Erin Kellison: Shadow Fall

Wait. Custo pulled back and shuddered through a deep breath.

Not like that. She deserved gentleness. Soft strokes. A forever show of thank-you and love and how-did-I-get-so-lucky?

He put his forehead to the rough bark of the tree. Hell, he was shaking. And panting like a dog, too. This was going to be a problem. He squeezed his eyes shut and gave her the truth. “I don’t know if I can control myself, sweetheart. Not near ready to trust myself with you.”

Annabella bit his earlobe in answer. “If you can ask the question, I’m safe enough.”

Annabella felt Custo’s weight shift. He’d pinned her deliciously to a tree. Her body tingled with awareness, sore muscles loosening, strengthening in preparation. The embrace was familiar, the pressure and fit all Custo. Her heart thumped hard with relief. They’d survived, somehow. And he was still hers. The rest she didn’t have the strength to care about.

Custo started to draw back, hesitated, sighing deeply, then allowed her to look him full in the face. The green she’d seen in his irises had not lied—he was back, his expression more tortured than ever, waiting for her reaction. His coloring had altered, the lines under his skin telling her that he was permeated with Shadow. Which would probably get very interesting. But it was still him, still Custo, just having a very bad day.

She blinked back prickling tears and with mock severity, threatened, “Don’t make me seduce you again.”

His eyes smiled slightly, underscored by deep rue. Against her body, she could feel the vibration of a growl in his chest.

“I try to be good, really I do,” he said, as if very tired. His thumb smeared a tear across her cheek.

She had to grin now, in spite of everything, and lifted her face to kiss. “Don’t try too hard.”

MOM, I know I’ve only known him a couple of days,” Annabella said, phone clutched between her shoulder and ear as she rummaged through one of the boxes the Segue soldiers had packed from her studio. Apparently, Adam took her “I’m never going back there” very seriously.

The apartment she shared with Custo at Segue was jammed with brown boxes smelling like cardboard and packing tape. The place was a disaster with spills of clothes and random junk piling everywhere on the floor from Annabella’s search. And now that she and Custo had decided they were moving, she’d just have to pack it all up again.

If she didn’t find her stash of pointe shoes soon, she was going to be late for rehearsal, and Venroy was already ticked at her for leaving the reception early two nights before. Good thing the news broadcast of the battle in the city had been blurry where she was concerned. The video capture from mobile phones was less so, but Adam was working on that before she was publicly recognized.

She’d stayed in bed all day yesterday “recuperating” with Custo, but now it was time to get back to work. She had a name to make for herself.

“Then it’s clearly too early to move in with him,” her mom said. “You barely know the man.”

Annabella knew Custo was good and strong and soulful. In his keeping, she was safer than anywhere else in the world…or beyond it. He would help her master her gift, just as she would help him master his new abilities. Then, when she wasn’t dancing, they’d combine their efforts to help with ongoing breaches between the worlds.

“I told you, I am not staying at his apartment.” Which was the truth. Custo didn’t have one. “I’m staying at his friend’s home until I can find somewhere to live. I won’t be able to sleep at my apartment knowing a murder took place next door.”

“Are you sleeping in the same bed?”

Dang, her mom was smart. Annabella had thought for sure the murder thing would get her all excited again and have her going off on the dangers of the city.

“That’s none of your business,” Annabella said a little primly.

“Then you’re living with him.” A long silence. “Annabella, it’s not like you to fall so hard so fast. I’m worried. I don’t want you to get hurt or jeopardize everything you’ve accomplished with your dance.”

“He’s a good guy, Mom. I’m crazy about him, and I bet you will be, too.”

A pang of worry in her heart told Annabella that the question of her future with Custo did bother her. The fact that he aged like a human person was weirdly comforting, but they still had to figure out how they could share their lives, especially with his slightly abnormal appearance. They’d have to make up a halfway plausible “condition” to explain the dark lines on his body. That he ate a Shadow wolf wasn’t going to cut it.

Another silence, a little longer. Then a huge sigh. “Bring him to dinner Sunday.”

Her mom was her best friend; she couldn’t keep Custo from her for long. “I have performances. What about Tuesday?”

“Tuesday’s fine. I’ll call your brother so that he can give your Custo a hard time, too.”

Annabella smiled. It would be fun to watch Custo squirm. And more fun to make it up to him later.

A rustle behind her. Annabella turned to see Zoe crouching by one of her boxes. The tape hissed as Zoe pulled it off.

“Uh…Mom, I’ve got to go to rehearsal. See you Tuesday. Love you.” Annabella disconnected the call. To Zoe she said, “That’s not your stuff.”

Zoe looked up, the black fringe of her bangs hanging in her eyes. Still no makeup. She looked like a grumpy kid without it.

“I don’t have any stuff,” Zoe said. “I need clothes. I won’t leave Abby here alone, and I’m not about to ask Adam or Talia for a damn thing. That leaves you.”

Abigail wasn’t making as much progress as Dr. Lin would have liked, but she was holding stable. Zoe must have been worried out of her mind. In a strange place with no friends and a heck of a lot of scary monsters, no wonder she was in a foul mood.

Zoe rummaged through the box. A flash of pointe-shoe pink made Annabella’s heart leap. Bingo! Now if she could find Custo, she might make rehearsal on time after all.

“Clothes are in those boxes,” Annabella said, snapping up her shoes. “And my makeup in is the bathroom. Help yourself.”

“I don’t know why you’re so happy,” Zoe called after her. “It’ll never work out for the two of you.”

Annabella looked back, feeling sorry for her. No one could know the future with any certainty, not Abigail and certainly not Zoe. The girl just had the uncanny ability that other unhappy people have to sense and tweak the deepest fears of others.

It’ll never work out?

Ha! “The hell it won’t.”

“You’re looking better,” Adam said, turning away from his computer monitor. “Less ugly, but still…disturbing.”

Custo grinned as he dropped into a chair opposite Adam, glancing over his friend’s blackened eyes and the swollen bridge of his nose. “You still look like shit.”

“Yeah. Talia’s mad at me for getting hurt. Almost put her back into labor when she heard about it.”

“She knows you fight wraiths for a living, right?”

Adam chuckled. “She doesn’t want me doing it without her. I’m hoping with you and The Order around she won’t have to do much of it at all, but she’s still angry.”

Which reminded Custo…“About Talia and the babies…what are you going to do with Gillian?” Custo asked. “You can’t exactly let her walk.”

“Why not?”

“She knows too much about Segue, about Talia. And the wraiths were keen on getting a hold of the babies, probably to harness whatever gifts they have. The woman needs to face the consequences of her actions.” Custo had half a mind to go down to her cell and strangle her himself.