“Ya know, I don’t think I like your tone,” Zoe said while she closely examined the ends of her hair.
Custo wanted to strike her, too, but he clenched his hands and forced himself to gentleness. “Please. Annabella is everything to me. Tell me where she went.”
Zoe heaved a sigh. “What time is it?”
Adam answered a precise, “Seven fourteen.”
“I guess that’s close enough,” Zoe said. She looked at Custo, but pointed to a gray door. “She’s in there.”
Of course it was coded. Custo fought frustration while Adam tapped in a number.
The door opened. The light was on, the room packed with crates and miscellaneous storage, but empty of Annabella and the wolf.
In front of him, Kathleen’s paintings were alive, the Shadowlands vibrant, potent in every exposed canvas. The largest one depicted the dark forest, a hollow of undiluted danger throbbing with power. Like Shadow, the trees were shifting, changeable, the place where every uncertain traveler lost his north and disappeared.
At least she was with the wolf and not lost alone in the forest. Bitter, though, to hold on to him for hope of her safety.
Custo turned quickly to Adam. “The wraiths want Talia’s babies, but I wasn’t able to find out why. I do know that Dr. Powell told the wraiths about the tower. You have to warn Luca.”
Adam’s eyes cooled, his jaw flexed, but he gave a short nod. “Go get your girl.”
Custo was already reaching through magic, breaking the surface between the mortal world and the Other. Frightening euphoria swept over his body as his senses grew indistinct, his mind’s ability to reach and read others going dark.
The forest was endless, without trail or boundary.
How would he ever find her?
CHAPTER 19
Dark forest surrounded Annabella. The crossing had changed her sweats to the long, classical tutu of Giselle, but whether that choice came from her or the wolf or some other Shadow power, she didn’t know. At least she wasn’t naked.
The wolf pushed her through the trees, the branches snagging like fingers at her tulle skirts until the netting hung in ragged shreds down to her ankles. The bodice was tight and far more ornate than it should have been for the peasant girl of the story. It was diamond-crusted and sharp, scoring her arms as the wolf ran her through the forest. Toward what, she couldn’t guess.
All around, the leaves chattered, the individual sounds collecting into almost-words that had Annabella looking over her shoulder, wary of what lurked in the deeper shades between the ancient trunks. She could make no sense of the rhythmic, running syllables.
—doesn’tbelong, doesn’tbelong, doesn’tbelong—
The air was thick with the scent of earth and plants, underscored by an exotic fragrance that confused Annabella’s senses and burned in her mind, making her exhaustion and hunger sharper, and an already bad mood, worse.
She hated nature. Hated dirt. Hated hated the crawly things that inhabited such places. But she would deal.
The wolf had gotten what he wanted—they were in the Shadowlands, together. She wouldn’t give him anything more, and didn’t want to. She belonged to Custo now. The wolf was trapped and that’s all that mattered. Everyone she cared about was safe.
—doesn’tbelong, doesn’tbelong, doesn’tbelong—
The hushed voices followed them into a clearing, a starlit meadow flickering with colorful butterflies, which burst upward when she and the wolf entered the field.
At the center was a tall and slender figure, nearly human, but not. She was pale as moonlight, with fine long hair past her waist. Her cat eyes were large and black, and she moved with a regal bearing and strange grace, her gown floating oddly around her. A queen. Her jealousy was palpable, barely suffering Annabella’s presence. Annabella could sense it like a dissonant sound or a bad smell or an ugly touch.
“She does not belong here, Hunter,” the woman said, her voice a sigh on the wind.
The wolf morphed into the figure of a man, naked, but covered in hair, and hunched, his snout shortened. Seriously not her type.
“She’s mine,” he growled. “My mate.”
Like hell, Annabella thought. But the loathing coming off the woman was too dense for open sarcasm, and the wolf seemed too defensive at the moment to annoy. Much smarter to keep her big mouth shut.
“She’s a danger to us all.” The fae woman’s gaze settled on Annabella, cold and piercing. “You know what she can do.”
