Page 26 of Owned

“Why wait—”

The grimoire’s voice was insistent—harder to block out—and I gritted my teeth.

“Do you really expect me to just— sit back and let this all…happento me without trying to stop it??”

I was ready to burst into flames with all the rage that swirled in my chest. But Titus’ expression was calm.

I wanted to hit him with something.

Something heavy.

“If you do— If you try to resist him or push him away, he’ll kill you,” Titus said. “Is that what you want?”

Shit.

“No…”

“Then you have to trust us,” he said.

“Trust you?”

The words came out as a strangled shriek.

“How am I supposed to trust you? You didn’t stop him! You saw it coming and you still let him set the date— Are you planning out my spot in the family crypt, too? Have you picked out the marble casket I’m going to rot to pieces in?”

My shouts echoed in the room and I relished the way Bastian’s smile faltered as my words sank in.

Valen’s hand was light on my wrist. “Avril— That’s not going to happen.”

I pushed him away.

It was too much. All of it.

The grimoire pulsed in my mind, urging me to lash out.

I could. It would be so easy.

But then—

Maybe they were right.

If Lucian knew what they were planning—or what we’d already done—he wouldn’t let them anywhere near me.

The spell I’d cast over my stepbrothers, the one that bound them to me. It would have been enough to drive Lucian into a murderous rage.

But even if he didn’t know—he suspected something.

He had to.

Why else would he be so paranoid?

The grimoire’s whispers rose in my mind and I nodded, suddenly understanding.

“You want him distracted,” I murmured as the idea came to me. “You want him to be obsessed with me—focused on me—so that you can…”

He wouldn’t notice what they were up to until it was too late.

It made a terrible, demented sort of sense. But it wasn’t good enough.

---