Page 40 of Untraced Magic (Cutters Cove Witches #1)

I thought of Tyler and the connection we shared. How much I loved him. In that moment, I swore nothing would tear us apart. Nothing .

Helena continued, her head tilting to the side, “Morgan, you possess magic that can do great things. We could do great things… if you would let me guide you.”

Rage consumed every part of me. Scarred my heart. Buried itself in my bones.

I remembered what the stranger in the cells had told me. His words of warning.

‘You must have something she wants.’

Her eyes pierced mine. Like calls to like. Was that how the saying went? Well, I would prove whoever made up the stupid saying wrong.

If she was darkness, then I was the light. I was everything she was not.

I steadied my voice. “I would never hurt anyone or use my magic for anything other than good.”

Helena’s hands white-knuckled the throne-like thing she sat on.

“With all due respect, Morgan, you haven’t truly become one with your magic.”

I wrestled against Wesley’s hold again, spitting my words at her. “I have the rest of my life to learn, and it won’t be with your help.”

“Very well then.” She nodded to Wesley over my shoulder. “You know what to do.”

Horror tore through my veins, filling my insides with dread. I glanced back at Wesley, where his lips pressed grimly into a thin line.

I forced myself to look back to Helena as she rose to her feet, each footstep toward me its own countdown to whatever came next. Her demeanor changed. Eyes disgusted and uninterested, she looked at me as if I was nothing but an inconvenience in whatever her sick and twisted plan was.

She glared at me menacingly, folding her hands in front of herself. “If you won’t use your magic the way it’s meant to be used, then it is to be mine.”

I lowered my voice, spite filling my tone. “I would rather die than let you have my magic, you sick bitch.”

Helena dismissed the comment, her wrist flicking through the air again.

“You know, it took a long time for me to track down this sensor mage to help me find you. To think you were living under his very nose...”

Anger rippled through me at Wesley’s betrayal, my fury boring into him. He dropped his gaze to his feet.

“Once he syphons your power from you, it will be all mine, and I can finally do what I’ve wanted all these years.”

I stiffened at the word syphon. Could Wesley really do that?

“And what exactly do you plan to do with my magic?” I sneered. If I was to survive whatever was about to go down, I needed to know what her intentions were. Was the stranger in the basement correct? He had mentioned something about opening the portal to the Underworld...

“There are places you could only dream of, Morgan, ones that exist right under our very feet. Only a power like your own could produce enough magic to take us there.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, Helena,”—I refused to use the term mother —“but there is no us .”

She curled a finger around a loose strand of her hair. “Very well then. I hope your magic is more useful than your father’s.”

Ice-cold realization slid through me.

I motioned toward the cells. “ That’s my father you have locked up in there?”

She ignored the question. “Do it,” she ordered.

Wesley tensed behind me, his body turning rigid against my back.

Helena stepped closer. “Wesley, do I need to remind you…”

“On it,” he replied through clenched teeth.

Wesley’s hand clamped down on my shoulder, and I flung around to face him, anger funneling through me as we clashed in a standoff.

“On your knees,” he ordered, his grip on me trying to force me to the ground, but I refused to yield.

“Why are you doing this? You’re better than this, Wes, and you know it.”

“Now.” His voice came louder this time, as if he was trying to convince us both.

His irises had turned a murky shade of green, so dark they bordered on black, but my feet remained rooted to the ground. I would not bow down to him, to either of them.

I pulled myself straighter, lifting my chin and staring him down.

As if my defiance demanded punishment, an unseen force drove me to the ground and I was at its mercy, succumbing to it immediately. My knees crunched as they hit the floorboards, aching at the forced landing.

His wide eyes darted to Helena with a confusion that I was sure mirrored my own .

The force hadn’t come from him.

“You’re welcome,” Helena said matter-of-factly, looking back at him with boredom. “You know what needs to be done.”

Fear bobbed in my throat, my limbs numb, having completely abandoned me at this point, frozen in place in some haunting stupor.

I slammed my eyes closed, willing my magic to come forward once more, focused on Tyler. His scent, his touch, the bond. Anything . It produced nothing but a stabbing ache in my head, and I cried out.

Frustration poured from me, expelling in the only form it could.

“You bitch! How could you do this?”

Helena’s heels clicked closer. “Your magic won’t work, Morgan. Simple really, once you know how.”

I’d never used the word hate in my life.

It had always revolted me.

