The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2

by Trisha Telep

  Jake looked uncomfortable. “He could. Or he could stay like this forever. There’s no question he’d go crazy.”

  She remembered the terror in Steve’s mind. “I know.”

  “He’s dangerous in this state. All those old horror movies didn’t come out of thin air. That’s why so many wolves are here. We can’t let him get away.”

  At the moment, Steve remained perfectly still. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Stay here.” Jake turned away, leaving her to go look for something in the pile of coats and shoes left heaped by one of the lanterns.

  Selina felt his absence as if she had suddenly been set adrift. There was nothing to anchor her in that shifting sea of cloud and grass and whispering cedars.

  Last time I knocked Steve out and that wasn’t the answer. How can I help now?

  Then Steve began to stir, and she understood. As consciousness returned, his emotions rippled like a shockwave, slamming into her with all the force of an atomic blast. Steve had blacked out from pure terror, and he couldn’t turn unless he was awake and aware. She had to keep him calm enough to complete the change. Magic had to be the sedative science hadn’t invented.

  Selina felt a sudden urge to vomit. Sharing Steve’s fear long enough to see him through the change would be like falling into that churning vortex of panic. If Steve didn’t tear her to shreds first. She started to shake. I’m not a coward. I’m not a coward.

  Jake rejoined the circle, holding a weapon big enough to atomize an elephant.

  “Please tell me it’s a tranquilizer gun,” she rasped.

  Jake looked stricken. “Sedatives didn’t work on him, remember?”

  “Why do you have to shoot him? You’re a doctor.”

  “I’m also the pack leader.” He said it in a voice meant to end debate. “I have to bear the responsibility.”

  She could feel Jake’s heart breaking as he said it. Selina’s mouth went dry. “Steve’s just afraid.”

  “That’s the problem.” Jake’s mouth flattened.

  “I’m scared, too.” She couldn’t help saying it.

  “I know,” he said. Regret and desperation warred in his voice. “But I have this rifle, and thirty-two werewolves are ready to tear his head off if he so much as growls at you. You’ll be safe, but that doesn’t mean the magic won’t be ugly. He’s terrified, so I know it’s going to be hard on you. I’m sorry.”

  Selina gulped air. Jake was right. Steve radiated a slimy film of panic. Her heart began to beat faster, making his fear her own.

  No, no, no! She’d left the supernatural community to get away from her unpredictable magic. Jake was making her face it again. She really, really didn’t want to do that.

  But Jake had asked, and Steve needed her, and – as hard as it was to admit it – Selina needed to be whole again.

  Now Steve was getting up, his limbs not quite working properly. His feet had an extra joint, making him wobble worse than Selina did in her high heels. He fell forward to all fours, the motion jerky with pain. Craning his neck, rising up on his haunches, Steve let out a moan that grew and swelled and shivered into a howl. A handful of the wolves responded, filling the chill air with a sound that seemed to fall in veils, layer on layer of mournful, haunting notes.

  They were encouraging Steve, helping him along, but they were grieving with him, too. Tears streamed down Selina’s face, her whole body aching to take away that sorrow. It was the loss of everything Steve had known, even his own flesh.

  And the loss of everything I worked for.

  Jake, on the other hand, had raised the muzzle of his gun. Selina grabbed the barrel, forcing it down. “What are you doing?” she hissed.

  “If he’s going to rush us, it’ll be now.”

  Selina swore long and hard enough that several of the wolves looked astonished. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, not caring anymore if her makeup smudged. She had a sudden flashback to Gary crashing into the cereal boxes at the grocery store, helplessly floundering because there was no one willing to pick him up.

  She had dealt with Gary. She would deal with Steve.

  But Steve was the terrifying black vortex. Nevertheless, she stepped forward. Jake stepped with her, rifle at the ready.

  “Back off,” she said.

  “You’re not doing this alone.”

  “I’m not doing this with you hanging over my shoulder. I’m trying to get rid of his fear. You’re pointing a gun at his head.”

