San Francisco, California

USA

It was all Annabelle Jackson-Rodriguez could do to keep her expression neutral and not betray the turmoil raging inside her. Fury, shock and—Lord help her—desire, rolled over her hotter than the Santa Ana winds.

A flush rose up her neck and she wished she’d chosen to wear the turtleneck sweater instead of her cardigan. Her hands twitched at her side and her gaze roamed ceaselessly, lighting on objects in the room—on the imposing desk, the bookshelf filled with books on arcane knowledge, the wind-whipped San Francisco Bay beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. The Christmas tree in the corner—the High Priestess’ nod to social norms—with its red, green and gold decorations and store-wrapped presents beneath like something from the pages of a Home Beautiful Christmas Edition. The High Priestess with her coiffed hair and tailored suit designed to impress her millionaire real estate clients. Annabelle looked anywhere and everywhere but at the object of her distress. Gabriel Madore.

The High Priestess had called her in for a meeting. Her and—Annabelle leveled a sneer at the man standing next to her—Dutton King. A matter of great importance, she’d said. No witch could, or would ignore a summons from the leader of the coven. Annabelle had her suspicions as to the nature of the summons. What Dutton was doing here was anyone’s guess, but Gabriel… He was the last person she’d expected to encounter. Here of all places. And he hadn’t come alone.

Three years. Three long years, numerous, though short-lived—very short-lived—relationships, of which none had ever compared, blasted from her memory the moment she’d set eyes on Gabriel again.  Standing there, beside the leader of her coven, in a snug pair of black Levi’s, a torso hugging T-shirt and a curl of dark hair flopping over one brown eye. She wanted to draw back and punch him in the nose. Wipe that smirk off his lips. Cast a spell and turn him into a toad. If only.

Where had he gone? That night in Paris?

Annabelle’s gaze slid to the unfamiliar woman next to him. Athletic, strong and—acid burned in the back of her throat—gorgeous. Was she why he’d left her? After two glorious, passionate months of mind-blowing sex in the city of love? Where they hadn’t been able to get enough of each other. Where the fire between them had threatened to swallow them up and consumed— Annabelle dropped her gaze to her shoes. Well, it had obviously consumed only her. Otherwise, he would never have left her standing in the damn street on Christmas Eve.

“I have to go,” he’d said, beneath the Christmas lights of the Champs-Élysées, regret shining in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Then he’d handed her their parcels—chocolates, artisan cheeses and hand-crafted Christmas ornaments purchased on their stroll through the Christmas markets—and walked away. The last she’d seen of him were his broad shoulders as he’d slipped into a cab. Then he was gone.

She’d spent Christmas Day alone in her little rented apartment in the fourth arrondissement, watching lovers stroll along the Seine while she had only her memories and her thoughts of what might have been to keep her company. Christmas had always been more a time for spending with family rather than anything of religious significance for Annabelle. But after Paris, even that had lost its luster… It was hard to be festive and jolly with the memory of Gabriel and Paris rattling around in her head and her heart.

Now he was here. On her home turf. With a woman. The Christmas tree in the corner mocked her.

I hate Christmas.

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. She was not going to let him intimidate her. Not here. Not now. She’d moved past him.

He ran his gaze leisurely over her, from head to toe, and God help her if it didn’t remind her of what it felt like to have his hands caressing her and teasing her to heights she had never reached since. She glared at him, and he openly grinned. She scowled.

“Annabelle.” The High Priestess turned that impenetrable slate gaze of hers on her. “Pay attention.”

“My apologies, High Priestess,” she mumbled.

That the most powerful witch in their coven was her great aunt afforded Annabelle no concessions, not when it came to coven matters.

“Jeez, Annabee,” whispered Dutton. “What is it with you and this guy? Another one of your jilted lovers?”

Dutton King—warlock and all-round pain in her ass. She’d forgotten he was there. She rolled her lips, smothering her laugh. He wouldn’t like that. Being forgotten. With a name like King and an attitude to match, he strutted around their coven as if he ruled it. If he and his family had their way, he’d soon be one step closer. That wasn’t happening. Never in a million years would she consider a match with him. Especially not now she’d seen him wearing that ridiculous Christmas sweater. What grown man wore anything with Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer on it?

