The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

her mouth so he could see the small cut. His good eye turned to black and he grinned a little. “Probably shouldn’t have done that. I’m really hungry right now myself. Haven’t had a chance to feed lately. I’ve been too busy tracking Evan.”
    “T-tracking him?”
    “He’s been trying to lose me, strangely enough. Thinks I’m too overprotective. By the way, you can quit with the fake stutter now.”
    She frowned at him. “It’s not fake. I typically s-stutter with fear when somebody has a knife to my throat.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “This little thing?” He lifted the huge machete-like blade so it glinted in the light of a nearby street lamp. “A guy has to protect himself against dangerous women like you in the big scary city, you know.”
    “Protect yourself. From me?”
    His expression grew colder. “You’d be surprised.” He drew closer to her so she could actually feel his warm breath on her face. “You’re not as pretty as you were last time.”
    She glared at him. “Last time?”
    “Last time you were with my little brother Evan 300 years ago. No, you were a major beauty back then. You know what they say about Helen of Troy? Well, you were even hotter.”
    In her current dire situation, she wasn’t sure why his appraisal of her sub-par hotness pissed her off as much as it did. “For the record, you’re not half as attractive as your brother either.”
    He grinned. “I guess I kind of deserved that.”
    “I’m not who you think I am.”
    “Yeah, right.” He smiled, which helped to show his family resemblance to his handsome brother, but she couldn’t really keep her eyes off that big old knife he held. “So you’re Evan’s reincarnated soulmate. And since I knew her - or rather you — I’m going to have to say that you should have stayed dead.”
    “You need to let me go now.”
    “Do I?” He eyed her. “You obviously have me confused with my brother. He’d do anything you wanted him to. You had him twisted around your little finger. That was not a good time in our lives. He may not have understood exactly what kind of woman you were, but I did.”
    “Oh yeah? And what kind of woman was that?”
    “Evil,” he said the word evenly. “Manipulative. Treacherous. Just because of how you looked, you could get away with anything. You nearly destroyed Evan. I won’t let you do it again.” He reached up to touch his eyepatch. “And I still remember when you did this to me. Just because we’re immortal doesn’t mean we can regenerate body parts. I do miss having two eyes.”
    She felt cold at that. “I never would have done anything like that.” She took in a shaky breath. “Unless it was self-defence. A big, nasty thug like you probably deserved it.”
    He drew closer so that there were only inches separating their faces. “You did it when I was unconscious and tied up.”
    “Oh.” Hard to claim self-defence when the other person was defenceless.
    “You thought I was trying to get Evan to leave you and you were letting me know you didn’t like me very much. It worked. I know Evan was shocked at what you did - hell, you almost killed me that night — but you’d already had your soulmate-click thing. If you hadn’t fallen down that flight of stairs and broken your neck running away from me when I got loose of the ropes, he never would have been free of you.”
    She shivered at the vivid picture he’d painted in her mind. “Soulmate-click thing?”
    He rolled his eye. “When soulmates find each other, this click thing happens. It’s like their souls recognize each other and come together like magnets. Apparently it’s impossible to ignore. Wouldn’t know. It’s never happened to me, happily enough.”
    “Are you going to kill me now?” she asked, her voice shaky.
    “That was the original plan.”
    But he was frowning now, harder than before. He had a knife and he was going to kill her in cold blood but he was frowning. Hesitating. No one was around. If he wanted to cleanly and efficiently chop her up into little tiny pieces, then she knew this was his chance.
    He breathed out through clenched teeth. “Dammit. This shouldn’t be so hard. I know what you are. I know what you’re capable of. But I do wish you looked more like you used to. This would be so much easier.”
    “Because that’s what I want. For this to be easy for you.”
    He cleared his throat. “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself. . . Julia. A little small talk