Page 69 of A Witch-ish Guide to Protectors and Pendulums

“Thank god,” I mumbled.

“Given that you’re here, sweetheart, I’m pretty sure he’s aware of how things work between mates.” Connor kissed my temple, then, and I scowled.

“Iknowthat. But what if he popped in at the wrong time? Say, Luc’s office? Ring any bells?”

He nipped my earlobe. “I’ll never forget it.”

“Standing right here, son,” my father clipped and I threw my head back laughing.

“Call us whenever you wish to talk,” my mother said. “But our energy is waning. We need to recharge.”

“I’m not ready to let you go,” I admitted.

“You’re not letting us go,” Lilith said. “We’re always with you.”

Before our eyes, my parents and grandmother shimmered and faded out of view.

Lily Joy sighed. “I wish I had that power.”

“Do youknowyou don’t?”

“I guess not.”

“Well, we should try. But if you can’t, I can do it for you. Say, if you wanted to meet your parents.”

Her eyes shimmered momentarily as if she were holding back tears. “I’m so glad you came into my life,” she answered and I took that as a ‘thank you.’

“I have a feeling you’ll come to eat those words,” I answered, deciding that we needed a little levity in the room again. Knowing everything we were about to charge head-first into, I needed to surround myself with as much happy as possible to take with me when things got decidedlynothappy. How were we supposed to defeat an enemy if we didn’t even know where to find him or what exactly he was after?

“Not possible,” Lily Joy countered, thankfully cutting into my dwindling levity. “Whatever is coming, at least I have you and Connor. After spending my life alone…” She didn’t need to say more. I totally got where she was coming from. But again, we couldn’t go back there. We had each other now. Moving forward, neither of us would be alone ever again. Not unless we wanted to be.

I clapped my hands together making Lily Joy jump, and I even noticed Connor give a little start. Maybe I might have gotten a bit of enjoyment from that, but I’d admit to nothing. “Right,” I said abruptly. “So, I can speak to spirits.”

“And make them visible for the non-Simone around you to see and hear,” Connor amended. “That has to be a rare ability. I’ve known supers all my life and never heard of that ability.”

“Neither have I,” Lily Joy agreed.

“So what do we think it means?” I asked.

“It means we need to make sure you’re really familiar with your powers,” Connor said. “Because if we’ve never heard of them happening to other supers, then chances are good we can take Beetle and his men off guard.”

“Ooh… true,” Lily Joy said, nodding her head. A smile spread across her face. “This is going to be fun.”

Fun? Debateable. I think Lily Joy and I had differing ideas of fun at the moment. Connor was right, though, I had to get familiar with my powers.

We spent the day working on the abilities that I knew I had, paying special attention to witch magic. I figured some good spellwork might come in handy in the coming days. Beetle was cloaking himself from even Lilith seeing him. How did one go about cloaking their identity from the likes of the first witch?

Beetle had to be super powerful to accomplish that.

The three of us worked until my head ached too badly to go on. When I looked at the time, it was well past lunch, edging toward rounding the far side of the dinner hour. My belly took that time to grumble loudly.

“We need to stop,” Connor said.

“Do we have time?” I snapped.

“If you make yourself ill, then you won’t do any of us any good,” he argued back.

“Normally, I’d cook, but I’ll order us something,” Lily Joy offered, probably to get us to stop bickering.

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