Page 14

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 facade.

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, perhaps the most powerful witch in San Francisco, would live in this dump would never occur to anyone, but then that was the whole point of the facade.

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, knew where 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 been persuasive.

He curled his hands into fists. Shame persuasion hadn’t fared so well with Annabelle .

“The Faucherians ? 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.”

The man had balls, Dutton would give him that.

Irritation flickered in Cordelia’s eyes. Boucher showed no signs he’d taken the hint.

“We’ll uphold our end of the bargain.” Cordelia’s words came with a coating of steel.

Boucher shrugged. “And I will uphold mine.” He turned to Dutton. “Where iz ‘e now? Montagne?”

Dutton gritted his teeth. “Fucking Annabelle. They have history. Damn wolf is acting like he has some sort of claim on her.” Though his blood still boiled, he took comfort in knowing Annabelle would soon be his—willing or unwilling—heart, body and soul.

Boucher cocked an eyebrow, making the scars on his face stretch. “’E iz? Mm. Interesting, no?”

“Interesting? He’s fucking my intended. It’s pissing me off, that’s what it is.

It’s not fucking interesting .” Dutton paced, his earlier agitation returning.

The prick of a shifter had not tried to hide his intentions.

He’d slung Annabelle over his shoulder right in front of him and carried her into the elevator.

The triumphant smirk on the shifter’s face, the challenge in his eyes as the elevator doors had closed—it had taken everything he had not to throw himself at them.

He’d wanted to pound the shifter into the expensive foyer tiles and wipe them with his blood.

He’d been so close to unleashing his magic right there and then, in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton.

Only Isobella’s warning glare had held him in check.

Boucher remained unmoved. “She must be somezing special, zis Annabelle, no? Zis could be useful.”

“Useful? Useful?”

“Dutton.”

The warning note in his great aunt’s voice pulled him up short.

He huffed and made a beeline for the side cabinet.

He needed a drink, and he didn’t care it was six in the morning.

After the night he’d had, imagining Annabelle with another man between her thighs…

Dutton poured himself a whiskey, allowing the slide of it down his throat to burn away some of his anger.

“Could it be zis woman iz Montagne’s mate?”

Dutton spat out his whiskey. “ What ?”

“Could it be zis Annabelle means more to ’im zan a mere, ’ow you say, booty call ?”

Dutton wiped the whiskey off his chin with his sleeve.

“You say ’e has a ’istory wiz her? Perhaps z’ere is somezing bringing him back to ’er, no?”

Was it possible?

“Does ’e have eyes for no ozer woman, no matter ’ow beautiful? Does ’e growl when you get too close?”

“Yes.” They had connections with shifter clans here in San Francisco. Dutton had witnessed the way shifter males were with their mates. Boucher was right. Everything about Montagne’s behavior suggested he believed Annabelle was his mate.

“ Oui. I zink she iz ‘iz mate . Zis is good ’zing. ’Iz focus will be on ’er, not uz. She will lead ’im around by la bite , no?”

La bite? Dutton didn’t speak French, but he got the idea. Dutton smiled and threw back his whiskey. In taking Annabelle for himself, Dutton would be taking away the shifter’s one true mate. And didn’t that just make his day.