Chapter 3
OWNED
ELIZA
What was I?
That was what he asked me.
And the problem with that was… I didn’t know.
I had no clue how I had freed Bo. No clue how I had generated such power.
I was mortal, wasn’t I? Which meant I shouldn’t possess any supernatural gifts, especially not ones capable of summoning demons, opening portals, or cracking stone as easily as I cracked my morning eggs.
I shouldn’t have been able to do any of it.
And yet, here I was, standing face to face with an angry demonic overlord I had apparently just pissed off by destroying his magic.
That was the worst part. The not knowing what or who I was.
Not the way his hand tightened around my arm.
Not the silver blaze of his eyes. A gaze fixed so intensely on my face that it felt as though he were trying to strip the truth straight out of me.
Not even the fractured remains of the marble circle still glowing faintly at our feet could compete with the one thought that refused to loosen its grip on my mind.
Something about me had just broken his magic.
My lips parted, but for a second, nothing came out. My mind felt like it had been scooped hollow. Every thought stumbled over the next in blind panic, and all I could hear was the echo of those words still ringing through me.
What are you… my little Siren?
Siren.
The word settled between us in a way I couldn’t quite explain. Like it carried meaning I wasn’t supposed to understand yet. Like it wasn’t just a name at all, but the answer to a question I didn’t even know how to ask.
“I…” My voice caught embarrassingly in my throat, and I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.
“I don’t know.” The words came out weaker than I meant them to, smaller somehow.
For the first time since I had met him, I thought I saw something in Oblivion’s expression that looked dangerously close to being unguarded. Not softness, not exactly, and certainly not mercy. But something that looked like fury and disbelief had collided, and neither one had won.
Then his gaze moved.
It happened so quickly I almost missed it, just a flick of those pale, inhuman eyes beyond me, out across the club, but it was enough to make my own attention follow it. And the second I looked around, that’s when the cold began to creep under my skin.
The entire room was staring.
At me.
Every single face on the upper level had turned toward me. Every demon that was gathered near the ruined circle. Every strange, beautiful, unnerving creature that had filled this place only moments ago with music and noise and movement.
All of them were now looking at me. Not at their Lord… but at the one who had defeated him.
It wasn’t curiosity anymore. Not like when I first stumbled into this place, and they all stared at me like I was the first mortal they had ever seen here. This wasn’t that. No, this was something else. Something far more guarded, as some of them had actually stepped back.
Whispered voices started up at the edges of the silence, words that were impossible to make out. But I didn’t need to hear them to understand the feeling behind them.
Fear.
They were afraid of me.
Which would have been laughable if it hadn’t also been the most terrifying thing I had ever experienced in my life.
Because I was not the frightening one here.
I was five foot four on a generous shoe day, collected frogs, and ate way more pizza and ice cream than what was good for me.
A curvy girl, currently trapped in a green dress I had not picked for myself, standing in the middle of a broken magical circle in a demon nightclub.
And added to that, now facing a man who ruled the room like a dark god.
One who had just asked me what I was in a tone that suggested the answer might rearrange both our lives.
I wasn’t the danger. I was the idiot who still had no clue how I had managed to shout weird ancient syllables into the air and blow apart a spell. A spell cast by someone who looked as though reality itself bent slightly to accommodate him.
Yet the further my gaze moved, the worse it became.
A woman with silver horns curling back through black hair had gone utterly still, her glass frozen halfway to her mouth.
A sharply dressed man with skin just a little too gray beneath the club lighting had taken a step behind another body.
As though instinct had made the decision before his pride could stop it.
Even the demons who still looked mostly human were giving me a wider berth now, and the more I saw it, the faster my chest started to rise and fall.
No.
No, no, no.
This was bad. This was so much worse than bad.
I didn’t know what I had done, and apparently neither did the terrifying ruler of this place.
My pulse kicked harder. I could actually hear it, feel it everywhere.
