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

by Jennifer Ashley

  Annabella smiled a little. “He said something similar about you.”

  Adam was silent, staring into the room where Custo pinned the doctor with question after question. Finally, he said, “Anyway, thank you. Anything you ever need, ask.”

  Annabella’s stomach groaned again, but she wouldn’t bother him for that. Since the wolf was still absent, she might as well call her mother and get her tongue-lashing over with.

  “How about your phone?” Hers had long since died without the charger and was a shiny rock in her dance bag.

  Adam handed her a slim mobile. She stared at the face trying to figure how to turn on the super-techy screen…then maybe she could dial. That is, if she could get a signal way down here. Adam reached over and flicked something. The gadget lit up.

  Yep, Adam’s phone had a signal. Probably cost a fortune.

  Coward that she was, she dialed her messages first. There were four.

  The first was her mom, worried about missing her at her dressing room after the performance and alarmed that there had been a wraith incident behind the building. Thank goodness no one had been hurt. Then she circled around to Annabella’s “date” the day before and wondered aloud if she was going to be able to meet the boy. Translation: how much do you like him? Annabella liked the boy a lot, but her mom wasn’t getting details anytime soon. Delete.

  There were a couple messages from Venroy, a reminder about the reception, then a reprimand about leaving so early. Nothing much to do about that except apologize and grovel. Smooth everything over in time for the next performance in two days. Delete.

  The next was her mom again, laughing and saying, “You’ve got to hear this!” There was a rustle of static, a bump, then a faraway whine, which broke off almost immediately. When the sound began again, it was unmistakable.

  A howl, a high, extended note that finally fell off slightly, only to climb and hold again.

  Annabella grasped the ledge of the window in front of her. All the oxygen in the room had disappeared. Her head pounded. The room tilted wildly.

  Her mom came back on, laughing. “It’s been doing that for hours. Got all the other dogs in the neighborhood going crazy. Sounds like it’s right outside my window, but I can’t see anything. I called animal control, so I hope I can get some sleep tonight. Anyway, call me when you can. Love you.”

  A monotone female voice asked Annabella if she would like to delete, save, or replay the message.

  “Are you okay?” Adam asked.

  “Just have to call home.” Annabella fumbled to hang up on her messages, her fingers suddenly stupid, and dialed her mom.

  One ring, two rings, three…

  “Hello?”

  Oh, thank God. Tears pricked in Annabella’s eyes. “Mom! Are you okay?”

  “Tired,” she answered. “Did you get my message?”

  “Yeah,” Annabella croaked. The wolf. At her mom’s house. Howling. Got it.

  “Damn dog kept me up all night. Remember yours? The one that followed you home from rehearsal?”

  “Yeah,” she said again. It was the same dog. The wolf. He’d ceased stalking Annabella and had paid a visit to her mother. To Mom.

  Annabella needed Custo. She looked at him through the glass, but he didn’t raise his gaze. His attention was wholly fixed on Dr. Powell.

  Her mom went on, “I must have dozed off because I saw him in the house, in my bedroom, but he wasn’t a dog.”

  Wolf.

  “I haven’t had a keep-the-light-on nightmare in a long, long time. Didn’t know I was capable of it anymore. All my nightmares changed when I had you kids. Nothing was scarier in my imagination than the reality of making sure you kids were safe and healthy. When your brother first got his driver’s license…I still get ill thinking about it. But you won’t understand until you have your own.”

  “I think I get it now, Mom.” That kind of fear extends to anyone you love.

  “Anyway, animal control never showed, but the dog’s gone now. And your brother stole the last of my good coffee, so I’m going to have to kill him.”

  The wolf hadn’t been recovering from the fight with Custo last night. He’d been busy harassing her mother. The meaning was simple, though Annabella didn’t want to see it: the wolf would kill again, and someone she loved, until she gave in. Custo couldn’t be everywhere at once, and if he tried, he’d get himself killed. His bullet wound proved that. There was no time to search for another way to contain the wolf, or to drive him back into Shadow.

