Page 7 of Marked By His Hunger

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This is the price of my continued existence here. Sanctuary in exchange for obedience. Control in exchange for containment.

A leash dressed as mercy.

“You fear what will happen if you leave,” Kenna says softly.

My gaze snaps to hers.

“I don’t fear,” I answer.

But the lie tastes bitter.

Because I do.

Not for myself.

Never for myself.

But for what I might do if the hunger is ever truly unleashed.

If I ever let it win.

My fingers curl slowly into my palm.

There was a time I didn’t care.

A time I reveled in it.

But that was before.

Before I started watching.

Before I saw something in that other world that made the emptiness inside me ache with something dangerously close to longing.

Before I remembered what it felt like to want something I could never have.

My gaze drifts, just for a second, back to the distant shimmer of the portal.

Kenna follows it.

Of course she does.

“No one can save you,” she says quietly.

Something dark rises in my chest at that.

Not anger.

Not quite.

Something sharper.

More dangerous.

“I don’t need saving,” I growl.

No.

I don’t.

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