Page 39 of Owned

“It is inevitable,” he said. “A decision already made.”

“I won’t.” I pushed back as much as I dared. But there was no strength behind my words, no conviction.

“You will marry me,” he said. A simple statement of fact. “And you will obey me.” He leaned close, his breath a ghost of ice on my skin. “And should you betray me—” The pause was long and deliberate. “You will suffer.”

The red bands of smoke around my wrists tightened briefly, and then fell away and I looked down as they dissipated.

I rubbed my wrists angrily as I glared back at him.

He dismissed me with a wave of his hand and walked back toward his desk and stepped on the papers I had tried to burn with a careless stride.

“Do not disappoint me again, Avril,” he said as I stumbled away from him. “No more acts of childish rebellion— Soon you will be the mistress of this estate, and there will be no room for such… disobedience.”

I didn’t have any words to answer him. The red orb hovered just above his shoulder and pulsed with a steady rhythm. I backed away, unable to tear my eyes from him until I reached the door and the unsettling chill of the hallway brushed against my calves.

Without thinking, I turned and ran.

I stumbled through the halls of the manor with Lucian’s words echoing in my mind.

The mistress of this estate.

It felt like a noose tightening around my neck.

When I reached my room, I slammed the door behind me, but the vastness of my impending fate quickly overwhelmed my fleeting satisfaction. The room was dark and cold, and shadows clung to the corners like cobwebs as I leaned against the door and tried to bring my breathing back under control.

I had convinced myself that the wedding wouldn’t happen.

That, somehow, something would happen to keep it at bay.

But now—

No one was coming to save me. That left only one option—I’d have to save myself.

Titus, Valen, and Bastian—they were too afraid to stand against their father.

They were waiting for the right time to strike…

But I wasn’t so sure that time would ever come.

Lucian only seemed stronger and more powerful every time I saw him.

For a moment, I stood still and let the silence of the room seep into me like poison. Then something within me snapped, and I lashed out with my magic—like a child throwing a tantrum. The burst of magic knocked over a vase and I let out a cry as a vase filled with dark flowers toppled over and shattered on the floor in a spray of gilded porcelain and water.

I could feel the strange magic in my veins stirring again, restless and hungry. I felt Clara there too, her essence wild and writhing within me, mingling with the power I’d stolen from my stepbrothers.

I gritted my teeth against the surge of it.

Remnants—Lucian hadn’t been lying about that.

Somewhere deep beneath the fury that swirled through me was fear.

Fear that Lucian was right—fear that I would lose myself completely before I had a chance to bring it under control.

But what did I know about control?

When had I ever had control of anything in my life?

I sank onto the bed and buried my face in my hands. He would never let me go; he had said so himself.

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