Page 83 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

“You trying to break my nose?” I snap.

She doesn’t apologize. Doesn’t even slow down.

Her voice is smug. “Can’t help it if you’re slow.”

That’s when I know it.

She’s angry.

Not just at me. At everything.

And it’s buried so deep it’s started to rot.

Rot that glows under her skin, that hums in her veins, that shifts her stance and clenches her jaw like she’s holding something back—barely. Her strikes are sharper, more confident than before. But they’re not controlled. They’re fueled by something reckless.

Something unhinged.

“You okay?” I pant between blocks, ducking a roundhouse I didn’t see coming.

“I’m perfect,” she hisses. But her eyes, those burning hazel-gold eyes—say otherwise.

There’s pain there.

Betrayal.

Her mother lied. Dad lied. Her whole life is a patchwork of secrets, and now she’s finding out she’s the daughter of a man she never met and half-sister to a guy she might’ve felt something for. Hell, I would’ve snapped, too.

But Adora’s not snapping.

She’s unraveling and she’s loving it.

When Callum steps in to rotate partners, Adora doesn’t yield. She doesn’t blink. She keeps attacking. Not like she’s training.

Like she’s hunting.

He manages to block, then pin her wrist with a grunt. “Ease up.”

She jerks free with a sneer. “Don’t hold back.”

“I’m not?—”

“Then fucking hit me!”

Her voice cracks at the end—not with weakness, but with fury. She’s daring him. Daring all of us to push her harder. Maybe because pain is the only thing she can feel anymore.

I step forward, chest heaving. “Adora, what are you doing?”

She turns to me slowly. Her breathing’s erratic. Her face flushed. Her smile—crooked and cruel.

“I’m finally feeling it, Kendall,” she growls. “For the first time in my life, I know what I am. What I can do.”

“And what’s that?” I ask. “Destroy yourself?”

“Don’t be jealous.”

That one hits like a slap.

“I’m not,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m scared.”

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