  “But—”

  Selina turned on him. “Trust me. Do what no one else has done for me and trust my magic!”

  Jake said nothing, but he lowered the gun. His eyes held all his objections.

  Selina ignored them.

  Steve was silent now, slumped in an awkward squatting position. He was panting, globs of drool and blood stringing from his malformed jaws. Fangs had punched through his gums like ivory razors.

  She slowly approached, dropping her shields a bit at a time. Emotion blasted from him with a bonfire’s heat. Fear. Pain. Despair. She realized he recognized her and knew she was the one who had helped him at Jake’s office. She had made the change stop.

  Steve reached out with one imploring, claw-tipped hand. The gesture said everything. Make this nightmare end.

  Trembling so hard her teeth chattered, she took his hand. You just need to go a little further and everything will be all right.

  The moment she touched him, she felt the undertow of his panic sucking at the edges of her mind. The black whirlpool churned with sickening speed. Survival instincts screamed at her to back away. Selina felt her shields closing down, the reflex as inevitable as squinting against the sun.

  No! Steve’s hand – paw – tightened around hers, the strength of his terrified grip grinding the bones of her fingers together. Don’t leave me.

  Selina’s consciousness flowed into Steve’s mind. Before, she’d snuffed out his fear like flame, but this time there was only the dark panic filling his soul. She felt it as their thoughts collided, hurtling her into a chasm of fear. He gave a wrenching, ragged scream, a creature forever snared in a merciless trap. His thoughts grabbed her, a suffocating embrace.

  Hold on! Selina cried. His terror sucked her down, like a drowning man dragging his rescuer under. Selina fought with sheer willpower, struggling against the undertow of raw emotion. We will not go under.

  But she was losing.

  In the physical realm, Jake closed the distance between them. Selina felt his presence like a shadow across the moon, distant from the place where she strained to anchor Steve. He put a warm hand on her shoulder.

  Jake was urging her, offering something. Her conscious mind was confused, but her powers were intuitive. They clutched at him, seeking the information Steve’s body required. They needed the template to change. Show us how.

  Within the three-way link, energy began to flow, as if a dam had washed away. All at once, she felt the change come over Steve, fur flowing, bones reshaping themselves. Her physical self felt the shift. The hand she held was suddenly a hand no more, but a broad, powerful paw.

  Through her, Jake showed Steve how to finish the change. Unfortunately, while Steve’s body was ready, his senses lagged after.

  What’s happening? Steve demanded. Human needs were falling away, wolf thoughts crashing into their place. A hunger for meat and flesh tangled with thousands of scents, each a puzzle to be decoded. Steve’s thoughts stuttered, unable to sort through it all. Overwhelmed.

  The panic had slowed for an instant. Now it came lurching back.

  The sudden jolt made Selina falter, and her half-fey strength wasn’t enough to hold on. Everything she’d feared came true. In an instant, she was in his panic, going under like the spars of a wrecked ship. With a plaintive wail, her own psychic scream joined Steve’s.

  But Jake caught them, pouring his strength into the web her fragile powers had spun. Behind him were the others, the pack a solid wall of energy waiting to be tapped. Cautiously, Selina
drew in that strength, filling her magic with the cool, silver energy of the wolves.

  She opened her eyes to find her face buried in the wild grey ruff of Steve’s neck. She pulled back, gasping as she saw the great yellow eyes, his long snout, and the strong limbs. A perfect, magnificent beast.

  Steve nuzzled her cheek, the cold, wet shock of it snapping her fully awake. He rose, bumping her playfully, the rough brush of his tail slapping her arm. Then he took off with a bound, racing to greet the members of his new pack.

  Tears blurred her eyes. She blinked them back, fighting a sudden, painful lump in her throat. She’d never been able to save a life before. She’d never been able to make that kind of magic. Now there’s a way to help the first-timers!

  With a blink of surprise, she realized Jake’s gorgeous suit was on the ground, paw prints squashing the supple fabric into the grass. Jake himself, a huge, brown wolf, was sprawled before her.

