The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

know that I’m still not totally convinced about this whole soulmate thing.”
    “No?” He raised an eyebrow.
    She shook her head. “It’s a bit outside my comfort zone of knowledge.”
    He nodded gravely. “I would assume so.”
    “However . . .”
    “Yes?”
    “I suppose I’d be OK with learning more about it.” She grinned at him. “That is, if you wanted to teach me.”
    “I could easily be convinced.” A smile touched his lips. “So you forgive me for trying to kill you?”
    “No. But if we potentially have forever together then I’ll probably get over it eventually.” She reached down to take his hand in hers. “But how about we start with drinks back at the bar and take it from there?”
    “I’d say that’s an excellent start.”
    The world seemed much bigger than it had before. Full of strange things like handsome vampires and soulmate-recovering witches.
    Was Henry the one-eyed vampire her soulmate? Was he the man she’d waited her whole life - possibly several lives — to find, only to have him fall into her arms at a most unusual moment?
    She was definitely willing to find out.

Blue Crush
A Weather Warden story
Rachel Caine
    I love the ocean. I love the pounding heartbeat of waves on shore. I love the way sunrise turns the endless glitter into a bowl of spilled jewels - rubies, sapphires, with glints of diamonds everywhere.
    I love the ocean, but I don’t swim in it.
    This is the same reason that Weather Wardens - who have powers that can affect the air and water - don’t like flying. You’re suspended in an alien environment, one that is instinc-tually aware of you and the potential threat you pose. The air always fights back. The ocean chooses its moments, and in a way that’s worse; you can trust it until you suddenly can’t.
    So, I don’t swim. Instead, I put on my bikini of the season and lie out on the sand, and occasionally tickle my toes in the rushing cool surf when I get overheated. But sometimes, as I bake on the beach, I watch people playing in the waves, and I long to be having that much fun.
    “We should go out there,” David said. Reading my mind, as usual.
    I turned my head and skinned my sunglasses down my nose to meet his eyes. My lover was lying in the sun in a pair of black swim trunks and nothing else - a very pleasant picture indeed, and not just for me. David is a Djinn, one of those old-time genies from the bottles; he can be anything he wants to be.
    For me, he’s always the same: tall, with the lean, sleek muscles of a runner. Defined, not bulked. His skin is this gorgeous tint somewhere between gold and bronze, a shade you’ll never find in any tanning booth or bottle, no matter how hard you try. He was slightly turned towards me, raised up on one elbow. David likes to wear round, scholarly glasses, but he’d left them off today, and it raised his hotness alert level from smoking to nuclear. His hair was a little shaggy, and it caught the light in gleams of auburn and gold.
    “Out where?” I asked, as I allowed my inspection to move from his gorgeous face to his strong neck, his firm chest, down to the ridges of his abdominal muscles. “Because you look good right there to me, mister.”
    David has the most sincerely dangerous smile I’ve ever seen — dangerous not because it is so lovely (although it is that) but because it just brims with possibilities begging to be explored. The first time I’d seen him, we’d been enemies; the second time, he’d been trying to help me, or I’d been trying to help him, however you score these things. But it had been that smile that had thrown me off balance, and made me vulnerable to him.
    Still did.
    “You never swim,” he said. “You should. Seems like a waste to have all this ocean at your front door and never enjoy it to the fullest.”
    “I enjoy it academically,” I said. “Besides, I need to work on my tan.”
    “Your tan is perfect,” David said, and drew a gentle finger down my arm, soft as a feather. “I want you in the water.”
    The hot flash that washed over me had nothing to do with overheating. “Public beach,” I said, but it was a weak defence, at best. His smile widened.
    “We don’t get many vacations,” he said. “When we do, we should make the most of them. And you know I can keep us from being seen, no matter where we are.” Two fingers this time, dragged slowly and provocatively down the tender inner aspect of my arm. “No matter what we do.”
    I was having