The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2

by Trisha Telep

  “Okay,” Anna agreed.

  “Okay, what?”

  “I’m done. No more astral travelling. No more sexy dream guy.”

  Tina hugged her. “Good. And this weekend, we are going out and you are going to meet a real, live hot-as-hell man, and you’ll allow him to sweep you off your feet and live happily ever after, right?”

  Anna allowed herself a small smile. “If I must.”

  After giving Emerson one more quick scratch behind the ears, Tina rose and headed toward the door.

  “Tina, what do you think Richard meant?”

  Tina paused with her hand on the front door handle and thought about the question. “I think he was trying to lend you strength so you could move on, that’s what I think.”

  “And the whole ‘love is in the air’, thing?”

  Tina shrugged. “Wasn’t he always writing you bad poetry? Perhaps his talent hasn’t improved much in the afterlife.” Tina’s grin was infectious.

  Anna returned the smile. “See you later.”

  “See you this weekend,” Tina insisted.

  “I agreed, didn’t I?”

  Tina lifted her eyebrows as if to say she wasn’t sure Anna’s word could be trusted. Then, she gestured toward Emerson who had followed her to the door. “And pay attention to that cat, will you? I’m no good as a stand-in. I can feel my allergies acting up already.”

  To show his gratitude for Tina’s concern with his plight, Emerson promptly coughed up a fur ball on to her foot.

  True to her word, Anna did not attempt another meeting with Aether. She forced herself to accompany Tina on at least one night out on the town per week. They frequented places Tina strategically chose for man-hunting potential. Anna actually found herself having fun during these outings. She flirted, got flirted with and gave out her phone number a time or two. She even entertained the idea of returning the phone call of a handsome lawyer who’d called.

  Her house was clean, her work was caught up and Emerson was happy to have regained his side of the bed. But late at night, when she was supposed to be sleeping, Aether filled her thoughts. And a fierce, aching need swept through her.

  Then, one Friday evening after a long, gruelling day at the office – an evening when Anna really would have rather backed out of Date Night with Tina – something truly magical happened.

  Anna stood next to the bar in the latest, hippest club, watching people in various modes of attire get their groove on atop the strobe-lit laden dance floor. She sipped a glass of Pinot Grigio and waited for Tina to return from the restroom. Just as she was finishing her last swallow of the wine, a very broad shoulder bumped her arm. She glanced up into familiar green eyes – and choked.

  “Are you okay?”

  The man who’d bumped her patted her lightly on the back. When she’d calmed down and gathered herself, Anna wiped the wine from her chin and nodded.

  Same wavy, jet hair, same chiselled features, definitely the same arresting gaze. How could this be? Was she losing her mind?

  Say something, she told herself. Say something, anything. But she could barely breathe, let alone speak. The man didn’t seem to notice. He was studying her, too.

  “You seem familiar,” he said. “Do I know you?”

  She opened her mouth to answer but then his hand touched her arm and shivers of delight burst over her skin. She stifled a moan of pleasure.

  “I’m so sorry about bumping you. This place is really crowded tonight.”

  Anna swallowed and finally found her voice. “It’s okay.”

  If he only knew just how okay it was.

  “I haven’t seen you here before. Are you local?”

  “I live just a few blocks from here,” she told him.

  “Really? Me too.” He tilted his head to the side. “Man, I could swear we’ve met before. What’s your name?”

  “Anna,” she said. “And yours?”

  He stuck his hand out. “Aether. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Anna.”

  Anna’s pulse sped and her legs grew weak. It was him. She wasn’t crazy. It was really him. “Aether?” she repeated, incredulous.

  He gave her a shy smile. “What can I say? My dad is a professor who specializes in Greek mythology and my mom is an artist. She even painted me once as the Greek god, Aether.”

  “Greek god?” Anna repeated, realizing she was starting to sound like a broken record but unable to stop herself.

  “Yeah, you know, the god of Air?”

