Bad Boys of the Night: Eight Sizzling Paranormal Romances: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set

by Jennifer Ashley

  She frowned up at him, her bare skin rosy beautiful. “You’re not telling me something.”

  That he was leaving her at her most vulnerable? That he was turning her scary wolf problem over to someone else? She’d never forgive him.

  Custo managed to lift one side of his mouth. It was the best he could do. She’d find out soon enough. “Big day.”

  Annabella rolled her eyes, but crawled out of bed, magnificent and easy in her naked skin. She knew she looked good—slender, yet subtly curvaceous, sculpted by her art. That awareness had his blood heating again, his hands twitching to touch her. She stood and her breasts pinked slightly under his scrutiny, but she made no motion to cover herself as she padded to the bathroom, her ass sweetly swinging side to side. She glanced over her shoulder, eyes sparkling, to see if he was watching, then turned back, making the motions of knotting her hair behind her head to show her body off to its best advantage. Custo shifted in the bed to follow the siren, but a jab of well-deserved pain in his side reminded him about the day.

  She left the door ajar, still afraid to be alone and trusting him to protect her.

  Hell, he was a bastard, in all senses of the word. But…he’d do it again.

  Custo labored into a sitting position and grabbed his mobile.

  Adam picked up on the first ring. “Did you find the place?”

  He must have been waiting for the call. “I did. I take it Talia’s not doing well?”

  Adam sighed. “She’s hanging in there, but she can’t engage wraiths or the wolf again before she delivers.” Adam’s subtext was brutally clear: Once Custo was gone, there was no way to protect Annabella, not without costing the lives of Talia and possibly the twins. Adam was telling him whom he’d choose if it came down to life and death.

  Warring emotions rose in Custo: first, simple understanding. Of course Adam would put his wife and children before anyone else. Second, betrayal. Hadn’t Custo given his life for Adam? And this was how Adam would repay him? This emotion, irrational, Custo pushed vehemently to the side. There were no ledgers between him and Adam; everything had always and would always be freely given. And finally, helpless urgency. If Adam couldn’t help Annabella, Custo had to find someone who could.

  That left Luca.

  “Be ready to leave by eight,” Custo said. “The sooner we get these women taken care of, the better.”

  “I’m ready now,” Adam answered.

  Custo glanced over at the cracked doorway to the bathroom. Something clattered to the tiled floor and Annabella cursed. It would be another minute or two on their end. “Have you ID’d the Segue leak yet? You know someone had to have tipped off the wraiths to your location at city center.”

  The threat inside Segue was Adam-specific. Had to be. The wraiths could have caused far more destruction and mayhem by attacking the audience contained in the theater. By blocking the exits, they could have fed and murdered with little opposition, then escaped when Segue finally organized enough forces against them.

  Instead, the wraiths chose a concentrated attack on the area outside the theater. Why there?

  Somebody had to have let them know where Adam would be stationed, ready to support Annabella at need. If they got Adam, Talia might falter, especially stuck in bed rest for the next few weeks. And if the world lost Talia’s scream, the wraiths could attack and feed unchecked. Life as humanity knew it would be forever changed.

  “I haven’t got him yet,” Adam said, “but I have a strong lead.”

  “Go on.” This was the reason Custo had escaped Heaven, after all. If he had to go back (or to a warmer climate), it would be somewhat satisfying to know that the traitor was neutralized.

  “Twenty-seven of the thirty-five soldiers survived the wraith attack. They were the only ones privy to the details of the mission. All are accounted for except one, Geoff, his partner murdered, but not by a wraith. Geoff logged on briefly to the Segue server during the cleanup, so it’s unlikely he was taken by the wraiths for a little late-night snack. And it makes sense that he’d run, now that the pool of suspects has been narrowed from several thousand to only twenty-seven.”

  Sounded too easy. Custo didn’t like it.

  “But to be completely safe,” Adam continued, “I’ve asked the rest of the team from last night to move to voluntary containment at the New York Segue compound for the duration of the investigation. I intend to question them all regardless.”

