SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (59 page)

“You’re an angel?” Adam’s voice was absent, hoarse. Desperation spoke.

Cold dread seeped into Custo. “I think so.”

“You were sure before,” Adam said, each word sharp and cutting.

“I was an angel in Heaven, but I left. I don’t know what that makes me now. Not really.”

“Damn it.” Adam put his hands on his head, shoulders hunched, staring at the floor as if it might hold answers. Custo touched his mind and found only a cyclone of confusion. Adam had no idea what to do.

“Let me try,” Custo said. Talia had to be in great danger for Adam to be so shattered. Custo remembered the babies, twins. What if he couldn’t help? What if he couldn’t save her? He wasn’t going to think about that, not with blood staining Adam’s shirt.

“And if you’re a wraith sent to kill her?”

“I’m not.”

“But what if you are?” Adam glanced at Custo’s now-healed forearm.

Custo let him look. “I’m not.”

“How can I know for sure?” Intensity lined Adam’s face. “Can you prove it? Please?”

“Is it so hard to trust me?”

“This is my wife were talking about.” The anguish in Adam’s voice brought Custo back to the night Adam’s parents had died, murdered by Jacob. If Adam lost another family, he’d lose himself, of that Custo had no doubt.

Gently, then. “I’m not asking you to choose between us.”

Adam’s mottled face blanched with feeling. “If you hurt her…”

“…then lock me away forever.”

Adam grimaced, aging with the necessity of a decision, but Custo knew he’d made up his mind. Felt the harrowing leap of faith.

“Come on. And fast.” Adam turned and darted out the door, around the corner. Custo sprinted forward to catch up. He asked no questions while Adam cursed at a slow-moving security door. A small army green vehicle was waiting, bigger than a golf cart, but smaller than a commercial car, and before Custo was seated, Adam had it accelerating through a concrete tunnel. They drove onto a lift, and while the mechanism slowly elevated them, Custo caught sight of Adam’s white knuckles.

Custo tried to read the events from Adam’s mind, but it was moving too fast to discern particulars. He could feel Annabella drawing closer, which was some measure of comfort. “What happened?”

“Wolf.”

Custo’s own grip tightened. “He got in? How?”

Adam didn’t look over to answer. He kept his gaze fixed on the slow slide of concrete wall as they rose. “He somehow took on the form of one of my soldiers, who is now dead. The wolf then escaped after Talia…used her voice.”

Adam’s tone was flat, but Custo could guess what roiled beneath the surface. Segue was vulnerable. The lives they were responsible for—Talia, Annabella, all the rest—vulnerable. If the wolf could shape-shift, he could probably look like Adam or Talia or even himself and have them questioning each other more than they already were.

Custo reached for Annabella’s mind again and caught the trace of a thought—something about going home. He couldn’t sense her feelings, but knew she was scared. He had to ask. “Annabella?”

“Fine. Tough.” A grudging respect.

The lift jolted to a stop. “Talia?”

“In labor.”

Two guards flanked the entrance labeled
INFIRMARY
, and inside each doorway another grim-faced man was posted. Stance wide, guns at their chests, they were ready for literally anything.

Adam was moving fast, but Custo caught a few details. The place was anachronistic for a Segue satellite compound, ceilings too low for comfort. Fixtures outdated, but utilitarian. There was an age spot on the wall in the entryway where a circular clock once had been, and an odd, rounded sink circa the sixties was attached to the back wall. Definitely out of date.

Custo followed Adam down a hallway, stopping at an open door labeled “15.” Talia lay on her back, slightly tilted to the side, a white sheet pulled up to her waist. Her face was chalky next to the white-gold tangle of her hair. Custo had known her in his past life—she’d been a pale, pretty thing with intelligent eyes. There was something different about her now, or rather, different about the way he saw her. The pallor of her skin had a strange sheen to it, a black-light luminescence that made the tilt of her eyes less exotic-human and more, distinctly,
Other.
Looking at her now, on the flip side of mortality, there was no doubt she was fae.

Dr. Gillian Powell, a longtime member of Segue’s staff, examined a strip of paper printing from a machine to the left of the bed. Gillian was good, thorough. She’d stitched him up more than once in the Jacob days. She’d save Talia and the babies if they could be saved.

Talia winced, straining her head to the side as Custo came through the doorway after Adam.

