Page 228 of Owned

My ears caught every whisper, every gasp, even the rapid drumming of hearts accelerated by fear. The cackling laughter of a woman who understood exactly what had happened cut through the chaos like a knife. One of the Elders, perhaps? Someone who had been waiting for Lucian’s fall?

The air tasted strange, and I ran my tongue across my teeth, surprised to find them sharper than before. Everything was different.I was different.My skin felt too tight, too sensitive, as though I’d been flayed and hastily re-sewn back into my own body.

I looked down at the puddle of black lace on the stone floor, but I couldn’t bear the thought of having it touch my skin.

But I had to.

I bent to pick it up and reluctantly stepped into it.

The fine lace whispered over my skin and clung to my curves and I shuddered at the feel of it wrapping around me like a lover’s embrace.

Under the black lace, the dark stains continued their inexorable crawl up my arms, past my elbows now, spreading in elegant whorls and spirals that reminded me of Valen’s tattoos, but darker, more primal.

They didn’t move randomly but followed the paths of veins and muscle, accentuating rather than obscuring my form. Where they touched, my flesh tingled with new awareness, as though previously dormant parts of me were waking for the first time.

A tremor ran through the stones beneath me, and for a wild moment, I thought we were experiencing an earthquake. Then I realized—it was responding to me.

To my power.

To my presence.

Withermarsh itself recognized its new mistress.

I flexed my fingers and watched with morbid fascination as the shadows in the room bent toward me, drawn to my command like obedient pets.

The very air seemed to thicken and part around my movements, deferential to my will.

My thoughts raced with newfound clarity. Knowledge that wasn’t mine—couldn’t have been mine—flooded my consciousness.

Rituals forgotten for centuries.

The secret names of the founding Sages who had been banished from Messana. The hidden weaknesses of every family in Messana’s dark elite. Lucian had hoarded these secrets like a dragon with its treasure, and now they were mine to wield or withhold as I saw fit.

The implications were dizzying.

I was something else now—something more powerful and more dangerous than I’d ever imagined becoming.

I pressed my palm against the stone floor and felt each microscopic crack and imperfection.

The texture was overwhelming. Each grain of mineral was distinct beneath my fingertips. I could feel the history of the stone—where it had been quarried, how long it had lain in this place, the blood it had absorbed over centuries of Romano rule.

The women he had brought to this room—the women who had never left.

Another wave of awareness crashed over me, and I gasped as my vision sharpened further. The darkness retreated, colors intensified, and I could see motes of dust suspended in the air, frozen like stars in a midnight sky.

And I could see something else—threads of light connecting me to distant points beyond the walls. Three threads in particular pulsed with vitality, and tugged at something deep within my chest. Titus. Valen. Bastian.

The blood bond I’d created had transformed as well, strengthened by Lucian’s death rather than weakened by it.

They were coming. I could feel them drawing nearer. Their fury and confusion mingled across our connection—and so did their worry.

What would they think when they found me like this?

Would they see a monster where their Avril had once stood?

Would they recognize me at all?

I pushed myself to my knees, my legs unsteady beneath me. The black patterns had reached my shoulders and crept across my collarbones in delicate tendrils that felt like cool fingertips against my feverish skin.

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