Page 59 of A Witch-ish Guide to Protectors and Pendulums

“The archives let youinside?” she almost shouted.

“You get she’s important.” My mate jumped in, clearly losing patience. Victoria looked at him and slowly nodded. “Right. So if you know that, what are the chances that the archives wouldn’t?”

“They’re the reason I’m here in the first place,” I said. “And I can tell you that she”—I pointed to the computer screen again—“registers as my first cousin hundreds of generations removed…” I let out a heavy sigh. “Well, it’s because she is.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Victoria answered.

“Yeah… I’m pretty sure you do. Not wanting to accept an answer is way different from not understanding it.”

“But you can’t… You can’t…” She repeated herself without bringing anything more to the table.

“I am the granddaughter of Lilith.”

Victoria gasped and stumbled back from me far enough to hit the window behind her.

“Adam, my biological grandfather, was a nasty piece of work. That was why Lilith left him. She and Adam had Peter and my mother, Shoshana. So if we’re first cousins, then she has to come from Peter’s lineage.”

“Peter and Shoshana were the children of Adam and Lilith?” she asked while she slowly moved back to her chair behind her desk and sat down. “Peter and Shoshana?” she repeated.

“Yes. The magic of the garden wasn’t gifted to Adam. It was gifted to Lilith alone. When she left with the children, she took the magic with her. There was no serpent or forbidden fruit. Lilith was a strong woman who took her kids and left an abusive marriage. But Adam wanted the magic back. Eve hadn’t been gifted it. So he searched out Lilith and Shoshana, who by then were both married to strong, confident, loving men. The man my mother and Peter considered their father, Zohar, and my father, Baruch.”

“Zohar and Baruch…” Victoria mumbled.

“Both men held magic, although not as strong as Lilith, my mother, or even Peter. That gift of powerful magic was gifted to women. My grandmother helped them to grow as witches.”

“So what happened?” she asked, leaning way in conspiratorially.

“Adam launched a surprise attack on the day my brother and I were born. My grandmother used her magic to help me escape.”

“But why attack? Killing the magic users wouldn’t give him magic back.”

“He wanted my mother to marry his son with Eve to gain control over my mother’s magic and, well, mine.”

She sucked in a long breath. “I have to say, what you’re telling me sounds unbelievable. If this is true, then why haven’t we sensed you before this? Every super in the world would’ve ended up at your door, drawn in by that kind of power.”

“Lilith bound her,” Connor said. “She bound her magic until she was old enough to meet her protector.”

“And that’s you?”

“That’s me,” he agreed. “But you knew that.”

She nodded. “I did. I feel like something bad is about to hit. Like imminently.” She sighed. “I can’t shake it.”

“That’s because it is,” I said, wishing I could give the woman better news. “When I found my mated protector would be when the shit was starting to hit the fan, so to speak. The bindings could only hold me for so long and they were slipping, which is how Connor and I were finally able to come together. With our meeting, the bindings are slipping more every day and at an expedited rate.”

“Who’s coming after you?”

“We don’t know. But whoever it is aims to control my power by controlling me—and they’rebadnews.”

“That doesn’t fill me with joy,” Victoria responded.

“Nor I,” I said back. “But the time is coming when everyone will have to choose. Do you side with good or do you side with evil? No one can escape this.”

“So you’re talking Armageddon-level bad?” she asked.

“Unfortunately… Yeah,” Connor said.

“What can I do?”

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