Page 42 of Untraced Magic (Cutters Cove Witches #1)

I held her face in the palms of my hands. “Who did this to you? I saw Wes… did he?”

I couldn’t bring myself to speak the words. Betrayal, a bitter taste I couldn’t swallow.

She nodded while murmuring something I could barely make out. It sounded like the word Helena.

Brutal realization ripped through me at knowing Wes had something to do with this. The deceit was next level. Devastating .

My hands fanned through her hair. “I thought I’d lost you. I’ve never felt so…” Lost for words, I soaked in her doe eyes. My doe eyes.

I brushed my lips against hers, an agony of emotions charging from me into the kiss. It pulled me into an emotional state I wasn’t ready for.

Tears drenched my cheeks. “I love you so much. You’re everything to me.”

A faint smile curved her mouth, her breath barely there. “I love you, too.”

I held her in my arms until our mate bond helped her regain strength, just as Betty mentioned it would.

“We really need to leave,” I said, motioning toward the licks of flames spreading fast.

Fear possessed her features when she saw the inferno I’d created .

I choked on a breath. “Can you walk?”

She hesitantly nodded. “I think so.”

I helped pull her to her feet, questions burning her gaze as she stared at me.

“You’ve got wings ?” she breathed. She moved behind me, studying the new extension from my back. Her eyes filled with awe. “They’re like a phoenix.”

She ran a finger along a feather, and a delicious shiver grazed my spine, my mind veering on the edge of the gutter.

I straightened. “So it seems, but right now, we have to get out of here.” I coughed as another wad of smoke filled my lungs.

A mixture of magic and adrenaline charged through my veins, my vision so clear I could see the tiniest of grains magnified.

Movement caught my eye and my head spun toward it. A woman, crouched behind a large structure at the front of the building.

Morgan’s grip on my arm tightened. “That’s my mother. You need to stop her,” she wheezed.

“Your mother?” Did I hear her correctly?

Morgan nodded in desperation. “She suppressed my magic, then tried to steal it. She wants to open the portal to the Underworld.”

“She tried to steal it?” I said incredulously.

Morgan heaved in a breath. “It was Wesley, he tried to syphon it to her.”

Wesley could syphon magic? What the fuck?

She doubled over, releasing smoke filled air from her lungs. “It left me, I felt it leave me, Ty. Then for some reason it crashed back into me again.” Her tired eyes pleaded with mine. “You need to stop her. Please .”

I frowned. “Are you sure you want me to do this? I could…”

Words failed me, unable to finish the sentence. Morgan knew how powerful my gift was. She didn’t need to hear how easily using it could end her mother’s life.

Morgan’s mother looked directly at me, a desolate hatred weaving through her irises. No doubt at my interruption to whatever shitshow I’d walked in on. She looked like death on a stick, her scrawny frame and hollowed out cheek bones a sickening sight.

Her steps echoed off the stone floor as she came closer, her head tilting to the side.

Inspecting me.

Sizing me up like prey.

“And who might you be?” She came closer still, zeroing in on me. “Who dares to interrupt me, and set a blaze to this church?”

“You tried to kill my mate,” I said, my tone even.

She sashayed her hand in the air. “I did no such thing to your mate .” Her frivolous laugh echoed through the church. “You’re a very brave man, aren’t you?” she mused, her neck craning. “Do you have any idea who you’re talking to? What I could do to you in a mere heartbeat?”

I clenched my fists, caught in the indecision of using my magic for fear of killing Morgan’s mother.

I deadpanned her. “I don’t give a fuck who or what you are. Now, fuck off before I incinerate you,” I seethed .

Fire pummeled through my veins, a continuous, vicious heat burning to be freed again at my will. I had no doubt this woman was powerful; the way she held herself and looked at me like nothing more than a piece of shit on her shoe told me that alone.

I put my body between her and Morgan.

“No one hurts my mate and gets away with it.”

She folded her arms across her body, her painted fingertips fluttering on her arm. “Your pathetic little mate could have done incredible things. Instead, she cowers behind you.”

I remained still, my vision focused on her every movement.

Her footsteps became cautious as she moved closer again, a mere thirty feet away now.

A cunning glimmer spoiled her irises. “Should we play a little game of cat and mouse, do you think? I do like to chase,” she taunted.

I lowered my voice, venom dripping off every syllable. “Touch her and I’ll rip your throat out.”

She glowered, like I’d just dangled the bait right in front of her.

