Page 142 of Owned

Bastian’s hand tightened on my shoulder. “Titus— we don’t have time for this!”

He was right.

Fuck.

“You’re not the only one who feels her absence,” Valen said evenly. “You can punch me in the face later. When she’s safe.”

Bastian tugged at my shoulder. “I don’t want to say he’s right, but he’s right.”

I pressed my forearm into Valen’s throat, but my brother didn’t flinch. “Fine,” I growled. “But when I knock you on your ass, know that you deserve it.”

I waited a moment longer before I released him and pushed Bastian’s hand off my shoulder.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” I hissed.

“Whatever you say,” Bastian chuckled. “You’re the one coming apart at the seams—”

“Don’t push your luck.”

I looked at the corridor ahead of us and the darkness beyond. “Where do we go next?”

Bastian shrugged. “Up?”

As good a direction as any.

Valen adjusted his jacked and rolled his shoulder. “We’ll work our way down.”

My younger brothers in agreement—I thought I’d never see the day.

We approached the stairs together and a sense of dread fell over my shoulders.

Every step felt like it should be our last—

The Sages, the Necromi— All of them had fallen before us with so little resistance that it felt almost too easy.

We were all thinking it.

We were all too stubborn to say it.

The stairs wound upwards, endless and bleak, and for a moment I wondered if she was even here.

What if we’d come all this way only for this cursed tower to tumble down on top of us?

But there was nothing.

No whisper of anything.

Then the magic hit.

It started as a ripple, a pulse, and we all stumbled back.

Bastian’s face was pale, shocked. “This... what is this?”

He doubled over, as if something in him broke, and Valen fell to his knees beside him, clutching his head in his hands.

“Get up!” I shouted.

They didn’t move.

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