  That was better. Adam would be thorough, especially where Talia was concerned.

  If there’d been enough time, Custo would’ve liked to have performed the interviews himself. A couple of pointed questions would’ve yielded the man pretty quickly, even if he were lying. Mind reading was much more efficient than a lie detector test.

  There were too many dangers from too many different sides. “Adam, I’m going to need a weapon. I don’t want to be unarmed.”

  “Got your Glock right here.”

  Annabella emerged from the bathroom, leaving the light on, scared of the dark. Her hair was parted to the side and hung in soft, deep toffee waves around her face to her shoulders. She wore little makeup that he could see, except for a deepening of color at her lips.

  “Good,” Custo said. “We’ll be right up.”

  ***

  Annabella looked from Adam’s ashen sober face to Custo’s. Neither was talking and the tension in the car was poisoning the air. The connection she’d shared with Custo that morning felt weirdly severed and distant, though just looking at his profile made her want him all over again. Wanting Custo was a fantastic distraction from the lure of the Shadowlands. That is, if Custo would talk to her or signify in some way that they were in this together. They were a team, weren’t they?

  But it wasn’t as if she could ask while third-wheel Adam was right there, especially with Custo riding shotgun and her in the backseat. She’d just have to wait until they were alone again.

  The mood heightened the sense that everything seemed shadowed today, the darkest places falling to impenetrable black. A prickly awareness told her that they were being followed. Flashes of adrenaline jumped her nervousness to paranoia. She hugged the fear close to keep her on edge, her mind sharp. Her anxiety, added to last night’s aches, made her muscles and joints complain bitterly, but ballet had taught her to tell good pain from bad pain. Bad pain meant you were hurt. Good pain kept you on the top of your game. This was good pain, a centering pain; she couldn’t afford to lose herself to Wolf again.

  She knew they were going to meet others like Custo. She figured they were going to ask for help with their next try. The performance season would open in a few days, and this time she intended to get it right. They’d ask for help, make a plan, and get rid of Wolf.

  The day called for proactive, forward movement. Custo and Adam, however, looked like they were going to a funeral.

  “Anyone care to clue me in?” she asked. She kept her tone light to counter the oppressive mood.

  After the horrible performance last night, and being duped by Wolf into almost going with him voluntarily, she couldn’t stand any secrets.

  Custo glanced over his shoulder at her from the front seat. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  Macho bullshit always ticked her off. She countered it with a little bitch. “I need to know what’s going on.”

  But Custo turned abruptly back to Adam. “No, over there. I can feel it, not more than a block from us.”

  He was ignoring her. Not one hour ago, he’d been inside her, and now he refused to answer.

  Adam slowed the car to a crawl and glanced at Custo. “You ready for this?”

  Adam was ignoring her, too.

  “I want it taken care of,” Custo answered.

  Pigheaded men. “Someone needs to fill me in right now, or…” …or she didn’t know what she’d do, but it would be extremely unpleasant for everyone.

  “You already know, Annabella,” Custo said placatingly. She didn’t like his impersonal voice. This wasn’
t the man who’d just shared her bed and her body. He continued, “I’ve been called in to meet with some of the others like me. I hope to get some information about how to deal with the wolf.” To Adam, he suddenly said, “Damn it! Here!”

  “I don’t see anything,” Adam responded, but he pulled the car over to double-park.

  Annabella peered out the window, though she didn’t know what to look for either. There were no big churches, only a Manhattan street busy with morning traffic under an overcast sky that looked as chilly as it felt. Irregular buildings crowded the sidewalk, some fat and blocky, studded with small businesses—a Starbucks, deli, cleaners—while others reached into the sky, only to be blunted before they touched the low-hanging clouds. The street looked harsh, the sky menacing, and the combination of the two…wolfy.

  She wrapped her jacket tighter around her. “Are you in trouble?”

  As soon as the words left her lips, her uneasy feeling coalesced into certainty.

  He was in trouble, and it was her fault.

