Page 1119 of One More Kiss

Chapter5

Landing hard on my ass,I realized a few things about myself.

One: I was way too old to be tossed like a rag doll.

Two: Landings were a sonofabitch.

And three: If this was me getting powers, they could keep it.

Breath whooshed from my lungs as I made contact with the attic floor, my head, shoulder, and hip smacking the unforgiving wood at the same time. Pain rocketed through my joints as I prayed for oxygen. It took far too long to be able to draw in air again, and my lungs made their protest perfectly clear. Dazed, I rolled to my side. Stupidly, I was under the impression the worst was over.

Sadly, I was way, way wrong.

An arch of electricity snaked out of the book—you know, the same book that blew me off my feet not a minute ago. Then another bolt flew out, followed by another. I couldn’t say why I thought so, but they seemed to be searching for me.

Three more crackling whips of energy erupted from the book before one shot out to snake around my ankle.

I supposed it should have hurt, but it didn’t. Instead, it felt like I was being juiced up, like I’d been at half power my whole life, and now I was finally being plugged in. Information bombarded my brain, and it was as if a curtain were drawn back from the blank spaces in my mind.

Incantations and spells, workings and hexes, names for all the herbs used for them, the ingredients needed—I knew it all. I suddenly understood how to manifest objects and ward homes. How to help the injured, how to stave off demons, and the inner workings of keeping the Fae out of a house.

It was too much and not enough.

I comprehended all the spells, but I didn’t have the practical knowledge to use them. I also knew that each of these books held more information than I could possibly read in a lifetime. Secrets about our history were hidden in those books.

Secrets that I was now the keeper of.

But the bolt of electricity was far from done. Another bolt lashed from the center of the book, this one latching onto my wrist. Even more power surged into me, and with it, the knowledge of our ancestors.

With it, the atrocity of what Mercy had done.

Mercy had barely touched on it in her letter, but the reality of what she’d done was so much worse. I wasn’t just a witch, oh, no.

Being the spell keeper for the St. James line meant I’d have to defend this library, these books, and our history with my life. That, I understood. No, the atrocity came in what she didn’t do.

Astor and Georgette St. James were not my parents. Mercy and an unnamed male witch were. Everything I knew about myself. Everything I thought was real was just turned on its ear.

Pain slammed into me—not just from the knowledge that my supposed mother didn’t raise me. No, it was that she left me to them.

My stuffy, uptight parents criticized every single aspect of my life. What I wore wasn’t good enough. I didn’t have the right friends.

What would the people at the club think?

You have to marry well, Jasper.

Stop playing in the garden, Jasper.

Sit up straight and pay attention.

Get your nose out of that book.

If you divorce him, you’ll be alone for the rest of your life.

I could have lived here with her. I could have learned what I needed to do this job. I could have had happiness instead of a mountain of self-doubt and a people-pleasing complex.

Mercy was my mother.

Mercy was my mother…

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