A Reluctant Heart

By Candace Osmond

Dark, Gory, and Totally Sexy! Finish the #1 Bestselling Dark Paranormal Series with Jacey in A Reluctant Heart!

“All my life, I stifled the dark power hidden deep inside me. What would I do with magic like that? With abilities beyond comprehension? And would I control the powers...or would they control me? But I fear my days of hiding are over. My sister Sloane and her new-found coven of wayward witches desperately need my help to complete their ritual of immortality. I agreed on one condition: that they take my powers afterwards. But can I manage the magic seeping to the surface? Or will my greatest fear come to life?”

Jacey had always refused to use or even accept her magic abilities. At a young age, she realized just how much more power she had than her sister Sloane. She knew then that it wasn’t normal. Even for a witch, she would be the odd one out. The best she could do was live a normal life and squash the internal struggle to use her magic.

But the time has come. She can no longer ignore what’s there, right under the surface of her skin dying to get out. Can she keep it under control long enough to complete the ritual of immortality? Or will her dark magic suck them all into oblivion?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Guardian Publishing
• Release date: Oct 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781988159461

Candace Osmond

Number 1 International and USA TODAY Bestselling Author Candace Osmond is an Award-Winning Screenwriter from Fogo Island, NL. Her more popular works include her Internationally Bestselling Series, Dark Tides. A Time Travel Fantasy Romance set in 1707 Newfoundland. She now resides on the rocky East Coast of Canada with her husband, two kids, and bulldog.

Book preview

A Reluctant Heart

The Wayward Witches Novella Series

Story Five

By

Candace Osmond

Copyright © 2023 Candace Osmond

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1-988159-46-1

Second Edition

Digital Version

Cover Design by Majeau Designs

The characters, places, and events portrayed in this book are completely fiction and are in no way meant to represent real people or places.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

About the Author

Chapter One

After working so hard to deny her nature for so long, Jacey couldn’t believe she sat in a room full of witches, discussing the possibility of shedding those powers forever–literally.

Not to mention her participation in what would likely be one of the most powerful rituals ever attempted in witch history.

Jacey hated being a witch and always had. She’d seen Practical Magic and had decided long ago that she was more the Sandra Bullock kind of witch, while her sister, Sloane, represented the perfect Nicole Kidman. Now, here she was, surrounded by Sloane’s coven. She let her gaze wander the group, sizing up the other women. For some reason, when Sloane talked about her new coven, Jacey pictured Diane Weist and Stockard Channing, all done up in witchy garb and flippant, airy, and mysterious.

Instead, she felt like she had taken on a role in The Craft.

The coven leader, Lenora, had unfathomable amounts of magic in her wheelhouse. Even though she tried to cut herself off from the magic, Jacey could feel power rolling off Lenora in waves. Jacey fought to barricade her mind against the onslaught because, try as she might, there was too much information in Lenora’s mind to not leak into the depths of her consciousness. It was how her magic worked; the older the witch, the more leakage. Jacey had experienced older witches and knew some of her family members weren’t exactly young. Still, she didn’t think any of them were nearly as old or powerful as Lenora.

She wasn’t old, but having an affinity for spirit meant that her power at least equaled the older witch’s…maybe.

The idea made Jacey shiver, so she turned her attention to the other two women in the room. At first glance, Bianca looked like a glorious angel, but something had jaded her, and her eyes didn’t hold the happiness and light as the rest of her façade. Something dark and irreverent resided in her, like the color of a frozen lake at midnight, and it piqued Jacey’s curiosity. The woman had suffered recently. Still, she resonated with an inner joy that only seemed slightly dampened by her anguish and sarcasm.

It was Ridley who bothered her most. Jacey shifted her gaze to the beautiful, edgy woman. The youngest witch in the coven seemed almost two separate people at times. A duality, just like her element, fire. In some ways, she was aloof and wore a skin of almost overwhelming confidence. Her every action spoke volumes, as if she wanted to be noticed or even revered. On the other hand, she seemed guarded, as though she didn’t want to let anyone into her inner sanctum, where they might find the real woman hiding under the cloak, cowering and desperate beneath.

Everyone had secrets, she thought, but the truth was, if she unlocked Pandora’s Box–the label she’d given the secret place, deep inside her mind, where she’d safely hidden her powers all this time–she would be able to see right through Ridley and extract all her inner demons. It would be ridiculously easy; the young witch hadn’t even come close to perfecting her shields.

Jacey wondered if those without the special touch could read into the fact that something about Ridley was different. She was quite powerful. That much was obvious, but Jacey doubted anyone knew just how much magic Ridley had since she hadn’t tapped into it yet. That could be dangerous.

The sort of danger Jacey had a lot of personal experience with.

The affinity for spirit was rare, Jacey’s exorbitant reserve of witchy strength even rarer, and she