Page 169 of Owned

The grimoire’s whispers flooded my mind, the viper coiling around my thoughts, squeezing out doubt and trust.I couldn’t tell them. If they knew, they would stop me. And if I failed—

“There’s nothing to tell,” I said. “You just… you have to trust me.”

Valen’s touch was light as he laid his hand on my shoulder. “We do trust you,” he said. “But Lucian—”

“We don’t fucking trust him,” Bastian finished.

They surrounded me, and the room seemed to shrink under the weight of their concern.

“Whatever you think you’re going to do, it’s not going to work,” Titus growled. “He won’t just own you. He’llconsumeyou.”

“You see, they doubt you— They don’t think you’re strong enough—”

The grimoire’s whisper was sharp and anger boiled up inside me.

“Do you really think I’m that weak?” I snapped.

“Please,” Bastian implored in a tone that surprised me. “We’re not ready to lose you.”

I took a breath and let it fill the silence. My heart ached with their sincerity, but I couldn’t deny the rage that crept into my chest.

It would be easy to ask for their help, so easy to depend on them.

“Every time you’ve trusted them, they failed you,”the grimoire hissed.

Had they?

“You know it’s true—”

I couldn’t falter now.

I wouldn’t.

“I have a plan,” I mumbled. I meet Titus’s gaze first, steady and unflinching. “I know what I’m doing.”

His grip tightened on my wrists, and the chill of his worry pulsed through the blood bond. “Do you really? Lucian is unpredictable— Everything that’s happened— It’s only made him worse.”

“You have to trust that I know what I’m capable of.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Bastian asked. “You can’t expect us to just… watch you go through with this without doing anything.”

They were so close to me, so close to making me admit I had no idea if this plan would work.

So close to making me crumble.

I could feel their hearts pounding in time with mine.

The look on their faces, the rawness of their desperation, the way they surrounded me—it would be so easy to ask them for help.

But—

“You’ll have to,” I said as firmly as I dared.

I had to do this.

Alone.

“Not alone,”the grimoire whispered.

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