Page 73 of Owned

Tireless.

What did it want?

I was afraid to think about it—

Maybe I shouldn’t have let Valen leave.

I ran up the grand staircase and gritted my teeth against the pain until I reached my door.

A flick of my wrist unlocked the spell that held the door closed, and I almost fell into the room as it opened.

It closed behind me with a click that made me jump, but I peeled off my soaked jacket and dropped it in a heap near the doorway.

Shadows lurked in the corners like uninvited guests, but I wasn’t looking at them.

The Bloodstone Grimoire sat smugly on my vanity and its dark cover glistened with an almost eager malice. It knew my weakness; it fed on it.

I stared at it for a moment, and my fingers twitched as I battled the urge to touch it and let its voices fill the gaping silence.

Instead, I strode across the room, peeling my clothes off as I went. I dropped them onto the carpet, uncaring, and stood naked in the closet as I rummaged through the silks and linens until I found something that didn’t make me want to scream—a loose linen dress that didn’t belong with the other designer garments that had been purchased for me.

I pulled it over my head and walked back into the bedroom.

I sank onto the edge of the bed, feeling hollowed out by more than just fatigue.

The stones embedded in the grimoire’s cover gleamed in the low light and the house rumbled with the thunder that rolled overhead.

Light the candles.

Say the words.

Titus had promised that my freedom lay in power.

But that power took time to learn.

Time I didn’t have.

The rain drummed against the windows and I wrapped my arms around myself as I rocked on the edge of the bed.

Why can’t you look for yourself—

The grimoire’s dark voice rose in my mind.

Why couldn’t I?

I didn’t need a babysitter.

I pushed myself up from the bed and crossed the room and perched on the edge of the vanity chair. The cold, hard cover bit into my hands as I pressed my fingers against it and I chose to ignore the prickle of despair that threaded through me as I lifted one hand to gesture vaguely at a nearby candle to light it.

Dark wax had pooled and hardened on the smooth surface of the vanity. My mother would have scolded me for ruining a priceless antique—but I didn’t care.

She was dead.

And I didn’t give a shit about what the dead thought.

The grimoire pressed me forward and its whispers became light laughter as I pulled the blackened silver dagger from the book’s spine.

Words rose unbidden in my mind—Titus’s words—the spells he’d started to teach me.

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