In my throat, in my wrists, behind my eyes, and I took a step back before realizing I couldn’t.
Because he still had hold of me.
The room suddenly seemed far too open, too exposed, too full of faces and murmurs and things with teeth pretending not to have them.
I must have tensed badly enough for him to feel it, because before I could think what to do next, his grip on me changed.
Not looser, but… tighter.
His fingers closed more firmly around my arm, then slid, controlled and unyielding, until his hand bracketed me.
It made one thing very clear. I wasn’t about to go anywhere without his permission.
My breath hitched as he turned slightly toward me, his body angling between me and the room in one fluid movement.
One that somehow felt both possessive and protective.
Which was an extremely inconvenient combination when I was already fighting not to spiral.
“Oblivion…” I started, although I had no idea what I was even going to say after his name.
Although clearly, it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, as his jaw flexed once.
“Enough.”
That was all he said. Just that one word, and one that carried none of the velvet warmth he had used on me before.
But it was enough to shoot another spark of panic through me.
Because this was different. He was different.
Not out of control, no, which might have actually been easier to understand.
But this felt more like watching a dangerous creature, waiting for the moment it finally decided to pounce.
And pounce he did, as something dark and immediate changed in his expression.
He wasn’t the only one watching the reaction ripple through the room because of me.
Which meant that before I had time to do more than pull in another breath, he started moving.
“Wait,” I said, stumbling as he tugged me with him.
“Wait, where are you taking me?” I asked in a panicked tone, but he didn’t answer.
My heels caught slightly against the marble, and I twisted, trying to look back over my shoulder at the ruined circle.
At the crowd, at anything that might make this make sense, but all it did was make my panic spike harder.
The room was still watching. I could feel it, every single glance skimming over my skin.
And now the thought of him dragging me away somewhere private when he was already this furious made a bolt of fear shoot right through me.
“Oblivion!” The name came out sharper this time, edged with strain.
“What are you doing?”
A rough sound left him under his breath. Something dark and cold and definitely not meant for me to understand. The words curled ominously from his mouth in a language I didn’t know but, somehow, understood on instinct alone as irritation.
A complaint. A warning. A curse… maybe all three.
Then, before I could make any sense of it, the world tipped.
I barely had time to gasp before one of his arms came around me, and I was lifted clean off my feet as though I weighed absolutely nothing.
A startled noise flew out of me as he swung me up and over his shoulder in one infuriatingly effortless movement.
And for a second, I could only hang there in total disbelief, my hair falling forward, my dignity departing my body at speed.
“You cannot be serious!” I snapped, twisting enough to realize with absurd clarity that, at least, he had thrown me over the shoulder without the spiked armor on it. Which was, all things considered, weirdly thoughtful for a man currently abducting me for what felt like the second time.
I didn’t know whether to take that as a good sign or not.
“Put me down!” I hissed, bracing a hand against his back and trying very hard not to think about how solid he felt beneath my palm. Which was so not the detail I should have been noticing right now.
“Oblivion, put me down!” I demanded, but once again… nothing.
Not a word, not a pause in his stride, not even the decency to pretend he was considering it.
He just kept walking. The world bounced slightly with each step he took.
Dark polished floors and blurred lights spun past my vision.
Somewhere beyond them, demons suddenly seemed to remember they should scramble out of his path.
My stomach tightened as I caught sight of the office door ahead and instantly remembered being inside it before.
Remembered the strange intimacy of that room compared to the chaos beyond it.
Remembered how easily he had filled the space simply by standing in it.
The thought of being taken in there now, made me struggle harder.
“Stop!” I said, breathless now more from nerves than effort.
“Please, just stop for a second.”
Still nothing.
His hand spread more firmly against the back of my thigh to keep me in place as I squirmed.
The contact sent a stupid, traitorous little shiver through me that only made me more annoyed with myself.
This was not the time for my body to notice him.
This was the time for survival instincts, panic, strategy, maybe even saying a prayer.