Page 105 of A Witch-ish Guide to Protectors and Pendulums

Call it the mania of the moment, but when he spoke softly and sweet to me like that, I lost it in that I shifted on his lap to straddle him and proceeded to kiss the crap out of him. I kissed him with possessive tenderness as if we had all the time in the world. His arms held me tightly against him while he dug his fingers into my blouse and my jeans right above my butt.

He gave me the strength to keep going. He did that.

Just as abruptly, I pushed back from him. “Right,” I said while collecting myself. He snickered at my change in attitude.

“Time to find the grimoire,” he replied.

I stood from his lap and walked over to the vent in the floor to see if Mr. Pooches might’ve hidden it there. “You’re just a good kisser.” I felt the need to defend my actions.

“Sure.”

“I’m a strong, independent woman.”

“Absolutely.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“Never.”

“Good, because I can be formidable even with you, Connor Baghest.”

“Noted.” He winked. I balled my fist, willing myself not to punch him square in his sexy, solidly muscled… What was I talking about?

We started in the living room. Okay, so the first floor vent probably wouldn’t have been the best place for Mr. Pooches to hide the world’s most important grimoire. Connor and I tore apart the house even more than what the demons had done, just with less destruction.

I plopped down on the kitchen floor, utterly defeated.

“Are you sure he hid it here?”

“It was here. There wouldn’t have been anywhere else for him to hide it. Otherwise, I’d have no freaking clue where to look.”

Connor grumbled. I felt like grumbling too, but as he did it so much better, I left it to him. My kitchen table had been upturned, as were the chairs. Every cupboard opened. Every pot, pan dish, or utensil lay scattered or shattered on the floor surrounding us. They’d even upturned Mr. Pooches’s litter box. Poo and litter all over the small corner. I looked at it. Then I looked at it again. Poo? His litter box had an automatic scoopthat moved the kitty waste into a compartment that held a plastic container underneath the litter box so he had a clean box for every use and I didn’t have to discard the plastic more than every couple of weeks. If you didn’t know about the bin, you’d never find it. It’d taken me an hour to access the thing and I’d had the damn directions. The bin wasn’t open. But there was poo.

“I know where it is!” I shouted, totally startling Connor, which always brought me joy.

I crawled over to the litter box, flipped it right-side up, and pressed in on the back to release the compartment holding the bin. And there—my grimoire! Mr. Pooches earned all the tuna and sardines his heart desired for thinking of this.

“It’s tiny,” Connor said, looming over me and the litter box.

“What did you expect?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s Lilith’s grimoire. I thought it’d be huge.”

“She left it with an infant.”

“Still… you’d think Lilith, of all people, would know more magic than this.” He picked it up from the bin. It fit in his hand. I pushed up from the floor to snatch it back, flipping it open. The inscription with my name appeared on the first page. As I turned each page, I read over names that’d never been there before. Names of Lilith’s descendants. They had to be, because I found Simeon, Lily Joy, and Karro in the book. A list of powers opened up to me too and I had to believe that these were powers I could tap into now that my magic was unbound. I saw the Taser fingers, the manifestation, the astral-projection, talking with spirits, and so much more. Lilith gave detailed explanations on how to master each power and corresponding spells to utilize them.

“Connor, you have no idea what’s in here.”

“I take it by your reaction that none of that was in there before.”

“No. None of it—look.” I shoved the list of names in his face. “Other Lilium. And here…” I turned the pages to show him the powers.

“Are you shitting me? All of those are yours?”

“I assume so. Maybe some are for Sim. Maybe some are for my cousins—” My next words got cut off by a loud knock coming from the front door. I looked to Connor. “No one should know we’re here,” I whispered.

“Hide, babe. I’ll answer. Something feels off.” Goosebumps rose up his arms, which happened just before he shifted. I held the grimoire close to my chest, kissed Connor, and slunk off silently to the back bedroom.

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