  “The magic pulled you over, too?” she asked.

  He shimmered, and suddenly there was a naked man on the grass, his chin propped on one hand. Selina couldn’t stop her gaze from roaming over all that muscled flesh. She was in a mood for celebration, with Jake as the party favour.

  He gave a lazy smile. “So, was that good for you?”

  Selina fell on to her side, bringing her face close to Jake’s. Her hair was in shambles, her dress a ruin, but she felt magnificent. “I’ve never been strong enough to do magic like that before. I don’t think anyone’s ever blended wolf and fey power before. This is entirely new.”

  He kissed her, digging his fingers into the tangled curls of her hair. “You’re magnificent.”

  “I had a lot of help. I needed the power of the wolves.”

  Jake gave her a serious look. “Everyone needs help, but don’t sell yourself short. Your human side is a brilliant businesswoman. Your fey side is a brilliant healer. I honour both sides of you. If a little wolf gets thrown into the mix well, hell, that’s so much the better for me.”

  Selina thought naked and serious was a good look on him. “I can’t turn my back on what I am anymore. I can’t deny that I’m part of the supernatural world. Not after Gary, and not after you. Especially not after tonight. What we did together was amazing. Important.”

  “So you’re ready to be fey again?”

  “Half-fey – but I still want my own gallery. No one has opened one with exclusively non-human artists.” She rolled on to her back, the grass cold and damp beneath her. “There are plenty who need representation. You should see some of the vampire portraits. Dark, but so gorgeous. The art world will eat it up with a spoon.”

  They were silent for a moment. Selina watched rags of cloud drift across the full moon. Jake’s breath brushed her cheek, warm and familiar.

  “You up for a werewolf partner?”

  She grinned. “Who do you think is going to help me hang my first show?”

  “Gary?”

  She swatted at Jake, but he caught her around the middle and flipped her on top of him. The strength in his long, sculpted limbs made her shiver. His eyes were playful, but wild as the distant howls of his kin.

  He slid his hand up her thigh, under the flowing fabric of her skirt.

  “What are you doing?” She whispered it because the night was too dense, too charged for talking out loud.

  “Thinking up new kinds of magic.”

  NightDrake

  Lara Adrian

  People are strange.

  A twentieth-century philosopher once said that, or so I’ve been told. As I drove my rig through the rain and sludge towards the docks in Port Phoenix, I couldn’t help thinking how apt the observation was. Especially now, some 300 years after Earth hiccupped on its axis in 2066 and brought about all manner of changes to the world mankind once knew.

  The waters rose in many places; vanished in others. Landmasses shifted, ripped apart by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, or drowned by mudslides several storeys deep. Once-great cities toppled, technology and infrastructure were swept away overnight.

  Kingdoms and governments, corporations and institutions were all rendered impotent with the sudden, irreparable, global financial crash. Survivors of the planet’s changes – a population estimated to be only in the tens of millions – fled across borders that no longer existed to rebuild their lives and form new communities.

  And, after some long millennia of hiding, living in the safety of the shadows, a small number of other survivors came out of the dust and rubble of this altered new world.

  They are the Strange.

  Shapeshifters and telepaths, nymphs and hobgoblins.

  Goddamned freaks of nature, I thought to myself as I rolled to a stop at the dockyard entrance and glanced through the box-truck’s window at a pair of grey-skinned gargoyles squatting atop the tall pillars of the gate. I stared for a long moment, if only to let them know that I had no fear of them. The disdain between the Strange and me is well-known, and definitely mutual. As I rolled down the glass, one of the hideous creatures perched overhead sneered down at me through the dark and drizzle of the cold summer night.

  “Nisha the Merc,” he hissed, obviously recognizing me while I reached out and pulled the rope on a copper bell, then waited for the guard on duty to come over and let me inside. Above me, the beast crouched lower, dropping his voice to a gravelly whisper. “Nisha, the cold-hearted bitch.”