“More contractions?” Adam asked as he rushed to the bed and knelt on the floor, eye level with Talia.

“They’d stopped, and I thought I had it under control, but now…” Gillian trailed off. She frowned at another machine, her mind saying,
T
hat’s not right.
A rapidly blinking heart accompanied escalating numbers, but the doctor put her stethoscope to her ears and checked Talia out for herself.

Talia groaned, squeezing her eyes shut. “Too bright.”

Adam leaned in closer. “What is, honey?”

“Custo,” she gasped.

Custo took a step back. Suddenly this didn’t seem like such a great idea. A banshee and an angel in the same room—something about the combination felt inherently wrong. Fundamentally at odds. Maybe the barrier between their worlds was there for a reason. Maybe light and darkness were exclusive by necessity. Maybe he was hurting her.

Talia whimpered. Custo gripped the doorway. He wanted to help if he could. He was a goddamn angel. He should be able to do something. Ease her. Heal her.

Adam looked over at him, confusion and alarm on his face. “What’s happening?”

Talia shuddered and Custo backed into the hall. “I don’t know.” When she next groaned, he took himself out of the infirmary altogether.

* * *

In a long, thin, windy tunnel between two rooms, the hunter collected himself. The darkness deepened here, almost to pitch, and fed the slow reformation of his body. Shadow condensed, thickened, to form a twitching ear, a sharp claw, burning eyes. Air blew through the tunnel, rippling with the shudder of his new fur. He trembled, still variable, still weak, but growing.

Smell came first: bland and acrid, and over it all, the heady scent of a mortal woman, filling his Shadow mind. Then sight: the tunnel terminated near the top of a room, where a bright square patch gleamed, reaching like flame. And sound: a woman wept with choking sobs.

Finally understanding, born of walking human steps and stroking exquisite skin: Mortal. Woman. Magic. A harsh, vicious longing twined with his new awareness, stoking his animal hunger and transmuting it into something else, something almost human, and thus unbearable.

The hunter wanted it all.
Mine.

Now, how to get her?

* * *

Custo raised his head as Adam approached. He’d been sitting on a stack of crates and, God help him, praying. Not that he expected an answer; he’d been an utter fool.

“So you’re an angel,” Adam said. He was stating fact, echoing the realization in his mind, not mocking, not questioning. Finally. “You deserve it. You were…
are
the best man I’ve ever known, after my father.”

Custo steeled himself against the unwarranted comparison. What could he say to that? Adam didn’t know about some of the bloody things he’d done. Couldn’t possibly guess what he was responsible for. “I’m sorry I endangered Talia, your children, Segue. I had no idea that the wolf would or could follow.”

“Gillian gave her something to stop the contractions.” Adam sat heavily next to him. “It’s working for now, and her heart rate dropped when you left the room. She’s on strict bed rest and will be until she delivers.”

Custo nodded. The contractions had stopped. He had to repeat it a couple of times to himself before the anxiety in his blood, heavy and poisonous as lead, thinned enough for him to breathe.

“I think I hurt her by just being in the room.”

Yes,
Adam agreed. “I would appreciate it if both you and Annabella would stay away from her until this is resolved,” Adam said slowly, without recrimination. “I don’t want to stress the pregnancy more than it has been already. Talia told me to say hi, by the way, and not to beat yourself up about being so ‘shiny.’ Her word, by the way.”

“Of course. Annabella and I will go, find somewhere else safe.” He braced his hands on his knees. He definitely couldn’t stay at Segue. His very presence endangered Talia. Light against Shadow.

“That’s not necessary. Segue is the best place for the two of you, and you know it. It’s a big place.”
Plenty of room.

“And if the wolf comes back in the meantime?”

“We’ll fight.” Adam gave him an exhausted half smile.

Custo cleared his throat to ease the tightness there, but guilt and worry still strangled him. “Can I see Annabella now?”

Adam waited a beat, gaze meeting his. “Yes. I stuck her in the lab, under guard. She’s pretty shaken up. I haven’t had a chance to question her, so I’ve only had Talia’s side of the story. Call me when you get Annabella’s. I’ll assemble a research team.”

“In the time I’ve been gone have you seen anything like the wolf?” Custo rose and followed Adam to a set of doors on the other side of the concrete tunnel.

