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Gwen picks up both mugs and joins me at the table, sliding one my way. “So what is it you want, Sable?”
I accept the mug from her, wrapping my hands around it and letting the warmth seep into my skin. She takes a sip of hers, and I consider doing the same to be a polite guest, but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. Logic tells me that if she wanted to kill me, she could’ve done it outside the cabin rather than inviting me in and tricking me into drinking poisoned tea.
But still, I’m not quite ready to hand over complete trust yet.
Rather than taking a drink, I meet her gaze and answer her question as bluntly and honestly as I can. “I can’t control the magic in me, and I need help.”
Gwen brings her mug to her lips again, watching me intently. “Explain.”
Taking a deep breath, I give her a brief explanation of what’s been happening to me. The way my magic seems to have a mind of its own, the way it gets out of my control and tries to push me into doing things I don’t want to do. I stop short of telling her about the voice that comes from the dark cloud, the one that keeps whispering insidious commands for me to hurt or kill my mates.
A disembodied voice telling someone to do bad things isn’t normal, no matter who they are or what magic they carry.
“I just need someone who understands how witch magic works to teach me how to use it,” I finish. “How to rein it in when it gets out of control so I don’t accidentally hurt someone.”
Gwen’s long fingers tap against the side of her mug as she stares at me, an odd look on her face. For a moment, I expect her to say she won’t help us. That she has no interest in dealing with the mess of trouble we’ve brought to her doorstep. That none of this is her problem.
But instead, she looks almost concerned as she speaks.
“Sable, what you’re experiencing isn’t normal for witches. Your magic should be a part of you, as easy to control as your very thoughts. Yes, you’ll need to learn spells and sigils to guide the energy, but your magic shouldn’t be fighting you or controlling you like this. That’s not how it works.”
“What?” The word slips dumbly from my lips. Of all the things I expected Gwen to say when I finished with my fucked up story, that wasn’t one of them.
“Come here to me,” Gwen commands, her gaze moving over my bare arms. “I want to see your scars.”
I’m so surprised by what she’s told me that I immediately get to my feet and circle the table to sit in the other chair beside her. My mates bristle at our proximity, and I can sense just how much they’re not okay with the situation, but I ignore them. Compared to any other avenue I’ve found, Gwen is the absolute best source of magical knowledge.
If she wanted to kill me, she could have already.
I repeat the words over and over in my head as I extend my arm toward her.
Her fingers are cool against my skin as she takes hold of my forearm and turns it toward the firelight, exposing the pale flesh of my wrist. She studies the series of slim, pearlescent scars on my skin for a long moment, before she says, “Call up your power. Just a bit, just enough so that I can see the magic on your skin.”
I flush hot, and it has nothing to do with the fire in the hearth. I hate seeing those black marks pop up on my body and color my scars. But I shove aside my misgivings and close my eyes, focusing on the magic I can always feel just out of sight inside me. It’s like opening a door and letting the energy out—it blossoms through me as if black smoke is flooding every limb.
When I open my eyes, my scars are painted black.
Gwen traces a few lines with her fingertip, her eyes narrowed and dark with worry. She leans closer, examining my bicep before shifting her focus up and over my shoulder to my collarbone. “Are there more?”
I nod and lift the front of my tank top, cringing at the sight of the marks all over my stomach.
She keeps her hands to herself this time, but as her gaze moves over my torso, her face hardens. “These are binding sigils. You’ve been bound to someone, likely to another witch, using the magic of these sigils and through a sort of psychic link that’s been built out of them.”
My mouth falls open. My skin chills deep to my bones as I release my shirt back over my stomach. I let go of my magic as if it’s burned me, shoving it down as deep as I can, and the black marks fade away, leaving my scars the same pale tissue they usually are.
Uncle Clint gave me each and every one of these marks. I always thought… I just thought he cut me up to feel good about himself, because making me hurt made him feel powerful. Even when he was dying and confessed that he tortured me to try to force the witch or wolf out of me, I came to the conclusion that carving into my skin had been yet another way to try to make me snap.
But it wasn’t.
Or at least, it wasn’t just that.
He was marking me with sigils. Sigils that connect me to someone.
What the hell? Is that why I keep having these weird episodes? Why the darkness whispers horrible things to me?
“Do you have any idea who this witch might be?” Gwen asks, jarring me from my thoughts.
I shake my head. “No. I mean, it could have been my fake uncle, but he’s dead. He found me after I ran away from him, in a cabin out in the woods—I always wondered how he managed to track me down, but now I think he must’ve used magic. But if we were connected, wouldn’t his death have…”
