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

Chapter 30

Both Connor and Madigan dropped into their hound forms. Come hell or high water, this was it. “ For Sparta! ” I shouted, because 300 . It seemed relevant to the situation. I ran for the opening we’d kept clear from poisonous vines exiting the camp with Connor at my side. I saw my brother and Madigan run through a different opening out of the corner of my eye.

All around me, witches, Lilium, humans, and hellhounds ran into battle. átahsaia moved with graceful quickness. The whole of the world magic holders—we had to be at least a million strong—rushed into battle, taking the demons completely off guard. We descended into their camp just outside G?bekli Tepe in an attack they never saw coming.

Demons scrambled to organize and retaliate, but they came out swinging with everything in their arsenal. Blades, bombs.

I heard a scream and turned in horror to see Adalaide, the leader of the Western Australian Coven, fall. “No!” I screamed and brought down a half dozen demons at once. átahsaia double-fisted two demons. Ripping the head off the first, he sucked the insides out, dropping the lifeless body to the ground to disintegrate into ash as it hit the dirt. He tore the head from the second demon consuming his insides and dropping him almost on top of the first.

Hellhounds ripped into demons, shredding them.

But this was far from a slaughter. Demons fought with a fury that rivaled the deadliest wars in human history. When a winged devil launched into the sky, I shouted to our fighters below it as the beast dropped black powder onto them. It burned through the flesh of everyone it touched. So many of them dropped, writhing in pain. My brother shot his hand up to the sky, causing dark-gray clouds to form, and he let loose a torrent of rain to wash away the demon poison. But he wasn’t done. He shot lightning from those clouds, disintegrating that winged devil.

Holy hell, my brother had power.

The other demons got that too and turned their attack on him. Madigan jumped in front of him in time to save him from the dagger that would’ve taken his life. She dropped. He screamed. I screamed, manifesting every destructive painful way to die my brain could come up with in the moment, directing my hits to the ones who’d hurt my sister-in-law.

Humans rushed to Madigan, lifting her. My brother, in a state, tried to fight them off, but they knew their job and they would try to save Madigan. Given what I’d just thrown out, the demons turned their attack on me. Three hellhounds surrounded my brother to give him protection and I watched as Lily Joy and Karro ran to his side. My family fought hard. I had to fight just as hard.

Demons kept pouring out of their camp. We had to be outnumbered ten to one at least. I found it hard to accurately math in times of crisis. Connor stayed at my side. A gaping, jagged cut on his shoulder that badly needed stitches oozed blood. I took my attention from the fight for just a moment, enough time to seal his cut, and got knocked on my ass. Connor lunged, ripping the demon’s throat from their body. It turned to ash. My tailbone smarted where I’d hit the ground hard.

While the chaos ensued around me, I felt him, and whipped my head around to find Beetle. He’d shown. I’d known he would—it was only a matter of time. But I had him in my sights and wouldn’t let him live. Not this time. I took off in a dead run, parting the sea of demons like a modern-day Moses.

“What are you doing?” Connor barked at me in my head.

“Beetle,” I yelled back, not letting up. Beetle was going down. Lily Joy, Karro, my brother, and Shafira must’ve seen me take off—I mean, I’d parted demons, that was probably hard to miss—and they ran alongside me. Simeon caught up to Connor and me. He needed to be here for my plan to work.

Luc held off the legions of demons while we raced to take out the man himself. When we’d just about reached him, Beetle raised his arms, and bringing them down fast, captured Connor, Sim, and me in this transparent cube-like cell along with him. Neither Lily Joy, Shafira, nor Karro was able to penetrate the invisible barrier muffling all the outside sounds.

“Beelzebub?” Connor said, shocked. “You’re Beetle?” He stood there completely naked, so I manifested him clothing because I felt like it put my mate at sort of a disadvantage. But manifesting was all I could do, as I found myself unable to even move a pinkie. Somehow, Beelzebub managed to immobilize us with this cage.

“Ah… Lucifer’s little pet,” he said, sneering at Connor. “So nice of you to join us.”

“What are you doing this for? You control the second-largest quadrant behind Luc.”

“Oh, you dumb dog—why have the second largest when you can have it all? Humans have everything, yet they still fight each other for more. Lucifer lost control of them years ago.”

“Luc never wanted control. He wanted to give them choices.”

“Now, they’ll have one master.”

“Why’d you kill Jeffery?” I asked, non-sequitur, I know, but I needed to know the point of it.

