Bewitched by the Wicked Witch- Chapter 2 Callum’s POV

The problem with sacrifice, I reflected as I stared at my phone with something approaching desperation, is that it makes one prone to questioning every decision. Particularly when said decisions involve ignoring increasingly frantic text messages from the woman you love more than your own life.

You were joking, right?

My thumb hovered over the screen. I wanted to type back Yes, of course I was joking. I love you. I'll always love you.But Marcus's voice echoed in my mind: "Break it off completely, Renshaw. No contact. Or we'll make sure the Blackstone girl has an unfortunate accident. You know how unstable her magic can be. So many things could go wrong."

The worst part? My ability had confirmed every word as truth. Marcus hadn't been bluffing or posturing. He would hurt Sage if I didn't end things.

I set the phone down before I could do something stupid like tell her the truth.

You didn't mean it. We should talk.

My chest constricted. Every message was a fresh wound, salt rubbing into the gaping hole where my heart used to be. I'd done what I had to do—walked into her dorm room and delivered the most clinical, emotionless breakup speech I could manage. Watched her face crumble. Watched confusion turn to hurt turn to desperate hope that I was somehow joking.

I hadn't been joking. I'd been dying inside with every word.

This isn't funny.

I started typing. Stopped. Started again. The three dots appeared on her screen, disappeared, appeared again. Minutes stretched by as I wrote and deleted a dozen different responses. Each one brought me closer to telling her everything—about Marcus, about the threats, about how my family had made it clear that my relationship with her was "incompatible with Renshaw family interests."

My fingers trembled over the keyboard. I miss you already. This is killing me. Let me explain—

No. I deleted it and forced myself to type something else. Something final.

"I know this is hard. It's killing me too, but it's best if we stop all contact, Sage. I will always love you, but I can't be with you."

I hit send before I could reconsider, then immediately wanted to take it back. I will always love you. At least that part was true. That part would always be true.

My phone buzzed again. And again. And again.

I couldn't look. If I read one more message, if I saw her pain written out in desperate texts, I would break. I would tell her everything, and then Marcus would make good on his threats. The photos they'd shown me—Sage walking to class, Sage at the library, Sage sleeping in her dorm room, completely unaware she was being watched—had made my blood run cold.

I picked up the phone anyway, my hands shaking.

Please just tell me what I did wrong. I can fix it.

Nothing. She'd done nothing wrong. She was perfect. That was the problem—she was too perfect, too powerful, too much of a threat to the careful political alliances my family had spent decades building. A Blackstone witch with her kind of raw talent? They couldn't control that. Couldn't manipulate it. So they'd forced my hand.

I threw the phone across the room before I could respond. It hit the wall and clattered to the floor, screen thankfully still intact.

The boxes I'd packed yesterday sat in the corner of my dorm room, mocking me. We were supposed to leave tomorrow—spend the summer at that bed and breakfast on the coast we both loved, then head to Old Hollows so I could meet her grandmother. I'd been terrified and excited in equal measure. Had the ring picked out and everything, hidden in my desk drawer. A moonstone set in silver that I'd spent months enchanting to complement her magic.

I'd planned to propose on the coast, with the ocean as our witness.

Now the boxes just reminded me of everything I'd lost.

An hour passed. Then two. My phone continued buzzing periodically from where it had fallen. Each notification was a knife to the chest. I paced my small dorm room, running my hands through my hair, trying to convince myself I'd done the right thing.

My mage abilities hummed beneath my skin, restless and agitated. Truth-sensing was supposed to be a gift, but right now it felt like a curse. I couldn't even lie to myself about why I'd done this. Couldn't pretend it was for any reason other than fear—fear of what Marcus and his associates would do to Sage if I didn't comply.

I retrieved my phone from the floor, unable to stop myself from checking. Eighty-three messages now. I scrolled through them without opening the threads, watching the progression from confusion to hurt to anger.

I don't understand. Things were so good.

Did I do something wrong? Please just talk to me.

This doesn't make sense. You said you loved me yesterday.

Why won't you answer?

Fine. If you want to be a coward, be a coward.

That last one made me flinch. She wasn't wrong. I was being a coward. A coward who chose her safety over her happiness, but a coward nonetheless.

Three hours since the breakup. The sun had set outside my window, campus growing quiet as students settled in for the evening. Somewhere out there, Sage was probably packing, getting ready to leave tomorrow. Would she cry herself to sleep? Would she hate me by morning?

I hoped she would hate me. It would make this easier for her.

My phone buzzed again. I looked down, and my heart stopped.

