Page 55 of Who Owns You?

“I don’t know,” she whispers, blinking up at me, but her hand doesn’t move from the box.

“We all know it’s hers. Just give it to her,” Julius says, one of his hands drifting up to adjust his glasses, but they aren’t on his face, so it falls to his side uselessly.

“That is not how this works.” I’m trying to contain the agony roiling inside me.

“Marcus gave it to me. Doesn’t that make it mine?” Charlotte’s voice is trembling as she asks me the question.

Tears pool in her eyes, and I swear again, letting her take the box.

She scrambles back to the other two gargoyles in the room and holds the box to her chest. “I’m…I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me, but this is mine,” she says firmly.

I want to puff with pride but can’t seem to find the energy to feel the necessary emotion. I huff, running a hand through my hair. Between my office and here, I must have softened myself down, gone mortal in a sense to appear less threatening.

“I know it is. I don’t want to take it from you,” I tell her gently. “But Atlas…he doesn’t seem keen on courting you, even if we all are. It’s not fair to him.”

“What isn’t fair to me?” Atlas asks, striding into the room with a casual disinterest that shatters the moment he sees the heart’s box in Charlotte’s hands.

Chapter 23

ATLAS

No.

No.

No.

I do not belong to a witch.

I will not be owned.

Not again.

Chapter 24

CHARLOTTE

Atlas freezes,staring directly at the box in my hands. I clutch the special rock closer and turn slightly away.

“How could you let this happen?” Atlas lashes out at Darius, picking up an empty canvas and tossing it at the other gargoyle, who switches from his more human appearance to his supernatural form in the blink of an eye.

Darius goes to catch the frame, and his claws shred the canvas. He grips the canvas and growls at the younger gargoyle. “Go to my office.”

“Fuck your office,” Atlas barks, a laugh of pure hysterics ripping from him. “Fuck you all. How could you allow this pest to come between us?”

“She isn’t a pest,” Marcus snarls, snaking his arm around my waist and pulling me to his still-nude body.

“You know as well as we all do that she is our mate, Atlas. Even if you haven’t allowed yourself to recognize it.” Julius gives a sigh of frustration. “I am sick of this, hiding that we want her.”

“Mate?” I croak. “Like in those werewolf romance books?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Atlas hisses, spinning toward the door, whipping his tail and wings out in anger. “Of course you know what those supernaturals need, but gargoyles? Noooo, not us. We aren’timportant to witches.”

I’m struck by the rage and hurt in his voice, the venom with which he calls me awitch. I pull myself closer to Marcus and Julius, trying to weather the emotional whiplash as it rolls through me. Both gargoyles holding me stroke my spine, trying to soothe me without being overt about it. Tears fill my eyes, and I clutch the box with the orb thing to my chest. I want to keep it so badly, but if Atlas is this hurt, then maybe I should just let it go.

“What the fuck? I’m doing my best here!” I snap, voice thick with emotion.

Something in my core ignites—the magic inside me, I guess. My fingers pleasantly tingle where they touch the wood of the box, an acknowledgment of my already-formed connection.

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