Page 35 of The Wolf and his Witch

“That’s right, my darling Annabee. Once we have your blood, we can control you. And by we, I mean Great Aunt Cordelia.”

No. He wouldn’t?Cold blue eyes stared down at her.Oh yes, he would.Fuck. She had to get out of here.

“Zhat iz enough, Dutton. Zhere iz no need to tell her all ze plans.”

A man Annabelle had never seen before came to stand beside the bed, his French accent far stronger than Gabriel’s, as though English was a language he rarely spoke. Beady dark eyes in a scarred face stared down at her. He slipped his hands into a pairof black leather gloves and Annabelle’s heart stuttered. Every murder mystery, every thriller movie she’d ever watched, flicked through her head.

“Stop wasting time. We have work to do. Get her blood.”

“Of course.” Dutton stepped away from the bed and returned with a large syringe and some sterile wipes. “This is going to be my best Christmas ever, thanks to you, Annabee.” He broke open a wipe and swiped it in the crook of her elbow. Annabelle thrashed against the restraints. “Hold her arm still,” he snarled at Scarface.

Strong arms pressed against her shoulder and pain stabbed through her body.

Annabelle screamed, and struggled harder. “No, no, no, noooo!”

“Hold still, Annabelle, and it will be all over in a flash.”

“Don’t do this, Dutton. Please. I’m begging you.Please!”

Dutton chuckled. “I love it when you beg, Annabelle.” His smile disappeared. “But it’s wasted on me. With one vial of your blood, I get to have you to do with as I please. Then the coven will be mine.”

The leer on his face, the sick excitement in his eyes sent a soul-deep chill through her body.

He leaned forward and jabbed the needle in her arm. “Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”

* * * *

Gabriel slipped his arm gingerly in the coat Stef had brought him as they exited through the hospital’s main doors. It’d taken forty-eight hours for Stef to get him out of the hospital. He’d already started healing when they’d wheeled him in on the ambulance stretcher, and they couldn’t afford for him to remain there any longer. Pierre and Louis were working overtime to erase any records of his hospital stay, any test results, bloodsamples. Marjory had called in help from the coven and the shifters. No one wanted a shifter’s blood in the hands of the authorities.

Already questions were being asked. How had he even survived the impact of the truck? And with so few major injuries? No human body could take that kind of trauma and survive. He should be dead. Hewould’vebeen, were it not for his pack’s heritage. Other shifters would have fared better than a human, but would most likely have died, too. But he was a Langeais wolf. Maxime would have a conniption if his blood ended up in the hands of the authorities.

Gabriel limped to their hire car and slid into the passenger seat, grunting as a rib snapped back into place. He may be healing, but it would take him at least a week for all his injuries to mend and for the bruises to fade.

“Have the twins found anything? Anything at all that might tell us where the Kings have taken Annabelle?”

Stef turned the engine over and pulled out of the parking space, steering her way to the car park exit. “No. We’ve checked every one of the premises they gave us. Some of them were well hidden—corporate holdings, shadow companies and the like—but Pierre and Louis found them. You can’t hide anything from them. But we still haven’t found her.”

Dark circles ringed Stef’s eyes. She probably hadn’t slept any more than he had since the accident.

Stef sighed. “Gabriel… We don’t even know if it was Dutton. You mentioned the DGSE.”

He stared at the traffic as they drove through downtown San Francisco. “If it was the DGSE, I wouldn’t be here now. It would’ve been me they grabbed, and I’d be in some top-secret research facility, being poked, prodded and dissected. No. It has to be something to do with the coven. Dutton’s involved in this. I’m sure of it.” And maybe this Cordelia Maxime had spokenof. He’d never had the chance to ask Annabelle about her. “We find Dutton, we find who took her. We find Annabelle.Putain,Stef, she has to be injured. She wasn’t wearing her seatbelt. The impact had to have flung her against the door.”

He leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. He could still hear her screaming his name. It was all he could think about, replaying it over and over again in his mind. He had to find her. Save her. Before it was too late.

“I should never have left her in Paris. I should have claimed her then.” He thumped his fist against the dash. “I can’t lose her, Stef. Not like this.”

“We’ll find her, Gabriel. We’ll get your mate back. The twins will come through for us. They always do.”

He couldn’t wait that long. They’d taken her over two days ago. She could be dead already. They were running out of— Time. He sat upright in his seat, wincing at as pain radiated across his ribcage. That was it. Time.

“Take me to Annabelle’s apartment.”

“Why? How will that help us? I’m sensing you have an idea.”

“We need to find that grimoire. We need that spell.”

Chapter Sixteen

---