Page 34 of Owned

It was impossible.

“You have to try—”

The thought clawed at me, sharp and insistent. Lucian’s magic tightened its grip and squeezed the breath from my lungs. I writhed against it, but Lucian was everywhere, inside me, outside me, filling the air with his dark presence.

The orb was his heartbeat.

The mist was his breath.

The world spun—red and angry.

I refused to be his, even as the cruel tendrils wound around me, deeper and tighter.

He stood before me, his eyes like shards of cold glass that gleamed with a predatory amusement.

And something more.

A hunger.

Lust.

The pale hair that brushed his shoulders was a ghostly halo in the room's darkness.

His long fingers, twitching with latent energy, stained black with the remnants of ink, soot, and the stain of his dark spells, hung at his sides. He watched me struggle, calm and unfeeling, as if he were savoring my torment.

The cruel arch of his lips told me everything.

I belonged to him, whether I liked it or not.

I felt myself drowning in the red mist, my body heavy and useless.

Despite the power he claimed to have given me, I was helpless.

That was what he wanted.

Blood sang in my ears, and the world narrowed to the pounding beat of the crimson orb and the chill of his gaze.

The edges of my vision darkened, and the room shrank around me as the weight of his magic enveloped me. Still, his words echoed in my head.

“You have always been mine—”

Inevitable.

Inescapable.

No.

I couldn’t let those words be true.

But it hurt. It hurt to fight him.

His control was everywhere.

It burned through my veins like ice and fire and coiled around my heart.

The terror built in me—it was twisted—the allure of how easy it would have been to give in and let the darkness take hold of me hovered at the edges of my consciousness.

Was that what the grimoire wanted?

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