SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (58 page)

“Please don’t tire yourself out,” he said, tone long-suffering, and moved down the hall.

Annabella swallowed hard, packing away the newfound knowledge for examination later, and followed Talia’s waddle inside the infirmary. The sliding doors hissed closed behind them. Centered in the entryway was a long white counter, staffed by a tall and broad-shouldered male nurse. “Dr. Thorne, are you feeling well? Those babies giving you any trouble?”

“I’m not here for me, Rudy,” Talia answered. “I’m here for Ms. Ames. She needs a private room and a good night’s sleep. Can you help us accommodate her?”

“Fifteen is open,” Rudy said. He looked at Annabella. “Do you need a sleep aid?”

She hadn’t thought of that. Maybe taking something was a good idea. A sleeping pill could put her under for eight to ten, and then she could wake refreshed and ready for the biggest day of her life. Without it, her rest was bound to be rotten, all things considered.

“Yeah,” she said. “Is there something light I could take? Knock me out, but not put me in a coma?”

“I’ll see what I can do. Fifteen is right down there.” Rudy gestured down the hall. “Do you need anything else for the night? Contact solution or any personal items?”

Annabella looked at Talia. “Not if I get my bag back.” Which incidentally had an old, smushed chocolate brownie protein bar in there. Some dinner.

“Of course. Adam would be thorough.” Talia heaved a big sigh. “You go on down to your room. I’ll make some calls and have it delivered right away. We’ll have you tucked in and asleep in no time.”

“Thanks,” Annabella said. The word felt funny in her mouth. Why on earth was she thanking her? For returning the bag they had confiscated when they kidnapped her? Crazy. But then again, Talia had shown her nothing but kindness. And what about Custo? Was there any kindness for him?

Annabella shook her head to clear her thoughts. She was too tired to think, and there was nothing she could do anyway. She’d sleep and then deal with everything tomorrow. She turned and made her way to the room with the number fifteen on a flap above the door.

She gripped the lever and entered. The room was small and tidy. A hospital bed fitted with white sheets was centered on the opposite wall, a beige blanket folded across the end. Another door, kitty-corner to the entry, was ajar, the gleaming edge of a toilet promising a private bath. Nothing fancy, but clean.

Okay. She could rest here for one night. Rudy, the linebacker-turned-nurse, wouldn’t let anything get past him. Maybe this was the best solution after all.

The console above the bed had an overhead light, and Annabella moved forward to find the switch to turn it on for a little extra protection. As she was fiddling with the switch, the door closed behind her.

Her sleeping pill? Her bag?

She turned and found a soldier. His hair was buzzed, jaw square. Bulging arm muscles, bronzed by the sun, were displayed by a tight army tank. He wore baggy camo pants tucked into black boots. No bag.

When he didn’t say anything, she was forced to ask, “Yes?”

He cocked his head at a sharp, oblique angle, chin tilted slightly downward. Gaze fixed on her.

Maybe the guy was confused. “Rudy, the nurse out front, assigned this room to me,” she explained.

The soldier took a predatory, silent step forward. Light from the bed lamp broke over his features, softly highlighting old acne scars across his cheeks and his yellow eyes.

A chill skittered over Annabella’s skin as her heart fluttered. She let her hand fall on the hospital bed railing and pressed the call button for the nurse.

The soldier took another stealthy step, shoulders slightly hunched as he approached.

Her heart clutched hard over two gulping beats before accelerating into a rush that pounded in her head. The soldier was familiar, but her mind refused to recall how.

He sniffed at the air. “I can’t smell so good now.”

Annabella flattened herself against the wall and console, and the light cascaded over her shoulders, bright at the edges of her vision. Her consciousness sparked at last, though she had known from the moment she saw him. “Wolf.”

He skulked forward again, upper lip curling to bare teeth. The yellow of his eyes became consumed by black, the irises swallowed by deep and shifting shadow.

“Who—? How—? I don’t understand.” Hysteria rose like bile in her throat.

“What are you?” the wolf asked, his voice soft, husky, and low, rumbling from his chest. He tilted his head again, moving in closer.

Annabella gripped the bed railing, torn between climbing over it and staying beneath the light, her place of protection. Not so much protection anymore—the wolf now stood in the dim illumination of the room. “What are
you?
” she asked back.

