Page 3 of The Wolf and his Witch

At least he hadn’t lied about being French.

How did I not know what he was? Not sense he was a wolf shifter?

She bit her lip. God, it was so obvious. His size, his muscular build, his stamina in bed. The way he’d always known when she was aroused. How he’d known what turned her on and when she was ready for him. Lord, he’d anticipated everything—from her need for him, whether she was tired, excited, happy, when shewas hungry. She’d thought, at the time, they’d been in tune with each other. Soul mates.How naïve he must have thought me.

Her gaze dropped to his wrist, to the leather cuff with the silver wolf motif he’d never taken off. She’d thought it nothing more than a decorative wristband.Shehad one, too. Stefanie. Like a badge of honor, proclaiming to the world what they were. A shifter’s version of a biker’s club patch on their leathers. How could she have been so blind? To not have seen what was right in front of her eyes?

“It appears,” continued her aunt, “our search for historical figures who had an undeniable impact on witches over the centuries has caught their attention.”

“Which search, exactly?” asked Dutton.

“One of yours, Dutton. Which is why you are here.”

Dutton smirked. Annabelle’s nails bit into her palms. The moron would be insufferable now.

“Eveque Faucher, to be specific.”

Annabelle frowned. “Eveque Faucher?” She’d never heard of him.

Dutton shot her a pitying look. “Let me guess, Annabee. You stuck with the well-known ones. Remigius, or Martin del Rio.”

Remigius was an inquisitor who’d boasted he’d burned nine hundred witches in fifteen years. Martin del Rio claimed he’d killed five hundred in Geneva in a three-month period. When the High Priestess had set them the task of finding one historical figure whose removal would significantly impact the trajectory of the witch trials, of course she’d gone for the big ones. The ones who’d killed a lot of people, witches included. Remigius, Martin del Rio and Matheus Hopkins, the Witchfinder General. At the top of her list—Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Springer, authors ofMalleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of Witches.

“You need to brush up on your history, Annabee. Eveque Faucher, Bishop Faucher, was a tenth-century witch hunter.”

“Tenth century? The persecution of witches didn’t really start until the fourteenth century.”

“Tsk, tsk, Annabee.” Dutton sighed and shook his head. “With something this important, you need to think outside the box.”

Annabelle rolled her eyes. “Don’t patronize me, Dutton. And stop calling me Annabee. You know I hate it.”

“Let me explain it to you so you can understand,Annabee.”

She gritted her teeth. Could the man be any more insufferable?

“You see—”

“Eveque Faucher was a studier of what was, in the tenth century, considered the dark arts,” interrupted the woman, Stefanie.

Her voice was soft and melodious, her French accent strong, but there was steel in her green gaze.Yay for female solidarity.

Dutton glared at Stefanie. “As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted, Eveque Faucher—”

“—hunted down witches, werewolves and anything of a paranormal nature,” continued Stefanie, ignoring Dutton, focusing solely on Annabelle.

Annabelle glanced at Dutton. His face was red, and he looked like he was going to blow a gasket. Annabelle didn’t want to like Stefanie, not if she was the reason Gabriel had ghosted her, but she had to give the woman points for putting Dutton in his place.

Dutton was all but vibrating with rage. “If you’ll just let me—”

“Faucher had many supporters,” said Stefanie, as though Dutton hadn’t spoken at all. “One of them was an ancestor of Heinrich Kramer.”

“And that, my dear Annabee,” rushed in Dutton, “is why I focused on a tenth-century bishop.”

“Well done, Dutton,” said the High Priestess.

His frustration vaporizing with the simple praise, Dutton rocked back on his heels and grinned at her. “Thank you, High Priestess.”

Supercilious bastard.

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