Taken (Book Six) (Fated Saga Fantasy Series) by Rachel Humphrey - D'aigle

Was there anyone that wasn’t taken in by the need for more power? He folded his arms in defiance.
    Amelia understood his silent message and turned to leave. Before she did so though , she stopped and turned to him, her voice overly pleasant as she spoke.
    “Just one last thought to leave you with. If you could break the bond that Juliska has over you, would you? You can never take away the monster inside of you, but if you could control it, yourself, would you choose to?”
    Jae knew he had instantly given himself away. Was it possible to break the bond? He looked down, hiding his face with his dangly hair.
    “Just so you know, the bond is breakable, Jae Moch rie. You help me, I help you. Just think about it.”

    Chapter 4
     
    Meghan wa tched in terror as her friends disappeared from view, leaving her alone with Colby. He let go of her and fell to his knees holding his head. His thoughts invaded hers and she struggled to focus, or even open her eyes. She reached out and grabbed onto him, fearing she would lose her balance and fall off the small piece of earth remaining under their feet.
    “Colby, you have to get a grip!” she shouted. She tried pushing his thoughts out of her mind and focus on her own. Colby sensed what she was doing and shifted focus off his own thoughts, latching on to hers.
    Suddenly, they were no longer standing on a small mound of earth, surrounded by a deep pit of nothingness, but in a familiar spot she never thought she’d return to: Grimble. The ghost town where she and Colin had met their Uncle Eddy, a ghost who had waited in the afterlife to tutor them just as they had started living in the magical world of the Svoda. Except that she was watching herself, and Ivan. What was this? A memory? It couldn’t be real, they’d already lived this moment.
    Colby blinked a few times, getting his bearings and catching his breath. The rumble of thoughts was gone.
    “What is this?” asked Colby, at first confused. “Wait, I remember this.”
    “What did you do?” she demanded angrily . “How are we here?”
    “I- I think I latched on to one of your memories and now we are ... I don’t know, stuck in it...”
    “Perfect,” she mumbled. “Like I needed to relive this.”
    “It was the first time we met,” Colby r eminded her.
    “Again, like I need to relive it.”
    “This was one of the first jobs my father sent me on.”
    “One in which you killed Ivan, and tried to kill me. Or did I need to remind you of that fact?”
    Colby looked at her. “Knowing what I know now, I guess I’m sorry about that last part.”
    “Knowing what you know now? You guess you’re sorry!” she repeated. “ What? Now that you know me you wouldn’t have tried to kill me?”
    He did not reply, but watched as the memory unfolded. Nona, Meghan’s loyal Catawitch, was running straight past them in a hurry.
    “I didn’t know it, but Nona was racing to help me,” Meghan explained impatiently. “I thought for a minute she had abandoned me.”
    “Ha! Like that could happen.”
    “I know that now,” she retorted. “She was actually racing to free someone, someone that helped me. Saved my life.”
    “You mean that boy that transformed from a bird... yeah, that actually caught me off guard. Didn’t expect that. Did you know it was bird boy that delivered the book to me, just moments before that happened?”
    Meghan sighed. “ I wasn’t totally sure, but I suspected as much, seeing as he admitted to me that he had attacked my brother and stolen the book. Hey!” she said, stopping abruptly. “Since we’re stuck here, what did he trade you for anyway?”
    “I don’t think I can tell you that.”
    Meghan did not hear him, as she watched herself and Ivan hiding in the dirty rag-filled bins near the ghost huts. She gasped when Nona came striding back into the woods, hopping around the other side of the hut. Seconds later, she saw Sebastien walk into the woods. Nona had released him from the cage she had