daughter. Your sister—your fucking packmate.”

“You’re not just pack,” I say quietly. “You’re blood.”

She shakes her head. “No. I’m nothing. I’m not evenreal.I’ve been someone else’s story my whole damn life.”

“I get it,” I say. “I do.”

She stops pacing. Stares at me.

“No,” she says. “You don’t. You’ve always known who you are. Who you come from. You had him. You had a name. I hadlies. You want to talk about blood and instincts and legacy? I don’t even know what part of me ismineanymore.”

There’s a silence between us. Charged.

And then softer, “Why didn’t he want me?”

My chest tightens.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Maybe it was him or your mom or the world she was trying to protect you from. But I know this—he didn’t forget. He watches. Every day.”

She closes her eyes, and I swear I see something shift in her face. Just a crack. A flicker of the Adora I used to glimpse—before the weight of her awakening started dragging her under.

Her voice is brittle. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“You live,” I say. “You survive. You find out who you are outside of all of this.”

“I don’t think there’s an outside anymore.”

“There is,” I tell her. “It’s standing right here.”

She looks at me—reallylooks at me—and for a second, we’re just two kids caught in the wreckage of everything our parents broke.

“I should hate you,” she says.

“Yeah,” I breathe. “You probably should.”

She exhales and doesn’t answer. Doesn’t walk away either.

And in her silence, I realize what scares me most.

It’s not the Hollowed. It’s not Gideon’s Torch.

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