“Because of you. I thought you’d have hunted down his murderer two years ago when the police failed to bring his assailant to justice.”

“I know why they failed to capture his assailant. You had one in your pocket.”

“So you figured it out.”

“Why Cain?” I asked. “He’s not a magic holder.”

“I’ll let him explain.” Beelzebub waved his hand and a portal opened, floating above the ground, large enough for a man to walk through. Cain.

He sauntered over to me all cocky and I wanted to punch him in the gut so badly, but I needed to hear what he had to say, and I’d accidentally knocked into him once before. That man was solid muscle. I didn’t need to break my wrist at this crucial point in the war.

“Simone Lamia. It took me a long time to hunt you down. Bitch kept a low profile, but I found you.”

“Why?”

“That magic belongs to me. The magic of the garden should’ve been mine. It should’ve been passed down to my children. We’d have been the most powerful family in the world. But your whore mother refused to give me sons.”

Gross. “That’s incest, you perv.”

“Now the power goes to me.”

“It doesn’t. Whatever he promised you, he was lying. Even if I die right now, my power goes into the ether. You won’t get a drop. Magic gets passed to the offspring of magic holders. You’ve been unremarkably ordinary your whole life.”

He shot his hand out, slapping it hard across my cheek open palmed, hard enough to bust my lip. I bit the inside of my cheek, causing my mouth to fill up with blood. I spat the blood onto his shoe.

“Make you feel like a man? Slapping a woman. Just like your dad. You want to blame someone for not having magic, blame him. The magic of the garden never belonged to him. It belonged to my grandmother. Had he been kind, she’d have shared it. But not him, not Adam. Oh, no—he abused Lilith and his children until she had no choice but to leave the garden.”

“I will end you, bitch.”

He meant it. Cain wrapped his meaty fingers around my throat and began to squeeze. I couldn’t move. My body wanted to drop me to my knees, but I had no choice other than to stand there while he squeezed the life out of me. “Beelzebub,” he screamed. “I’ve done what you asked. Give me my magic!”

Beelzebub shot his hand out.

Connor screamed, “ No! ”

Sim shouted, “ No! ”

I’d have shouted or screamed my own no if I’d been able to. And before my eyes, Beelzebub’s strike hit Cain square in the back. The large man dropped to his knees. He turned his stunned, dying eyes on Beetle and I swear I saw a betrayed ‘ why? ’ right before he slumped to the ground.

Gasping for breath, I took in large lungfuls of air that burned my throat and lungs. “What just happened?” Sim asked.

“Ah… Simeon. Brother to Simone. That was quite the show you put on out there.” Beelzebub pointed outside the cube. “I didn’t see it coming. Rarely does anyone get one over on me.” Then his voice turned serious. “It won’t happen again.”

“You always planned for him to die,” I said, assessing the situation.

“Well done, Simone. Yes, he always had to die.”

“I get why he wanted to come forward in time, but why did you bring him?”

“So greedy and power-hungry, he actually thought I’d give him your magic. How would that have benefitted me? I get to control the humans. Not Cain. But to answer your question, your grandmother is why. I put out feelers all over the world to track you and your brother down, but the witch had bound your magic. I couldn’t find you. I needed to find you for any of this to work. So, since he’d already killed off his own brother, I knew Cain would be more than willing to come forward in time—see, I needed his blood to track you down. You share DNA, as Adam’s child and grandchildren. We isolated DNA in Cain and I have people in my employ who were able to use that to magically locate your brother.”

“You went after Sim first,” I muttered.

“When I found out he had no idea you even existed—well, let’s just say my staff learned to never disappoint me like that again. So we had to expand the search. You took longer, as you’d been bound tighter than your brother. And now, here we are.”

“But you’re Beelzebub. None of this explains why you went after us in the first place.”

“Magic,” Connor said softly.

“Oh, good boy. You got that.”

Connor growled at the Prince of Hell.

“That garden held all the magic of the universe. Hell holds the magic of one fallen angel. Powerful, but not nearly as powerful as what you and your brother have flowing through your veins. I need to resurrect the garden and I need your blood to do it. Sorry you have to die, but it’s for the best. You’ll never use it to its full potential.” Beelzebub walked over to me like he didn’t have a care in the world, then he turned first to Connor and then to Sim. “Now, you get to watch as I drain the life from Simone first.”

“Why me?” I asked, trying to distract him or give me time to get Simeon’s attention.