“I’ll control her,” the wolf said.
“And if you can’t?”
“I will.” His tone was all confidence. “It will be so simple.”
Custo had called her the most difficult woman alive. She’d have to count on that.
The woman narrowed her gaze. “If you can’t, I’ll have your pelt. She doesn’t belong.”
—doesn’tbelong, doesn’tbelong, doesn’tbelong—
Annabella understood now. They, whoever “they” were, didn’t want her here. The fae woman feared and resented Annabella’s gift. You know what she can do.
What can I do? Under the right circumstances, as in a stage with costumes and a very appreciative audience, she could dance her heart out, maybe make something happen. Open a way. But that was a secondary, passive effect. She was in the Shadowlands. It wasn’t as if she could click her heels three times and say, there’s no place like home. First, she didn’t have magic sparkly red shoes, and second, the ice queen in front of her sure didn’t look like Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. Seemed pretty certain that she was stuck in Oz.
—doesn’tbelong, doesn’tbelong, doesn’tbelong—
Even if they didn’t want her here.
Only when the faery woman turned and moved back toward the dark trees, floating more than walking, did Annabella notice glimmers of midnight light following, as if attending her. A court.
Annabella turned back. Alone again with the wolf.
The whispers didn’t stop: doesn’tbelong, doesn’tbelong, doesn’tbelong. Maybe they would help her, eventually. If she could ever see them. Speak to them.
Suddenly, the trees reached their boughs into the sky like great skeletal grasping hands. Annabella threw her arms over her head, crouching, and only stood when she realized that the branches formed an arched ceiling. She stood in a wide, open room, a medieval hall of a fairy-tale castle. The trunks became the walls around, adorned by great murals depicting the first act of Giselle. The peasant girl is wooed by Prince Albrecht, though he was already bound to marry another. Giselle dies, becoming a wili, when he breaks her heart by honoring his first engagement. Not exactly a romantic story.
“Dance with me,” the wolf said, shifting. Now he wore Prince Albrecht’s costume and looked ridiculous. He had Jasper’s face again, too.
Whatever face he wore, Annabella knew him for what he was and had danced with him for the last time.
Annabella wasn’t about to playact his fantasy. She looked away.
“You loved me once.”
She didn’t dignify that with a response. She’d been performing at the time, the Shadows making her judgment questionable. Her judgment was just fine at the moment.
“What about now?” Jasper morphed, took on height and broadened, and became Custo. Annabella’s heart tripped in her chest.
A low-down, dirty, rotten trick. Very wolfy. But at least her anger got the best of her fear. She dared to ignore that, too.
“You will forget him,” the wolf said. “Memory doesn’t last long here. Eventually you will be mine.”
Not going to happen. Not in a million years. She already belonged to someone, and she wasn’t giving him up in her heart. This new reality she would endure, moment by moment, until…Until what? The end of the world? Until the little voices said, “exit this way”? Didn’t matter. They were both in for a long wait.
The wolf bowed like a prince in a ballet, like Albrecht, and then split into creeping darkness, his shadows, leaving her alone.
If he meant to scare her, he got it wrong. Alone was wonderful. Alone she could think, steel herself for what was to come. She hoped he left her alone forever.
She blinked, and a banquet was laid before her, the rich table filled with every kind of delicious food she could conceive.
She double-blinked. The food was still there.
The feast before her was every holiday dinner, roasted meats and their accompaniments, as well as great baskets of perfectly ripe fruit—oranges, pomegranates, thick bunches of grapes. These were circled by baked delicacies, her favorites, the rich, creamy desserts she forbade herself for dance. Napoleons, éclairs, and, hooray!—cheesecake. The smells were tantalizing, intoxicating.
Annabella’s mouth watered, her belly ached, and her body complained with deep fatigue.
The spread looked so dang good.
But it was his. She wasn’t touching the food. Something wasn’t right about it.
