Page 225 of Owned

And I saw my mother.

I saw Lucian’s hand at her throat, her dark eyes wide with betrayal as he drained her life force to fuel his next ascension. I felt his pleasure at her suffering, his contemptuous dismissal of her obsessive and twisted love.

She had tradedmefor that marriage.

That was her prize.

And he had killed her and taken her power when he’d tired of her.

I knew now that he had always intended it to be that way.

My back arched, and I screamed as the visions tore through me, each one a fresh wound in my psyche. But still thepower flowed, filling the vacuum left by my father’s departure, transforming me cell by cell into something new and terrible.

“Avril.”

My father’s voice, no longer inside my mind but beside me. I turned my head, vision blurring with tears and power, to see a translucent figure standing beside the bed.

“Father,” I gasped in a voice that was raw from the spells I’d cast and the screams that had ripped from my throat during my possession. “You’re still here.”

“Not for long,” he replied and his form wavered like a reflection in disturbed water. “What binds me to this world grows weaker by the moment.”

“Don’t leave me,” I pleaded. I reached for him with a hand that now bore the faintest trace of black staining at the fingertips—like Lucian’s, but new, still developing.

“I have to,” he said, his expression gentle yet resolved. “My task is complete. Lucian is destroyed. You are safe... and powerful beyond what even I imagined possible.”

Another spike of pain ricocheted through my body and my body contorted again. The transfer of power continued, flowing up my arms and spreading through my chest. I could feel it changing me, not just physically but fundamentally—altering the very fabric of my being. The magic that had once been gentle and hesitant was now something darker, more assertive.

Everything I’d been was burning away to be replaced by a knowledge that felt ancient and merciless.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” I whispered, though even as I spoke, I felt the pull of the power, and the seductive whisper of what I could become.

“It’s what was necessary,” my father replied. “And now it’s what you are. The heir of Withermarsh, in truth, not just in name.”

His form flickered again, growing fainter. “Your stepbrothers will return,” he continued urgently. “They won’t understand at first. They’ll see only what Lucian taught them to see—power as something to fear, to resist, to overthrow.”

“They’ll hate me,” I realized, thinking of Titus’s expression of betrayal at the reception, of Valen’s cold fury, of Bastian’s bitter stare.

“Perhaps,” my father acknowledged. “But they are bound to you, and you to them. In time, they’ll see that what you’ve done was for them as much as for yourself.”

The last of Lucian’s power surged into me, a final wave that left me gasping. The black stains on my fingertips crawled higher and wrapped around my wrists in delicate patterns.

“You are the mistress of Withermarsh now,” my father said as his voice grew distant. “The estate belongs to you. The Necromi belong to you— The city…” He paused to take a shuddering breath. “Remember who you were, Avril. Remember what made you different from them.”

His form was barely visible now, a suggestion of a shape rather than a definite presence. “I’m proud of you,” he whispered.

Then he was gone, dissipating like mist in the morning light.

The space where he had stood was empty, and I was truly alone.

I collapsed on my side next to Lucian’s body, my leg still sprawled over his thighs. The damask coverlet stuck to my blood-slicked skin, but I was too exhausted to move. I wanted nothing more than to fall into the black void of unconsciousness, but the power that thrummed through me kept me alert and hypersensitive to every shadow and sound in the chamber.

The brand on my thigh pulsed painfully enough to make my breath hiss through my teeth, but then it stopped. I reached down to trace a tentative, blood crusted finger along the placewhere the brand had been, but my flesh was smooth and unblemished.

The entity—my father—was gone.

Only I remained.

Mistress of Withermarsh.

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