Page 87 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

He’s crouched beside a barrel fire, sharpening a blade I’ve never seen before. Something older than PEACE’s tech. Carved, runed. Definitely illegal.

I cross my arms. “Trying to start a war, or just looking the part?”

He doesn’t flinch. Just keeps working the edge like he’s got all the time in the world.

“You ran here,” he says, not looking up.

“I walked,” I snap. “And I’m not here to explain myself.”

“Good,” he mutters. “Would’ve been a waste of breath.”

I sink onto a broken crate across from him, hating how small I feel here. Like the air’s heavier. Like the dirt remembers things I haven’t learned yet.

“I need answers,” I say.

“About the boy?”

My jaw tightens. “Aboutme.”

He lifts his gaze. One eyebrow raised. “You and Callum crossed the line, didn’t you?”

I don’t answer. I don’t have to.

He nods slowly. “That’s not just sex, Kendall. Not with a bond like yours.I’ve smelt it on you two since our first training. And now,” his eyes flick up to me then back down to his knife, “it’s even sharper.”

“Iknow,” I snap. “That’s the problem.”

Silence.

He tosses the blade aside, the metal clanging against a rusted pipe.

“You want me to tell you it doesn’t matter. That you can just fuck your way through this bond and walk away clean. But I won’t lie to you.”

I glare at him. “Then tell me why it feels like I’m losing pieces of myself every time I get closer to him.”

“Because youare,” he says flatly. “But not the way you think. You’re not losing yourself tohim. You’re losing the version of you that thought she could keep pretending she was normal.”

“You said I had a choice,” I whisper.

“You do. But choices have weight. You love him? It’s gonna change you. You run from him? That changes you too.”

I close my eyes, every part of me vibrating with this horrible, aching in-between.

“I thought maybe you could help me figure out who I am now. What this bond means to us since we aren’t shifters. And…”

I trail off.

He waits.

I open my eyes. “And I wanted to talk about Adora.”

His shoulders tense.

“She’s not right,” I say. “Something’s shifted. During training yesterday, she was cocky—reckless. She wasn’t fighting for control. She wasrevelingin it.”

He nods once. “I’ve felt it.”

“What does it mean?”

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