Page 127 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

Part of me wishes they would.

But I need to see him with my own eyes. I need to face what’s left.

Stefan’s sitting against the back wall of a containment ward. Not in chains. Just behind a weak shimmer of spelled light that flickers every few seconds like it might give out. His face is battered—left cheek swollen, bottom lip split, dried blood marking his jawline like a scar-in-the-making. But his posture is proud. Still. Chin lifted, arms crossed. The way he always looked before a fight—like he didn’t want to throw the first punch but would absolutely throw the last.

His dark hair is matted from sweat and dirt, longer than it used to be, curling slightly at the ends. Messy in a way that used to make me smile.

Now, it just looks lost.

His blue eyes flick up when he sees me. Sharp and cutting, but… not cruel.

He flinches.

But he doesn’t look away.

“Figured you’d come,” he says, voice rough from dust or screaming—I’m not sure which.

I lean against the rusted gate. My own reflection warps in the shimmer of the ward between us.

“Wanted to see for myself,” I say.

He arches a brow. “If I’m still human?”

I shake my head. “If you’re still you.”

“I don’t know,” he finally says.

The silence stretches between us like a rope frayed and fraying.

“You scared the hell out of me,” he adds after a moment. His voice is quieter now. Realer.

I swallow hard. “Yeah. I scare the hell out of myself, too.”

He laughs, sort of. It’s dry and bitter and doesn’t touch the hollows beneath his eyes.

“You changed,” he says.

“I had to.”

“I didn’t.”

There it is. Simple. Brutal. True.

I nod. “That’s why we broke.”

He shifts forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees. The anger’s mostly drained from his face, but what’s left is worse—uncertainty. Like he’s only just realizing the weight of the side he chose. What he almost helped destroy.

“I used to think love was enough,” he murmurs.

“So did I.”

We sit in that for a long beat. He doesn’t cry. I don’t either. But it feels like something died between us anyway—and maybe that’s been happening for a while. This just made it official.

“You were brave,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Braver than I’ll ever be.”

I look at him. Really look.

The boy I loved—the one who used to carry me piggyback to the lake, who used to kiss my palms when I got cold, who swore he’d never be like the monsters who took his parents—is still in there. But he’s drowning. Buried beneath the grief and the fear and the rage that Gideon’s Torch fed like fire to dry grass.

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