Page 35

35

KENDALL

I don’t leave a note.

Just pull on my jeans, throw on a hoodie, and walk out before the sun even rises.

My boots crunch over gravel that’s still slick from the night storm, and the air smells like wet pine and woodsmoke. I pause once, hand on the doorknob, heart clawing at my chest like it’s begging me to go back.

Back to the bed. Back to him . Back to the way Callum looked at me last night like I wasn’t broken—like I belonged to something bigger than blood or war.

But I can’t. Not right now.

Because I feel like I’m standing on the precipice of something ancient and massive, and the minute I say yes to all of this—to him —there’s no going back.

And honestly I have no idea if I’m ready for that. So I do what I’ve always done when I’m drowning. I go looking for the one person who’s been teaching me how to swim through lies.

Dad’s bunker is exactly where I left it—tucked beneath an abandoned train yard, half-collapsed and stinking of rust and old secrets.

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. “About me .”

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.”

“I know ,” 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 you are ,” he says flatly. “But not the way you think. You’re not losing yourself to him . 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 was reveling in it.”

He nods once. “I’ve felt it.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means her blood’s waking up. The part that was never Bolvi. The part she inherited from him. ”

“You mean Mathis.”

His eyes flick to mine like gunfire—quick, sharp, deadly.

Just as fast, he looks away. Grabs the flask near his foot and takes a long, slow swig like he’s buying himself time not to explode.

“I figured you’d already know,” I add, quieter.

He lets out a breath through his nose. It’s not a laugh. Not a sigh. More like a warning.

“ How did you find out?” he asks, voice low and gravel-slick.

“Mom,” I say. “She finally admitted it. Said she didn’t know what Adora would turn out to be, hoped she’d stay normal. But when the changes started... she knew.”

Dad’s jaw ticks. He’s trying— really trying—to hold it together. But his fingers curl into fists and his foot bounces like there’s a war going off inside him.

“I raised her,” he growls. “I fucking raised her. Changed her diapers, kissed her skinned knees, taught her how to ride a bike. She was mine .”

I really thought he knew, but given the energy I feel from him now, this is news to him and he’s trying to control his rage more than I’ve ever seen before.

I dare to speak. “I don’t think she’s stable,” I say. “She’s dangerous, and I don’t know how to reach her anymore.”

“You might not be able to,” he admits. “Not right now.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“It’s the truth. You’re strong, Kendall. But she was always… sharper. Hungrier. And now that she knows who she really is? That hunger’s getting teeth.”

“So what do we do?”

He meets my gaze. “You survive. And you keep trying to be her sister. Even when she doesn’t want one.”

I swallow hard.

“Can you help me?” I ask. “Figure out what I am? Or is that just another secret you’re keeping?”

His face softens—just a little.

“I don’t know what your mother is if that’s what you’re asking,” he says. “But I know it’s old. Rare. Forbidden, in some places.”

So, he had known about mom at least. She just hadn’t known about him.

“Is that why I feel like I’m coming apart?”

“No,” he says. “That’s what becoming feels like.”

I don’t go back to the cabin.

I walk until my legs burn. Until the cold bites through the hoodie. Until the sky shifts from slate to bruised lavender. Until I stop thinking about what it means to love someone who feels like fate and danger all at once.

But eventually, I turn around because I think maybe Callum deserves more than silence.

Maybe I’m finally ready to give it to him.