“Paranormal phenomena have jumped dramatically in the past eighteen months. Hauntings and poltergeists mainly, but here and there I’ve heard of incidents that are
Other.
Something like the wolf was bound to happen. Feel free to access my files. I’m not leaving Talia’s side for a while, so you can sleep in my place tonight—we’ll get something fixed up for the two of you tomorrow. Our living quarters are two floors up. I have the whole floor.”

Fitting back into Adam’s life, just like old times. It didn’t feel right this time either.

Adam tapped a code into the security panel. The door slid open and Custo immediately spotted Annabella. She’d risen from a stool at a brushed-steel worktable in the center of the room. Her eyes were swollen, mascara smudged in a line out to her temple, and her nose was pink. When she saw Custo, she let out a harsh sob, ducked under the table, and crossed the room as fast as her stagger would allow.

Her mind was full of jumbled words…
hunter, territory, bridge, banshee.

Custo opened his arms, ready to take her in, to comfort her, to promise to protect her from further harm. She approached, arms likewise extended, but instead she shoved him into the door. Hard. Knocked off balance, Custo nearly fell, but caught himself, palms flat on the glass.

“You said Segue was safe!” Annabella’s eyes were wild, her face flushed. “You said these people knew how to deal with scary shit! You said I could get some sleep. Sleep!” She broke into a hysterical laugh that turned into a sob.

“Shhh…” Custo recovered and wrapped his arms around her in an attempt to restrain her, but she bucked against his hold. Her body would fit perfectly, amazingly in the circle of his arms if she’d just calm down enough…

“Don’t fucking shush me!” She hit his chest with the heel of her hand, yet clutched his shoulder for support. “Talia—
Talia!
—had to save me.” Tears ran freely down her face. She swiped at her eyes and sniffed. “This place is frickin’ Fort Knox and a pregnant woman had to save me.” Her expression hardened. “If that woman loses her babies, I swear I will kill you.”

Custo glanced over at Adam, who met his gaze.
Good luck,
Adam thought. He gave a short nod and exited the room. The guards followed, though Custo was sure they’d be on the other side of the door.

Alone now, Custo shifted his grasp on her, controlling Annabella’s jerking body at her hips. “Talia is going to be fine. Her contractions have stopped.”

Tears ran down Annabella’s cheeks, her fight subsiding into steady, drawn-out tremors. “But what about the blood?”

“Under control.” He assumed, or Adam would have still been in a panic.

Annabella hiccuped. For all her trembling, she felt cold in his arms. “What if he comes back? The light didn’t work. I thought it would—light worked before, that time on the street—but it didn’t work in that room.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

He almost ra—
Annabella stunted the thought. “A man came in my room in the infirmary. A soldier. He was acting all weird, but I could tell he was the wolf.”

“How?”

“The way he moved. His eyes.”

Custo nodded. “Continue.”

“He said he was the hunter and that you and I had trespassed in his territory and that he wanted a bridge back.”
Then he groped me, would have raped me if I hadn’t nailed his disgusting stuff.
Custo went hot, but didn’t interrupt as Annabella went on. “Talia came in, said she was a freaking banshee, and ordered the guy back to Shadow. ’Kay, then it got really scary, ’cause she made the room all dark. I hate the dark. And the hunter-wolf-guy exploded and uh, flew out the room. The whole thing is insane!”

Custo reviewed the details. “He said he was a hunter? I thought he was a wolf.”

“Aren’t wolves hunters?”
Duh.

Custo ignored the thought-insult. “And he wants a way back to Shadow?”

The real question is,
Annabella thought…“Why didn’t light hurt him? It has in the past.”

Custo could answer that. Before, the wolf was stuck in the Shadowlands. He stayed in the shadows because he had to. The divide between the worlds was inviolable. But in the brief altercation in the dark forest, when the three of them had clashed, the wolf had crossed over and fallen to Earth with Annabella’s return to her reality. Just as Custo had fallen and been reborn. Shadow would always be the wolf’s refuge, but he need not fear light on Earth. Not now that he was free.

All that was too much to explain, and Annabella was clearly too distraught to listen. The truth had taken Adam, his best friend and almost-brother, too long to believe, and they had a long history of trust. Annabella had no context to even begin the discussion. Angel? Banshee? Shadowlands? Custo settled for the simplest answer. “If he attacks again, I will handle him.”