The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

magic shrunk. He staggered and ripped the worm off. Grace cried out.
    The worm flipped in the air and slid over him. Nassar tried to knock it off, but it slipped past his hands and leeched onto his side. Nassar gasped. His face went bloodlessly white. He spun, tripping over his feet, pulling at the writhing body, and stumbled to her. The worm slithered from his fingers and swooped down on him. Nassar fell.
    Grace lunged forwards. She meant to thrust herself in front of it, but instead magic pulsed from her in a controlled, short burst. The worm hurtled back, swept aside.
    She pushed harder and the worm convulsed, squeezed between the press of her power and the glowing lines. “Nassar?” She knelt by him. “Nassar, are you OK?”
    Nassar’s green eyes looked at her. His nose bled. He wiped away his blood with the back of his hand. “Protective instinct,” he said. “You’ve done it.”
    It felt so right. As if the pressure straining at her from the inside suddenly found an outlet. So that’s what she’d been missing. All these years, she had suspected there was something more to the magic coursing through her and now she finally found it.
    “I guess I did,” she murmured.
    “Were you scared for me?”
    “Yes. How could you have done that? That was so reckless. What if I couldn’t save you?”
    “I hoped you could,” he said.
    The way he looked at her made her want to kiss him.
    “Your family is free,” he said.
    “What?”
    “I’ve let Clan Mailliard go,” he said. “I signed the order before lunch.”
    She sank to the floor. “Why?”
    He sat up. “Because I decided that’s not what I do. I don’t force people to fight our battles. I don’t want to be the man who blames children for their parents’ mistakes. And I don’t want you to be the last of the Mailliards. Whether you have children should be your choice alone. I don’t want to take it away from you.”
    It slowly dawned on her. “So I’m free?”
    “Yes.”
    She stared at him. “You don’t even know me. I could just take off right now and leave you here to deal with the game on your own. Do you have any idea how scared I am? I don’t want to die.”
    “Neither do I.” He gave her another sad smile.
    She hung her head, torn. She was deeply, deeply afraid. But walking away from the children wasn’t in her. She wouldn’t be able to look herself in the eye. It was as if they stood in the road with a semi hurtling at them at full speed. What kind of person wouldn’t push them out of harm’s way?
    “I should practise more,” she said.
    “We’re going to need another worm then,” Nassar said.
    She glanced at the beast. It lay dead, sliced in half.
    “You killed it,” he told her. “Sometimes the Barrier magic can also become a blade.”
    “But I don’t even know how I’ve done it.”
    “We don’t need to worry about that now,” he said. “As long as you can defend me, we should be fine.”
    Three days later Grace stood in the middle of the street in Milligan City, hugging herself as the sun set slowly. Nassar loomed next to her. Behind them unfamiliar people moved, their magic shifting with them, their clothes colour-coded by their clan: grey and black for Dreoch, green for Roar, red for Madrid. Nassar had explained the rest of the colours, but she couldn’t recall any of it. The anxiety pulsated through her with every heartbeat.
    Ahead a seemingly empty stretch of a suburban street rolled into the sunset. The round, red sun hung low above the horizon, a glowing brand upon the clouds.
    Familiar magic brushed her and a heavy hand touched her shoulder gently. Nassar. He wore grey pants tucked into military boots. A long-sleeved shirt hugged his arms and over it he wore a leather vest that wanted very much to be called armour. She wore the same outfit. The leather fitted her loosely enough not to be constricting, but tight enough not to get in the way.
    “Don’t worry,” Nassar said.
    Her gaze slid to the large axe strapped to his waist. She touched her own blade, a long, narrow combat knife. Gerald had taught her the basics of knife-fighting a long time ago but she’d never been in a real fight.
    A male voice rose to the side. “Can he bring a servant into the game?”
    It took a moment to sink in. Of course, her status would be public knowledge among them, but it still cut her like a knife. She turned. A group of people stood on the side. Five of them wore dark blue robes. The arbitrators, she remembered