SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (69 page)

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 fog. “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.

“I think we hold it.” Adam still grasped his rejected business card in his hand. His jaw was set with fury.

“Custo will work everything out,” she said, though she wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

She’d thought he was in trouble because of her, but he’d left her midperformance. The blame was just as much his as it was hers. Except he was an angel and was supposed to know what he was doing.

He’d also known he might be leaving, and hadn’t bothered to tell her. He’d let her think that they’d banish the wolf together, when he’d intended to ask Luca to take over. He’d let her climb all over him—oh no, she couldn’t think about that. The mortification would burn her up.

Besides, sleeping with him was her fault. What had she been thinking? That he was gorgeous, that he desired her. Would be there to protect her. The fact that he looked and acted like a man made her forget that he wasn’t one. She’d gotten carried away by fear and fantasy.

Here, now, confronted by these many revelations, she had to face the truth: She’d met him less than two days ago. He was practically a stranger. And he was different from her, set apart from the normal flow of life. Not a
man,
an angel. Her humiliation was her own damn fault.

It was all right, though. The thought razored through her hurt.

Screw-ups were important; she’d figured that out about the same time she got her first set of pointe shoes. It was the key to her success. That’s how she learned to correct her balance, find her center, so the next time, she wouldn’t repeat her mistake.

The intense glare of the tower might’ve been blurring her vision, but she had her bearings now. She knew up from down. Regular human being from angel. Trust from betrayal.

She wouldn’t fall for Custo again.

Shadow Fall: Chapter Twelve

Custo’s shoulders tensed with aggravation as he stepped away from Annabella. He didn’t like to be away from her, especially when her mind was filling with hard questions. Bad things happened when he left her alone. Close calls that were his responsibility. He’d brought the wolf into this world, vowed to send the creature right back out again, and yet, he’d almost lost her twice now.

Except, she wasn’t alone. She was with Adam, and in a tower filled with angels. She couldn’t be safer.

The bustling room behind Luca promised some very interesting answers. Custo had glanced at Adam and touched his mind to see what he thought of the heavily armed men who’d passed the doorway beyond—
was that curved blade a sword or a saber?
—but Adam was insensible to anyone or anything but Luca. Annabella’s thoughts were circling the same questions over and over again. His last kiss, intended to answer at least one, had only compounded her confusion.

Her mind was racing, and inevitably she would come to conclusions not in his favor, but he had no choice but to follow, to investigate that glint of sharp steel.

His interest rose exponentially upon entering what appeared to be a slick, modern command center. One wall was devoted to enormous sectional screens that displayed shifting images of cities around the world. Satellite input was overlaid with changing numerical data. To the right, screens tracked a developing weather system, while on the left screens flickered quickly though television news broadcasts in multiple languages.

The men and women, angels, were variably busy around the room. All wore modern dress, some casual, some business-oriented, and still others wore combat gear as if they belonged in mortality. Several hovered over consoles, peering with concern into their screens. The thought-speak was rapid, direct, naming places of “breaches,” conflicts, and instructions to angels in place to resolve them.