A Witch-ish Guide to Protectors and Pendulums (Lilith and Co. #1)

Chapter 3

Chapter

Three

T his couldn’t have been right. The only thing on the right was a cemetery. One of those incredibly old ones without modern amenities like streetlights. A wrought-iron gate attached to a rock wall, the kind without mortar, stood proudly stacked with seems tight enough that the thing wasn’t ever going to crumble. Too tall to see over. My fingers felt ready to explode wide open.

Part of me immediately got a case of the willies. But another part of me felt compelled to go inside as if returning home. I didn’t understand it. I also couldn’t resist it. The magic refused to let me. Refused. A large padlock kept the townspeople out. I wrapped my hand around the lock to see if I had any chance of unlocking it and the thing popped open. Just like that. As soon as I touched it, the magic escaped my fingers. It pulled me forward, moving my feet for me.

The unbearable pain changed to this weird, out of control tingling sensation that didn’t hurt one bit. What. In. The. Hell? Like it or not, I felt that I needed to push on and I sighed, shot a quick prayer into the universe that I came out of this little excursion unscathed and started walking.

Tombstones older than my great-great-great grandmother—I imagined her to be the first of us to immigrate to the US from the old country, as the United States only went back as far as the 1600s—speckled the ground along with looming, dead trees. They had to be dead; otherwise, they’d have been full of leaves and not just twisted, spindly branches. These had none. And forget about asking which “ old country ” my ancestors arrived from because I didn’t have a clue. My parents never said because they’d died, leaving me to go into the foster care system with only a small, ancient, handwritten diary as my sole possession of their lives.

As I grew and asked questions, I found out that a woman who identified herself as being from CPS placed me in an emergency foster care home. That my parents had been killed earlier that night. From what I was told, the journal had been strapped to me, under my clothing. Made from leather, the spine cracking from age. I treasured that book. I just wish it had gone into a little more detail. Oh, I’d asked it too many times to count. The book simply ignored me. Seeing as books didn’t speak. As a kid, I’d wanted to know in order to give myself roots, a family history I could connect with. But then, when the magic began to manifest, I became desperate to know. Was said old country Transylvania? Or possibly Ireland? What other countries were known for magic?

A path lit up for me. Fiery footsteps led the way. I followed diligently because one didn’t simply ignore fiery footprints and my magic made me do it. I followed the trail deeper into the dark. Even my magic started to get a little nervous, twitching along with the tingling, or maybe that was my imagination. Maybe it wasn’t as much nervousness as anxious anticipation.

The path led me to a second, smaller wrought-iron gate, this time attached to a wrought-iron fence surrounding a cement building. A mausoleum. I hated mausoleums. They freaked me out in a major way. I just knew some disgusting zombie thing waited inside to suck my brains out.

And then the door creaked open. A red light the color of flames lit the space. I struggled to back away. My feet tried to help me run away, back to my car. My magic pulled me forward. The largest dog probably ever in existence lunged from inside the crypt, snarling and gnashing his jaws.

“Good doggy,” I said, trying and failing to move out of teeth range. He looked exactly like the dog running away from the gas station earlier this afternoon. The dog blinked. Not kidding. It stopped trying to eat me and blinked as if confused by the situation. Join the club.

The twitching and tingling abruptly stopped as my magic stretched out in front of me to run specter-like fingers over his ruff. The moment the magic made contact, a huge, invisible explosion shot out, rippling the air like an atomic bomb, knocking me on my butt, knocking me out. When I came to, Connor, my kidnapper, held me in his arms against his warm body.

I tried to scramble away, but my head still felt dizzy and he held on tightly.

“Settle down,” he ordered.

“Let go !” I shouted.

Connor looked to the sky. “Is this how it’s always going to be?” he asked no one.

“How what is going to be?”

He sighed. Sighed . Like a hugely affected one.

I rolled my eyes. “Will you please let me go now?”

“No,” he said.

No? What did he mean, no ? “I asked nicely.”

“And I turned you down nicely . Now that we both know how to be nice?—”

“Your idea of nice differs from mine.”