He considered her question.

“I am the hunter.” He bent his head to the exposed skin at her neck. “You and the other one trespassed in my territory.”

She craned her head away, but he brushed his cheek there anyway. Nuzzled, his hot breath in her hair and curling around her ear.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you want from me?” Sobs clogged her question. Though her body was painfully tense, a deep shudder had her trembling beneath him.

He groaned, almost a growl, before answering. “This body wants to be inside you. To fill you. Is that where you keep your magic?”

“Oh, please, no.” Tears slid down her cheeks. Her knees threatened to give.

“Then how do you glow? Why does magic obey you? How do you light Shadow?” His low voice was full of wonder.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she gasped.

Hot, slick teeth pulled at her earlobe. “Show me again.”

“Show you what?” she whined, insinuating her arms between them to push him away.

“Bridge our worlds.” His hand found her ass and he ground his pelvis against hers. “But you feel so good, I almost don’t want to go back.”

“Please go back,” she begged. “You don’t belong here.”

“I could stay a while longer, like this, with you.” He growled again. “Feels so good.”

“Go back.”

His other palm skimmed up her waist. He cupped her breast. “I’ll stay. I think I can bridge our worlds a little myself.”

Annabella’s next breath released in a frightened whimper, high and weak. A sound somebody else would make. Somebody who let bad things happen to them. Somebody who didn’t think to fight. Not her.

The realization was a spark of cold anger in her head that spread down her body to tighten her stomach. The muscles in her legs warmed with her new resolve. Trembling, she shifted slightly to fit her body to the wolf’s
just so
. He squeezed his approval. Then she brought her knee up fast and hard, with a lifetime of strength and technical accuracy behind it.

He yelped and recoiled, stumbling back a few clutched steps, hands at his groin. When he lifted his face, it was devoid of color, the faint veins around his eyes bleeding inky black with pain and surprise.

Annabella ducked out of her corner, but he blocked her passage to the door. “Somebody help me!” she screamed. They said she’d be safe here. Where was Rudy?

“Why did you do that?” the wolf ground out, straightening slowly.

“Stay back, or I’ll do it again.”

His eyes turned sad, confused. “But we could be so good—”

If he said “good” one more time, she was going to rip his “bridge” off him and shove it down his throat.

A light courtesy rap on the door, and it opened, Talia peeking her head in. “I’ve got your bag.”

Damn, not Rudy. Pregnant Talia. Annabella couldn’t have the one nice person in this place, and her babies, harmed because of her. “Get out, Talia. Now.”

The wolf’s head snapped toward the door.

Fear flickered over Talia’s features, a hand on her belly, but she didn’t run. Her expression hardened as she pushed the door open all the way.

“It’s the wolf, Talia, run!”

But Talia didn’t listen, her gaze fixed on the soldier. “You’re a creature of Shadow?”

“Yes,” he said, voice a murmured undertone. “What are you?” He drew the
you
out into a wolfish croon.

“Banshee,” she said.

Banshee?
What the freak was that? Nothing made sense, and there was no time for an explanation. Not with him prowling toward Talia.

“Wolf,” Annabella called sharply, “you want me.”

“And I’ll have you,” he answered over his shoulder.

The room darkened perceptibly, the shadows gaining substance and thickness, layering the room. The bed light dimmed to a faint glow. Annabella’s breath caught and held until her lungs screamed.

“Go back to Shadow,” Talia commanded. Darkness whipped and snapped around her, the room filling with a kinetic energy.

“No!” the wolf barked, the sound ripped from a human throat.

“I said,” Talia’s voice took on shattering intensity, painful to the ears, “Go back!”

The wolf staggered, contracting as if sucker punched, then burst into a splattered cloud of flickering darkness, like a swarm of chattering moths. The shadows gathered into a dark, dense pulse, then rushed past Talia to skim the hallway out of sight, blending in the deep patches formed by obstructed light.

Annabella’s mind blanked for a moment. Her body complained for air and she finally exhaled, grabbing the wall for support and gulping deep. She almost crumbled to the floor, but Talia beat her to it, her knees cracking with impact on the linoleum. Annabella darted forward to catch her before she fell onto her swollen belly.