  And suddenly everything made perfect, beautiful, crystal clear sense. Her sudden interest in astral travel, meeting Aether and their intense connection. And especially, Richard’s message on the bathroom mirror.

  I’m sending you love. Love is in the air.

  Moisture welled in Anna’s eyes. Her heart swelled with elation. Richard, you truly are the most wonderful man. I will never forget you. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for looking out for me. The words whispered through her mind, unspoken. Somehow she knew that wherever Richard was, he heard her.

  “Let’s go get you a new glass of wine, shall we?”

  Anna smiled. “Thank you.”

  “It’s the least I can do.”

  He took her hand and led her toward the bar. Anna happily followed him, suddenly aware only of the tall man in front of her, of the feel of his large hand covering hers, of the scent of his woodsy cologne. She tuned out the other people pushing in around them and the loud music blaring through the space.

  When they reached the bar, Aether quickly made his order, then placed a fresh glass of wine into Anna’s free hand. Tingles spread from the hand Aether held and travelled up her arm. A current of delicious, sensual heat followed.

  Aether sucked in his breath and glanced down at their joined hands. Then he smiled at her, flashing straight white teeth and a set of dimples she hadn’t noticed during their nocturnal meetings.

  “Let’s go sit outside where we can talk. It’s too noisy in here.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, “Let’s.”

  They wound their way to the exit. The tables scattered around the outside eating area of the restaurant-turned-nightclub were full. Anna’s heart sank. Then a couple to their right vacated their table, and Anna and Aether quickly snatched it up.

  Once they were seated, Anna expected Aether to release her hand but he did not. Instead, he turned his hand palm up and traced a lazy pattern over her fingers. His gaze sparkled with mischief.

  “Anna, I’m almost positive we’ve met before.”

  She smiled a mysterious smile. “Perhaps.”

  He chuckled. “Well, I want you tell me everything about yourself. I want to know all there is to know about you, Mystery Lady.”

  Anna’s brows rose. “That could take awhile.”

  Aether pressed a soft kiss on her hand. A jolt of desire shot through her.

  “I’ve got a lifetime.”

  The Gauntlet

  Karen Chance

  Chapter One

  The sound of a key turning in the rusty old lock had everyone scurrying forward with hands outstretched, begging for food, for water, for life. Gillian didn’t go with them. Trussed up as she was, she could barely move. And there was no life that way.

  The burly jailer came in carrying a lantern, with two more dark shapes behind him. To her surprise, he didn’t immediately kick the women aside with brutal indifference. Instead he let them crowd around, even the ones who had been there a while, whose skeletal hands silently begged with the others.

  “This is the lot, my lord,” he said. “And a sorry one it is, too.”

  “Why are some of them gagged?” The low, pleasant tenor came from one of the shapes she had assumed to be a guard. The speaker came forwards, but she couldn’t see much of him. The hood on his cape was pulled down and a gloved hand covered his face, probably in an attempt to block the stench.

  She smiled grimly and let her head fall back into her arms. It wouldn’t work. Even after two days, she hadn’t become inured to it:
the thick, sickly-sweet odour of flesh, unwashed and unhealed.

  “Some are strong enough to curse a man to hell otherwise,” the jailer informed him, spitting on the ground.

  “Show me the strongest,” the stranger said, and Gillian’s head jerked back up.

  The jailor grumbled, but he ordered his men to drag the bound bodies that had been shoved to the back of the room to the forefront. The stranger bent over each one, pushing matted, filthy hair out of their eyes, as if looking for someone. Gillian didn’t watch. She concentrated everything she had on biting through the remaining mass of cloth in her mouth, her eyes on the open door behind men.

  The guards came only once a day, doling out water and a thin gruel, and she didn’t know what kind of shape she would be in by tomorrow. Even worse, she didn’t know how Elinor would be. She glanced over at the child’s huddled form, but she hadn’t moved. Not for hours now, a fact that had Gillian’s heart clenching, part in fear, part in black rage.