  Amused, the other gargoyle chuckled quietly and shifted on his taloned feet, rattling the heavy iron manacles that ensured he and his companion remained at their posts. Even if they weren’t shackled in place, these two Strange beasts couldn’t touch me and they knew it. Harming a human was punishable by death.

  But they could hate me.

  They could despise that I made my living as a mercenary, although I’ve always preferred to think of myself as a facilitator. Generally speaking – and for the right price – I was a problem-solver. When something needed to get done quickly and quietly, no questions asked, folks with the money and the means usually turned to me to make it happen.

  Tonight’s job was no different. I had been hired to pick up and transport a cargo shipment for someone who preferred to keep his business at the seedy Port Phoenix dockyard confidential. Not that any of the lowlife humans working the yard, or the even lowlier Strange enslaved there as labourers, would give a damn what was coming or going from the supply freighters that arrived from all parts of the globe.

  Still, my client had his reasons, I supposed, and that was good enough for me. I didn’t need to know who he was or what I was moving. All that mattered was the two rough-cut diamonds currently tucked into the fur lining of my boot and the three that would be given to me after I’d delivered tonight’s cargo to its destination.

  The big human guard humped out of his shack near the gate, a long black rifle slung across his body from a wide leather shoulder strap. I leaned out and he peered at me through the rusted iron bars, recognition lifting the heavy brow visoring small, avid eyes that made my skin crawl. “Back so soon, eh, Nisha?” He grunted, leering now. “You sure are a woman in high demand these days. Not that I’m complaining about that, of course.”

  I gave him a smile that a smarter man might have recognized as loathing. “What can I say? Business is booming.”

  He grinned as he unlocked the gate and let me drive through. “Which slip is it tonight?”

  “Three-East,” I said through the open window, the designation indicating the docks where cargo from New Asia arrived. When the guard hopped up on to the truck’s running board alongside me, I gave him a flat look. “I know the way.”

  He dropped back down with a scowl. “That freighter just came in about an hour ago. They’re still unloading. Could be a while before they’re done, so if you need to get out of the cold, you come on up and I’ll let you sit with me in the guard house.”

  I waved him off without looking back. The icy rain was turning to sleet, pelting the windshield like tiny pebbles. Burrowing deeper
into the hood of my parka, I drove towards the deep-water port that had long ago been desert lands and city skyscrapers – before the planet’s shift had cracked a wide saltwater chasm between the island of Mexitexas and the shrunken coastal borders of North America. As I neared the enormous ship moored at the slip marked 3E, the stench of brine and steel and belching exhaust fumes blew into the open window, clinging to my throat and stinging my eyes.

  I slowed to a stop near the loading ramp, where four big, tusked trolls were carrying a tarp-covered crate across the plank to the dock. They shivered in the bad weather, their clothing sodden, their long braided beards dripping water with each lumbering step. The workhorses of the Strange, trolls were built like tanks and able to labour tirelessly in all kinds of climates. These four walked gingerly – almost reverently – with the large rectangular container, one of them on each corner, taking great care with it. A human supervisor waited at the end of the ramp, closely monitoring their progress.

  “Be careful with that, you brainless clods!” he barked. “One slip and I’ll have your bloody hides!”

  I got out of my rig and walked over to the dock boss. “I take it this one’s mine?”

  He grunted in acknowledgment and wiped the back of his filthy hand under his runny nose. That same hand then reached out to me, palm up. “I’ll have my payment now, Nisha.”

  I dug into the pocket of my coat, withdrew a chip of cloudy pink stone and dropped it into his waiting hand. “There you go. One quarter-carat raw ruby, same as always.”

  His greedy fingers closed around the paltry gemstone that represented a fortune to him. The little rock disappeared an instant later, and I didn’t follow his hand to see where he’d stuffed it. “Whatever’s in that thing, it’s got my labourers spooked,” he told me, staring through the sleet as the container neared the end of the ramp. “What the hell are you picking up tonight?”

  “Don’t know and don’t care,” I said. “I don’t get paid to care.”

  He scoffed. “No, I reckon you don’t. Most folks say you’d sell your own mother if the price was right.”