Page 20

VIOLET

A s I was still recovering from the earth-shattering orgasm Kenji had caused, my boys cleaned me up, dressed me, cuddled me, held me in their arms like I was their most prized possession, something valuable that was worth protecting.

They took care of me in a way that made me feel blind. How hadn’t I seen their true feelings? Of course, they were dictatorial, arrogant, and controlling. Still, the hints had been there all that time: the way they worried about my well-being, the undeniable jealousy when I was in the presence of other guys, how they did everything in their power to keep me close.

I’d been stupid; that was evident.

Despite the need to pee, despite the guilt trying to slither its way into me now that my mind was clear again, I didn’t move from the tangle of bodies on the bed. The warmth surrounding me was a safe bubble I didn’t want to pop. Why would I? Out there, waiting for me, was the awareness I’d spent more than an hour screwing and cuddling when my best friend was still out there.

Truthfully, I knew such a short amount of time wouldn’t have made a difference, especially since we were starting again from scratch, but part of me still felt terrible.

"What's on your mind, love?" Quinn, lying between my legs with his chin resting on my lower belly, devotedly caressed my hips. "Talk to us, please."

I bit my inner cheek. They were still waiting for a response to their confessions. They hadn’t said a thing about it, but I could tell: there was an edge of expectation in the subtle energy filling the room.

I knew what I felt for them. I'd never had clearer feelings before, truthfully. Admitting it felt so final, though. There was no turning back from there.

A voice in my head reminded me I wasn’t interested in turning back, but there I was, keeping quiet. An idiot, really.

"Maybe we should get going" I murmured, removing Nicholas's arm from my chest and Kenji's from my stomach to sit up. The shift forced Quinn to rest his head on my thigh instead. "It's a long way to the Coven. And Daisy, she…"

“She will be fine” Kenji chimed in, sitting up as well. “Guaranteed.”

“We made you a promise, now, didn’t we?” Nicholas scoffed and rolled his eyes, seemingly annoyed, but the thumb distractedly brushing my shoulder told a different story. “Your friend will be back here in no time.”

Letting out a long sigh, I weakly nodded. I’d made my decision: changing my mind wasn’t an option, now.

“Quinn, could you…” I brushed his tousled hair back, hand traveling down his neck. “I should get up.”

“To go where?” Nicholas grumbled.

As Quinn slowly pushed himself back, I turned to give Nicholas a look. "To the restroom. Am I allowed?"

He muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

My joke wasn't entirely a joke: ever since we'd been intimate, the boys had become even clingier. They were constantly touching me, making sure I was close, staring at me like they feared I was going to vanish into thin air.

“When are we leaving?” I asked, climbing off the bed.

“Ten minutes. We should be home before dark.”

Making my way to the bathroom, I sighed in relief. Home meant we’d start looking for ways to bring Daisy back.

Just know I haven’t abandoned you , I thought, stupidly hoping it would somehow get to her. I'm coming, Dais. Just hold on a little longer.

I closed the restroom door behind my back, squinting to see something in the semidarkness. I sensed the wall, searching for the light switch, but the room turned brighter before I could find it. It was a faint glow painting every surface a pale blue. I spun around, determined to find the cause of the light, and my breath hitched in my throat.

“Took you long enough, young lady.”

Elphias stood by the sink with crossed arms and a lopsided smile. The tiled wall behind him had a giant rectangular gap in it, filled with what looked like glowing water.

“He’s here!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, turning and reaching for the door handle. “Elphias is here!”

I didn’t get to open the door.

A moment later, something hard struck the back of my head, and all went dark.

???

I woke up gasping, choking on the thick air, mind still clawing its way out of the darkness.

Something was off; I knew it right away.

When I tried to move, panic bloomed in my chest because I couldn’t. My wrists—tied. My ankles—immobile. The more I struggled, the more the restraints dug into my skin, rough, unyielding. They pinned me against something hard, cold, irregular. Stone, probably.

No. No, no, no.

My stomach twisted violently as I forced my eyes open. The room was dim, heavy with shadows, and the vague flickering of candlelight revealed what my body had already figured out. The stone slab beneath me was etched with runes, each one glowing a faint blue. I could feel the magic humming beneath me, sliding up my spine like a parasite, foreign and invasive.

A shudder ran through me, my chest rising and falling in shallow breaths as I tried to gather the little information I had.

