Shadow Fall

Custo halted again. “Release Abigail. She’s not worth it. Her body is wasted, near death.”

Annabella shuddered with a sudden realization, her fear turning sharp and cutting within her. Where before Wolf had simply assumed whatever form he wanted, the soldier and Jasper, now he possessed, sharing the old woman’s body. The how was more than obvious: Adam had said that Abigail was so full of Shadow that her eyes were stormy with it. Now Abigail was full of Shadow wolf, the blackness of her gaze hungry, predatory, and…unnatural.

The union was wrong, but there was nothing they could do about it. Any harm Wolf took, the woman would as well, and by Zoe’s account, Abigail was already weak and ill. Zoe had blamed them for killing her sister; it seemed her accusation was dead-on.

Annabella fought a tide of nausea. She thought of her mom and brother, safe at home. If Custo and Adam had come knocking, she would have barred the door, too. And then some.

“Yes, a joining of fae and mortal, less satisfying than I’d hoped”—the old woman’s head cocked sharply; her nose twitched as she sniffed the air—“but nevertheless…potent.”

One of her knobby hands uncurled, splaying its fingers, palm up in front of her. A condensation of light appeared above, while her eyes grew blacker still.

The magic pulsed, thrumming over Annabella’s skin, loosening her joints and muscles, sending languid ease over her limbs, her core contracting with pleasure. The sensation was wrong, too. She didn’t want to feel this, not here, not now. Not from him.

The magic within her responded anyway: It was pure possibility. Pure potential. The same kind she used to weave a story with her body and mind. Annabella couldn’t draw her gaze from the shimmer above the woman’s palm.

By nature Wolf could change his form, but he couldn’t do more than that. He couldn’t cross back and forth between the worlds, couldn’t make or see or create like people in the mortal world, like she and Abigail. But now Wolf had discovered access to mortal power; they’d led him right here to Abigail’s doorstep.

The wolf, Annabella corrected herself. Not Wolf. He already had enough power over her.

Annabella rose on tiptoe to whisper in Custo’s ear. “Can we push him back into Shadow?”

Custo gave a short shake of his head. “He’s anchored in her body. It’s a refuge until she dies.”

Annabella regarded the old woman’s twisted expression, then had to look away from what she found there. “It’s not a refuge. It’s a rape.”

She had let this dark creature touch her, dance with her, tap into her fantasies. The memory was both revolting and humiliating in the extreme, enough to really tick her off.

Annabella stepped out from behind Custo, channeling her fear and anger into action. “You said you wouldn’t hurt anyone else.”

“You said you would join me,” the old woman whined. The light in her hand evaporated into the air. Her arm dropped like a stone into her lap, her palm spotted with blisters.

“Get that monster out of my sister!” Zoe was hysterical.

“I’ll go if Annabella comes, too,” the wolf offered, lips peeling back into a toothy smile.

Annabella shivered, recoiling.

“You can’t have her,” Custo cut in. “I won’t let you.”

“It’s your choice, Annabella,” the wolf said, “not his. Come with me and end this. I know how to make you happy in ways no one here can conceive. You have a body made for weaving magic; I am made of magic. Join with me.”

Annabella’s heart flooded her body with an oh, yes! wave of blood. She considered the offer for a split second, but the oily black throb of the woman’s eyes decided it.

“I can’t,” she said, though Zoe’s sobs turned her stomach with pity and guilt.

A hand roughly shoved Annabella away from Custo, as Zoe burst through. “Take me. Just leave my sister alone. She’s been through enough. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Adam caught Zoe and dragged her back. Tears smeared black makeup down her cheeks.

“You can’t manipulate Shadow,” Custo said, “so that creature doesn’t want you.”

The talent was inborn, though Annabella understood that it took many forms—anything with vision, she imagined—but then the talent had to be nurtured and honed over years of sacrifice. Just look at Abigail. Her ongoing intercourse with Shadow had brought her prematurely to the brink of death.

“Annabella, please,” the woman crooned, “you must come with me. Bide with me. You may not have set any traps for a wolf, but you have caught me just the same.”

“Yeah, well, I’m setting you free now,” Annabella returned bitterly. “Go away. Git.”

Abigail cocked her head again, and with a little knowing smile made a gesture with her wounded hand. Shadow roiled into the room behind her, opening a moonlit vista of dusky purples and blues, of portent trees under a whirling cosmos possible only in story, myth, or magic. It was the landscape of Annabella’s imagination, and she knew with one sinuous stretch of her body she could blow through the darkened forest and lick the topaz sky. The longing and want that filled her was excruciating. No amount of faking indifference could cover it.

The wolf belonged there, prowling beneath the darkened boughs, but the old woman’s body did, indeed, anchor him in the mortal world. A single bloody tear snaked down the wrinkled cheek.

“Is she in pain? Is she suffering?” Zoe asked as she wept from Adam’s arms.

Next to Annabella, Custo tensed.

“She’s still with the wolf,” he answered. “She’s…”

Annabella looked sharply at Custo when he didn’t finish. His jaw was clenched, nostrils flaring, his forehead drawing taut. Whatever he perceived was bad, real bad.

Zoe wrenched a sob. Her sister suffered. Shame made Annabella feel large and awkward and conspicuous. This was her fault, her problem. Maybe she should give herself up. Anything was better than the ache bleeding out of Zoe.

“Oh, just end it.” Zoe begged. “Get that thing out of her.” She hid her face against Adam’s chest, her body visibly trembling as she clung to him.

“You don’t have it in you,” the wolf said to Custo, lifting the old woman’s upper lip to bare her teeth.

Annabella went very cold and still. She knew that Custo did. He’d killed for love before.

He stepped forward into the room, putting her firmly behind him again. “This is your last chance,” Custo said to the old woman. “Leave her now.”

“You bluff,” the wolf countered. “Are you going to break this weak neck with your bright hands?”

Custo’s fingers twitched, but he said, “No.”

Instead, he touched the old woman’s brow. A slender hiss of smoke trailed upward from the point of contact.

Abigail reared back and thrashed her head to the side, but was trapped in the rocker. The wolf might be strong, but Abigail’s human body was frail. Beyond, the view of the Shadowlands shredded, darkness fraying into ragged whips of magic, the incomparable tapestry of the fairyland dissolving. The wolf snarled and snapped her teeth near Custo’s wrist, but with a backward whoop of black dust that had them all cringing, was expelled from the woman’s body.

Annabella’s terror seized her muscles, locking her in place. Was Wolf gone for good, gone for now, or not gone at all?

The cloud of black dust condensed, the grains whispering as they roiled, churning above the now-slack body of Abigail. The rocker pitched back and forth, creaking. Wolfish black specks melted and coalesced into an amorphous blotch of potent darkness, a shadow without a source.

Heart in her throat, Annabella caught Custo’s wrist, her gaze tracking the wolf’s movement. For a moment, the wolf blended with the deeper shades of Abigail’s bedroom.

Her heart’s wild pounding muted her hearing, which, in turn, seemed to confuse her sense of sight. Panic abused her reason. The wolf huddled in the shadows by the bedside table, then—where? Under the bed? Along the wall? Behind the door?

She couldn’t see, damn it. Shadows were freaking everywhere.

Annabella’s fear solidified into a stone in her gut, a chill prickling her scalp. With effort, she brought her gaze up to the ceiling, to the shadowy splay of the ceiling fan. Sure enough, the wolf crouched there, like a