Page 192 of Owned

“Through her.”

NO.

The world narrowed, honed to a single, cutting point. All the rage and panic and fear I’d fought to keep at bay crashed through me. Lucian had been planning this for years. From the day she was born…

Bastard.

Bastard.

Bastard.

The advisor’s dead voice rose like a wraith in my mind.“He’ll have you at each other’s throats—”

“Enough,” I shouted, and black fire erupted from my palms and scorched through the underbrush. Trees cracked and shook as my power ricocheted wildly through the forest.

I stood there, numb and shaking and empty.

I was damned now, more than I’d ever been.

He was right.

This was who I was.

I wasn’t like Valen and Titus.

I was like Lucian.

That’s why he needed me gone.

That’s why he would set us against each other and laugh while we destroyed ourselves.

The advisor’s laugh lingered in my thoughts like blood on my hands.

The vision swam back into my thoughts.

My brothers dead at my feet, Lucian smiling, the vision from the Spire—none of them seemed so impossible now.

I shook my head to banish the vision, but it lingered longer than I wanted it to.

With gritted teeth, I pushed away from the tree and forced my legs to move.

The manor was in sight now, shadowed and sprawling against the dawn.

Light glowed in the windows and the gardens crawled with servants making preparations for a wedding that shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

Not if I could help it.

My legs burned as I closed the distance, and the pulse of the blood bond grew stronger.

My boots slipped on the wet ground, but I pushed on.

I skirted the mansion and ducked in through the servant’s entrance unseen.

The halls buzzed with activity, but I didn’t slow down.

Voices reached my ears, fragments of conversation, but I wasn’t paying attention to what was being said.

I needed to find my brothers.

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