Except, her mouth watering…the immortal fae might not need to eat, but she was human. If she didn’t eat, she would die. And she wasn’t quite ready to cross that boundary yet. The Ice Bitch had openly acknowledged that Annabella was dangerous. Could do stuff. And the freaky voices seemed to agree.
Maybe there was hope yet.
So how was she supposed to keep her strength when she was hungry? How could she fight the wolf with her blood sugar plunging? Low blood sugar always made her cranky and weak. How could she be ready for anything if she did not eat? She needed nutritious sustenance.
Annabella reached for a chocolate nub, but the whispers stopped her.
The voices were faint, timid, and many layered.
—persephonee persephonee persephonee—
They made no sense this time. Annabella popped the chocolate into her mouth. The morsel melted in delicious ecstasy, the texture smooth as velvet, the taste dark like sin and sex. It made her tingle all over. Why had she been dancing all her life when she could have been eating?
The voices whined, redoubling, as if in warning.
—persephoneee persephoneee persephoneee—
Annabella didn’t care. Could they say, “delicious”?
She dipped a finger into the edge of a napoleon and licked the cream. Scrumptious. Her heart was thundering in her chest, a pleasurable coolness crawling over her skin. The silvery sensation hit her blood and had her cells singing, her vision slightly blurring. Yeah, baby.
—persephoneee—
What she needed was a fork and a plate. No sooner than she thought it, they appeared, the utensil made of heavy gold, the plate edged with it.
—lost lost lost lost lost lost—
Annabella set to work. The feast was delish, every taste decadent. And no matter how much she ate, she never became full, another happy wonder of the magical dinner. She worked her way down the table and finally collapsed—almost satisfied, but not quite—in the large chair at the end. The cool air on her skin grew cold, icy, prickling over her scalp. Her mind dulled pleasantly with the glut of food, though that fruit still looked sweet and luscious. Maybe one more bite—
Reaching toward the heaping basket, she noticed a set of doors beyond that came together in one great arch.
What was through there?
She forgot the fruit and rose, the simple movement thrilling her muscles, bones, her nerves that crackled along her skin. She exited into the forest clearing.
But where she was, and why she was there, she had no idea.
She didn’t feel right either. Her body had no weight, as if the air carried her in its subtle currents, eddies tugging at her and floating her skirts.
Forever midnight filled the sky. In the trees, soft glows flitted behind the tall trunks. She almost made to follow them, but her gaze was captured by a grave, heaped with flowers.
So sad. Whose?
She tiptoed forward, skimming along the grasses, to examine the marker.
Giselle. The grave was hers.
Grief welled in her heart, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Love, life lost. An eternity consigned to an existence as a wili, haunting the night.
A sound behind her, and she turned.
It was Albrecht, her love, coming to bid her farewell.
Perhaps the stars would stretch the moment, and they could dance, one last time, until dawn.
***
A tree was stalking him, or Custo had passed that gnarled trunk for the third time. Either was possible, so he kept going, straining for any sound or movement that might lead him to Annabella. He saw only great, luminous forest stretching out of layered shadows and heard only hushed whispers taunting his course. What he wouldn’t give for a bagful of bread crumbs. He was getting nowhere, and sick to death of it.
“Annabella!” he called at regular intervals. If he attracted some other Shadow creature, he’d pin the thing down and demand directions, but except for the indistinct voices, the wood seemed unnervingly uninhabited.
Deliberately doubling back on his path, he caught his first flash of movement and leaped toward it, scrabbling over a root-bumpy rise for a better view.
He called through the trees. “Annabella!”
But instead he found a man dressed in mottled green-gray combat gear, armed and ready for action. Custo tripped to a stop. It was Adam, his face set in his I-know-what-to-do expression, eyes direct, jaw tight.
“What are you doing here?” Custo asked, half excited, half concerned. Adam was supposed to be warning Luca about the wraiths.
“I came after you to help,” Adam said, “and I found her.”