“You haven’t figured it out? You’re a woman. All women hold tiny bits of magic. Why do you think men sought to subjugate them? Men were never meant to be the dominant force on the planet. They were destined to be the soldiers who protected the ruling queens. And as women were busy creating life and knowledge, some men grew resentful and then, my dear Simone—they struck, spinning the world off its intended axis. Given your power, you have to die first. I can’t have you trying to kill me while I’m killing your mate or your brother. As I will have your power inside me, they’ll be no trouble to me.”

Now we’d all seen movies where the bad guy spilled his nefarious plan right before getting defeated by the hero. Up until this moment, I’d thought that was a product of subpar storytelling, yet here we were.

“Smart,” I said. “You played the long game and got one over on all of us.”

“Really, Simone?” Connor snapped at me.

“What?” I asked. “I got to give credit where credit is due. That was a smart plan. Think about how much patience it took to get here. Lilith knows I’d never be able to hold out that long.”

“I appreciate the compliment from a queen such as you are,” Beelzebub said, “but I have a world to dominate, so I’m afraid it’s time for you to die.”

As he walked up to me with a demonic pep to his step and as he raised his hand, I shot a glance to Simeon. He dipped his eyes to his pocket and I manifested the hilt of Lilith’s blade from his pocket into my hand. I manifested the amulet into my other. Lilith appeared inside the cage.

“You will die for your sins against my family,” she warned Beelzebub. He turned his head to her and with her magic, she unbound me. I joined the amulet to the hilt and a glowing, ethereal blade shot up from the hilt. Beelzebub turned his attention back to me in time to see me thrust Lilith’s blade into his heart and twist. The blackest demon blood spurted from the wound as he dropped to the ground. He screeched and writhed and squealed in agony while I stood over his dying body.

“The magic will never be yours,” I spat.

Then, as the last bit of life left him, the bindings on Connor and Simeon dropped. The cage disappeared and I saw the destruction from the battle outside. It enraged me. I looked to my grandmother, who hovered above the ash pile that used to be Beelzebub and she nodded once. I threw my hands into the air, invoking the power of the universe. I had no idea I had this power until this very moment. The universe downloaded into my system, filling me with more and more of its magic. The power levitated me off the ground. Vaguely I became aware of my brother harnessing the clouds as the sky grayed. Bright, white-hot light shot out from every surface of my body targeting the demons, who fell in piles of ash—no warning. They died where they fought.

The last thing I noticed were the bodies of fallen witches, Lilium, hounds, and humans. I shrieked so loudly, it shot my light out for miles and miles. Mile-high flames charred the world around us. átahsaia dropped his massive body to the dirt and sighed a breath that came out like a large gust of wind. He leaned his chin on his fist as if upset that his meal had so abruptly ended.

“Simone,” Connor hollered my name. I lifted my hand setting the hills ablaze. The current of power rolled through me. I was the power. “Simone— stop !” He lunged for me but was thrown back by the electromagnetic field radiating off me. He hit the ground hard. I blinked. Then I dropped.

And my world went black.

I woke up with a splitting headache and as I got my bearings, realized I was in my bed back home. Mr. Pooches lay snuggled up on the pillow next to my head.

Something nagged at the back of my brain, but I couldn’t figure out what that something was. I felt gross, like I hadn’t showered in a hundred years. When I tried to sit up, my body felt sluggish, like after you slept way too long.

“Ready for some yum-yums, Mr. Pooches?” I asked and I’d swear that he nodded at me as he pushed up from the pillow and stretched his kitty stretch. “Let me shower first,” I said. He meowed. “I’ll be quick.”

Well, like it or not, I needed a shower, but more than that, I had to pee like a racehorse. I knew there was more to that saying, but hell if I ever remembered it. Mr. Pooches mewed his displeasure, but I ignored him and his attitude to pull clean undies and a bra from the top dresser drawer. I took a peek outside, pulling back my curtain to see what the weather was like. The trees had turned. Vibrant red, orange, and yellow leaves on the sugar maple in my front yard greeted me rather than the lush greenery. Boy, that had happened overnight. The sun shined brightly, though, so I pulled out a pair of leggings that I’d had printed with Mr. Pooches’s face on them from the second drawer from the bottom, and one of my soft, oversized T-shirts. Today felt like a comfy kind of day.

Mr. Pooches didn’t follow me into the bathroom. I supposed he was still in a snit. Whatever. I peed, then got the shower going. My muscles were sore, probably from sleeping hard, and I noticed yellowish-blue bruises—big ones—on my arms and legs and even my torso. They looked the color of fading bruises. What the hell had happened while I slept?

