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She shook her head. “And you’re a wolf shifter. It’s about as likely as a trapdoor on a canoe I’ll have any chance of taking the grimoire from you.”

As likely as a…? He struggled to keep the smile out of his voice. She wasn’t wrong. “Oui.”

She tracked the car with Irena and Dubois, as it sped onto the auto-route on ramp. “Why didn’t you leave me back there by the dumpster? When you found the tracking device? For that matter, why did you bother bringing me along?”

Alain started the car. Nope. He wasn’t going to answer those questions, because she was right. It wasn’t the smartest thing he’d done. If it were Irena he’d found in his apartment, he would have left her behind. Or abandoned her here in the parking lot of the A10 service center. If it were any other woman, he would have done the same. Maybe he, or the twins, might have done what Grace had feared would happen to her. Taken out the enemy.

She sat in silence, her elbow on the door, her chin in her hand, as he pulled out onto the auto-route. But it wasn’t any other woman. It was Grace. And though it made things so much more complicated than they needed to be, he couldn’t have left her behind for all the money in the world. Not even for the answer to disrupting Cordelia’s curse.

He glanced at her profile, at her lips pinched tight. Grace had it all wrong. She’d not been sent to steal the grimoire. If Alain were right, she’d never been meant to succeed. She was the woman fate had decreed was his, his mate, and if anyone could distract him, rearrange his priorities, make him vulnerable to attack so the grimoire could be snatched, it was her. And Cordelia, with her second sight, had known what Grace was to him.

And that was why Cordelia had sent her.

Chapter Fifteen

Grace rested her head against the window, the darkened forest before them stretching for miles. If there were a quick way to reach pack territory, this wasn’t it. Alain had gotten off the freeway at the first exit, and they’d spent the last half-hour or more weaving their way through the countryside, on regional roads and through smaller towns. As the fields had turned to forest, Alain’s grip on the wheel had tightened. This meeting with Maxime had more than her concerned.

As much fun as a root canal, Louis had said. Who was this Maxime? At a guess, his alpha. It couldn’t be any worse than her night so far. Irena had been sent after the grimoire. Kind of. And Dubois? An agent in France’s version of the CIA? He hadn’t needed Alain’s address. He’d known it all along. So had Irena. They’d already been in the building. Which meant Cordelia had known it, too.

She snuck a glance at Alain, the glow from the dash lighting up his handsome face. Irena would’ve jumped at the chance to seduce Alain. It didn’t make any sense. Dubois and Irena could’ve as easily teamed up and gone after the grimoire, but they hadn’t. They’d waited for little old Grace to turn up and make a pig’s breakfast of it all. Why? And why not tell her she had back up, or that there was a tracking device in her shoe?

She turned away from Alain and let out a shuddery breath. Behind her, not four feet away on the backseat, sat the grimoire that had started all this. Had she met Alain, and Pierre and Louis, under any other circumstances, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine she’d trust them more than she’d trust Irena. Irena King would steal the pennies off her dead mama’s eyes. As for Cordelia…there was no contest there. Alain would win hands down. They might have the same mismatched eyes, but there was warmth and humor in his—among other things—and if given half a chance, she’d lose herself in them. Cordelia’s were hard to look at, as if doing so, she’d suck your soul out right in front of your eyes.

Her reflection in the car window stared back at her. She didn’t know what to think of this new development. Wasn’t sure where it left her.

The car slowed, and they turned off the asphalt and onto a barely visible track, little more than two tire ruts in the grass. The trees crowded them in, and Grace tensed and sat up straighter as they wound their way through the forest. She had no idea where they were, only that they were miles away from any town, and there were few people living out here. There wasn’t a single light from a window visible. A perfect place for a pack of wolf shifters to live. A forest of their own to roam, and no prying eyes of neighbors to witness things they shouldn’t.

Grace studied the darkness and the swathe of forest under the beam of the headlights, searching. She had the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. She balled her hands into fists. There could be wolf shifters out there, tracking their progress. It’d make sense they’d patrol the borders of their territory.

Alain pulled the car to a stop in front of a large iron gate bracketed by two large brick pillars, drawing level with a post with an electronic keypad. He wound the window down and punched in some numbers. The keypad flashed red and let out a series of beeps. The gate didn’t open. Alain frowned and punched the numbers in again. The same red flash, the same beeping, and the gate remained closed.