  “Oh, and Marne from Pretty Ballerina Dance called to ask if you’d come by and talk to her advanced classes. She says you’re an inspiration.” Her mom’s voice brightened with pride.

  To sacrifice dancing to end the threat of the wolf was excruciating, but conceivable.

  “Honey?”

  To allow the wolf to hurt her mom or her brother or Custo…There wasn’t even a decision to be made.

  Annabella cleared her throat to keep the emotion out of her voice. “Yeah, Mom, I’m here. Listen, I have to go…”

  Custo had given himself up for Adam, the closest thing to family he had. Annabella could give herself up for her mom and for him. Easy. No matter how scared she felt—and her terror was mounting steadily—she just had to shove it into the back of her mind. Let part of her brain go crazy screaming, which it already was, while the rest of her did what was necessary. All she needed was endurance, and she’d been training for that all her life.

  “But what about Marne?”

  “Tell her yes, Mom,” Annabella answered. It wouldn’t matter one way or another. “Really, I have to go. Love you.”

  The trick was getting away from Adam and Custo, and both at the moment were distracted by Dr. Powell and her increasingly agitated answers:

  “I don’t know what you’re suggesting by…”

  “I’ll have to look in my notes…”

  “No, I have never passed information out of…”

  There was no better time. Annabella stepped back, silent on her sneakered feet. The exit was open.

  Hesitation would cost her the opportunity, so with three soft steps, Annabella was out the door and into the corridor.

  Any moment now Custo or Adam would realize she was missing. She had to get out of Segue, find a dance studio, some place familiar, and then maybe she could ignite a bit of talent to attempt a cross. She should have gone with the wolf the night of the gala performance and ended this nightmare before it started.

  Video cameras followed her as she ran down the underground tunnel. She heard a shout, but didn’t stop.

  Not even when she sensed the hulk of the wolf at her side, running with her.

  Of course the wolf would be there, with her, waiting for the moment when his trap would spring shut. He had to be there when she realized that he’d found the bait that would decide her, that would have her leaving the safety of her protectors.

  She’d forgotten about the enormous, code-locked exit, and was astonished to find it open, the thick metal door ajar. She ran through it, just as the door began to close again. The wolf leaped through in a haze of Shadow.

  Zoe stood on the other side, alone in the cavernous tunnel, looking bored and put-upon, and very strange without makeup and dressed in the same oversize Segue sweats that Annabella herself wore.

  Annabella stumbled to a stop. The wolf crouched, growling beside her, ready to rip Zoe’s throat out.

  The girl didn’t seem to care. “Through there,” she said, pointing sullenly. “Abigail says it’s the only way. Any other direction and lots of people die.”

  Zoe pointed toward an unmarked concrete doorway.

  “Is that the way out?” Annabella asked. She thought they were deep underground. The big yellow lift to the surface was on the other side of Zoe.

  “Storage,” Zoe said.

  “Abigail wants me to go to a storage closet? Why?”

  Zoe shrugged. “Code is 852137. Took her all night to figure that out, by the way, while you wer
e off getting some nookie. Abigail saw that, too; she liked the ‘arrest’ position the best, says it was damn hot, but the one where Custo put your leg up…”

  The wolf growled low in his chest.

  Annabella’s face heated. The idea that she and Custo had had a voyeur last night made her sick. But if Abigail had seen that…

  “Off you go,” Zoe said.

  …then maybe she knew a way to get out of Segue.

  How Annabella remembered the code, she didn’t know. But the little light turned green and the lock clicked. She grabbed the lever and pushed. The wolf brushed by her to enter, and she followed him into pitch.

  The door closed with a devastating soft snick, triggering her fear. Alone, in the dark, with the wolf. She felt his bristling fur brush by her body, his nose at her crotch. His rapid panting and her choking breaths filled the void. A scream pushed its way up her throat like a gorge. She clenched her teeth to keep it from escaping, her body breaking out in a cold sweat.

  Light, a half-sane part of her brain suggested.