His fingers brushed hers. Annabelle recoiled. She didn’t have to turn Dutton into a toad. He already was one. She clasped her hands behind her back, out of his reach. A growl rumbled, and Annabelle’s attention snapped to Gabriel. Dark eyes bored into hers and his lips curled into a snarl. She stuck out her chin.

How dare he? He’d left her without a follow-up phone call, not even a text. And now he stood there, with a woman, and he was upset because another man tried to touch her? If having anything to do with Dutton didn’t make her skin crawl, she might have grabbed for his hand just to spite the gorgeous hunk of man flesh she’d once called her lover.

The High Priestess, her aunt, sighed. “Do we need to clear the air here? Before we can get down to business?”

Annabelle shook her head. “Nope. I’ve got nothing to say.”

Dutton puffed up his chest. “Well, I do.”

Annabelle rolled her eyes. Of course he does.

“I don’t know what’s gone on between you two in the past,” he said, flicking his gaze between Annabelle and Gabriel, “but it’s over. Annabelle is my intended and I’ll not have some…some shifter sniffing around my woman.”

Gabriel’s nostrils flared.

Annabelle snorted. “Your woman? Only in your dreams, Dutton. Wait. What?” She spun on Gabriel. “You’re a shifter? How did I not know that?”

Gabriel shrugged.

Annabelle wanted to wipe the smug smirk off Dutton’s face. With her boot.

“This is why, Annabee, you need me,” said Dutton. “Any witch or warlock with any experience would know he’s a wolf shifter.” He gave a sweep of his hand to include Xena: Warrior Princess. “They’re both shifters.” He looked down his nose at Annabelle. “You’re not strong enough to rule this coven on your own, sweets. You need me.”

He brushed the back of his hand across her cheek, and her stomach roiled. She pulled back, resisting the urge to gag. She stared at Gabriel and the woman beside him. The beautiful woman. The she-wolf. Is that why he’d left her? Had his pack called him back to mate one of their own?

She faced the pride and joy of the King family. “Now is not the time for this discussion, Dutton, but I assure you, you are the last man I would ever need.”

“Enough!” Her aunt slammed a book down on her desk. “Our visitors are not here to discuss the internal politics of our coven.” She glared at Annabelle before turning to Dutton. “Nor your marriage proposal, Dutton.”

Marriage proposal? Oh, hell, no.

Dutton must’ve tired of her refusals and approached the High Priestess. Her aunt wouldn’t do that, would she? Take her choice away and marry her off to Dutton for the benefit of the coven? Annabelle pulled herself together. Her aunt had said marriage proposal, not impending marriage.

“Gabriel Montagne and Stefanie d’Louncrais are here as representatives of the Langeais Wolf pack.”

Montagne? Bastard. He’d told her his name was Gabriel Madore. It was part of the reason she’d initially thought he was Spanish, not French. That, and he looked like Zorro. Or the actor who played him.

“They’ve come all the way from France.”

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 she was 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. She had 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 of Malleus 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.

“And that brings us to why we are here,” said Gabriel.

Annabelle nearly swooned at the familiarity of that deep voice. A voice that had once romanced her over dinner and a bottle of Bordeaux. Had commanded her to spread her legs for him so he could taste her, and had whispered dirty words against her throat as he’d thrust inside her. Her legs quivered, and her panties dampened.

Gabriel’s nostrils flared, and his gaze locked with hers. He knew. Damn it. Bloody shifter senses. She dropped her gaze, willing her body to have some level of dignity. The man had clearly moved on. That her body betrayed her continuing need for him was embarrassing. Lord knew what Stefanie thought of it all.

“Tell us, High Priestess,” said Gabriel. “What is your interest in Eveque Faucher?”

The High Priestess shrugged an elegant shoulder. “We plan to rewrite history.”