Page 80 of A Witch-ish Guide to Protectors and Pendulums

Well, I couldn’t argue with that. But, um… just how long had he been in service to Luc? Did he go to public school at all? Was he homeschooled or could it have been like with Richard, a Jewish boy I’d gone to school with? He went to public school during the day and then had to go to Hebrew school afterward. Once we had the time for more ‘get to know you’ conversation, I’d have to ask about that. I refused to put my future kids into service for Luc, fallen angel or not. They were going to have a regular childhood just like any other children. Even death hounds deserved a childhood.

We sat on raggedy rug mats that the men laid out around a fire. One man shoved a cup in my hand. I smelled it first. Just water, which out here made sense. Then they shared roastedmeat with us. Once they’d realized that Connor could end them all pretty much at the same time, they stopped assessing me for mating purposes.

After I ate my fill, I curled up against Connor, using him as a body pillow, and he let me drift off for a while. Eventually, he shook me awake. Aside from the stars in the nighttime sky, blackness surrounded us.

The men held little torches. I stood and stretched before Connor took my hand to lead me behind the men through the desert. One of the men put up a hand to stop us before we reached a rocky outcropping, but he stayed eerily silent, as did the rest of the men. They doused their torches. We waited maybe fifteen minutes before a door opened out of thin air and someone stepped out.

I looked at Connor, but he shook his head once in warning because what emerged from the portal wasn’t a death hound. It was a demon. A curvy woman with short, bleached blonde hair—a pixy cut—and red glowing eyes. She scanned the area. Connor pulled on my hand as he dropped down to the rocky, sandy soil. I dropped next to him.

Our nomadic friends slunk off back into the dark, leaving me and my mate alone. The demon sniffed the air and kept walking in a direction away from us. Thankfully, we were downwind from the portal.

“Isn’t this still Luc’s area?” I asked in a very soft whisper.

Connor nodded. “But I don’t know that demon.”

“Do you know all demons who reside in Luc’s territory?”

“I work directly under Luc. It’s my job to know everyone in his territory.”

My mind was officially blown. His job seemed so much more complex than I’d originally thought. My respect for him grew exponentially.

He pushed up from the ground, grabbing my hand again, and began walking softly toward the space where the portal opened for us. As a death hound, it would. We started down the stone steps and the heavy portal door shut behind us.

“Baby, can you cloak us?” he asked.

“I can try.”

Taking in a strong breath, I closed my eyes and tried to use manifestation to cloak us, but I still felt too weak. I’d shot us into the desert before I was ready.

“I’m sorry… I can’t cloak us both,” I said, feeling ready to cry.

“Then cloak yourself.”

“No, Connor. We do this together.”

He kissed me good and thorough. “I don’t know what we’re going to face down there. Please, I need you to do this for me.”

My protector as well as my mate. I kissed him one more time. “Love you, Connor Baghest.”

“Love you, Simone Lamia—even though you’re a huge pain in my ass.”

I covered my mouth to keep from giggling. “I promise you can be a huge pain in mine if we make it home alive.” And I gave my eyebrows a good waggle so he understood exactly what I was talking about.

He sighed, pressing his forehead to mine right before I cloaked myself and we continued the rest of the way down the slick staircase. Rather than walking into a lit office space like we would have back in Raven, we emerged into a dark, dank tunnel that smelled strongly of rotten eggs. More catacombs? We managed to access a portal that bypassed Hades to lead us to the catacombs underneath Hades? Given the stern look on my mate’s face, he didn’t know this kind of portal existed either.

Why couldn’t we have found our way to a sloth sanctuary or a beach resort? Fear and exhaustion sapped my energy as fear and exhaustion were wont to do. Why did bad things happen whenyou were the least prepared to deal with them? I gripped Connor tighter, getting a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Nothing good ever came from dark, dank tunnels. And this was the last thing I needed to deal with given that I still had no idea if Lily Joy was okay. Did my brother and Madigan get away? Beetle wanted my family’s grimoire, why? We needed to get a look at the book Lilith left with Simeon. I felt that down to my little Lilium soul.

And lastly, who was that death hound who jumped into the fray? I didn’t know him. Connor didn’t know him, either. All those questions deserved answers, yet here we were moving through the darkness in a tunnel filling me with dread.Dread. Ihateddread. Especially when it came with no answers in sight.

Connor stepped into a puddle, making a soft splash. From nowhere, a cage dropped down out of the blackness. I managed to dive against the stone floor and roll before it captured me. My mate wasn’t so lucky.

A disembodied voice came at us from the darkness. “Connor Baghest, how nice of you to join us.”

Oh. Crap.

Chapter

Twenty-One

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