Custo’s heart leaped. Trust Adam to be able to navigate in these shifting woods. Anyone else and he wouldn’t believe it. “Show me.”
“This way.” Adam took off at a wary jog, careful to slow at blind spots along the way and test uncertain ground before moving forward.
Custo kept close behind. “How did you find me?”
“You were making a racket. Anyone could find you.” They moved deeper into Shadow, the variegated shades growing less distinct. Adam slowed marginally, but seemed to have no problem with the pressing darkness.
Which was good, because Custo could think of little more than getting to Annabella, and quick. And all he had to do was follow.
“Does the wolf have Annabella?” Custo asked. He could guess the answer.
“Yes, but I couldn’t get to her without help.”
They hit a deep ravine, and crossed via a thick, fallen tree trunk, a black void yawning on either side. Sweat dampened Custo’s body by the time they hit the forest wall again.
“How much farther?” Custo asked. If Adam were following a trail, Custo couldn’t see it.
“Just ahead,” Adam answered.
But “just ahead” seemed like more of the same passionless trees.
And damn if that one didn’t look exactly like the gnarled trunk from before.
The gnarled trunk.
Shock halted Custo in his tracks, dread icing the blood in his veins. The whispers rose around him and, out of the corner of his eye, he could see slender figures watching, darting behind the ancient trunks. They’d probably been there all along.
Adam pressed forward a few steps, then turned back. “What’s the matter?”
Custo swallowed hard. “What are you?”
He would have followed Adam for hours, forever even.
Stupid.
The man in front of him couldn’t be Adam. Custo should’ve known right away. Adam would have never stepped through the painting into the treacherous Shadowlands, leaving Talia and his babies behind. Not for anything or anyone. Adam was going to warn Luca about the wraiths, even if Luca had denied him aid before.
The whispers rose to loud chatters, like chirping cicadas hidden in the leaves, near deafening.
“Come on,” Adam said, making to start off again. “The wolf has her.”
Custo steeled himself, doubts crowding his mind, but turned the other direction. Leaving Adam. Denying his presence. The fragrant air re
sisted his change of course, sheering at his body as he tore himself away from years of friendship and trust. The act was excruciating, every cell in his body rebelling.
Not Adam. This was a ploy, a game, or a test. Not Adam.
Custo pressed on. The direction didn’t matter, not with the trees and fae messing with his mind. The only thing to do was continue searching. Annabella was here, somewhere. And he would find her if he stayed his course, in his mind, if not in the forest itself.
The trees opened somewhat, and Custo upped his pace, only to come to a second tripping stop.
His father. Evan Rotherford, standing in his fine suit, his white sleeves peeking out, the Rotherford family cuff links that Custo would never own glinting where there was no light.
Custo knew his father for what he was, another test, but it still took a deep breath to form the question, “What do you want?”
“I want my son back,” his father said, extending his hand.
Years of resentment and anger condensed into a bitter rebuke that burned on Custo’s tongue, No. His father had denied him for years. He wasn’t allowed to change his mind. Not now, not ever. His father could go to hell.
Custo closed his eyes, clenching his teeth. His hate would keep him rooted in the same spot, and the roots went deep. Soul deep.
But this was not his father, just like Adam had not been Adam. It was a trick he had to solve, or he wouldn’t be able to move on.
Think of Annabella.
Annabella, his future, as this man was his past.
The air took on that uncompromising quality again, the kind that resisted change, insight, and clarity. With effort Custo inhaled a lungful of the stuff, and like swallowing a mouthful of shit, Custo worked his tongue and teeth to transmute the no into something different. His “Yes” cut the air with a sharp hiss as he grasped his old man’s hand for the first time in his life.
His father, surprised, tried to flinch back, but Custo held tight. The illusion failed, and a fae woman trembled in Custo’s grip. She was pale and lovely, her skin washed in moon glow. Her long hair fell in a veil over her lower face, but her eyes took on a shape of pain.
Bad Boys of the Night: Eight Sizzling Paranormal Romances: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 42