But now I knew its true nature and it was standing right in front of me in the form of my apparent mother. It clung to my every word, causing my voice to lower, my syllables slick with it as it wrenched at my heart.

“I’m glad my father sent me away. You could never raise a child. You’re nothing but sick and twisted. Tyler will kill you if anything happens to me.” I hissed.

She tutted, “Careful now, Morgan. Dare I remind you that snarky little mouth of yours can be easily sealed shut? It’s sad, really. This all could have worked out so much differently.”

I stilled at her last comment even when every fiber of me wanted to scream at her, tear her eyes out with my nails until blood spilled down her death-like cheek bones and stained the floor.

I forced myself to look at Wesley in one last-ditch effort to stop whatever happened next. “You don’t have to do this. Whatever’s going on, we can fix it. She’s gone mad, and you know it.”

Wesley’s knuckles popped against the silence, ricocheting off the stone walls. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

He stared down at me, sinking any hope I had of changing his mind into a pit of hopelessness.

Helena’s footsteps faded into the distance as I pleaded with him. Every soul-drenching piece of me a silent plea as I stared up at him until he lowered in front of me, his gaze meeting mine momentarily.

The cracking of his knuckles again tore through the stifling silence between us, his breathing becoming heavier.

Was he stalling?

Through clenched teeth, I whispered, “Whatever you are about to do, please don’t,” I leveled with him. “You don’t have to do this.”

We were at the same height, the Wes I once knew now tainted with a darker version of him or was that… desperation?

Just as quietly, his voice hit my ears. “Don’t fight me. You need to let me in, or I could kill you.”

I shook my head. “You can stop this; you know you can.”

Wes grimaced. “I can’t. Now let me in.”

His eyes slid shut, head rolling from one side to the other as his hands sank into my scalp. I held my breath, knowing what was coming next, a giant breath bobbing in my throat as I stared into the blackest form of the night sky embedded in his skull.

Oh, hell no, not this again.

“No!” I gasped.

I’d succumbed to Wesley’s power before, the last time willingly letting him in, and he had done so gently, but not this time.

The pads of his fingers gouged into my scalp, fighting for access, and I pushed back, mentally shielding him from entry.

I willed my subconscious to stand firm, but he was too powerful, his essence first blotting as it seeped through my mental shields before spreading like spilled ink as it scrawled over my subconscious.

Intense pain fired through my limbs. White-hot, like shards of glass slicing through every vein.

“ Stop !” I yelled, clawing my scalp in agony.

I would never let him in. Not this time. No one would take my magic from me.

I withdrew into a slice of myself he hadn’t found yet, hiding from him in the depths of my mind. I pictured my deepest love, the warmth Tyler brought to my soul, the desire that rocked me in his mere presence.

Something snapped inside me, and I let out a piercing cry, internally praying Tyler could hear me.

Help me! I screamed as a wave of sobs shuddered my chest, wracking my body.

I couldn’t hold on any longer, the fortress I’d wielded internally being torn down piece by piece, Wesley’s power unfathomably strong .

Hold on, princess.

My breath caught in my lungs, breaking my concentration at the sound of Tyler’s voice in my head. His voice flooded through me, and I wondered if I was imagining it.

A beat.

A breath.

A distraction.

I felt him then. Clawing. Wesley’s power flooding my subconscious, taking what was mine .

My magic slipping from me as if it were never there.

The one thing gifted to me at birth, my magic, my soul, was being ripped from me through this tether Wesley held over me, and there was not a damn thing I could do to stop it.

Blood-curling screams filled the room. My screams. Spine-curling, earth-shattering like he was tearing my soul into a million tiny pieces and discarding them among the stars.

My head throbbed as if it had its own beat, tears spilling down my cheeks. My heart squeezed so tight it burned, like the devil had lashed it, claiming it as his own, and I knew this was the end.

Glass shattered somewhere as I fought back against Wesley, my scream tearing at my eardrums as I felt the last of my magic leave me.

The clawing in my mind faltered for a split second.

A quiet spread over me.

I felt weightless.

Without warning, air forced into my lungs in a quick breath as my magic shunted hard back into me. So hard I flew backwards .

Then darkness.

I had never seen such a thing. There were no warps or shades to its devastating beauty. A treasure kept from the night sky and the darkest of storms reserved only for this moment. I sank into its pit of nothingness. It was a welcoming and addictive place.

Deeper and deeper.

Until I could sink no further.