The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

complete her task. “I will find your wife and you will help me capture the monster.”
    Zek knew he’d won. He bowed his head, relieved to take his gaze from the Sorceress’ terrible beauty. When he looked again there was no one there. The flapping of wings made him look up. There was a large bird soaring into the shadows. A moment later the chapel was empty and he was alone.
    Moving slowly, he swung his legs over the edge of the tomb and dropped to his feet on the marble floor. Memory was returning to him, slow and creaky, like a wheel that hasn’t been used for a very long time. There had been a storm. No, two storms. One had taken his ship, and the second many, many lives. He died trying to save them, knowing it was his fault, the voice of the monster ringing in his ears.
    The bird was back. He could hear the flapping of its wings getting louder, and just for a moment he saw the Sorceress’ face where the bird’s should have been - her blue eyes like daggers. There was a rush and groan of air, and then he was whirling and tumbling.
    Back into the mortal world.
    Back into his own past.
    Izzy was dreaming again. The wind was blowing hard against her face, and she clung to the man beside her, afraid she’d fall. Below the lighthouse the waves were crashing against the cliffs, the spume flung high, wetting her skin and stinging her eyes.
    “There!” he shouted, his arm pointing.
    The lights of the passenger steamer were barely visible through the storm. Izzy imagined the rocks, sharp and murderous, waiting beneath the roiling sea. All those lives in danger, and it was only the lighthouse keeping them safe. Zek’s lighthouse. She was so proud of him.
    He turned to her as if she’d spoken aloud, and she pressed into his arms, feeling the wet warmth of his skin against hers, the sigh of his breath in her ear. “Isabel . . .”
    Behind him something unimaginable was rising from the waves. Like a mountain it slid from the sea, water sloughing off slick, blue flesh, tangled white hair strewn with kelp, a face full of fury, broad shoulders, a barrel torso marked with strange designs and, instead of legs, a tail like a fish. A mythical monster from the deep. She had no words for it, but Zek did.
    “Neptune.”
    The light from the lighthouse went out.
    And that was when Izzy woke, lying dazed in her bed, reminding herself that the dream would pass. It always did.
    A finger brushed her cheek, warm, gentle, the fingertip callused. Definitely male. “Isabel . . .”
    Izzy froze. No one called her Isabel, not even her family or her ex-husband. Well, there was someone, but he was just a dream, a fantasy figure, he didn’t exist.
    The man who didn’t exist touched her face again, this time with his lips. She felt him ease his body onto the bed beside her. Izzy told herself she should be afraid, she should scream for help, but she wasn’t afraid. This was a man she knew as well as herself, and she didn’t want to scream. In fact there was a humming of desire deep inside her that was growing by the second. Dreaming of making love was all very well, but it was nothing to the real thing.
    “Isabel,” he murmured.
    She didn’t open her eyes. Keeping them closed meant the fantasy was still that - a fantasy - and if she opened them and he wasn’t really there at all, Izzy knew she’d be shattered. “Zek?” she breathed, reaching up. His face, dear God, she could feel his face. The patch over his eye, the thin line of his smiling mouth, the way his hair was tied back at the nape.
    He kissed her fingers, then her lips, and the humming of desire turned into a roar. “Open your eyes,” he commanded. “I’m here. I’m real.”
    Slowly, a little bit at a time, she did open them. He was looking down at her from the shadows, just as she knew he would be. “Zek?” His name was so dear, so familiar on her lips.
    “I’ve found you. My love, my wife, my Isabel.”
    She wanted to say that no, she wasn’t his wife, she wasn’t that Isabel, and yet it felt as if she was. They were meant to be together. And just like that she was in his arms and their bodies moulded and moved, passion built and crested, and when it was over she drifted in the warm contentment of perfect sleep.
    Zek stood in the shadows by the bed, watching her sleep. This was the woman he loved, and yet it wasn’t. She was physically different with her fair hair and blue eyes and lithe body -reborn, the Sorceress had said — but he knew inside she