  If those whoresons let her daughter die in here, she’d rip this place apart stone by stone. Her arms jerked convulsively against the shackles, but they were iron, not rope. If she couldn’t speak, she had no chance of breaking them.

  It didn’t help that she hadn’t had water in more than a day. The guard assigned to that detail last night had been one of those she’d attacked on arrival, in an aborted escape attempt. He’d kicked her in the ribs as he passed and waved the ladle under her nose, but not allowed her so much as a drop. If he’d followed orders, he might have noticed what she was doing, might have replaced the worn woollen gag with something sturdier.

  But he hadn’t.

  “That one’s dead,” the jailor said, kicking a limp body aside. He quickly checked the others, pulling out one more before lining up the remaining women at the stranger’s feet. Most were silent, watching with hollow, desperate eyes above their gags. A few struggled weakly, either smart enough to realize that this might be a way out, or too far gone to understand what was happening.

  “What about this one?” A hand with a square cut ruby ring caught Gillian’s chin, turning her face up to the light.

  “You don’t want her!” the jailer said, aiming another kick at her abused ribs.

  “The agreement was, ‘in good condition’,” the stranger said, blocking the booted foot with his own.

  Gillian barely noticed. Up close, it was obvious that she was in even more trouble than she’d thought. The fact that the stranger was dead wasn’t a good sign. That he was still walking around was worse.

  Vampire.

  They stared at each other and he smiled slightly at her start of recognition. He had a nice face – young, as if that meant anything – with clear, unmarked skin, a head of dark brown curls and a small goatee. The last would have been amusing under other circumstances, as if he was trying to make his pleasant face appear more sinister.

  She wondered why he didn’t just bare his fangs.

  “I don’t see as it makes a difference, if you’re aiming to feed off her,” the guard said, angry, but smart enough not to show it.

  Those liquid dark eyes swept over her. “What I do with the woman is my affair.”

  “Ahh. Some sport beforehand, then. I’d not risk it, meself. One of my men tried the night she was brought in and the bitch cursed him. He’s in a bad way, still.”

  “How tragic,” the vampire sounded amused.

  The guard must have thought so, too, because his already florid features flushed even darker. “See if you’re laughing with a pillicock the size of a pin!” he spat.

  The vampire ignored him and put a hand beneath Gillian’s arm, helping her to stand. “I’d let you out of those, but I’m afraid you’d hex me,” he said cheerfully, nodding at her cuffs. “And I like my privities the way they are.” He glanced at the guard. “Tell me about her.”

  “One of them that’s been operating out of the thicket,” the man said resentfully, referring to Maidenhead thicket on the road between London and Bristol, where Gillian’s group had had some success relieving travellers of their excess wealth.

  “Ah, yes. I met a robber there myself, not long ago.” The vampire smiled at her. “He was delicious.”

  Gillian just stared. Did he always talk to his food this much before eating it?

  “But I must say,” he commented, his eyes on her worn gown, greasy red hair and dirty face. “For a member of one of the most notorious gangs of thieves in England, you do not look very prosperous.”

  Maybe I would, she thought furiously, if I didn’t have to spend most of my time avoiding people like you.

  Once, she’d had protection from his kind. She’d been a member of one of the Druid covens that had ruled the supernatural part of the British Isles for time out of mind. But that had been before the arrival of the so-called “Silver Circle”, an ancient society of light magic users who had brought nothing but darkness to England.

  They had arrived in force ten years ago, as refugees of a vicious war on the continent. The religious tensions that culminated with Spain launching the Armada had offered an opportunity to one of the Circle’s oldest enemies. A group of dark mages known as the Black Circle had joined forces with the Inquisition under the pretence of helping to stamp out heresy. And by all accounts, they had been brutally efficient at hunting down their light counterparts.

  But their suffering hadn’t made the Silver Circle noticeably gentler on anyone else. They had but one goal in mind – to rebuild their forces and retake control of magical Europe. And they intended to start with England.

