Page 48 of Midlife Witch Unexpected

But now I was wide awake, my heart racing as the vampire cooed into the night.

“Mae, come to me.” There was something overwhelmingly compelling about Joachim’s voice. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it now dripped over me like honey, sliding down my skin and filling me with a warm, sweet taste.

I wanted to do it. I wanted to go and see Joachim. I could see he was a lord of a renaissance court changed by a vampire on his death bed. It wasn’t the vampire calling to me.

It was the man, the lord. He wanted to be my lover. He wanted to unravel me.

I sat bolt upright, shaking my head clear of his lies. “Get the fuck out of my head.” I waved my left hand through the air, creating the symbol for safety and security. A purple and green orb floated around me, encompassing me in a sphere of light. It was similar to the cemetery, just not as intricate and on a much smaller scale.

A knocking on the door brought Hilda into the room.

“Are you okay?” She asked.

“I’m quite all right,” I said, feeling the buzz of magic in the air around me. It was energetic and yet relaxing. It gave me a sense of power that expanded beyond just me. It moved through the room and showed me the magical signature of every object. Some glowed brighter and were clearly more powerful than others. My gaze fell on the pentacle pendant that I had left out on the dresser the night before.

It was glowing iridescent in the darkened room.

“Can you see that?” I pointed to the pentacle.

"Oh yes, I can.” Hilda moved towards the pendant, whose center stone was glowing green and purple, a vibrant clash of colors swirling around in chaos.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s the Pentacle of Times,” Hilda said. “They say the three sisters made a pact and it was the only way they were able to protect the cemetery at the time. The pact was to take one of each of the tribes and bind them in blood to protect the cemetery. It was sealed with the blood of the sisters.”

“Why is the center of it glowing right now?”

“I don’t know pentacle magic. It is very specific talisman magic,” Hilda mused, “but it has to do with the binding of each of the supernaturals' bloodline to each point on the pentacle.”

“Sealed with blood on the gem,” I said.

Hilda shrugged. “Maybe it’s glowing because it feels your magic.”

I pulled the pentacle closer and looked at the swirling stone in the center.

“It’s a tiny gemstone with a big aura.” I looked at the other five gemstones that marked the points on the cross.

“They just need the magic activated,” Hilda said. “Once you activate the pentacle it’ll call forward the other supernaturals. The only problem is we don’t know if they’ll be friendly or not. Just because they are bound to protect the cemetery doesn’t mean they need to agree with you.”

“You’re saying this pentacle will call other supernaturals?”

“Yes. One from each group. A Demigods, shifter, vampire, fae…you get the idea. They’ll help you protect the cemetery.” Hilda explained.

“Isn’t Branson a shifter?” I asked.

“He is,” Hilda nodded towards the pentacle. “But he’s not your shifter.”

My skin flamed red. I could feel the heat. Could she tell I secretly wished he was? “I didn’t say he was my shifter,” I argued.

“I meant,” Hilda clarified, “he’s not the shifter bound by the pentacle, or else he’d be activated by now.”

I waved my hand over the pentacle and the aura closed off. I immediately felt a surge of energy inside myself, as if whatever energy the pentacle had been imbued with, I could use now instead. Whatever was going on with the pentacle, it was linked to my heart. I had remembered back in the 90’s I’d done a workshop focused on different energy points in the human body and how each one had a different vibration. Now that I was aware of the magic world, I could feel these energy centers inside myself vibrating through my whole system.

And this one was definitely my heart.

It was probably best if I kept the pentacle close and closed.

“Was the vamp here?” Hilda asked. “I felt him.”

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