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“A mix of pleasure and pain can be exquisite. Have you ever had such an experience?”
She dropped the nipple clamps like they were a hot iron.
“I’ll take that as a no.” He prowled toward her and she scrambled back onto the bed. “But maybe you’d like to.”
She thrashed her head from side to side in violent denial, but her scent didn’t lie. He breathed it in, letting it wash over him like the faintest thread of hope it was.
His phone rang. Pierre. He tucked her phone into his pocket. Anything between them would have to wait. There was too much at stake for him to be distracted right now. He answered the call.
“Her mother is Emmeline King,” said Pierre. “She married Bernard King, one of Cordelia’s nephews, two years ago. Her father, Gatlin Williams, a cotton farmer from Pickens County, Alabama, died ten years ago. Heart attack. He was forty-six.”
Young for a heart attack. Alain watched her as Pierre prattled off more facts about her early life, her parents active members with the Baptist church community. A witch, two witches, mother and daughter, a part of a church congregation was a new one for him. The sale of the cotton farm, and Grace’s subsequent move to San Francisco, and starting a business, Thrifty Witch. She avoided looking at him. Or at the nipple clamps on the bed near her feet.
“We can only guess it’s through her business her and her mother first came into contact with the Kings,” chimed in Louis.
“Mm.” How deep did those ties run?
“Even more concerning is the number you gave us,” said Pierre. “It’s for an Henri Dubois. He’s an agent with the DGSE.”
The Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure? France’s foreign intelligence agency? “Putain.”
“Oui,” answered the twins in unison.
Pierre huffed out a breath. “Turns out, he’s the new guardien in your building.”
“What? You didn’t tell me he was DGSE?”
“Oui.” Pierre’s voice was full of regret. “We missed it. Melinda found it. Dubois is good at covering his tracks.”
“Putain de merde.” He raked his hands through his hair. Cordelia and the Faucherians were a concern, but the DGSE? If they got hold of one of the Langeais Wolves, of the grimoire… It didn’t bear thinking about.
He glanced at Grace. The stillness of her body betrayed her. She was listening.
“What are you going to do?” asked Pierre.
He scrubbed his face. “I was going to leave in the morning anyway,” he said, switching to English. Let her listen in. Maybe she might be a little more forthcoming. “Head back to the…” Pack’s territory? “…property, but I’ll have to move up my plans. Leave tonight.” He needed to be somewhere he could study Cordelia’s grimoire without interruption. Somewhere safe and protected, and there was no better place than on the d’Louncrais estate, surrounded by his pack. He also needed to have a long-overdue discussion with Maxime.
He let his gaze wander over the room, every item in it chosen with a mind to what gave him comfort and joy. He liked this apartment, and its views of the tower, the floor-to-ceiling windows. It soothed his soul, the elegant, historic charm of the interior. No sharp edges, no ultra-modern, sleek surfaces. He’d made this place his sanctuary in Paris, and he’d always planned to be back. Irena King and the Faucherian guardien were a minor inconvenience. Not enough to chase him out of this place for long.
But the DGSE? He’d have to walk away from it. From his collection of books and paintings, his carefully curated store of fine wines. His playroom. It pissed him off, but he had no choice. Thank fuck he’d had the foresight to move all but the two grimoires from his safe room to the d’Louncrais manoir.
“Have you got eyes on my back door?” he asked the twins.
“We do, and we’ve locked every camera down tight within a five-kilometer radius,” said Pierre.
“You were watching my building, and Dubois still got her in.”
Grace studied the duvet with an intensity beyond its due. Alain paced the floor.
“That’s why I’ve called in a few of the wolves in pack security to manually shut the closest ones down,” Pierre assured him. “And by manually, I mean destroy them with a pry bar. It should give you enough time to get out of there.”
“And what of Grace?” asked Louis.
He turned back to her. She was staring at him, no longer making any pretense she wasn’t listening.
“She’s coming with me.”
Chapter Ten