“Oh God. Are you okay?” Annabella put her arms around her, thinking to get her to the bed, but Talia groaned. The floor would have to do until help came.

“Con”—Talia choked on air—“traction.”

Not good. Not with two months still to go. “Help!” Annabella yelled down the hallway. To Talia she said, “It’s going to be okay.”

Talia brought a hand up, fingertips scarlet with blood. Her gaze turned to Annabella, fear in her soul-filled eyes.

“Deep breaths,” Annabella said with an exaggerated inhalation and exhalation in case Talia had forgotten how. “You’re going to be fine.”

“My babies.”

“They’re going to be fine, too. You’re already in the infirmary.” Annabella eased her to sitting on the floor. “You’re probably just in for a nice long rest. And a whole lot of bossing from your husband.”

Talia smiled weakly. Her eyes darted down the hallway. “You said he was a wolf.”

“I thought he was.”

“Talia!” A man’s voice.

Annabella looked up to see Adam pelting down the hall. He was on his knees at Talia’s back before Annabella could blink.

“The wolf’s in Segue,” Talia gasped. “Gone for the moment.”

“Where are you hurt?”

“The wolf didn’t touch her,” Annabella said. “I think it’s shock.”

Talia shook her head, tearing. “I used Shadow, but I’m not as strong pregnant. I couldn’t completely banish him.”

Shadow again. Annabella had thought Shadow was a place, but now it seemed like more. Something that could be used, manipulated. It was a crazy conclusion, of course, but she’d seen it with her own two eyes: Talia had darkened the room, filled it with churning shadows that obeyed her, and then drew on a strange power when she had yelled at the wolf.

“Shhhh.” Adam put his mouth to her hair, obviously struggling for control. “Love, you’re going to be fine. The babies are going to be fine.” He shifted her in his arms and stood. Annabella backed away so he could carry Talia to the bed.

Beyond the room, Annabella could hear the shouts of people, a rising commotion in the entrance to the infirmary.

A doctor. Talia needed a doctor.

Annabella tore down the hall, grabbed the first person in a white coat. “We need a doctor for Talia.”

“I’m in research.” The man craned his head around. “Where’s Powell?”

“I’m here,” a female voice answered. A middle-aged woman dressed in slacks and a bright satiny-pink blouse stood abruptly from the behind the nurse’s counter. Annabella looked over to find Rudy collapsed on the floor, eyes open but fixed, sightless. Dead.

Shadow Fall: Chapter Six

Custo paced his cell, his hands gripped behind his neck as he strained for control. Shouting wouldn’t help. Kicking at the steel and concrete door would accomplish nothing. Reasoning with the guards he detected outside his cell was useless. Their minds were fixed. Each one had resolved to follow orders. He expected no less; Adam only picked the best.

Custo groaned and leaned into a standing push-up on the door to expend some of his energy. If a wraith couldn’t break out, he sure as hell couldn’t. Heaven was a lot easier in that regard. With his mind he traced Adam and Annabella, caught them for a shred of a moment, but then lost them again in the maelstrom of humanity. Maddening.

Mind reading was a handy trick. It had helped him avoid all sorts of uncomfortable encounters in Heaven, and in theory, it should have made him all but invincible on Earth. The problem was twofold: Locating an isolated individual was difficult to begin with, but then, as soon as a shard of clear thinking cut through someone’s consciousness, it was swept away, flotsam in a tidal wave of other thoughts. Custo had barely caught someone’s inkling in his mind’s grasp before it was no longer relevant.

Of this he was certain: Something was happening. He caught two sustained, desperate resolutions in the sudden thought frenzy in the building. Annabella intended to defend herself, and Adam was determined to save Talia’s life. Both objectives were clear, edged with absolute purpose. Neither boded well, but taken together, something disastrous must have happened. Wraith attack? Wolf?

He dipped into another push-up, then thrust away from the wall.

“Let me out!” He could do nothing locked in this prison. “I can help!”

Time passed, serene, while painful tension gripped him.

He was sitting in a corner, head in his hands, when the door thudded and screeched, retracting. He leaped to his feet before the edge parted with the wall.

Adam stood beyond, a smudge of blood on the waist of his shirt.

“What’s happened? Are Talia and Annabella all right?” It took all of Custo’s will not to approach Adam, not to push him out of the way and find the women for himself.