Page 1 of The Wolf and his Witch

Prologue

Paris, France

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Balls deep in the woman of his dreams, Gabriel paused.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The woman beneath him blurred, and then disappeared altogether as his eyes fluttered open to find himself exactly as he’d gone to bed. Alone. Gabriel groaned and rolled over, seeking the red numerals of his alarm clock—2.45 a.m. He flopped on his back, his unsatisfied cock tenting the blanket.Putain.He’d dreamed of her again. His mate. The woman he’d left in Paris three Christmases ago.

He scrubbed his hand across his face, trying to banish her from his thoughts. Blue eyes and a sexy smile goaded him.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Gabriel frowned. What the hellwasthat? It wasn’t loud like a car alarm, or the whoop whoop of a fire alarm, but to his sensitive hearing it might as well have been blaring from the ceiling.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Putain.He threw back the covers. One thing was for certain—it wasn’t going to stop until he figured out what it was and shut it the fuck off.

Grumbling, he dragged himself and his throbbing balls from his bed and padded out into his living area. Christmas lights winked on and off on the over-decorated Christmas tree—courtesy of his younger twin brothers—washing the room in green, red and blue. Had the flashing lights tripped an alarm? No. The annoying as fuck beeping was coming from his office.

He turned his back on the Christmas monstrosity, stalked across his living area and nudged open his office door. Numerous computer screens stared back at him as he pushed into the room. Black, silent, the only thing he saw in them was his own naked reflection. Except for one.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

A green curser flashed in time with the beeping. An alarm he’d set. For what? His fingers raced over the keyboard, calling up the data. He stilled, staring at the screen.

Fuck me.

Someone was mining the internet for information on Eveque Faucher. Someone in San Francisco, California. It was her. It had to be. The witch who would be sent back in time to target Faucher—a tenth-century witch hunter and his ancestor’s arch nemesis. Sent back to prevent the slaughter of thousands of women—witches—and change the course of history.

Bella Rodriguez. The witch. Gabriel and his brothers wouldn’t be born if she didn’t go. She’d stayed and mated his ancestors. She would become his paternal many times great grandmother.

Gabriel snatched up his phone, the ache in his balls momentarily forgotten. It was time for him to go to California.

Chapter One

San Francisco, California

USA

It was all Annabelle Jackson-Rodriguez could do to keep her expression neutral and not betray the turmoil raging inside her. Fury, shock and—Lord help her—desire, rolled over her hotter than the Santa Ana winds.

A flush rose up her neck and she wished she’d chosen to wear the turtleneck sweater instead of her cardigan. Her hands twitched at her side and her gaze roamed ceaselessly, lighting on objects in the room—on the imposing desk, the bookshelf filled with books on arcane knowledge, the wind-whipped San Francisco Bay beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. The Christmas tree in the corner—the High Priestess’ nod to social norms—with its red, green and gold decorations and store-wrapped presents beneath like something from the pages of a Home Beautiful Christmas Edition. The High Priestess with her coiffed hair and tailored suit designed to impress her millionaire real estate clients. Annabelle looked anywhere and everywhere but at the object of her distress. Gabriel Madore.

The High Priestess had called her in for a meeting. Her and—Annabelle leveled a sneer at the man standing next to her—Dutton King. A matter of great importance, she’d said. No witch could, or would ignore a summons from the leader of the coven. Annabelle had her suspicions as to the nature of the summons. What Dutton was doing here was anyone’s guess, but Gabriel…He was the last person she’d expected to encounter. Here of all places. And he hadn’t come alone.

Three years. Three long years, numerous, though short-lived—veryshort-lived—relationships, of which none had ever compared, blasted from her memory the moment she’d set eyes on Gabriel again. Standing there, beside the leader of her coven, in a snug pair of black Levi’s, a torso hugging T-shirt and a curl of dark hair flopping over one brown eye.She wanted to draw back and punch him in the nose. Wipe that smirk off his lips. Cast a spell and turn him into a toad. If only.

Where had he gone? That night in Paris?

Annabelle’s gaze slid to the unfamiliar woman next to him. Athletic, strong and—acid burned in the back of her throat—gorgeous. Was she why he’d left her? After two glorious, passionate months of mind-blowing sex in the city of love? Where they hadn’t been able to get enough of each other. Where the fire between them had threatened to swallow them up and consume— Annabelle dropped her gaze to her shoes. Well, it had obviously consumed only her. Otherwise, he would never have left her standing in the damn street on Christmas Eve.

“I have to go,” he’d said, beneath the Christmas lights of the Champs-Élysées, regret shining in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Then he’d handed her their parcels—chocolates, artisan cheeses and hand-crafted Christmas ornaments purchased on their stroll through the Christmas markets—and walked away. The last she’d seen of him were his broad shoulders as he’d slipped into a cab. Then he was gone.

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