  The performance. If he were going to get reprimanded for the catastrophe of last night, she was glad she was here. Custo had done his best. She’d screwed up. She’d been so caught up in the moment, in herself, that she hadn’t realized what was happening. And Wolf got away. If anyone had to answer for the disaster, it should be her.

  Custo got out of the car without answering. Without looking at her. That was it then; she’d gotten him in trouble. Well, she’d just have to fix it.

  Annabella joined him on the sidewalk with Adam, who had left the car in the street. Whatever they were going to do had to be really important not to take the time to park. A cab blared its displeasure at being stopped.

  Yet Custo and Adam seemed only concerned with finding an address. Annabella kept glancing over her shoulder at the skulk of shadow near an alley, or the black-eyed face of a pedestrian, or the sudden growl of a garbage truck accelerating. Broad daylight and she was starting to shake again.

  If there were such a thing as women’s intuition, and recent freaky events led her believe that anything was possible, then something was watching them. Had to be Wolf. Tracking her movements. Stalking her.

  “This way,” Custo said, his face turned up into the sky in a grim kind of awe that confused the heck out of her and made her stomach clutch, too.

  But he led them toward a grimy alleyway too dark for her comfort. Uh…Wolf anyone?

  “Custo?” Adam asked.

  Custo took a deep breath. “You don’t see it?”

  “See what?” Annabella asked.

  “I see a tower,” he said, “a narrow obelisk, smooth like a dagger cutting the sky. Its facade is some kind of white marble that seems to be absorbing the light of the day. There are no windows, except at the top, where there are two dark slits, like some kind of medieval castle.”

  Custo glanced over at them.

  She shrugged. Nope, couldn’t see nothin’. And people were beginning to stare.

  “Well, you both are coming with me,” he said.

  Custo took her arm on one side, and Adam took her other. With his free hand, Custo seemed to turn the handle on an imaginary door. With his forward momentum, she stepped off the city sidewalk and into a blindingly bright hall. The transition was sudden and jarring. She stumbled for balance, gripping their hands to find her center of gravity, but gravity seemed to be pulling at her from strangely oblique angles. The sounds of the city—traffic, an occasional pop-bop of music, and a scrap of talk—were still audible, but distorted. The intense glow of the place had her eyes straining to focus, her mind struggling to sense depth and delineation in the glaring fog.

  “They can’t come in here,” a male voice said. One minute the source was a distant smudge of color, and the next, he was in front of them. He was tall, a little lanky, with dark hair over black eyes. He dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, his upper body fit enough to permit little loose fabric.

  “Breaking all the rules already, Custo?” the man asked with a knowing smile.

  When Custo didn’t answer, the man shifted his attention. His manner seemed only politely interested, but his gaze looked right into her. He held out his hand, and Annabella took it out of habit.

  “I’m Luca,” he said. “Custo’s great-great uncle. You’d think as his elder, he’d listen to me more often.”

  She didn’t actually see much of a resemblance between the two. Their coloring, body type, and bearing were all different. And Luca was trying to be charming, a trait she’d yet to see Custo attempt to exercise.

  “I’m here now, aren’t I?” Custo cut in. Case in point.

  Luca moved on to Adam, who took the outstretched hand and shook it firmly. “Adam Thorne.”

  Luca inclined his head and stepped back to address all of them, hands up in an apology. “I’m sorry. Annabella and Adam, you are not permitted within the tower.”

  Kicking us out just like that? Annabella glanced at Custo to gauge his response. When he didn’t say anything, she looked back at Luca.

  “I see your point,” Luca answered.

  What point? Did someone speak? The haziness of the place must have been affecting her brain.

  Adam’s stone cool broke with confusion as well, so she didn’t feel too stupid.

  Luca shrugged at Custo. “Well, they’ve come this far; I don’t see why they can’t wait here while we talk. Nothing can harm them within these walls. The hunter cannot tolerate this light, and the immortal dead, whom you call wraiths, don’t know we exist.”

  These confines were giving Annabella a blistering headache.

