Page 39 of The Wolf and his Witch

Isobella cringed, as if the very essence of the witch who’d once owned the book would seep through the pages and into her skin, but she took it and flipped through the pages. She stopped at the back of the book.

“There.” She turned the grimoire around for him to see. “That’s the spell she used.” She pointed to the bottom of the page. “And that’s the one she used to get back.”

“Will I really need that? I’m only going back a few days.”

“Then what? Then there’s two of you running around for a few days?” Stef grimaced. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Gabriel.”

Good point. Gabriel pulled out his phone and took a photo.

“Now what do I do? Do I just make myself bleed and recite the spell?”

Stef cuffed him about the head. “Imbecile.”

He held out his hands. “What?”

“Alain would roll his eyeballs at you right now. Have you learned nothing from watching him over the years?”

Alain was adept at casting spells. Small, simple ones to prank his fellow wolves. Larger, more complicated ones to help the pack. Many times, Gabriel had guarded his back as he’d prepared…Oh.

He raked a hand through his hair. “This could take days.”

“Annabelle spent a few hours preparing for it,” said Isobella, “but you’re a shifter. You’re stronger and you heal faster. Perhaps you don’t need as much prep time.”

“I’ll take that risk.” His body was still healing from being hit by a truck, but he wasn’t going to waste another minute. The most important person in the world to him, his mate, he’d failed to protect. Someone, most likely thatconnard,Dutton, had taken her from right under his nose. What was he doing with her? What was Cordelia doing with her? If Dutton was involved, then so was Cordelia King. He’d not missed the tension in Maxime’svoice when he’d spoken of her. Cordelia was no ordinary witch.Approach with extreme prejudice.

Gabriel would do whatever it took to get her back. Alive and whole. Then he was never letting her out of his sight again. “Let’s do this.”

Isobella shrugged her shoulders. “Okay.” She began pulling things out of her backpack—a bowl, some candles, a jar of something crushed into tiny pieces, some herbs and a few red berries in a Ziploc bag. “Candles to light your way. The bowl to hold your blood and mix the spell. Crushed snail shells to ward against witches. Hawthorn to ward against the cunning, blackthorn against the forceful and rowan berries to ward against magicians,” she explained. “I’ve tried to cover everything.” She pulled a small vial of blood from her pocket. “You’ll need this, too.”

Gabriel quirked an eyebrow.

“It’s my blood. You’ll need the power of a witch’s blood for the spell to work.”

“So I use yours instead of mine?”

Isobella shook her head. “You’re the one going back in time, so it’s going to need your blood, too.”

“What about when I want to come back?”

Isobella handed him a second Ziploc bag with similar ingredients. “All sorted. You’ll need to find something to put them in, but you’re only going back a couple of days. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

With a stick, Isobella drew a pentacle in the dirt, lit the candles and placed one at each of the points. In the center, she placed the bowl and a mixture of all the ingredients.

She motioned for him to kneel before the pentacle. “Now it’s your turn. You need only enough blood to sprinkle over the ingredients.”

Gabriel took a deep breath and exhaled on a long sigh. If this didn’t work… It had to work.

Alain’s words from earlier came back to him.

It’s all about intent.

Keeping Annabelle firmly in his thoughts—the winter sun on her hair, the way she tucked herself into his body at night, the fire that danced in her blue eyes when he challenged her. Wrapping himself in his deep need to protect his mate and his determination to save her, he willed his canines to drop and he bit into his wrist. For the second time in as many hours, he bled for Annabelle, letting his blood drip into the bowl and splatter over the herbs, the berries and the snail shells.

Stef gripped his shoulder. “Go save your mate, Gabriel.”

Isobella stepped forward, holding the book so he could see. “Are you ready?”

Gabriel read over the spell. Seven lines. The words blood and time and body jumped out at him. “It’s a little dark.” Tear what asunder, exactly? Time? Him?

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