Custo was already reaching through magic, breaking the surface between the mortal world and the Other. Frightening euphoria swept over his body as his senses grew indistinct, his mind’s ability to reach and read others going dark.
The forest was endless, without trail or boundary.
How would he ever find her?
Chapter Nineteen
DARK forest surrounded Annabella. The crossing had changed her sweats to the long, classical tutu of Giselle, but whether that choice came from her or the wolf or some other Shadow power, she didn’t know. At least she wasn’t naked.
The wolf pushed her through the trees, the branches snagging like fingers at her tulle skirts until the netting hung in ragged shreds down to her ankles. The bodice was tight and far more ornate than it should have been for the peasant girl of the story. It was diamond-crusted and sharp, scoring her arms as the wolf ran her through the forest. Toward what, she couldn’t guess.
All around, the leaves chattered, the individual sounds collecting into almost-words that had Annabella looking over her shoulder, wary of what lurked in the deeper shades between the ancient trunks. She could make no sense of the rhythmic, running syllables.
—doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong—
The air was thick with the scent of earth and plants, underscored by an exotic fragrance that confused Annabella’s senses and burned in her mind, making her exhaustion and hunger sharper, and an already bad mood, worse.
She hated nature. Hated dirt. Hated hated the crawly things that inhabited such places. But she would deal.
The wolf had gotten what he wanted—they were in the Shadowlands, together. She wouldn’t give him anything more, and didn’t want to. She belonged to Custo now. The wolf was trapped and that’s all that mattered. Everyone she cared about was safe.
—doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong—
The hushed voices followed them into a clearing, a starlit meadow flickering with colorful butterflies, which burst upward when she and the wolf entered the field.
At the center was a tall and slender figure, nearly human, but not. She was pale as moonlight, with fine long hair past her waist. Her cat eyes were large and black, and she moved with a regal bearing and strange grace, her gown floating oddly around her. A queen. Her jealousy was palpable, barely suffering Annabella’s presence. Annabella could sense it like a dissonant sound or a bad smell or an ugly touch.
“She does not belong here, Hunter,” the woman said, her voice a sigh on the wind.
The wolf morphed into the figure of a man, naked, but covered in hair, and hunched, his snout shortened. Seriously not her type.
“She’s mine,” he growled. “My mate.”
Like hell, Annabella thought. But the loathing coming off the woman was too dense for open sarcasm, and the wolf seemed too defensive at the moment to annoy. Much smarter to keep her big mouth shut.
“She’s a danger to us all.” The fae woman’s gaze settled on Annabella, cold and piercing. “You know what she can do.”
“I’ll control her,” the wolf said.
“And if you can’t?”
“I will.” His tone was all confidence. “It will be so simple.”
Custo had called her the most difficult woman alive. She’d have to count on that.
The woman narrowed her gaze. “If you can’t, I’ll have your pelt. She doesn’t belong.”
—doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong—
Annabella understood now. They, whoever “they” were, didn’t want her here. The fae woman feared and resented Annabella’s gift. You know what she can do.
What can I do? Under the right circumstances, as in a stage with costumes and a very appreciative audience, she could dance her heart out, maybe make something happen. Open a way. But that was a secondary, passive effect. She was in the Shadowlands. It wasn’t as if she could click her heels three times and say, there’s no place like home. First, she didn’t have magic sparkly red shoes, and second, the ice queen in front of her sure didn’t look like Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. Seemed pretty certain that she was stuck in Oz.
—doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong—
Even if they didn’t want her here.
Only when the faery woman turned and moved back toward the dark trees, floating more than walking, did Annabella notice glimmers of midnight light following, as if attending her. A court.
Annabella turned back. Alone again with the wolf.
The whispers didn’t stop: doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong. Maybe they would help her, eventually. If she could ever see them. Speak to them.
Suddenly, the trees reached their boughs into the sky like great skeletal grasping hands. Annabella threw her arms over her head, crouching, and only stood when she realized that the branches formed an arched ceiling. She stood in a wide, open room, a medieval hall of a fairy-tale castle. The trunks became the walls around, adorned by great murals depicting the first act of Giselle. The peasant girl is wooed by Prince Albrecht, though he was already bound to marry another. Giselle dies, becoming a wili, when he breaks her heart by honoring his first engagement. Not exactly a romantic story.
“Dance with me,” the wolf said, shifting. Now he wore Prince Albrecht’s costume and looked ridiculous. He had Jasper’s face again, too.
Whatever face he wore, Annabella knew him for what he was and had danced with him for the last time.
Annabella wasn’t about to playact his fantasy. She looked away.
“You loved me once.”
She didn’t dignify that with a response. She’d been performing at the time, the Shadows making her judgment questionable. Her judgment was just fine at the moment.
“What about now?” Jasper morphed, took on height and broadened, and became Custo. Annabella’s heart tripped in her chest.
A low-down, dirty, rotten trick. Very wolfy. But at least her anger got the best of her fear. She dared to ignore that, too.
“You will forget him,” the wolf said. “Memory doesn’t last long here. Eventually you will be mine.”
Not going to happen. Not in a million years. She already belonged to someone, and she wasn’t giving him up in her heart. This new reality she would endure, moment by moment, until…Until what? The end of the world? Until the little voices said, “exit this way”? Didn’t matter. They were both in for a long wait.
The wolf bowed like a prince in a ballet, like Albrecht, and then split into creeping darkness, his shadows, leaving her alone.
If he meant to scare her, he got it wrong. Alone was wonderful. Alone she could think, steel herself for what was to come. She hoped he left her alone forever.
She blinked, and a banquet was laid before her, the rich table filled with every kind of delicious food she could conceive.
She double-blinked. The food was still there.
The feast before her was every holiday dinner, roasted meats and their accompaniments, as well as great baskets of perfectly ripe fruit—oranges, pomegranates, thick bunches of grapes. These were circled by baked delicacies, her favorites, the rich, creamy desserts she forbade herself for dance. Napoleons, éclairs, and, hooray!—cheesecake. The smells were tantalizing, intoxicating.
Annabella’s mouth watered, her belly ached, and her body complained with deep fatigue.
The spread looked so dang good.
But it was his. She wasn’t touching the food. Something wasn’t right about it.