The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

left before now. She stared back, her eyes huge in her heart-shaped face. Minutes ticked by with neither saying a word. Finally, unable to sit still, he stood, wandered to a far corner where a drop-sheet lay on the floor. Sealed buckets were stacked around its edges. In the centre sat a rectangular piece of stone. Alabaster. He moved towards it, bent to trace his finger over its top.
    “You carve?” he asked. Perhaps this was the reason for his reluctance to leave. Perhaps she had a connection to the stone, thus a connection to gargoyles - to him.
    She stepped closer, her gaze darting to the block of stone. “Not yet, but I want to. That’s why I was on the ledge. I wanted to . . .” She raised her hand, held it up as if she were going to touch him, like she had when he was frozen in sleep.
    Suddenly, he knew what kept him here, why he couldn’t leave. He stood still, his heart thumping slowly in his chest. She took another step towards him. He could feel her warmth, smell her ginger scent. Her hand shaking, she reached closer, touched his shoulder first then ran her flat palm down his chest and over his abdomen.
    He held perfectly still, used his gargoyle skills to keep from moving. Didn’t even breathe.
    “What happened to your wings?” she asked. She walked around him, her fingers still tracing his body, skimming his sides.
    He didn’t answer. She wasn’t supposed to accept him so readily, believe the statue she’d seen would come to life. No human he’d encountered in his past ever had.
    “They were here.” She rose on her tiptoes, prodded his back where in his gargoyle form his wings appeared. “But I don’t . . .” She paused, moved her fingers round and round then found the nub that hid his wings when human. “Here. Is this it? How?”
    She continued her explorations. Mord’s body tensed, tightened. He bit back a groan. Her touch was torture on this most sensitive part of him, but he couldn’t tell her to stop, couldn’t acknowledge what she was doing to him. That would give him away, be an admission that he was different. And, his mind whispered, he didn’t want to, had been untouched for so long. Even gargoyles enjoyed being touched. They didn’t feel like humans did, not emotions anyway, but they enjoyed physical sensations, and she was providing him with plenty.
    She leaned closer. Her breath warmed his skin; her hair brushed against him.
    He could stand it no longer. He was at risk of exploding, jerking her warm human form against his, showing her exactly what her innocent curiosity was doing to him.
    “You’re imagining things,” he blurted, his voice rough.
    Her hand paused in its movements, hovered above his skin. “Imagining?” She leaned forwards, spoke with her lips almost touching his skin. “My imagination isn’t this good.”
    He took a step and turned. He needed to see her, decide what powers she held. She wasn’t a simple human. He knew that. But what was she? And why had she come so close to death twice in their short acquaintance?
    “Who wants you dead?” he asked.
    She jerked, frowned. “I don’t . . .” She shook her head. “I fell. It was stupid of me to climb out on the ledge, but I’d seen ... I ...” She closed her eyes. “I had to get closer.” Her eyes opened, pinned him. “I had to see you. But I never imagined . . .” Her words drifted off. She curled her fingers into her palms and waited, like she expected him to say something more, to acknowledge that he was the gargoyle she’d sought out, or that he felt the strange pull between them, too.
    He couldn’t give her any answers. Secrecy was one of the gargoyles’ greatest strengths. If humans learned the statues they walked by every day could come to life, that these statues had the strength and power to destroy mankind, fear would take over. His kind would be hunted. Attempts would be made to capture or kill them as they slept.
    And the gargoyles would be forced to make a choice - destroy or be destroyed.
    It was unthinkable.
    As was admitting he felt the same pull she did. She was a human. Humans and gargoyles didn’t mingle. And gargoyles didn’t feel . Whatever was happening to him now was due to the sorcerer, and the wearing off of the spell, not her. It couldn’t be her.
    “Someone in the machine tried to run you down.” He laid the words in front of her, stated them as the fact they were.
    “Someone . . .” Her eyes widened and her fingers pressed against her lips.