Page 95 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

“I already don’t.”

“We cracked the rogue,” he says. “The one from the backwoods raid.”

“Did he say anything useful?”

“He didn’t give much... but what he did give—shit, Cal.” His voice dips, quieter. Strained. “This is bad.”

My gut clenches. “What?”

“He says Typhon’s Brood isn’t just building numbers anymore. They’ve got a weapon.”

My blood goes cold.

“Define weapon.”

“Not a nuke. Not a biochem bomb. Something worse.”

“What kind of worse?”

There’s a pause on the line. I can hear Elias shifting, like he doesn’t want to say it out loud.

“He called it The Hollowed,” he says. “Said it wasn’t alive. Not in the normal way. Not in the way we understand. Said it was buried under the city—deep—until recently.”

Kendall steps closer to me, her expression taut, eyes narrowed. I can feel the fear rolling off her skin. She already knows. Somehow, sheknows.

My stomach knots. “Are they using it now?”

“I don’t know,” Elias mutters. “But the rogue… he was barely coherent. Said it could pull bloodlines apart. That it rips through memory—identity—pack ties. Like it unravels everything from the inside out.”

A chill races up my spine.

“It doesn’t kill,” Elias goes on. “Itrearranges. Rewrites. Said it takes the shape of whatever it latches onto. It feeds off instinct. And when it takes enough… it changes you. Like,fundamentally.”

I can barely breathe.

Kendall's hand brushes mine. “Callum?”

She sees it in my face before I can say a word.

I cover the phone. “It’s bad.”

“How bad?” she whispers.

I uncover the speaker. “Why would they want this? Why would the Brood use something that could destroy their own kind?”

Elias sighs, low and shaken. “From what we could get out of the rogue... theywantit to. He said they believe it’ll 'free' them. That it’ll break the hierarchy. Dismantle what makes uspack. They think it’ll turn us into apex predators—no weaknesses, no attachments, no orders.”

“Just chaos,” I mutter.

“They think that’s what purity is,” Elias says. “No lines, no rules. Just survival of the strongest. And this thing? This curse or spirit or entity—whatever the hell it is—it’s the tool they think will bring it on.”

“And they’ve already started using it?” I ask.

Elias hesitates. Then says, “The way the rogue said it? Like it’s already awake. Like it’s already moving.”

My jaw tightens. My throat is sand.

I hang up.

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