You know what? You're right. This IS for the best. I hope you have a great life, Callum.

The words felt like a goodbye. A real one. Final.

I typed back immediately, panic overriding common sense: Sage, wait—

But I deleted it before sending. This was what I wanted, wasn't it? For her to move on, to let go, to be safe?

Then why did it feel like someone was ripping out my ribcage?

I set the phone on my desk and sank onto my bed, head in my hands. My ability whispered that I was making the biggest mistake of my life, but what choice did I have? Let her stay with me and put a target on her back? Watch Marcus's people hurt her just to prove a point?

No. Better this. Better heartbreak than her blood on my hands.

A strange sensation washed over me then—a prickling at the back of my neck, the kind of awareness mages developed after years of magical training. Someone was casting something nearby. Something with weight to it, with intention.

I stood, moving to the window, but saw nothing except the dark campus grounds beyond. Probably just another student practicing for exams. Nothing to worry about.

The prickling intensified.

I frowned, reaching out with my senses, trying to identify the source. The magic felt familiar somehow, like something I'd encountered before but couldn't quite place. It was moving closer, seeking something—

Seeking me.

My eyes widened as recognition hit. This was Sage's magical signature. I'd felt it enough times, wrapped around me in gentler moments, to know it anywhere.

But this wasn't gentle. This was fury and pain and betrayal all woven together into something that felt almost predatory.

"Sage?" I whispered, moving toward the window.

The magic hit me like a wave crashing against a shore.

It didn't hurt at first. Just a strange warmth that spread through my body, concentrating in my chest before sliding lower. I frowned, trying to identify what kind of spell this was. A hex? A curse? It felt too deliberate to be accidental magic, too focused to be anything but intentional.

The warmth pooled in my lower abdomen, then moved even lower.

Oh no.

"Sage, what did you—" I started to say, but the words died as the sensation intensified.

Heat flooded through me, uncomfortable now, concentrating in a very specific area. I looked down in confusion, then growing alarm as I felt pressure building. Not painful yet, but wrong. Very, very wrong.

I fumbled for my phone, thinking maybe I could call her, talk her down from whatever she'd done. But as I reached for it, the pressure increased sharply, and I gasped.

My pants felt tighter. I looked down and watched in horror as the fabric began to strain. This couldn't be happening. This wasn't possible.

But it was happening. The swelling continued, slow but relentless, and I could feel every excruciating second of it. The pressure was immense now, building like water behind a dam.

"Sage, please—" I choked out, though she couldn't hear me.

Another minute passed. Then another. The swelling didn't stop. My belt cut into my waist. I fumbled with the buckle, trying to relieve some of the pressure, but it didn't help. Nothing helped.

The fabric of my pants began to tear at the seams.

I stumbled toward my desk, thinking maybe I could find something in my notes about counter-curses, but my center of gravity was completely off now. Whatever was happening to me had grown to an impossible size, and the weight of it threw me off balance.

I crashed into my desk chair, sending it skittering across the floor. Papers scattered. My phone fell again, screen cracking this time.

The pressure was agonizing now. I looked down and immediately wished I hadn't. What I saw was anatomically impossible, medically horrifying, and growing larger by the minute. It had to be the size of my leg now. Maybe larger.

"Oh gods," I gasped, bracing myself against the desk. "Sage, what did you do?"

Another wave of pressure crashed through me, and this time I did scream. Couldn't help it. The pain was excruciating, like my body was trying to accommodate something it absolutely was not designed for.

My bookshelf crashed over as I stumbled backward, trying to find something to hold onto, some way to ground myself against the agony. Books scattered across the floor. My lamp shattered.

The swelling continued. I could barely stand now, the sheer weight and size of it pulling me down. My pants had torn completely, fabric shredded beyond repair. And still it grew.

"Please," I whispered, tears streaming down my face from the pain. "Please, Sage, make it stop."

But she couldn't hear me. She'd probably already left, thinking she'd taught me a lesson with what she assumed was a temporary hex.

Except this didn't feel temporary. This felt very, very permanent.

Another scream tore from my throat as the pressure reached a crescendo. My vision swam. The room tilted. I tried to reach for something, anything, but my legs gave out.

I hit the floor hard, the impact sending another shock of pain through my body. My head cracked against the hardwood, and stars exploded across my vision.

Somewhere far away, I heard someone shouting. Footsteps running. Someone pounding on my door.

The last coherent thought I had before consciousness fled was that I absolutely deserved this, and that even cursed and in agony, I still loved Sage Blackstone more than anything in the world.

Even if she'd just hexed my dick into an elephant trunk.

Everything went black.