No wonder the fae woman was so keen on getting rid of her. Annabella’s power was beyond formidable. It was frightening.
“What happens next, Annabella? Tell the story.”
—he’scoming, he’scoming, he’scoming—
Annabella lifted her head, listening as morning bells jangled loudly through the forever night-darkened trees.
—he’scoming, he’scoming, he’scoming—
Custo didn’t bother to look over his shoulder, his body electric with hope, even as he heard the wolf’s rapid footfalls pounding across the clearing.
“That’s right, honey,” he said, eyes tearing with fierce pride. “Bella, tell the story: raise the sun.”
Chapter Twenty
THE ground rumbled beneath Annabella’s feet, bells clanging loudly in her mind. She held on to the sound with everything she was, lashed her heart to the story, and heaved, lifting the blazing orb of the sun to the horizon line.
Tell the story. Raise the sun.
Pink washed the sky, drowning out the diamond glow of the stars. A sudden, monstrous gale blew through the Shadow forest, denuding the trees of their leaves, the trunks rising like skeletons from the trembling ground in the wan glow of dawn. A keening wail lifted all around, the dark inhabitants quailing under the revelation of light.
Annabella clung to Custo’s solid shoulders to borrow his strength, sought his eyes for courage, and coaxed the hot sphere higher. Morning in the Shadowlands. Salvation.
Like a blotch marring the burgeoning blue, the wolf leaped behind Custo. The wolf’s rage crackled in the air and raised the fine hairs on Annabella’s skin.
The ground lurched, lost its solidity, churning under their feet. The Shadowlands, expelling them.
—doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong—
The three fell back to Earth, to Segue, and the confines of the open storage room in an airborne brawl, Custo gripping the wolf’s jaws.
The concrete was brutal, crushing, but Annabella rolled immediately to her feet—she could handle a little pain—and threw herself on the huge bristle of black grappling with Custo.
She wrapped an arm around the beast’s neck and used all her muscle to force the jaws away from Custo’s throat. Riding the wolf’s hump, she grabbed a fistful of coarse hair and yanked it back. The wolf smelled like a dog, dark and beasty and a little bit foul.
“Run, Annabella,” Custo ground out, red-faced, shaking with effort to restrain the crazed wolf.
“No,” she managed, locking on to the wolf’s back with her thighs. Thank God for pliés.
A shout brought her gaze up to the door. She ducked her head just as a soldier fired, hitting the wolf between the eyes. Adam must have been prepared for this very contingency.
More men filed in behind him, guns trained through the doorway, ready to unload on the beast. Custo reached out a hand toward them, and the soldier scuttled forward to hand him a mean knife.
Which the wolf knocked away.
Annabella scrabbled to get it and cut her fingers on the sharp blade before grasping the hilt in a slippery hand. She stabbed while she could, where she could, in his shoulder. The knife hit bone and glanced to the side, slicing across the wolf’s flesh and not down into it, hot red spilling across her arm before it cooled and evaporated into Shadow.
The wolf bucked and threw her, hard, into one of Kathleen’s paintings, cracking the frame and tearing the canvas. Stars of pain exploded in Annabella’s vision. A soldier dived for her, grabbing her arm to drag her out of the fray. She was passed into the concrete cavern, through a line of soldiers, and laid on the ground.
The soldier, a square-faced man whose eyes were too close together, demanded, “Is this your blood?” but he stalled in his examination, staring openmouthed at her face.
“I cut my hand,” Annabella answered. Not enough to take her away from Custo.
The soldier touched his ear. “Sir, we’ve got a medical emergency. Need immediate evac.”
“I’m not going anywhere. It’s just my hand.” And even that wasn’t too bad. She pointed in the direction of the storage room. “He’s the one who’s hurt!”
Another volley of shots echoed in the tunnel, battering her eardrums. She cringed, covering her ears, but the report kept ricocheting in her skull. To her right a masked soldier was donning a small tank of a backpack attached to an oddly shaped gun. Had to be a flamethrower.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she said, “fry him.”
“Ma’am, it’s not safe here.” The first soldier again. “You look very ill. You need a doctor.”
“I’m not going—”
There was a sudden shout, a break in the line of guards, and a cacophony of violent gunfire. Custo was pulled through, blood everywhere, his right arm hanging limp, bloody, and broken at his side. At least he was on his feet.
Now they could get out of here.
The gunfire let up. With a loud pause in the action, the soldiers fell back. Then the cavern was filled with a roar of tremendous heat and the smell of fire. The gunshots had hurt the wolf, but the fire would consume his body. That would give Annabella and Custo time to run while the wolf remade himself out of Shadow and pursued.
Someone grabbed her under her arms, and Annabella was carried toward the yellow lift, though her legs worked perfectly fine. She’d have fought it, but Custo was at her side, his good arm slung over another soldier. The lift engaged and they ascended with agonizing slowness to the upper level.
“I need a helicopter,” Custo said. “Now.”
“Sir, you both need serious medical attention,” a soldier responded. He seemed to be the head of the unit, a little older, his buzz so short that he was shiny bald.
“I’ll heal on my own, and”—Custo shot Annabella a worried look—“I don’t think there’s anything you can do for her. She needs specialized care, and I intend to see that she gets it.”
That was the third time someone hinted that something was wrong with her. “What the heck is everyone talking about?”
Annabella caught a couple sidelong glances, but no one answered her. The lift screeched to a stop. One of those funny army-styled golf carts was waiting.
Custo helped her into the back bench and jumped in beside her, squeezing her hand to comfort, and shouted “Go!” to the driver.
Annabella blanched when she got a look at her arm.
Under the smears of blood, she was pasty-pale, with fine lines of black scribbled along the surface, like minute burst capillaries. She angled her head to get a glimpse of her face in the rearview mirror, and then wished she hadn’t. She’d officially joined the freak show.
The shape of her face was the same, her features recognizable, though speckled with blood, but the rest was just wrong. And ugly. The centers of her eyes, pupil and iris, were black, as in voodoo-witch black. Her complexion was waxy, way beyond the stage white of Giselle. And now that her adrenaline was tanking, her body had that getting-sick feeling, everything achy and extra cold.
She dropped her eyes. “What’s happened to me?” Was she going to die?
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Custo said. He inhaled, then held the breath.
“What?”
“Did he hurt you? Did he…?”
She shook her head, fighting tears. “We only danced, but…I did kinda lose myself in it for a while. Until you came.” A thin trail of hot wetness skated over her cheek. “Am I going to be okay?”
“Absolutely. We’re going to The White Tower and we’re not leaving until Luca fixes you up. The Order must know a way to cure you. We’re not leaving until they do.”