The woman’s arms rose up beside her, shocking swirls of magic crawling from her fingertips and misting into the air above her. The shadows stretched like tendrils, their deathly presence a ghastly thing lunging toward us.

Morgan screamed behind me, her cry penetrating the walls of the church and vibrating throughout me. “Tyler!”

I forced my magic through my veins and into my palms once more.

It was pure euphoria, like a riptide pulling it from me as I expelled my magic and aimed for the woman.

Two fireballs tore across the room, colliding between us with her shadow magic in spirals of gold and ink.

I commanded my fire element to form a wall of flame, forcing it against her magic, but she was incredibly strong, her shadows pushing hard against my fiery barrier.

I cursed, and an almighty roar left me. Blood rushed through my veins under the immense pressure of it all, pushing to the surface and cording my forearms like a braided river.

What the fuck was this woman? I’d seen shadow magic before, but this? This was next level insane.

Our magic dueled between us, pushing and pulling against the other until perspiration coated my neck, my forehead.

Helena was relentless. A powerful witch.

Locking my jaw, I twisted my arms as if it would release some new energy into my element, every muscle inside me tensed to the point of exhaustion.

I wouldn’t let her overwhelm me.

Morgan, my only priority to keep safe.

Smoke filled the air around us, teasing our magic and making my eyes water. I became aware of Morgan’s presence at my side.

“Morgan, you have to try, I can’t hold her off much longer!”

I turned my head to find her staring down at her splayed-out hands like they weren’t her own. As if pleading with them.

“I don’t know if this is going to work!” She cried out, before black orbs collected in her palms, glistening. They floated ever so slightly above her skin, her mouth falling open.

“You can do it,” I urged, as Helena’s magic pushed even closer. I felt the tendons in my neck popping from the immeasurable pressure. “Now!”

Beside me, Morgan raised her arms to the side, palms facing her mother. With one sudden movement she threw them in front of her with an almighty scream, her element expelling to join mine.

Helena’s shadows retreated, but not by much. I felt her magic waver ever so slowly as our wall of magic enveloped her, surrounding her.

Morgan sank to her knees inhaling a chest full of thick air. I feared she would lose concentration, stall her magic.

“Stay with me!” I grunted, stealing a glance at her before turning back to Helena. What I saw, nearly popped my eyes from my sockets.

Surrounding her was Betty and our friends. No , an apparition of the group, in a tight circle, holding hands just as I had left them.

What the fuck?

Eyes closed and lips moving, the licking of flames suffocated their voices.

A chant. A spell?

Immediately I felt their elements join ours, the light brush of air, the metallic taste of blood.

Our magic tightened around her, swirling, until an almighty wave of magic shunned into her, rendering her immobile and dropping her to her knees. She let out a bone chilling cry that vibrated off the walls and up my spine, before collapsing to the ground, deathly still .

Cautiously commanding my magic to retreat, I stood frozen in disbelief of what had just happened. I couldn’t explain it, but knew I’d find out more if we made it out of here alive.

I turned to Morgan, where she remained motionless, her lips moving in soundless syllables.

I stared at her in awe. My powerful mate.

“We need to get out of here.” I said, wrapping my arm around her waist.

“Wait, my father… we need to get him out!”

My brows pitched. “Your father?”

Morgan didn’t respond as she motioned to a large door. She started toward it, and I followed her close behind.

Blinking furiously, my eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light spread over what appeared to be some sort of tomb-turned-dungeon.

“Father!” Morgan rushed to a cell block near the back of the room, glancing back at me. “Please help him.”

I rushed beside her, staring at an older man with a full beard and frail frame, frantically scrambling to his feet inside the cell block. He stilled, registering Morgan’s words.

Clutching the bars in his hands, confusion stapled to his forehead.

“Morgan? Is it really you?” he exclaimed.

Tears soaked her cheeks. “Yes, Father, it’s me.”

Bars between them, they wrapped their arms around each other, emotion shuddering their bodies.

She took his face in her hands. “Stand back. We need to get you out of here.”

He vigorously shook his head. “No. You go. Save yourselves. ”

She pushed him away, giving me the nod. “I’m not leaving you,” she snapped, standing her ground. “Now, stay back.”

I took the bars in my hands, my fingers curling around them, willing our mate bond to replenish my magic in record time. I knew it was limited, aware I would need magic to get us out of here.

My thermo powers melted the bars faster than expected, and I tore them apart enough to pull her father out. He fell into Morgan’s embrace, but we were on borrowed time.

“We need to go. Now ,” I urged, and they split apart.