The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

. fade.
    She drifted for a second, forgot where she was, what was happening. Suddenly, something hit her, jarred her back awake. Despite her fear, her eyes flew open. The ground . . . had she hit? Survived?
    She was still moving, fast, but sideways. Something . . . arms . . . held her. Her head fell backwards, over one of those arms, against a chest - solid, cool, bare. Her heart was beating. She could feel it, could feel air moving in and out of burning lungs. She’d been screaming. The thought seemed random, unattached to anything. Like her reality.
    Nothing seemed real. . . She pressed trembling fingers to her cheeks. Felt that, felt everything.
    She was alive. Impossibly someone had saved her. Finally, she forced her face to turn upwards, to see who held her.
    A smooth, chiselled jaw. High cheekbones. Angled, strong features that should have been unattractive, but somehow, put together, were arresting, commanding and . . . familiar. She reached up, heard a whisper of movement and turned her gaze to the noise. Wings, six feet wide, glowed back at her — white as if carved from marble. Her eyes shot back to her saviour’s face. He was looking at her now with features as strong as rock.
    Rock, wings . . . the gargoyle.
    Dear God. She’d been saved by the gargoyle. Her mouth opened, a scream ripped from her throat.
    He ignored her, tightened his hold and dived forwards until air whooshed past her again to steal both her breath and the scream that had been flying from her throat.
Two
    Mord angled his wings to slow their landing, let his feet skid across the roadway. The female in his arms lay limp, pale. She’d screamed as she was falling, and screamed again when he caught her.
    He bent one knee and lowered her to the grass. They were in some kind of park. A statue of a man, dressed in a uniform unfamiliar to Mord, guarded the entrance. A large fountain that Mord remembered from when he had last been awake and flown over this city lay a few feet past that.
    He stared at the statue for a moment. The date, 1944 - forty-six years after the gargoyles had agreed to the great sleep. He started to stand, to leave the female where she lay. He’d saved her. His job was done.
    The wind shifted. The smell of ginger wove around him, halting his steps. He glanced back at the female. She was pale, too pale for a human. He knelt down and placed his hand next to her face. Her pallor almost matched his own, and he was still in his gargoyle form. He wasn’t able yet to shift to his human shape.
    He flexed and unflexed his wings, enjoyed the feel of them moving behind him. A breeze from his movement caught the female’s hair and threw it across her face. The dark locks clung to her lips. He brushed them aside, or tried to. The tendrils wrapped around his hand, seemed to pull at him, refuse to let him go. He cursed. He couldn’t leave her here, like this. He knew nothing of this time, the dangers that might lie in wait for an unprotected female.
    He scooped her up. She weighed nothing, but was warm against his chest. Her arms fell at her sides, but this close, holding her, he could hear the even in and out of her breaths. She was alive, just passed out.
    He exhaled, annoyed at his unexplainable need to care for her, to see she was OK before leaving to investigate whatever awaited him in this new time. He strode to the fountain. The water splattered onto a carved bowl then spilled into a bigger section at least twelve feet across. Kneeling, he opened his arms and let her roll into the water with a splash. As she sank below the surface, he bent his knees and propelled himself into the sky. The water would awaken her while allowing him to leave undetected. He couldn’t risk staying by her side, revealing himself any more. Humans didn’t know the gargoyles’ secret. They couldn’t.
    His wings spread and he flattened them, allowed himself to glide for a second, silently, so he could hear her sputter back to life. He’d watch from up high as she pulled herself upright, then made her way back to wherever she called home.
    Except she didn’t. She sputtered and shook, rubbed her hands over her hair and face. Then she stood in the knee-high water, her thin shirt and obscenely short pants clinging to her breasts and buttocks. Water dripped from her hair. She shook her head again, then stared at the sky.
    “Gargoyle,” she whispered. “Where are you?”
    Her voice was low, stunned, but sure. She’d seen him, and could somehow see