Page 43 of Owned

He tilted his head, and I felt like an idiot for asking. There was so much I didn’t know about them—but so much I was afraid to know, too. “Would you like to see?”

“Yes,” I blurted out.

Valen extended his hand toward me, but I was reluctant to take it. After a moment, he shrugged and turned away from me.

“Keep up,” he said without looking back.

I hurried to match his pace.

My pulse drummed in my ears. I was scared, but more than that, I was curious.

“What happened to her?” I asked. “Your mother?”

He didn’t answer right away, and I wondered if this was yet another question I wasn’t supposed to ask.

“Valen?”

“You’re impatient.”

“A little.”

Just at the edge of the gardens, he stopped walking and turned to face me. His eyes were deep and endless, and filled with something I didn’t expect: tenderness. “She was a loyal member of the Necromi,” he said. “That’s what Lucian says, anyway. I’m sure that’s supposed to comfort me.”

“Is it true?”

“As true as any other story here.” He looked away and his brow furrowed briefly. “She offered herself to him. A bridefrom an influential family—someone who could secure his rise to power. She had powerful magic. Her father was influential among the Sages and in the business community...” A wry smile twisted his lips. “All the things Lucian likes best. But before they could be married, she was murdered.”

I gasped and covered my mouth with one hand. “Murdered?”

Valen’s eyes reflected the darkness of the clouds overhead before he met my gaze. “Titus and Bastian’s mother. She was… something else. A powerful witch… Almost as dark as Lucian. Before he met my mother,shewas Lucian’s favorite.”

“And you—”

He shrugged. “I’m a bastard. I’m supposed to be grateful to have been acknowledged— or for not being killed. No one can seem to decide which one is more important.” He took a breath and looked back at the house. “What makes it worse… I wasn’t supposed to find out what happened to her.”

“How awful— I’m so—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” he snapped as he met my gaze once more. “It doesn’t matter.”

I swallowed hard.He must have been so young when it happened—

“How did you find out?”

He snorted. “That Lucian was lying? It was years… He told me that she’d sacrificed herself. That’s what he told everyone.”

Dread coiled in my stomach as Valen’s expression darkened.

“The grimoire showed me the truth.”

That damned book.

I shook my head in disbelief. “But— Why would Lucian lie to you?”

“Why not?” he shrugged. “It didn’t matter to him.”

“Why did she do it?”

“Mariam was already pregnant when she took my mother’s magic for herself.” His voice was almost light, but it cut throughme like a knife. “I should have been the one to inherit her magic. But Mariam stole her final breath, and Bastian was the one who benefitted…”

---