Page 99 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

Half the team draws weapons.

Ridge growls. “Tell me that was just the wind.”

Callum doesn’t move. His jaw tightens, but he looks at me. Not with panic. With something heavier.

“You recognize it?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I think... it knows me.”

“You think it’s Edmund?”

“No,” I whisper. “I think it’solder.”

We move in closer.

Every step feels like I’m walking toward something I buried in another life. My hands shake. My pulse won’t slow.

And still, I go.

Because if Dad’s anywhere, he’s here. And if the thing calling my name is part of what I am, it’s time I found out what it wants.

40

CALLUM

Idon’t know if we’re still above ground.

Everything past the threshold feels like it’s swallowing light.

The tunnels wind deeper than any infrastructure map has ever shown. This isn’t some collapsed maintenance shaft or old bootlegging route. This was carved bysomething else. Something with claws—and a purpose.

And whatever that purpose was, it wasn’t meant for us. Not for humans. Not even for shifters. And definitely not for the girl beside me who justglowsmore with every step.

Kendall walks at the front of the group like the darkness parts for her. Her skin gleams faint gold, like moonlight sinking beneath water. Her jaw’s tight. Her eyes locked ahead. She doesn’t look scared.

But I can feel it in her pulse, in the way her scent keeps shifting.

She’s holding it together by instinct alone. And somehow, she’s still leading us. She’s not just surviving this. She’scommandingit.

And that terrifies me because I love her. And if this thing takes her—this pull in her blood, this ancient shit waking up in her bones—I won’t survive it.

I don’t say any of that.

Instead, I say, “You okay?”

She doesn’t stop walking. “I don’t know what I’m feeling. But it’s getting louder.”

“The voice?”

“No,” she says. “The pull. Like something’swaitingfor me.”

Behind me, Ridge mutters something under his breath in old Nordic dialect. I catch a few words—mostly curses and prayers—and ignore him.

The passage narrows.

We all have to crouch.

Just as suddenly, it opens again into a circular cavern choked with moss-covered stone and stagnant air. The walls are smooth and dark, marked with sigils we’ve never seen before. Ones that move if you stare too long.

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