After washing my hair and gingerly giving my body a scrub down, I dried off, dressed, wrapped a towel around my hair, and left the bathroom to take pity on Mr. Pooches. He mewed a kinder mew at me this time.

But when we passed the den, I saw a bunch of dudes and a few women watching the Red Wings play on a big, big screen that I didn’t own.

“What the hell?” I shouted and all the eyes in the den turned on me. They smiled, as if happy to see me. “Get out! I’m calling the cops.”

A couple of heads jerked like they couldn’t believe I’d threatened to call the cops. I turned, running to my bedroom, and slammed the door, locking it. Then as someone pounded on my door, trying to pop the lock, and shouting, “Babe? Open the door,” I frantically searched for my phone, which, as it turned out, wasn’t in my room.

“Leave. I won’t call the cops if you just leave.” What did I do? The intruder popped the lock, pushing open the door. I grabbed up the lamp from the bedside table closest to me to use as a weapon if necessary.

“Baby, put the lamp down.”

“Get out. I swear you don’t want to mess with me.” Then in a flash I felt the magic tingling under my skin and realized that we must’ve been at the full moon of the lunar cycle. I didn’t need a stinking lamp. I had Taser fingers. He didn’t know what he was in for. The man kept walking forward and I kept backing up until I hit the far wall and he easily pried the lamp from my hand. I let him to distract him. Like a one-two punch. He took the lamp from one hand while I pressed my other to his neck, expecting to see blue magic zap the shit out of this guy.

Instead, I got, “Not this again.”

Excuse me? Not this again? I pressed harder.

“Simone, baby. You know that doesn’t work on me.”

Simone. He knew my name. He was very handsome. So handsome that I started to get turned on by his closeness. How inappropriate. The man probably had a mind to violate me and I was turned on?

A second man with golden-blond hair and other worldly beauty stood in the doorway chuckling. “Dude, she doesn’t remember you,” he said.

“ She doesn’t know any of you,” I said, getting irritated. “Get out of my house.”

“ Our house, babe.”

“Am I being pranked? This is a prank, right? I live alone.”

“No. You don’t.” He gently grabbed my hand, still pressing against his neck to lead me into the closet. If I’d chosen a dress or a blouse, I’d have seen the men’s clothing hanging in there.

My mind felt like it was reaching for something it couldn’t grab on to. He turned me around to see that the otherworldly blond man had been joined by more men and women. “The blond guy is Luc. He’s a friend and my boss. The guy who looks like you is your brother, Simeon. The woman next to him is his mate, my sister, Madigan. On the other side of Luc is your cousin Lily Joy. Shafira is the woman behind her. Next to Shafira is your other cousin Karro.”

“‘Karro’?” I asked. “That’s a fantastic name.”

He snickered. “You liked it the first time you heard it, too.”

First time? What was I missing?

“Who are you?” I asked the sexy man still holding my hand.

“Baby, I’m Connor, your mate. Fuck me, you don’t know how glad I am to see you awake.”

“My… mate ?” I asked hesitantly and he nodded. “I don’t have a mate,” I whispered.

“You do. Me.”

“But I don’t remember you.”

He walked me to the door, closing it in the faces of all those who continued to stand in the doorway, and backed me up against it. “I want to jog your memory.”

“Jog my memory?”

He leaned way into my space, fingers gently holding my face. “May I?” he asked and I thought, What the hell? At worst, I had a sexy man kiss me. At best, I found out this sexy man was indeed my mate.

“Connor, you say?” I asked on a hitched breath because as he nodded, he slowly ran the tip of his nose up and down my jawline. My heart rate sped up as he breathed in deeply then brushed his lips over mine. Wow … As he deepened the kiss, my every muscle in my body felt ready to seize up and liquify at the same time.

A plethora of memories flooded my head starting from the first time we’d met and I laughed. “Oh… Connor .”

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed meeting Simone and Connor and all their friends. If you haven’t read my first Rom-Com series yet, let me introduce you to SKYDIVING, SKINNY-DIPPING

Don’t miss sweet fur-babies. Read the HOLIDAY BITES SERIES starting with BABY, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE

I appreciate your help in spreading the word, including telling a friend not only about my rom-coms, but about my romantic suspense, too. The Brimstone Lords. The Bedlam Horde. Reviews help readers find books! Please leave a review on your favorite book site. A review on lokep helps the most.

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You also might be interested in The Consolation Bride . It’s the first book in the Unexpectedly Married series.