Page 145 of Owned

And then I understood.

He was seeing himself.

The illusion had him cornered, taunting him.

I stayed back, letting him fight it.

“Shut the fuck up!” Bastian shouted. Black smoke wreathed his fingers and writhed like snakes seeking somewhere to strike. He was ready to fight it. He had to know it wasn’t real.

He trembled, then stilled. The silence stretched.

Then I saw it, the snap of will in his eyes. His magic coiled around him, fierce and reckless. It surged, a raw flood of power, and a harsh scream echoed off the stone walls.

He stood, breathing hard, and his pale eyes were wild.

“You okay?” Valen asked, coming up behind me.

Bastian glared at us both, then nodded. “Never better.”

“What the fuck was that?”

“A trap,” I said with a shrug.

“What did you see?” Bastian asked.

Valen shook his head. “My mother. I—”

“It was a lie,” I said. “None of it was real. Whoever is casting these spells doesn’t know us.”

Valen nodded to Bastian. “Who did you see?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Titus is right. It’s a cheap trick to make us falter. They’re going to pay for it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So?”

Valen wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Let’s keep moving,” Bastian said, and I could hear the anger creeping back into his voice. “I want to kill something.”

Valen frowned. “You think she’s here?”

“She has to be,” I said. “They wouldn’t do this for nothing.”

We moved quickly, careful and lethal, pushing deeper, winding through corridors that seemed to tighten around us, as if the building itself was alive, as if it knew what we were after.

As if it wouldn’t let us go.

I saw the tension in Valen’s posture, felt it in my own. Bastian was behind me, moving too quietly for him, too carefully. He’d been spooked by whatever he’d seen, but if he wasn’t going to talk about it, I wasn’t going to press him.

We turned a corner, expecting the worst, but saw nothing but more endless corridors stretching in every direction. It was too silent—the kind of silence that meant something was about to die.

“How far do you think?” Valen hissed.

I was about to answer when they hit us.

Three of them.

They came out of nowhere, more shadow than flesh.

---