Page 46 of Wine & Warlocks

With both hands, she gripped his and tugged. “Please, Papa? It will make me not sad anymore.”

“Emotional blackmail is beneath you, my love.” He picked up the pup and set it in Sabrina’s arms. “Now, please return the dog to where you found her.”

Feet dragging with every step, as if she were going to her execution, his daughter walked to a whelping box in the corner. A large female Rottweiler lifted her head, and across the distance, her concerned eyes met his.

“We’re sorry to disturb your rest, lovely lady,” he murmured as he joined Sabrina by the box. Only the one puppy remained from a litter of five. “Who did Baz foist the other two little gremlins off on?”

“The Thornes,” the man in question said from behind them. “Mack convinced two of her cousins they each needed a guard dog.”

“Did we get the worst of the lot?”

Baz laughed and shook his head. “No, that honor went to Alastair’s son, Nash.”

Damian grinned. “Excellent.”

“You have a bloody mean streak, Dethridge.” Baz crouched beside his beloved Rottie and rubbed her chest. If the blissful expression on the dog’s face was an accurate indicator, she adored the attention.

“We must be going,” Damian said. “Give our love to Mack and your beautiful baby girl.”

“Bye, Baz!” Sabrina waved over Damian’s shoulder as he lifted her.

Visualizing his private ceremony room, he teleported. When they arrived, Damian set her in the center of the pentagram etched in the wood floor. “Let’s get to work, Beastie. We have interlopers eating us out of house and home.”

He thumbed through the grimoire until he found the spell he was searching for. One penned in blood by the first Aether at the dawn of magic.

“Build a ring of protection like I showed you.”

After depositing salt along the outer rim of the pentagram, Sabrina placed white pillar candles on all five points. A simple touch of her finger lit the wicks.

With a proud-as-punch smile, Damian joined her at the center of the circle, book in hand. “Well done, my love.” He knelt, making himself level with her, and turned the grimoire to face her. “Can you read this for me?”

In a soft, clear voice, she repeated the spell on the time-worn page.

“Goddess, hear my plea,

Assist me in this time of need,

Allow the sight to come to me

Without pain for the vision I see.”

The atmosphere in the room grew thick, and Damian shut the tome in his hand, setting it on the topmost point of the star. Shifting, he sat cross-legged and drew Sabrina down to the floor so she could copy his position, then he linked hands with her.

“Allow the visions to come, but pay special attention to my voice throughout the process. I’m going to help you sift through them until we find the best-case scenario for Ronan and Castor, okay?”

“Yes, Papa.”

The room grew dark as their consciousnesses merged. Only the candles provided any illumination. As the future events began to roll through Sabrina’s mind, Damian was privy to every one, and he gained a better understanding of why she was upset and why she refused to tell what she’d witnessed.

This was the part of his gift he hated the most. The knowing. To anyone else, the idea of seeing the future unfold would be appealing—until they actually had to live with what they had learned without altering the course of history as it was to play out.

Exactly four hours after they started the process, Damian and Sabrina closed the circle and had a deep discussion about what needed to be done to limit the damage.

* * *

Alexander Castor glancedup from where he was sprawled on the sofa in the Dethridge study to see a grim-faced Damian enter the room.

“Where are the others?” his friend asked.

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