Page 78 of Cursed

My body still thrummed with the heat of what had happened—and the new power that mingled with mine—and the moment I stepped out of the garage, the cool night air clawed at my skin, and made me gasp.

Each hurried footfall echoed against the cobblestones, and I paused to kick off my heels and gather them up.

Barefoot, I rushed back to the house.

Guilt and elation intertwined in my thoughts and tightened around my chest like a vise.

How could I feel so powerful and so small all at once?

It was dangerously thrilling, this newfound strength coursing through me—but I hadtakenit from Valen.

It should have felt wrong.

But the magic pulsing within me was like fire, searing and raw, yet it made me feel alive—alive in a way I’d never experienced. Nothing about the way my body responded to the change I’d wrought felt wrong.

This is how you should always have felt,the voices in my mind whispered.

A shiver ran down my spine as I quickened my pace.

I rounded the corner toward the back entrance, and the flickering light from the lanterns set around the house bobbed in the wind and created shadows that danced mockingly around me.

You’re one of them now,the whispers in my mind taunted me.

“Shut up,” I hissed.

It was too late for doubt.

This was about survival—my survival—nothing more.

They wouldn’t understand, but they didn’t have to.

As soon as I had what I wanted, everything would change.

But this time… this time I was in control.

The powerI had stolen days before was only a mere drop from Valen’s dark reservoir.

That was what I told myself.

That was how I pushed away the guilt that had enveloped me in the days that followed our encounter.

He was fine— I’d seen him stalking through the grounds of Withermarsh, but I wasn’t brave enough to speak to him.

I was afraid of what he would remember.

But when he didn’t come to my room to confront me, and the power I’d taken from him didn’t ebb away, the elation that had eluded me in those first hours began to take hold.

If he didn’t remember—if he hadn’t noticed…

The fresh magic that I’d taken pulsed beneath my skin—a restless whisper that stirred in my veins that urged me to wield it. The whispers from the grimoire did, too. It begged me to open its pages and test my newfound strength… But there was only one spell I wanted to use, and the power I had still seemed insufficient for what I needed to conjure.

Titus—

I’d put it off as long as I could. But with every day that passed, the fear that Lucian would summon me to his study loomed over me.

How long would he wait before he demanded my obedience?

How long would it be before he demanded that I wear his ring and call myself his bride?

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