“Listen, it goes against my nature to let you go. It’s not like I want this connection. What are you, anyway? I’ve never met a creature like you before. And I’ve met every level of creature, or so I thought.”

“Rude much? What are you?”

“I’m a hound.”

“So you’re a dog.”

“A hound .”

“Is there really a difference?” I asked. This close, his eyes gleamed like shiny, black coal rocks, even in the dark. His skin looked soft. He had these plump lips that I wanted to— no. Bad Simone . We did not want that thing you were just thinking. A thing so wrong, I couldn’t even say it in my own head.

He laughed salaciously. “Trust me, sweetheart, there’s a difference.”

Connor let his guard down enough for me to push up into a seated position. “Oh, this is one of those ‘I have a bigger penis’ things, right? Hounds are hung?”

“As a matter of fact, we are.”

“Well, good for you.” Unsure of what else to do, I lightly patted his shoulder. “Now if you don’t mind, I need to know what’s in there—” I pointed to the open door to the mausoleum.

He narrowed his eyes on me. “What do you mean, what’s in there ?”

“You seem to understand English, so… I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“You really don’t know?” he asked, to which I shook my head in answer.

“Hence me asking.”

“Hades,” he said.

I pressed the back of my hand to his forehead to check if he was feverish. “Are you feeling okay?”

He narrowed his eyes. “You really don’t know. ” This was said as a statement. “So your parents never…” He let the thought trail off.

“I’m afraid not. They died when I was a baby. I didn’t know anything about this stuff until I hit puberty and got more than my period.” I laughed uncomfortably. “Why couldn’t the detective see you?”

“Only supers can see me in hound form. And ghosts and spirits.”

“Supers?”

“Supernaturals. Magic holders. Since you’re not having a nervous breakdown, I assume you know about magic holders.”

I nodded. “Yes. When I was twelve, I ran into my first witch. She told fortunes at a festival.”

“They do work the circuit,” he answered dryly.

“Of course, I thought it was all a bunch of hooey until she revealed she knew about my magic. That got my attention and it marked the first time someone asked, ‘What are you?’”

“And you have no idea?”

“None. I’m clearly not a witch. I only get my magic at the full moon.”

He cocked his head. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Not even Lycans are constrained by the full moon.”

“They’re not?” I asked now very curious about the evolution of their legend. Remember to look up Lycan legends when I get home.

“Nah, that’s a rumor. They’re just strongest at the full moon.”

“Why are you hanging out in a cemetery?”

The beautiful man looked on me somewhat indulgently for the first time in our acquaintance. And let me just say, indulgent was a good look, not that I thought he had a bad one. Not even when he was being an ass or scaring the crap out of me today. “Sweetheart, what’s your name?”

“Simone.”

“Well, Simone, I’m a death hound. In some cultures, we’re known as ‘hellhounds.’ I guard the entrance to the underworld.”

“Does that come with a good benefits package?” I joked. He didn’t so much as crack a smile. “You aren’t laughing.”

“That’s because I’m not kidding.”

“Why did my magic bring me here? And why did you kidnap me this afternoon?”

Connor pulled me in closer to his body heat, keeping his hands resting on my hips. He didn’t even look aware of the action. “After you showed up to the store this morning, I got a call from my boss. He said, ‘Something’s started.’ And told me I needed to keep an eye on you.”

“What’s started? And who is your boss?”

“I have no idea what’s started. But I guard the entrance to the underworld. Who do you think my boss is?”

Yikes. Fire and brimstone and all that. “Well, can I go down there and talk to him?”

Connor looked at me like I’d been touched in the head. “No, you can’t talk to him. Go home. I’ll stop by when I get off shift.”

I stood, brushing off my backside. “I’m not going home. Who do you think you are, ordering me around?”

He stood, too. And the poor, suffering man pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a long breath. “Listen, I’m working right now. I don’t have time to get into it. I said I’ll be at your place when I get off shift.”

“Okay. We’re going to pretend for the time being that you’re actually listening to me rather than blathering out your pie hole. But here we go. One: I don’t want you coming over to my house. Two: I’m not going home because three: I’m following the leads from Jeffery’s phone.”

