Page 86 of Owned

It didn’t matter.

I turned back to the house and took a route to a side door that would allow me access to the house and a hallway close to Lucian’s study.

My father was on the edge of something—but it was impossible to know if it was madness or transformation.

No one wanted to admit it, but he’d changed since Avril had come to Withermarsh.

I didn’t understand it, Titus didn’t understand it… but there was something about her.

We all felt it.

She’d captivated my brothers with more than her deliciously corruptible innocence…there was something more to her.

Lucian seemed consumed by her, and the thought of their impending wedding twisted in my brain like a thorn.

An image of Avril’s pale face and the cloud of auburn hair spread over her pillow flashed in my mind and I could barely suppress the shiver that ran up my spine—she was taking too many risks with the grimoire.

I hadn’t thought she’d be brave enough to try anything…

But the pool of blood on the bathroom floor had kicked that assumption aside.

She was stronger than I gave her credit for.

Or dumber.

Maybe both.

The doors of Lucian’s study loomed in front of me.

The house was quiet and I couldn’t sense Titus anywhere—

Good.

I wanted this to be a private meeting.

I set my hands against the door and sent the smokey threads of my magic into the locks. The wards were in place, but I wasn’t a threat and their presence was just that… something I could ignore.

They clicked once, and I pushed against the heavy wood. The doors swung open, and I crossed the threshold into Lucian’s domain once again.

“You’ve been dismissed,” Lucian snarled. “I don’t want to see your face again until—”

With careful precision, I cloaked my rebellious thoughts beneath a smoke screen of loyalty and calculated half-truths. If he decided to probe my mind, he would find only that. Nothing more.

“Until I have something interesting to tell you,” I said. “But I do, father. I didn’t get a chance to tell you— Not withthemaround.”

A flicker of interest flashed across Lucian’s pale eyes, cold and calculating. I could almost see the gears of his mind whirring.

This would be too easy.

I was almost disappointed.

“Indeed,” Lucian replied. He feigned a disinterest I knew he didn’t truly feel. His long fingers tapped against the books in front of him. “Your brothers seemed convinced that there was something amiss—”

“I don’t trust my brothers,” I said. “They have their own agendas…”

“Don’t we all,” Lucian mused. “Tell me more.”

I shook my head. “You don’t want to be distracted by petty sibling rivalry, do you? Not when I have more to tell you about the traitors who writhe like worms in the heart of the Black Council.”

---