First, Elphias had kidnapped me from the motel restroom. Second, he wanted something from me—magic. My mimicking power, in particular. Third, my boys knew what had happened because I'd screamed for them right before being kidnapped. Fourth, I was tied up in a room that was probably underground: the smell of damp earth was so strong it sickened me.

I tried again to pull free, yanking my legs back with as much strength as I could, but all I achieved was a burning feeling around my ankles.

Fuck.

Something cold and ugly took root in my chest, a deep, suffocating feeling that I tried to shove down, but it dug its claws into my ribs and refused to let go. I’d been taken. Again. This time, I’d been smart enough to understand what would happen but not quick or strong enough to prevent it.

I was tired. Tired of it, of me, of my limitations.

Before I could tug at my restraints again, footsteps started echoing and bouncing off the rough walls of the chamber, the sound seemingly coming from every direction.

Elphias. It had to be him.

The moment he came into view, the fear gnawing at my stomach turned sharp, slicing through me like a blade. But right beneath it, right beneath the dread curling like toxic smoke around my lungs, something else moved.

Rage.

Elphias stopped beside me, gazing down at me with a raised eyebrow. His presence was suffocating, and his magic curled in the air like a fume, pushing, hissing, stealing oxygen.

“Well, hello there, young lady.” He put on a gut-wrenching smile. “Finally awake, I see.”

His voice was smooth, almost mockingly patient, as if I were a child who had yet to grasp the simplest lessons. He dragged a finger along the symbols carved on the altar, and the runes flared in response, the stone thrumming beneath me like a living thing.

My stomach churned. “Let me go.”

It was pointless, I knew, but I had to buy some time. I didn’t know how long it would take my boys to find me, and one thing was for sure: I wasn’t getting out of that situation on my own.

"You had your chance" he replied, tilting his head as though I had personally disappointed him. "I made you an offer. A fair one at that, young lady. Had you accepted, we'd both have what we wanted, and neither of us would be in this regrettable position." He clicked his tongue. "Look at what you're forcing me to do. You'll agree with me; accepting would've been easier."

My fingers curled into fists. Fucking asshole.

He gripped the edge of the stone, leaning in close but not enough for me to bite his nose off. “You seemed inclined to say yes when I first made my offer. What changed?”

He was right. I had considered it. For one fractured, weak moment, I had considered it.

Daisy was my best friend: I would cut off a limb if that meant saving her. And she had been right there, close enough to touch, yet separated by a wall of rules and magic. Elphias had dangled a key before me, smiling like he knew I wouldn’t refuse.

But I had said no.

And now, I was strapped to an altar like a sacrificial lamb.

“It doesn’t matter what changed” I replied with gritted teeth. “I said no. You had assured us there would be no hard feelings!”

Elphias let out a dramatic sigh. “Maybe I said that, maybe I didn’t. Who cares? I still want that power of yours.”

I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw ached. "You don't get something just because you want it."

“But I do” he replied cheerfully, walking around the stone in wide steps. It seemed like he was checking something. “I do get everything I want, young lady, because I take it.”

“Not this time.” I shook my head, the only part of my body I could move. “You will take nothing from me. I refuse.”

He clicked his tongue and stopped behind me, his head poking into my field of vision. He had a fake sympathetic smile on his lips. "You refuse. How cute! And how do you think you're going to stop me? With magic you can't even summon? Optimistic.”

It was a vain hope, but I tried calling to it. It was there, I had it—it was mine, for fuck's sake! I still had a long way to go to learn how to control it properly, but it worked; I knew it did. Why did it abandon me when I needed it the most?

Come on , I thought, heart thrumming wildly against my ribcage. Please. Just this one time, please.

Nothing but a weak flicker answered my plea.

Elphias had probably realized what I was trying to do because he laughed. “Exactly. A shame, really. Such powerful magic wasted to a witch who can’t even summon it at will.” He curled his lips into a cruel grin. “You still don’t understand, do you?”

His hand hovered just above my chest, where the core of my power lazily hummed. I felt it before he even touched me—his magic pressing, probing, slithering into me like an invasive whisper. My body arched involuntarily, every nerve screaming in protest at the intrusion.

"You were never meant to win.”

Elphias was smirking.

Even as I gasped for air, my body bound against the stone altar, the pain of the restraints biting into my skin—he smirked.

The umpteenth individual who didn’t care for my freedom or my choices. The umpteenth individual who put his egotistical wishes above my right to be alive.

You were never meant to win.

But I had fought before.

I had survived before.

And I wasn’t losing now. Not to him.

A slow, burning rage coiled inside me, feeding off every word, every time I had been pushed down, held back, treated like a thing to be taken or broken.