  “Actually, I’d like to talk to you about the wraiths,” Adam put in. “It is the mission of my organization, the Segue Institute”—he produced a business card and held it out to Luca—“to destroy them.”

  Luca pushed away Adam’s hand. “I know who you are. The wraiths at this time are not our concern.”

  Adam sputtered, then regrouped. “How can that be?” He took a step forward to command Luca’s full attention. “They prey on people with impunity. No one is safe anywhere until my wife, the daughter of—”

  “I know who your wife is, too. I wish her the very best in the successful delivery of your children. But the tower is not, at this time, working to eradicate the wraiths.” To Custo he said, “If you’ll just follow me…”

  Adam wouldn’t be put off. “Do you have the authority to make that decision? I want to speak to the person in change.”

  Luca smiled, somewhat ruefully. “You’ll have to settle for me.”

  “I don’t suppose you know anything about Shadow wolves, do you?” Annabella asked, though she didn’t really expect an answer after Luca had dismissed the entire wraith war.

  Luca shifted his smile to her. “I know there is one in the city.”

  Confession time. “Yeah…um…” she began, “about that…we almost had him last night, but I let him get away. It’s not Custo’s fault at all. I was too wrapped up in myself to do the right thing.” Luca said nothing while she stammered through her explanation, so she summed up her point. “I don’t want Custo held responsible.”

  Luca lifted at brow. “I believe he left you alone with the wolf for a period of time during the performance.”

  Annabella glanced at Custo. Yeah, actually, there had been that moment during the ballet when she’d looked for him, scared to be suddenly faced with Wolf. She’d forgotten in the aftermath and was still too chicken to revisit her part in her own seduction to recall that moment. But, yes, she had needed Custo and he hadn’t been there.

  He’d have a good reason, she was sure. He wouldn’t just leave her.

  “I take full responsibility,” Custo said, looking at her for the first time since they’d crawled out of bed. He turned back to Luca. “And I’m not going anywhere with you until I have your assurance that Annabella will be protected from the Shadow wolf, and that Adam will have the support he needs to fight the wraiths.”

  Luca gestured into the bright fo
g. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”

  “No.” Custo dropped the word like an anchor.

  “Custo,” Luca said, “you don’t belong with them. You know this. You’ve done the right thing in coming here today, though I know it had to be difficult.”

  Annabella was totally lost now. Was Custo leaving them? She leaned over to Adam. “Are you getting any of this?”

  Adam looked down at her. “Not so much.”

  “I can’t abandon my friends for them to be preyed upon by monsters,” Custo was saying.

  Abandon them? That didn’t make sense either. Custo couldn’t very well stay here. Leaving might be hard on Adam, but it would be like throwing her to the…

  Her chest was starting to tighten, breath more difficult to draw. Custo was leaving?

  “At least follow me and get some information so you don’t get yourself killed. Then you can decide,” Luca said.

  Annabella’s throat constricted, too. This got worse and worse. “Killed?”

  “Will you come?” Luca asked Custo. “Somebody needs to dig that bullet out of your gut before you bleed to death internally.”

  Custo frowned deeply in response.

  Bullet? Killed? Leaving?

  Custo turned to Adam, including her with a darted glance. “You’ll wait here? I’ll be back as soon as I can and explain everything.”

  She wasn’t budging without some answers.

  With a quick tug on her arm, Custo kissed her, his mouth urgent, burning her up for all of three seconds. He drew back, his gaze hard on hers. “Do what Adam tells you.”

  Was that good-bye?

  “I don’t understand—” she said. Nothing made any sense.

  “We’ll be waiting,” Adam said to Custo. The statement was loaded.

  Custo released her, her vision blurring suddenly as he and Luca smudged into receding daubs of color, soon drowned out by the light.

  Annabella’s chest was so tight she doubled over.

  “Deep breaths,” Adam said, putting a hand on her back. She fought for air, and when her equilibrium returned, she straightened.

  “I don’t see a bathroom,” she said to be funny, to cover the tears in her eyes.