Page 24 of The Wolf and his Witch

The weak rays of a winter’s sun streamed across the San Francisco skyline as Annabelle collected her boots—discarded after several rounds of mind-blowing sex—and tiptoed down the stairs to grab her clothes. Gabriel slept on, sprawled across the bed on his stomach, his perfect ass an almost too tempting a reason to stay. She kept moving. She didn’t want to be there when he woke. Didn’t want to have to deal with the awkward conversation about what this had, or hadn’t, been. This time Annabelle was determined to be the one leaving.

She paused for a moment by the window in the living area, taking in the view. Faint hand prints,herhand prints, marred the glass, a visible reminder of last night. Her body heated, and she clenched her thighs. Hell. Last night should have been enough to get him out her of system. Sadly, no. But her body would just have to deal with it. Guarding her heart took precedence.

She turned away from the window, pulled on her dress and zipped up her boots. With one last look at the penthouse suite—the penthouse suite—she stepped into the foyer, gathered up her coat, scarf and purse and pressed the button for the elevator.

In the lobby, the bellhop, doing his best to hide his grin, called her a cab. She must look like a fright. Well fucked, more likely. And she had been. Her body was pleasantly sore in ways she hadn’t experienced in a long time.

She gave Aunt Marjory’s address to the driver and raked her fingers through her hair in an effort to detangle it at least a little. In the end, she gave up. She was a grown woman. When it came to her sex life, she didn’t have to answer to anyone. Unless it interfered with her mission, or with coven business. And it wouldn’t. Aunt Marjory had no cause for concern.

What was concerning, and needed immediate attention, was Dutton. If Aunt Marjory hadn’t informed him of the meeting, and Gabriel hadn’t invited him, how the hell had he known to be there? And while she was talking to Aunt Marjory about Dutton, she was going to quash any idea, any plan, that included her marrying that insufferable man. Gabriel might have left her in Paris. He was most likely using her as a booty call now, despite his pretty words uttered in the heat of the moment, but Annabelle wasn’t so desperate to fill the void she’d consider marrying Dutton. Or anyone from the King family, for that matter.

Only last month, Cordelia King had insinuated that there were other King males she could choose from, should Dutton not be to her taste. All of them considerably older or younger. Ugh. She loved her coven, would do almost anything for it, but she’d rather spend the rest of her days wearing out the battery in her vibrator than consider marrying anyone with a last name of King.

She glanced up at the face of The Ritz-Carlton building and craned her neck to see the top floor, her memories of last night on replay in her mind. Up there, in the penthouse suite, still sleeping—thatman was to her taste. She’d gotten more than a taste. She’d had barely three hours of sleep.

She pushed aside the images as the cab maneuvered into traffic. The driver switched on the radio and an idiotically enthusiastic version ofJingle Bellsplayed through the tinny speakers. She grimaced. Only one more week of Christmascelebrations then it would be all over for another year. With any luck, she’d be so busy prepping for her mission it would fly by.

Annabelle leaned her head back against the seat and closed her tired eyes. When Gabriel left her again, as he no doubt would, Annabelle would have one more reason to loathe Christmas.

Chapter Eleven

Dutton picked his way down the street, keeping to the shadows and avoiding the rugged-up bundles of homeless people beginning to stir. He kept his pocketknife handy and a spell on the tip of his tongue. In the Tenderloin district, at this early hour, even a powerful blood witch needed to watch his back.

He scanned the street, looking for anything out of place. One couldn’t be too careful, not with shifters on the scene now. Confident no one had followed him, he crossed to the dilapidated building. It had an abandoned air about it, carefully curated, with its rusted fire escapes and cracked glass front door, the ground-floor windows all boarded up.

His great aunt’s ward rippled over him as Dutton pushed through the entrance into a foyer that matched the front façade. There was no need for a lock. The ward would turn away anyone not invited. All the same, blood was required to get beyond the foyer. He took out his pocketknife, nicked his thumb and pressed it to the elevator button. The doors swished open. That someone like Cordelia King, perhapsthemost powerful witch in San Francisco, would live in this dump would never occur to anyone, but then that was the whole point of the façade. Dutton stepped into the sleek, modern elevator and pressed the button for the third floor.

The top floor of the building was as sumptuous as any home on billionaires’ row. Cordelia King loved her comforts. She also liked her privacy. No one in the coven, apart from family, knewwhere Cordelia lived. None of them would divulge it. Cordelia’s wrath was a fearsome thing. Dutton smirked. That damn shifter was going to find out how fearsome soon enough.

Plush carpet crushed beneath his shoes as he entered the sitting room. Couched in shadows, his great aunt awaited him. She was not alone. By the window, hands in his pockets staring at the street below, stood a man. His expensive suit wouldn’t have been out of place in the Financial District, but there was a roughness about him, an edginess in his stance, as though he were a split second away from a brawl. Wicked scars slashing across one cheek only added to the impression. Scars from a shifter, if Dutton wasn’t mistaken.

“Update us please, Dutton.” Cordelia’s voice cracked across the room, sharper than a slaver’s whip. She might well be in her eighties, but she was no ailing octogenarian.

Dutton eyed the stranger. If his aunt was comfortable talking about this in front of him, Dutton was not going to question it. “They’re sending Annabelle back to the tenth century, like we planned. I raised enough objections for them to think I’m against it. But this damn shifter, Gabriel Montagne, is going to be a problem.”

The man at the window turned. “Not for long.”

The man’s accent was thick, even thicker than that of the two Langeais wolves. Dutton’s lip curled.Another Frenchman.He’d had about enough of the French.

“Dutton, this is Gerard Boucher. He’s a member of the Faucherians.”

Faucherians? As in Eveque Faucher? Like Annabelle, Dutton had never heard of the tenth-century bishop. Not until his great aunt had given him the name and the background. Told him to push for Faucher to be the coven’s target in their forays into time travel. It hadn’t been easy. The high priestess was wise to distrust anything put forward by the Kings, but Dutton had beenpersuasive. He curled his hands into fists.Shame persuasion hadn’t fared so well with Annabelle.

“TheFaucherians? What is that? Some sort of”—Dutton ran his gaze over the other man, unable to keep the derision out of his voice—“religious group?”

“Yes, Dutton, they follow the teachings of Eveque Faucher,” said Cordelia. “They specialize in hunting down supernatural entities.”

He swiveled his gaze to his aunt. Did Boucher know they were witches?

“They’re a highly motivated organization with a lot of resources.”

Ah, resources.

“We’ve come to an alliance,” said Cordelia, the unspoken ‘for now’ hanging in the air. “They’ve been hunting the Langeais wolves for centuries. We have a way to help them. And in return, they can help us.”

Did Boucher realize, as soon as Cordelia had what she wanted, she’d turn on Boucher and his organization? Probably not. If the man was too stupid to see it, Dutton wasn’t going to be the one to enlighten him.

Boucher held Cordelia’s stare. “If you can do what you say. Control zis women you are sending back. ‘ave ‘er target ze d’Louncrais, not Faucher.”

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