The humiliations. The constant abuse. The beatings. The lies. The murder attempts. The power about to be stolen. Some part of me had always thought that if it was happening, then it meant I deserved it. That I'd done something that somehow justified how I was being treated.

Only now I was realizing it.

I didn’t deserve this.

I didn’t fucking deserve this.

Pushed by this sudden, shattering awareness, I reached for my magic again—not blindly, not guided by panic. I reached with purpose.

And this time, for the first time since it had awakened, my magic answered.

And it did so to protect me .

A pulse of raw energy ripped through the air, violent and untamed, snapping the restraints like they were nothing. The carved runes on the altar flickered and died, unable to contain the force that erupted from within me. A field of pure power surged outward, a shimmering shield of white-hot energy that crackled with the force of a storm.

Elphias barely had time to widen his eyes before it struck.

The blast hit him like a tidal wave, sending him flying backward. His body slammed against the far wall, the impact leaving cracks in the stone. A ragged, pained sound tore from his throat as he crumpled to the ground.

I stared, my chest heaving.

I had done that.

My powers—the same ones that had failed me, ignored me, abandoned me when I needed them most—had finally answered. Not just answered. Protected me. Fought for me.

The realization sent a thrill down my spine as I slid off the stone, legs a bit shaky.

I couldn’t wait to tell my boys.

Elphias groaned, pushing himself up onto his hands. "Well" he grunted, dragging a wheezing breath into his lungs. "That… was unexpected."

Oh, you’re not going anywhere , I thought.

And so, I didn’t give him a chance to recover.

I extended a hand, and my magic obeyed, wrapping around the severed ropes still scattered across the altar. They shot toward him, coiling around him and tying him to the column that stood a few feet away.

His breath hitched, eyes flickering with something—shock, realization, maybe even fear.

I stepped forward, heart pounding in my chest, and watched as he uselessly wriggled. I didn’t have much time: I knew he’d quickly regain enough strength to summon his magic. I didn’t have enough training to beat him, and I’d lost the element of surprise, which put me in a position of disadvantage.

Still, I hesitated. An idea was forming in my mind, and I was too high on adrenaline to ignore it.

"What does it feel like?" I wrenched the bindings tighter, watching as he struggled against them, his jaw clenching. "Being at someone's mercy, that is." My fingers twitched, sending another jolt of power through the restraints, forcing him to stay still. "Not so fun when you're on the other side, I bet."

Elphias's lips curled into a snarl, but he said nothing.

For the first time, he had no mockery, no smug amusement, no words meant to cut me down.

For the first time, I had won. All because of me.

Best thing was, I wasn’t done yet.

Elphias struggled against the bindings, but it was useless. The ropes coiled tighter at my command, locking him in place, every movement getting him nothing but pain.

I stepped closer, my breath still uneven, my pulse roaring in my ears. I had him.

And I was about to take everything I needed.

Magic surged between us like a violent current, crackling as it met resistance. He tried to fight me, to throw up barriers, but I was already inside. Pushing, digging, ripping through his thoughts.

Pain cut through my skull, like something jagged was tearing through my own mind, but I pushed harder. Flashes of memory unraveled before me: an ancient gateway, covered in twisting symbols invisible to the eye, hidden deep in a cave, pulsing with dark energy; the incantation whispered under his breath, a blend of fae and ancient, prohibited magic; the blood sacrifice that sealed the portal; the fae realm, shimmering on the other side, vast and treacherous, calling.

I had what I needed.

Elphias let out a ragged gasp as I wrenched myself from his mind, his body jerking violently against the bindings. His magic recoiled, but he was weakened, his chest heaving, his face pale.

I had taken what he never meant to give.

He glared up at me, hatred burning bright. “You—”

I didn’t let him finish.

With one swift, brutal movement, I lifted my hand and sent a pulse of energy directly into his skull. Not enough to kill him—but enough to send him into a deep, heavy unconsciousness.

His head snapped back against the column with a dull thud, his body going still.

I stood in front of him, breathing hard, watching as the last traces of resistance left his features.

The air still hummed with the result of my magic surge as I turned around, my heart pounding hard.

The knowledge burned inside me.

I knew where the portal was.

I knew how to open it.

And I knew what I had to do next.

I pressed my hand against a panel of stone, the one I’d seen in Elphias’s mind. It shifted beneath my touch, the magic inside humming softly—

And then a door swung open.

A hidden passage.

Without sparing Elphias a glance, I walked through.