“I know who your wife is, too. I wish her the very best in the successful delivery of your children. But the tower is not, at this time, working to eradicate the wraiths.” To Custo he said, “If you’ll just follow me…”
Adam wouldn’t be put off. “Do you have the authority to make that decision? I want to speak to the person in change.”
Luca smiled, somewhat ruefully. “You’ll have to settle for me.”
“I don’t suppose you know anything about Shadow wolves, do you?” Annabella asked, though she didn’t really expect an answer after Luca had dismissed the entire wraith war.
Luca shifted his smile to her. “I know there is one in the city.”
Confession time. “Yeah…um…” she began, “about that…we almost had him last night, but I let him get away. It’s not Custo’s fault at all. I was too wrapped up in myself to do the right thing.” Luca said nothing while she stammered through her explanation, so she summed up her point. “I don’t want Custo held responsible.”
Luca lifted a brow. “I believe he left you alone with the wolf for a period of time during the performance.”
Annabella glanced at Custo. Yeah, actually, there had been that moment during the ballet when she’d looked for him, scared to be suddenly faced with Wolf. She’d forgotten in the aftermath and was still too chicken to revisit her part in her own seduction to recall that moment. But, yes, she had needed Custo, and he hadn’t been there.
He’d have a good reason, she was sure. He wouldn’t just leave her.
“I take full responsibility,” Custo said, looking at her for the first time since they’d crawled out of bed. He turned back to Luca. “And I’m not going anywhere with you until I have your assurance that Annabella will be protected from the Shadow wolf, and that Adam will have the support he needs to fight the wraiths.”
Luca gestured into the bright fog. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
“No.” Custo dropped the word like an anchor.
“Custo,” Luca said, “you don’t belong with them. You know this. You’ve done the right thing in coming here today, though I know it had to be difficult.”
Annabella was totally lost now. Was Custo leaving them? She leaned over to Adam. “Are you getting any of this?”
Adam looked down at her. “Not so much.”
“I can’t abandon my friends for them to be preyed upon by monsters,” Custo was saying.
Abandon them? That didn’t make sense either. Custo couldn’t very well stay here. Leaving might be hard on Adam, but it would be like throwing her to the…
Her chest was starting to tighten, breath more difficult to draw. Custo was leaving?
“At least follow me and get some information so you don’t get yourself killed. Then you can decide,” Luca said.
Annabella’s throat constricted, too. This got worse and worse. “Killed?”
“Will you come?” Luca asked Custo. “Somebody needs to dig that bullet out of your gut before you bleed to death internally.”
Custo frowned deeply in response.
Bullet? Killed? Leaving?
Custo turned to Adam, including her with a darted glance. “You’ll wait here? I’ll be back as soon as I can and explain everything.”
She wasn’t budging without some answers.
With a quick tug on her arm, Custo kissed her, his mouth urgent, burning her up for all of three seconds. He drew back, his gaze hard on hers. “Do what Adam tells you.”
Was that good-bye?
“I don’t understand—” she said. Nothing made any sense.
“We’ll be waiting,” Adam said to Custo. The statement was loaded.
Custo released her, her vision blurring suddenly as he and Luca smudged into receding daubs of color, soon drowned out by the light.
Annabella’s chest was so tight she doubled over.
“Deep breaths,” Adam said, putting a hand on her back. She fought for air, and when her equilibrium returned, she straightened.
“I don’t see a bathroom,” she said to be funny, to cover the tears in her eyes.
“I think we hold it.” Adam still grasped his rejected business card in his hand. His jaw was set with fury.
“Custo will work everything out,” she said, though she wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
She’d thought he was in trouble because of her, but he’d left her midperformance. The blame was just as much his as it was hers. Except he was an angel and was supposed to know what he was doing.
He’d also known he might be leaving, and hadn’t bothered to tell her. He’d let her think that they’d banish the wolf together, when he’d intended to ask Luca to take over. He’d let her climb all over him—oh no, she couldn’t think about that. The mortification would burn her up.
Besides, sleeping with him was her fault. What had she been thinking? That he was gorgeous, that he desired her. Would be there to protect her. The fact that he looked and acted like a man made her forget that he wasn’t one. She’d gotten carried away by fear and fantasy.
Here, now, confronted by these many revelations, she had to face the truth: She’d met him less than two days ago. He was practically a stranger. And he was different from her, set apart from the normal flow of life. Not a man, an angel. Her humiliation was her own damn fault.
It was all right, though. The thought razored through her hurt.
Screw-ups were important; she’d figured that out about the same time she got her first set of pointe shoes. It was the key to her success. That’s how she learned to correct her balance, find her center, so the next time, she wouldn’t repeat her mistake.
The intense glare of the tower might’ve been blurring her vision, but she had her bearings now. She knew up from down. Regular human being from angel. Trust from betrayal.
She wouldn’t fall for Custo again.
Chapter Twelve
CUSTO’S shoulders tensed with aggravation as he stepped away from Annabella. He didn’t like to be away from her, especially when her mind was filling with hard questions. Bad things happened when he left her alone. Close calls that were his responsibility. He’d brought the wolf into this world, vowed to send the creature right back out again, and yet, he’d almost lost her twice now.
Except, she wasn’t alone. She was with Adam, and in a tower filled with angels. She couldn’t be safer.
The bustling room behind Luca promised some very interesting answers. Custo had glanced at Adam and touched his mind to see what he thought of the heavily armed men who’d passed the doorway beyond—was that curved blade a sword or a saber?—but Adam was insensible to anyone or anything but Luca. Annabella’s thoughts were circling the same questions over and over again. His last kiss, intended to answer at least one, had only compounded her confusion.
Her mind was racing, and inevitably she would come to conclusions not in his favor, but he had no choice but to follow, to investigate that glint of sharp steel.
His interest rose exponentially upon entering what appeared to be a slick, modern command center. One wall was devoted to enormous sectional screens that displayed shifting images of cities around the world. Satellite input was overlaid with changing numerical data. To the right, screens tracked a developing weather system, while on the left screens flickered quickly though television news broadcasts in multiple languages.
The men and women, angels, were variably busy around the room. All wore modern dress, some casual, some business-oriented, and still others wore combat gear as if they belonged in mortality. Several hovered over consoles, peering with concern into their screens. The thought-speak was rapid, direct, naming places of “breaches,” conflicts, and instructions to angels in place to resolve them.