Page 32 of Owned

The papers I’d taken from the drawer were scattered around my feet and the fire flickered low in the hearth, as though it was ashamed to have helped me.

Everything I’d done seemed childish now.

Pointless.

Lucian’s hold on me couldn’t be severed so easily.

My cheeks were stiff with dried tears and fear clutched at my heart as Lucian stared at me. He said nothing as he entered the room and I flinched as the door swung with an ominous finality that echoed in my ears.

His eyes were pale and predatory as they followed my every movement.

I felt naked under his scrutiny, a pitiful thing laid bare before his knowing smirk.

I’d been there before—sprawled on the floor in front of his desk.

Shame and desperation clawed at me and urged me to run, to fight, to do anything but stand there under his terrible, knowing gaze.

I turned, frantic for an escape, but there was nothing—only a stained glass window I couldn’t reach.

“Well, I didn’t expect to find you here.”

I dared to turn and face him, but my body trembled with fear.

What would he do to me—

“I—”

The sorcerer’s long fingers twitched at his sides, and my eyes were drawn to the pulse of the red orb that hovered above Lucian’s desk.

The mist that had swirled around it, seemed to flicker with tiny bolts of lightning. The mist expanded and crept down over the desk with feathered fingers that reached toward me.

I held my breath as the mist slithered across the floor and curled around my bare feet like a dark tide, ready to consume me whole. I forced myself to stand tall despite the trembling in my knees and I fought to summon even a fraction of the bravado I had possessed only moments before.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Lucian said. “But I think you know that… Tell me, Avril. Why have I found you in my study this evening? So many hours after midnight?”

I swallowed hard. “I— I came to—”

“To what?” Lucian interrupted. His voice was smooth but dripped with menace. His pale eyes glittered with dark amusement as they studied me. “To burn away the evidence? But what evidence is it? Evidence of my… interest in your education?”

“Interest?” I choked out. “You— You stole my life from me… everything that I could have been—”

The pale red mist coiled around my ankles and wound up my calves, but I stayed as still as I could even though I wanted to kick it away. Lucian didn’t flinch, and his smile didn’t falter as he stepped closer.

“And what could you have been?” he asked. “Hm? What were the words your headmaster used—” He paused for a moment, but I knew he was toying with me. “Ah, yes. An ‘inoffensive’ member of the outreach programs—” He frowned slightly. “Hardly the place for someone like you.”

“Someone like me,” I repeated. “What does that mean?”

The mist darkened as it coiled around my waist and crept up over my breasts, a chilled caress that made my breath hiss between my teeth. For a wild moment thought he might explain what he meant. But he said nothing and only watched as Istrained against the crimson haze that had pinned my arms to my sides.

I glared at him, mute with anger and fear. Beneath his gaze, I felt the grimoire’s whispers coil and tighten in my mind like a noose.

He drew closer, and I tried to take a step back, but the mist didn’t let me. It had wrapped around me completely, and fingertips of vapor tightened around my body like possessive hands.

Lucian laughed—a low sound that sent ice through my veins. “Look at you.” He motioned to the scattered documents on the floor and the dying ashes in the hearth. “I wondered if taking that girl’s power would make you restless—and with all the time you’ve spent with the grimoire… Did I make a mistake in giving you this power?”

“Giving?” I gasped. “You didn’tgiveme anything. You took my life, and you—”

“And yet here you are,” he cut in, drawing closer still. His presence was suffocating in the dim room and the flames of the candles seemed to dip toward him as he moved. “Imagine what your precious Sages would say about your power now—”

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