Even in the dark, I saw Connor narrowing his eyes on me. “Who’s Jeffery?”

“My fiancé.”

That got his attention. His back went rigid and he barked, “Your what ?”

“My fiancé,” I answered a bit more timidly. Now, I was hardly a timid person, but the force of his reaction took me aback.

And how I missed that somewhat indulgent look from just a few minutes ago when he narrowed his glisteningly angry eyes on me and if I looked hard enough, I saw plumes of superheated breath leave his nose and mouth in a highly aggressive manner. “From this point on, you no longer have a fiancé.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I haven’t technically had a fiancé for two years. Not since he was murdered. Still, he was my fiancé, so that’s how I address him when I talk about him.”

The plumes of breath and angry eyes subsided as he glanced up at the sky.

“The universe hates me,” he mumbled under his breath. “It’s the only explanation.”

Okay, well none of this made a lick of sense since the moment I stepped foot inside this miserable place. I needed answers. Tomorrow being Sunday meant I had the day off, but after that, my snooping would have to wait until next weekend. Some of us had to work and thus staying up late while digging into my dead fiancé’s murder didn’t help with the whole being a responsible adult thing. Given that, Connor, who did the universe really hate?

The door to the mausoleum creaked open further and I watched in awe as a black shadow ascended the stairs, cast against the red light. Probably the most beautiful man I’d seen in my life walked through the door.

“So this is her,” the man said in a masculine yet melodic voice. Connor replied by jumping in front of me and growling, his back to my front.

“Come any closer and I’ll end you.” Connor sounded serious. “It won’t last forever, but you’ll be gone for a good long time… and it’ll hurt.”

“Down, boy,” the beautiful man said and I snickered. Come on, I couldn’t help it. A man after my own heart. Both Connor and the beautiful man shot me looks. Connor’s was irritated, whereas the beautiful man’s was amused. Then the latter cast his startlingly sky-blue eyes on me and he smiled. His bright-white teeth glinted off the moonlight. He flipped his wavy, blond bangs back. “I’m Luc,” he said.

“Simone,” I said back, ten kinds of breathy.

Connor growled at me this time.

“You’re being rude,” I admonished him.

He turned his whole body around in order to glare at me. “ I’m being rude? You sound like you’re seconds away from ripping your clothes off for the guy and you’re doing it right in front of me. How would you expect me to react?”

“Stop,” Luc ordered. “You know she can’t help it. The ladies all love me. And you know even I can’t go against the universe on this one.”

“I’m standing right here. You’d think she could control it a little better,” Connor replied. Then Luc did the best thing: He moved his eyes between himself and Connor, the look in them saying, “ Brother, please .” As if the idea of anyone finding Connor more attractive than Luc was ridiculous. And sorry Connor, but Luc wasn’t wrong. He had this… this… magnetism that pulled my gaze to him and wouldn’t let go. Not that Connor was anything to sneeze at. The man was foine with a capital F, at least when he wasn’t speaking. The whole opening of his mouth and letting words out thing diminished the aesthetic. Connor definitely had the dark, broody thing working in his favor, though.

“Okay, what is he talking about? And what does the universe have to do with anything?” I asked.

Rather than answer, Connor reached his massive man paw out to draw me in close to him. “Honey, go home. I said I’ll be there when I get off work.” Then, I kid you not, he bent in and kissed me . Like he kissed me, kissed me. With tongues and everything. I began to soften. As my heart rate sped up, I leaned into his body, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and neck, and I kissed him back . This was my first kiss since Jeffery and it felt good. No, it felt phenomenal. I opened my mouth wider for him, drinking in everything he had to offer until I came to my senses and kneed him in the boys.

He tore his mouth away and bent over, cupping his junk in one swift move. “What… was… that… for?” he sputtered out.

I felt bad because I probably went in a little harder than necessary. And Luc, Luc stood off to the side laughing his fool head off.

“Go home before I kill you,” Connor growled.

Yeah, that time I took his warning seriously.