  Gillian’s coven was one of those who had refused their kind offers of “protection”, and preferred to continue determining their own destiny. In return, they had been subjected to a witch hunt mightier and more successful than anything the Inquisition had ever managed. By the time they realized just how far their fellow mages would go to support the idea of a unified magical community, the covens had been decimated through deceit, betrayal and murder.

  But they haven’t killed all of us, Gillian thought viciously. Not yet. It was a fact that would some day cost them dear.

  The vampire had been watching her with interest. She didn’t know how he could tell anything past the folds of the gag, but apparently he saw something that amused him. His smile became almost genuine.

  “See my man about payment,” he told the guard, his eyes never leaving her face. “I’ll take this one with me.”

  “Take her?” The guard’s scowl became more pronounced. “Take her where?”

  “That is my affair,” the vampire repeated.

  “Not if ye’re planning to make off wi’ her, it damn well isn’t! No one will much care if she doesn’t last long enough for the rope, but it’s as much as my life is worth to let her go beyond these walls. She’s dangerous!”

  “I do truly hope so,” the vampire said oddly.

  A beefy hand fell on his shoulder. “If ye want to make a meal off her, that’s one thing. But all the gold in yer purse won’t save me once they discover—”

  In an eye blink, the guard was slammed against the wall, held several feet off the floor by the slim hand around his throat. “Perhaps you should be more concerned about your immediate future,” the vampire said softly.

  Gillian didn’t wait to see who would win the argument over which one would be allowed to kill her. The soggy threads finally came apart in her mouth and she spat them out. But with no saliva left, and a throat still throbbing from the elbow blow it had taken days ago, she couldn’t speak. She swallowed convulsively and concentrated everything on making some kind of sound – anything.

  An incantation rolled off her tongue. It was a dry whisper, but it was enough. With a rusty creak, the shackles parted around her wrists and ankles, and she was free.

  Her limbs were stiff and uncoordinated and her head was spinning from the power loss. But then she caught sight of Elinor and nothing else mattered. She lurched forward in a scrambling crawl, making it a few yards before rough hosed le
gs blocked the way.

  “Where d’ye think you’re going?” the other guard demanded, grabbing her by the back of the collar. She slung a spell at him, but the angle was off and it missed, exploding against the low ceiling of the room.

  Had the roof been in proper repair, the spell would have either dissipated or ricocheted back, depending on how much power she had been able to muster. But whoever owned this heap of stones before the Circle had skimped on repairs and the once stout wood had seen one too many winters. What felt like half the roof suddenly rained down on their heads, sending her stumbling back and burying the guard under a pile of weathered beams.

  Gillian clutched the wall, blinking in the wash of brilliant sunlight that streamed through the ruined roof. It was blinding after two days of almost complete darkness and the struggle with the guard had disoriented her. She was no longer sure where Elinor was, and when she tried to move, she was battered by screaming, panicked women, on all sides.

  “Elinor!” she yelled as loudly as her parched throat would allow, but there was no answer.

  Her eyes finally adjusted and she caught a glimpse of her daughter’s slight form huddled against one wall. She was rocking slightly, staring at nothing, her hands bound to an iron ring. Gillian crawled over and started to work the leather bindings on her wrists off. They were so tight that the circulation to her hands had been partially cut off and her small fingers were swollen like sausages.

  Elinor didn’t fight her, although she couldn’t have seen much through the glare or heard her mother’s whispered assurances over the din. She was trembling from a combination of exhaustion, shock and fear. Dark blue rings stained her eyes and her beautiful blond hair hung limp and lifeless, like her expression.

  The last stubborn strap came loose and Gillian pulled her daughter into her arms. She started to rise when one of the bound figures on the floor rolled into her, struggling in vain to throw off her bonds. The old woman was in irons and gagged, as Gillian had been, with no chance to escape if she couldn’t speak.