Why? Like she’d have any clue why the world suddenly became crazy-scary. First the wolf, then the surreal encounter with Custo, and then the soldiers dragging them both away from that hideout in the city.
Talia lifted her eyebrows in friendly interest. “How about starting with how you met Custo?”
“How about letting me out of here?”
“Custo first,” Talia said. “Besides, I promised Adam that I wouldn’t release you from the cell.”
In spite of her anger, Annabella felt herself crack a smile. “But left out the fact you planned to join me?”
Talia shrugged again. “He’s a little distracted with Custo’s return, and I took advantage.”
“Will you catch hell?” The woman seemed so whipped already. It would be just like that SOB Adam to stress her out some more.
“Adam will want to yell at me so bad the little vein on the side of his head will bulge, but he won’t. Poor man has it tough these days.”
“Poor man? He frisked me! As in…everywhere!” Annabella lifted her brows to make sure that Talia got her meaning.
“Lucky. I wish he’d frisk me.” That tired smile again.
Annabella gave Talia a once-over. “Looks like he frisked you just fine seven months ago.”
Talia’s smile lifted further and lit her eyes. “He did at that. Our belated honeymoon to Paris was very good to us. Tell me about Custo before Adam gets back or someone tattles on me.”
Custo? What about a little freedom first? A little due process?
Annabella met Talia’s steady, weary gaze, and felt the last of her anger crumbling. “Oh, fine.”
She thought back to the moment she first saw him. It was only a flash really: The dress rehearsal had been typically good and bad. She’d barely started the final solo when the wolf appeared. She’d ignored the animal, figuring that if he were real, it was already too late to run, and if he weren’t, she didn’t have anything to worry about. She’d spotted Custo on the other side of her, hidden behind a bit of scenery.
“He came out of nowhere,” Annabella said. “One minute I was dancing alone onstage, the next Custo was with me, tackling my hallucination of a wolf.”
“I beg your pardon?” Talia’s brow furrowed. “A wolf?”
“Yeah. You’re not going to believe me, but I swear it’s the truth.” Custo believed her; maybe this woman would, too. “There is a huge wolf…in the city…that is made out of shadows, and he has been stalking me for two days.”
Annabella sat back in her chair and waited for Talia’s response. If the woman’s face showed one iota of disbelief, contempt, or amusement, then pregnant or not, she was going to get a piece of Annabella’s mind.
Talia’s face tightened, her mouth thinning. “Is the wolf made out of shadow, or does it exist in the shadows?”
Her serious expression had a chill sweeping over Annabella, prickling at her scalp as all the blood dropped out of her face. “He’s real?”
“It’s definitely possible.”
Two people believed her. Which meant the wolf was real and was stalking her. Annabella put her head on the table as the room spun.
“You’re safe here,” Talia said. Annabella felt a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
The hunter crouched in a corner of darkness, panting with fear. Foul scents of industry, sharp and acrid, filled the air. Foreign sounds jarred him, echoing in a world of harsh, cold gray. His claws scrabbled and scratched on a firmament of flat, unnatural stone. No trees, no magic. Just large, wide caverns upon caverns going deep into the earth.
Not his territory. Not his realm. He was the trespasser here.
The hunter braced in meager earth-shadow. A high whine scraped up his throat. Back. He had to get back.
Mortals clumped with heavy, telling footfalls. Controlled violence hummed in the air around them. Fighters, all. The bright man, the one who’d faced him in Twilight, was worse, but they’d caged him.
The woman was here somewhere, too, her scent faint, yet threaded through the passageways she’d traversed.
She could get him back to Twilight. She could open the way to the never-ending forest. His running grounds.
A fighter stomped near, coming closer. A man, steamy and ripe with life.
The hunter bared his teeth, ears pinned, ready to strike.
The man walked the passage as if he belonged, his presence permitted everywhere in these caverns. Closer and closer. Fat with mortal juices.
This fighter could approach the woman. Perhaps he could compel her magic to open the way back.
The hunter sprang to take him.
The door retracted, and Custo stepped into the center of the cell—not too close to the opening as if to attack or escape, but not remaining on the far side, as if to draw Adam away from the door and the safety beyond.
Adam strode in anyway, the door grinding closed behind him. Custo could tell from the loose, but ready set of his shoulders that he was prepared to tangle, if necessary. Though they’d often handled wraiths together, Adam had taken on a couple of wraiths solo before.