Shadow Fall

“About five years ago—no, wait, it would be seven years now—” Custo kept his tone as flat as he could. He didn’t want pity. “It was after the first rumblings of the wraith war. Some international arms-dealing scumbag put a hit out on Adam.” He swallowed the stone in his throat and finished, “I hit him first.”

Annabella’s eyes widened in the mirror so that Custo could see the whites all around.

“His name was Heinrich Graf. I seduced his daughter into telling me his traveling itinerary, and then I made my move. But the first shot didn’t get him. No, my first shot got an innocent bystander. A doctor, murdered in the street. The second shot got Graf. Adam doesn’t know about any of this. I’ve been too much of a… coward to tell him.”

“Why are you telling me?” Annabella croaked.

The last clasp came undone and the back of her costume gaped open. “The difference between you and me is that I killed those people myself, with my own hands, by my own actions. You haven’t hurt anyone.”

Her eyes filled again. “I could have stopped him tonight.” My fault.

“We’ll find another way. You know yourself better now.” Custo turned Annabella to face him.

She put a hand to her breast. “It hurts to breathe.”

“Try to remember that you were magnificent tonight. No, don’t shake your head. Don’t diminish what you have accomplished.”

“It was Shadow…it was the magic.”

“Annabella, that was you. That was all you.” Custo grabbed her hand. If he could give her nothing else before he was dragged away in the morning, he wanted her to be aware of her power. “The wolf didn’t learn choreography. The wolf took his cues from your imagination.”

“He was supposed to go back,” Annabella said. But now he wants me, too.

“I don’t blame him for trying to take you with him.” Custo fisted his hands to remember the burn of the wolf in his grasp. “Your talent, your gift, is amazing.”

“You were so right to tell me not to trust myself, because I don’t.” She lifted her chin to meet his gaze, her eyes blazing, her thoughts begging, Please don’t hate me. “I want the magic he offers so badly that in another weak moment I might take him up on it. Even now I want to feel the magic of Shadow again.” To go there with him. “You have to promise me you won’t let that happen.”

“Annabella—”

The look in her eyes hardened to resolution. The fear clouding her expression cleared at last. No one had ever looked at him like that. Needed him like that. “Please. I don’t want to lose myself. I won’t if you’re with me.”

He’d been telling her to trust him from the moment he met her. Been telling her that he would be with her every step of the way. That together they’d push the wolf back into Shadow.

Now, Custo didn’t have the heart to correct her.

Chapter Eleven

CUSTO tightened his arm around a sleeping Annabella and cursed the rising sun. Not that he could see it from Adam’s underground apartment, but since the digital clock read 6:40 A.M., he figured the damn thing was lifting itself off the horizon. Truth was, he didn’t want to move. His gut was still aching, wouldn’t fully heal, and he didn’t have time to have a doctor check it out—what could one do anyway?—before they left for the tower.

Instead, he’d spent his time the best way he knew how—keeping Annabella close while he could.

Her body was soft, fitted against his like a perfectly matched puzzle piece, her ass connecting with heat to his groin. She was supple and curved where she should be, though every bit of her was firmed with muscle. Almost every bit; his thumb had been stroking her rib cage under her breasts for the last twenty minutes. He didn’t dare reach higher, or he wouldn’t be able to trust himself. Only her hair, tickling his nose half the night and smelling of Talia’s fruity shampoo, had been irritating enough to keep his mind from picturing the creamy, raspberry-tipped mounds.

Oh, hell. The tower. Think of the tower. No, that just made him want to have her more. The tower was a reminder that he was going away, probably forever.

Okay, then, cars. He pictured his first car, a stolen 1981 BMW 635CSI. Nice ride. Needed it for a date. Screwed the blonde from his university survey class in the passenger seat.

Annabella stirred. His dick tightened. The wound in his gut burned.

Who would have thought that mortality was Heaven and Hell combined?

He should be sainted for not having sex with Annabella last night. A monument should be erected in his memory for not accepting her invitation, exhausted though she was. Any other woman and he would have sated himself, and her as well, over and over again. He’d have screwed them both blind. Why not Annabella?

The trust in her eyes. Her belief that they would be seeing this nightmare through to the end together. How could he accept her confidence when he knew the very next morning he would betray it?

Somebody up there had better be taking notes.

Last night, he’d contented himself with stroking the long lines of her aching body, her front lounging on the many pillows littering the bed. His thumbs had worked the arches of her feet and had her sighing in relief. He had slowly ground the rocks of tense muscle from her calves. She’d shouted “ow, ow, ow” when he’d massaged the length of her thighs, then finally subsided into a grateful groan, wiggling her butt into his palms. The woman was not shy about her body, and with good reason.

As she drifted off, he’d watched her profile, her eyelids flickering in vivid sleep, and took sharp, smug satisfaction in knowing that the disjointed snatches of dream-thoughts were all about him. Not the wolf.

When the night deepened to utter quiet, he’d opened his mind to search for The White Tower. Its location had come easily, within moments. It was a beacon of calm order, a lighthouse in the confusing ocean of humanity. The only way he could have missed it before was because he was deliberately avoiding anything…angelic.

6:45 A.M. Time to be up. He was pushing it as it was. They’d need to leave in a little more than an hour and there was a lot to do. Too soon he’d be turning himself over to Luca. He didn’t want to screw up Adam’s chances of getting help with the wraiths, and he had to make certain that Luca would take care of the wolf. How long the wolf required to regenerate, Custo had no idea. A lot was riding on this appointment.

Custo brushed away Annabella’s hair and kissed the spot behind her ear. He’d been planning to do that for hours. He turned his head, buried his face in her hair, and inhaled deeply. He’d found her too late, amid too much danger to know her—every slide of her skin, tone of her voice, draw of her breath.

“Custo?” she murmured…so warm…touch me more…

“I’m here,” he said to cut off her thought, and therefore, the temptation. But he couldn’t help grazing his fingertips down to her smooth, tight stomach, memorizing her contours for later, when he faced the consequences of his actions. He barely managed to say, “We have to go soon.”

“Five more minutes.” She groaned, turning in his arms to face him, her eyes half lidded, and cuddled deeper into him.…want more…

More time to sleep or more…?

She answered by twining a leg around his, knotting him close, pelvis to pelvis. She had to feel him rock-hard against her. The sensation was painful in its bliss, perfect in its fit. His blood filled with hungry greed, pounding out lofty intentions. He tilted his head back for clean, sane air. Didn’t help.

…wants me bad, too…why doesn’t he…?

A better man wouldn’t have his hand up her shirt. A better man would’ve never gotten into bed with her in the first place. A better man would have slept on the hard floor like a damn priest.

But he wasn’t a better man. He was a bastard.

Annabella nuzzled closer, grazing her mouth against his neck. He clenched his jaw—there was a reason he couldn’t sleep with her, but he had to think real hard to find it. All he could feel was warm, willing woman, the boom boom boom of his blood.

…touch me…why won’t he touch me…?

Oh, right. Because of the wraiths and the wolf, and a woman who trusted him to keep her safe when he