  Shaking, she fumbled for a light switch, found it, and flicked. Then collapsed against the cold concrete wall behind her, trying to draw on its solidity to bolster her caving nerves.

  The wolf backed a pace, regarding her, then barked. It was a formless sound, but she understood the command. Dance!

  “I can’t here. I’m trying to find another way out,” she said, brushing away wetness on her cheeks. Custo had told her she needed to learn to control her magic. Now there was no time left to learn.

  Anger rolled from the beast’s chest as she looked around the room. It was packed with stuff, leaving little space to move. No way out. The smell was metallic and dusty-old at the same time, but far better than the wraith cells. White sheets covered narrow panels closest to her, obscuring the boxes and crates beyond. Maybe if she climbed up, there would be an escape. Otherwise she was trapped. Custo and Adam would find her any second. And the wolf would attack.

  Putting as much distance as she could between her and the snarling wolf, Annabella inched by one of the panels to get to a box. She climbed a couple crate steps upward, but couldn’t see anything other than more crates, and the wood didn’t look very sound. Where was the way out?

  The wolf barked again, and she whipped her head around, fear trembling her body.

  He was facing one of the larger panels. The sheet had fallen off.

  Annabella angled her head to see what bothered him. It was a canvas, one of Kathleen’s, depicting the great Otherworld of the Shadowlands.

  Annabella scrambled down and ripped the coverings from the other panels. All were Kathleen’s art. A stack of three looked very similar to the ones that hung in Adam’s bedroom apartment. She inspected them closer; they were the same paintings. Had to be.

  Why were they here? Why was Kathleen’s art shoved out of sight, locked in the bowels of Segue?

  The wolf’s body pressed at her legs, urging her forward. Its tail brushed her thigh, its growl vibrating on her skin. A shudder ran through her at what was to come, her body tightening with deep apprehension…but not desire. The realization was quick and sharp. She didn’t want the wolf anymore, not that way. Not any way. She loved Custo. The wolf might have tricked her into going with him to Shadow, but he’d never be able to really reach her now. Not after the night she’d spent with Custo. The satisfaction of that knowledge gave her the strength to go on, though her stomach clenched, shakes mounting.

  Annabella turned back to the large painting. It portrayed a shadow-laden copse, ageless trees stretching upward, exceeding the boundaries of the canvas. Though darkness saturated the area, the trunks, gnarled branches, and hanging purple leaves had their own illumination, a shimmer of magic imbued by Kathleen’s imagination and rendered by her brush. If Annabella allowed her eyes to lose focus, she could almost see the boughs moving.

  Oh.

  So Abigail had shown her the way out. The one with the least amount of violence, just as Zoe said.

  Tears burned Annabella’s eyes; she didn’t want to go. Terror gripped her, white and cold. A part of her wanted to hide behind Custo or her mother, like a child. But it was her turn to take care of them. To do what was necessary.

  The wolf’s growl grew louder, rolling toward the strike of his bark.

  Hot, wet drops ran down Annabella’s cheeks. There was no need to dance; a medium of transport was right there. All that was required was a shift of perception, a mental blurring of reality and fantasy, and the trees took on depth, heady scent, texture. Shadow was always that close.

  For Mom. Custo. And everyone else.

  Annabella laid her shaking hand gently on the canvas, and yearned for passage. The gift for magic opened inside her, thrilling in her blood as it raced over her body.

  An impulse glimmered bright in her chest, and she allowed it to propel her forward. The wolf was panting at her side. One moment she was at Segue, the next she was...

  ***

  Custo leaned back in his chair and shook his head at Dr. Powell. “Gillian, you’re not telling the truth, not the whole truth. We have proof that you contacted someone outside of Segue.”

  He wasn’t interested in her verbal answers; his concentration was fixed on the mental scramble of the doctor’s mind, which like her allegiance to the wraiths was confusing and backward.

  He can’t know about…I was so careful…

  He was not letting her go until he’d wrenched every last morsel from her mind. But damn, it felt good to sit in the same room with this woman and know her for what she was. The informant, the elusive insider. For her, he’d come back to mortality.