He thumped the wheel, growled out a bunch of rapid French. He sucked in a breath, exhaled loudly, and tried the numbers again. When the keypad flashed red again, and still the gate refused to open, he slammed on the parking brake, jammed the car into neutral and threw the door open, spitting out more rapid French.

Alain stormed up to the gate and stood in front of it in the spotlight of the headlights, his head bowed. He was preparing for a spell. Without herbs, crystals, or something to focus his energy, he would need to visualize internally. He would need to be calm. Right now, he was madder than a wet hen. It would take an extreme amount of control to bring any spell to fruition with his emotions so volatile. And yet…

Grace had never seen anyone stand so still. Watching him, it was like the world had stopped spinning. The forest had fallen silent. The trees had stopped rustling in the breeze, and the night insects were conspicuously quiet. In the beam of the headlights, not a single bug hovered, drawn to its light. The only sound was the steady hum of the car.

Holy tamole. Alain d’Louncrais was one powerful witch. He raised his arms. She might never in her lifetime get to experience a witch like Alain in action again, but… She glanced at the boxes on the back seat. This might be her one opportunity to get a look at them. To see what was so important about this book that it put hers, her mama’s and Bernard’s lives at risk.

Alain was chanting now, his voice a sonorous hum. Grace unbuckled her belt and, as quietly as she could, she swiveled in her seat. He was focused. The incantation required all his concentration, but he was still a wolf shifter with exceptional hearing. Reaching over the center console, she flipped up the lid of the first box. Her heart raced a little faster. An old, most likely ancient, leather-bound book nestled inside. Grace opened it. Pages of Latin, drawings of herbs, spells. She smiled. It was a grimoire.

She glanced over her shoulder. Alain was still chanting, his back to her. Closing the book and the lid, she shifted the box aside and opened the second one. Another book. Also ancient. This one with splotches of blood staining the cover. Another grimoire? If it was, it had belonged to a blood witch. Grace shivered, and not from the cool air wafting in through the open door. There was something about this book that chilled her blood. With shaking hands, she opened it. Not Latin, but English. Odd, for something so old. She skim-read the first few lines.

Grace snapped the book shut, recoiling as though the words themselves could stain her soul. It was indeed a grimoire, but this was no spell of healing or abundance or protection. This was a spell to raise the dead. Necromancy—manipulation of the spirits—was banned in the San Francisco Bay coven. And many others. Some witches, and some humans, collected grimoires like this for the history of it. She was under no illusion that if Cordelia were to get her hands on it, her intentions would be that benign.

She took another peek inside the book, skipping through the pages, each spell more horrible than the next. This was the grimoire Cordelia wanted. Of that, Grace had no doubt.

What about Alain? Why did he want it? Not to take it to the Council of Witches, that was for sure, otherwise it would’ve been them he’d called. Them he’d take her to, not his pack. Not this Maxime.

A loud clunk and a motor humming had Grace spinning around. With a steady whirring, the gate slid open. Alain was coming back to the car. She flipped the box lid closed, slid back into her seat and buckled herself back in. Alain jumped back into the car and slammed the car door. She stared at his profile—his clenched jaw, his furrowed brow. He thumped the wheel and she jumped. He let loose another burst of rapid French. It didn’t take a linguist to guess he was cussing.

“Cussing is the refuge of a small mind.” The words came out unbidden. “Of a person who lacks imagination or has a limited vocabulary.”

Oh, Grace. If ever there was a time to cuss, now was it. Caught between two powerful witches who wanted a grimoire full of evil spells for purposes unknown, but none of them good, was the last place she wanted to be.

He huffed, released the parking brake, threw the car into gear and drove through the gate. In the side mirror, in the receding red glow of their taillights, the gate slid closed behind them.

“Non.” He’d regained some of the calm he’d exhibited when he’d spelled the gate open. “Research suggests the use of cuss words, as you call them, indicates a stronger grasp of language.” Alain parked the car in front of a small stone cottage. He shot off a text, then slipped his phone back into his pocket. The headlights winked out, leaving them sitting in the dark. “That those who are appreciably vulgar might also be appreciably eloquent and intelligent.”