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Chapter Sixteen

Isobella thought she’d had the attention of everyone at the table before. Now that she’d dropped her bombshell, she couldn’t have twitched an eyelash without them all knowing.

“She’s a witch you know personally? A member of your coven?” Erin clarified.

“Mmhmm. Cordelia, and her whole family are. Sadly. She’s always wanted control of our coven, and been willing to do anything, no matter how underhanded, to get it.” She’d had Annabelle kidnapped, and planned to turn her into a mindless puppet, an instrument of the King family. Though Isobella wasn’t sure that hadn’t been more to do with the Langeais wolves than the coven. “So far, she’s been unsuccessful. She’s…”

How did one describe Cordelia? Import how shocked, how scared Isobella had been when Cordelia had revealed herself. It’d taken her a few moments to recognize the woman. Back in San Francisco, in the twenty-first century, Cordelia was in her eighties. Today she’d been in her forties. No less powerful, though. No less frightening.

“She’s the matriarch of the King family, and she rules over them with an iron fist. As you said, she is a time-traveling witch with the gift of second sight, and she’s beyond powerful. Thanks to the Langeais wolves, we also know she has a vendetta against your pack and has had for centuries, but we don’t know why. At least, nothing I’ve been privy to has included an explanation. What I do know is our coven, and the world in general, would be better off without Cordelia’s brand of witchcraft.”

“And the warlock?” demanded Aubert.

“Douglas? Yes. He’s part of our coven, too. He’s one of Cordelia’s lackeys now.”

“Now?”

Gaharet didn’t miss a trick.

“He was my fiancé. My…” What’s the tenth-century word? “Betrothed. He’s not anymore. Hasn’t been for a while now.” It was important she made that clear. That she had no attachment to Douglas. No connection.

She didn’t have to look to know Edmond was staring at her. His regard was boring holes in the side of her head. “He’s the reason… When I used the spell, he tried to stop me and that disrupted things. That’s how I ended up beneath the chapel. I honestly thought I’d left Douglas behind in the twenty-first century. I guess I was wrong.” So wrong. That he was working for the enemy was impossible to ignore. “As for Cordelia, I wasn’t expecting to see her here at all. She’s younger here. Like half the age of the woman I know from San Francisco.”

“Interesting. So she’s not come back in time because of you then,” said Erin. “I’ll be making sure I make mention of this encounter in your father’s journal, Gaharet. It might give our descendants a heads up.”

“You might want to add in something else.” Constance glanced at her mate, and D’Artagnon nodded. “My grand-mère, Cordelia, is also the witch who created the first Langeais wolf.”

Did she say…? “Cordelia created the Langeais wolves? How was that possible? Did she go back in time to what…spell them into existence?”

“Her real name is Cordoylla,” said Constance. “She was born a peasant in the small village of Louncrais centuries ago. She fell in love with a horse trainer, Alexandre, but he chose another. So she cursed him. In doing so, she created the first black wolf. And so began the Langeais wolves.”

A curse? Now that sounded more like Cordelia. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

“It certainly explains why she’s so fixated on the Langeais wolves,” agreed Erin. “How did you find this out, Constance?”

Constance placed a hand on the leather-bound book on the table in front of her. “D’Artagnon and I discovered it hidden in my grimoire. I am sorry we did not mention it sooner.”

A grimoire. It was as ancient as the one her stepsister had found in the antiquarian bookshop she worked at. “We found a grimoire, a dark one. It was a horrible collection of spells from a blood witch. The most benign spell in it was the one to travel through time. The one I used.” Isobella took in everyone at the table. “To be honest, we don’t truly know who it belonged to, but we—that is, my coven and the Langeais wolves—suspected it was Cordelia’s. Though how a witch that powerful came to lose her grimoire is a mystery.” Isobella met the other witch’s gaze. “I’m sorry, Constance. I know she’s your grand-mère, but from what I know about Cordelia, from the few times I’ve actually met her, she’s one nasty witch.”

Constance nodded, her expression solemn. “I know.”

D’Artagnon took Constance’s hand in his, giving it a squeeze. Isobella looked around the table. All of them—Gaharet, Aimon and Ulrik, too—all were touching their mates in some way. Like Gabriel with Annabelle. It was sweet, romantic, and spoke of an intimacy Isobella could only dream of.

Aubert, his fingers interlocked, showed no inclination, let alone a compulsion, to touch her. Edmond tapped his fingers on the table, restless. The urge to reach for his hand, to have his large one swamp hers and take comfort from his closeness, burned within her.

Isobella inched her hand forward.

A servant placed a platter of cheese and fruit on the table. Another, slices of rare, cooked meat. More servants set down fresh jugs of wine, platters of fresh bread and a bowl of churned butter.

Isobella tore her gaze away from Edmond’s hand to find eyes on her—Constance’s, Gaharet’s and Erin’s. She curled her fingers into her palm and dropped her hand in her lap. What was she thinking? If an engagement did not a lifelong relationship make, one almost kiss in the forest was no guarantee of a mate bond. The twins had saved her life. That should be enough.

Edmond retrieved a small knife from his belt and set it and a plate in front of Isobella. The conversation lulled as servants poured wine into goblets. Remi was already reaching for food, piling a plate high as though they had not made every effort to ensure the boy was well fed. Aubert stabbed a piece of meat off the platter and slapped it onto Isobella’s plate. She flinched.

Aubert poked the bloodied meat with the tip of his knife. “Eat.”

Isobella grimaced.

Edmond sent a withering look toward his brother and sliced a piece off the slab of meat on Isobella’s plate. “You need to eat. Turning and shifting are hard on the body.” He skewered it with the tip of the blade and held it out to her. “You need to get your strength up, and the best thing for that is meat.”