Page 155 of Owned

I could feel the vibration of the road beneath the wheels, the steady pulse of the engine as the vehicle sped away from the compound.

The driver took the turns fast enough to jostle me in the back seat and I winced as my bruised body slammed into the door.

But it didn’t matter. None of it did.

They had come for me.

They hadn’t abandoned me like the Necromi had promised they would.

I took a fierce relief in that knowledge.

“You belong to him,”the grimoire whispered.“But they belong to you.”

The road slipped past in a blur as we neared the highway.

Back to Withermarsh.

Back to the manor.

Back to my nightmare.

Would Lucian ever allow me to leave?

I knew that wasn’t possible.

Not now.

I was exhausted—everything that had happened. Everything I’d seen. Everything that had been done to me—

Everything I’d allowed to happen.

And from the confusion that came with it all.

The man I’d watched him kill.

The woman.

All of them.

His followers. His loyal cult.

They meant nothing to him.

My mother had meant nothing to him.

I didn’t want to think about it.

Not now.

Maybe never.

The mansion loomed above the road like a bird of prey, wreathed in dark clouds, and the lingering mist that clung to the gardens spilled over the cliff.

Passing through the ward was an unexpected comfort. I’d been outside it when I’d been taken from the woods… I remembered crossing it.

A sudden thought streaked through my mind.

Had the Necromi known I was going to escape through the trees?

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