Page 120 of Owned

“Pick her up!”

“Carefully!”

Broad hands with hard fingers took hold of my arms and I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out but a ragged groan.

“I hit the bike! Not her!”

Was I dead?

I’d been on the brink of escape just moments before… or was it hours?

The crash came back to me in bits and pieces: the vibration that had ricocheted through me as the motorcycle was hit with a glowing projectile, the acrid tang of burning rubber and tree sap, my body a rag doll tumbling through the air.

The left side of my body screamed in pain and a jagged ache pulsed through me as I fought for awareness.

Two sets of hands were clamped down on my arms as I was dragged along like I weighed nothing.

Terror coursed through me as I struggled against their grip.

Figures blurred and then game back into focus.

It was lighter now—dawn?

How long had I been in the forest?

The figures wore black robes, and masks that concealed their faces.

I twisted and kicked, but their grip didn’t loosen.

My captors moved with purpose, heedless of the roots and stones that bit into my back and snagged at my clothes. Fear gripped me, and even though I tried to wriggle free, my limbs were weak and uncooperative.

Everything hurt.

The memory of the crash pushed itself into my thoughts.

I should have died.

Instead, I was trapped in the snare of another nightmare.

“But you didn’t die…”

The relief that flooded through me as the grimoire’s whisper rippled through my mind was unwelcome. But at least I wasn’t alone.

“Where do you want her?” one figure grunted, the voice rough and low.

“Just keep moving,” the other snapped, his grip tightening like a vise.

I choked back a cry as pain lanced through my left shoulder and down into my ribs, a white-hot flash that nearly made my already blurry vision worse.

My body was battered and a collection of bruises and cuts throbbed with every jostled step. I could taste blood on my tongue and my hair was matted to my head.

But I wasn’t helpless.

Not yet.

I couldn’t be.

My thoughts were jumbled as I fought to make sense of the fragments that crashed together in my mind. How long had I been unconscious? Who were these people? I’d heard both men and women among them.

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