  Custo leaned forward again, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped so as not to shake the answers out of the woman. “Look, Adam trusts you with Talia. He’ll understand if you were manipulated or coerced into relaying information.” That was a lie. Custo was pretty sure Adam intended to see Dr. Gillian Powell locked up for the rest of her miserable life. He might even be tempted to throw one of those stinking wraiths a doctor bone. Give ’em both what they want.

  Dr. Powell’s lips pressed together, holding her secrets inside.

  “How did you contact the wraiths?”

  Talia’s phone. “I just said I have never been in contact with the wraiths.”

  Adam would have to search Talia’s phone records. “What do you stand to gain?”

  The last cup of wraith immortality. Don’t want to die. Came too close once. “I’ve answered that already. I refuse to answer again. I want a lawyer.”

  Immortality? Was that still possible?

  Adam had told him about the demon bile that granted living death in the guise of perpetually renewing life, a perversion of the Holy Grail. Seemed like there was still some left, scraped off the floor of the ship the Styx. Anyone would be tempted; who wouldn’t want to be young, to live forever? Apparently, Spencer had gotten to her at Segue, charmed her. Her brush with death had done the rest. She seemed to have overlooked how ugly the reality of the wraith alternative was.

  “We’re almost done here,” Custo said. “I know this is difficult, but these are all questions I must ask. Standard. I interrogated a unit of soldiers just this morning.”

  She squirmed in her seat.

  “What do the wraiths want?”

  Dr. Powell examined her nails—Talia’s babies. The wraiths want Talia’s babies—then brought her gaze up with an innocent little no-idea shrug.

  Custo turned his head to the side to hide his revulsion. The woman was a menace, worse than the wraiths, because as a person she should still have a shred of humanity. Talia’s babies were bound to be special, like Talia was, but to prey on infants was beyond obscene. To facilitate their capture was no less reprehensible. At least now the threat to Talia and her unborn children was revealed.

  Custo gave the doctor a half smile. “When was the last time you contacted the wraiths?”

  Yesterday. Tower location. Had to tell wraiths. But she said, “I have never
initiated any kind of contact with the wraiths.”

  Custo went very still, a mercury-cold fear creeping up his spine. “And why did you inform them about the tower?”

  Dr. Powell set her jaw and folded her arms, locking herself down. Her eyes were full of suspicion.

  Right. She hadn’t spoken that last part. He’d just screwed up. Shit.

  Custo scrubbed his scalp to get the blood flowing. He needed to think, find a way to recoup. Probably have to double back to other topics and approach from…

  An alarm sounded, deafening and painful as it echoed off the concrete.

  Custo’s concentration broke. His gaze flew to the observation window, though he couldn’t see through that way. Then he sought Adam’s mind to find out what had happened.

  But Adam wasn’t in the observation booth. He was outside of the holding area, thinking hard, Annabella. Gone. Annabella. Gone.

  Custo lurched off his chair, pitching himself toward the open door. He scrambled around the corner, and when he hit the main corridor, ran.

  How could he have missed Annabella leaving? There’d been no shouts of alarm, no sounds of a fight. Those would’ve attracted his attention. Had she been overpowered? He’d been too distracted by the interrogation, the only thing, the only person, that could have absorbed him to the degree that he might disregard the rest of the world for a moment. One lousy moment.

  He passed a soldier and shouted, “Dr. Powell. Hold her,” and kept running.

  Each footfall sounded, anna, anna, anna, anna, in time with his laboring heart.

  Custo reached ahead to Adam’s mind so he would be prepared to face the situation. Adam was near unintelligible, reminding himself that a man did not hit a woman.

  Custo understood why when he entered the great cavern and found Adam arguing with Zoe. The yellow lift was lowering, a unit of armed soldiers responding to the alarm.

  “You say the wolf was with her?” Adam asked, voice harsh.

  Zoe twirled her hair around a finger. “Yep.”

  “But you won’t say where they went?”

  “Nope.”

  Adam’s voice rose, sharp with anger. “Why? Annabella’s life is in danger.”