The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

and every part of his body had throbbed and ached.
    It was awful. Or so he’d thought until the woman had placed her hand on his forehead. One minute he’d been lying on the street reeking of trough water, and in the next he’d found himself lying on a large, gilded bed.
    “Where am I?”
    “Shh,” his angel had said. “You have been poisoned by the dragon. Lie still and give my touch time to heal you or you will surely die.”
    (Note to self. I should have started moving about, thrashing wildly.)
    Not wanting to die (because I was stupid), Thom had done as she asked. He had lain there, looking up into her perfectly sculpted features. She was beauty and grace.
    “Have you a name, my lady?”
    “Merlin.”
    That had been the last name he would have ever attributed to a woman so comely. “Merlin?”
    “Aye. Now be still.”
    For the first time in all of his life, Thom had obeyed. He’d closed his eyes and inhaled the fresh, sweet scent of lilac that clung to the bed he lay in. He wondered if this was Merlin’s bed and then he wondered of other things that men and women could do in a bed . . . especially together.
    “Stop that.”
    He opened his eyes at the reprimand from his Aphrodite. “Stop what?”
    “Those thoughts,” she’d said sharply. “I hear every one of them and they disturb me.”
    “Disturb you how?”
    “I am the Penmerlin and I must remain chaste. Thoughts such as those do not belong in my head.”
    “They’re not in your head, my lady, they’re in mine and if they offend you, perhaps you should keep to yourself.”
    She’d gifted him with a dazzling smile. “You are a bold one, Thorn. Perhaps I should have let the mandrake take you.”
    “Mandrake?” As in the root?
    “The dragon,” she’d explained. “His kind have the ability to take either the form of man or dragon, hence their name.”
    Well, that certainly explained that, however other matters had been rather vague in his mind. “But he wasn’t after me. He was after you. Why?”
    “Because I was on the trail of a very special Merlin and the mandrake sensed me. That is why I so seldom venture to the world of man. When one possesses as much magic as I do, it is too easy for other magical beasts to find you.”
    That made sense to him. “You are enemies.”
    She nodded. “He works for Morgan le Fey.”
    Thom’d had the audacity to laugh at that. “The sister of King Arthur.”
    Merlin hadn’t joined in his laughter. “Aye, the very same.”
    The serious look on her face and the tone of her voice had instantly sobered him. “You’re not jesting.”
    “Nay. The tales of Arthur are real, but they are not quite what the minstrels tell. Arthur’s world was vast and his battles are still being waged, not only in this time, but in future ones as well.”
    In that moment, Thom wasn’t sure what enraptured him most. The stunning creature he longed to bed or the idea that Camelot really had existed.
    Over the course of the next few days while he healed from his attack, Thom had stayed in the fabled isle of Avalon and listened to Merlin’s stories of Arthur and his knights.
    But more than that, he’d seen them. At least those who still lived. There for a week, he’d walked amongst the legends and shaken the hands of fables. He’d learned that Merlin was only one of her kind. Others like her had been sent out into the world of man to be hidden from Morgan who wanted to use those Merlins, and the sacred objects they protected, for evil.
    It was a frightening battle they waged. One that held no regard for time or beings. And in the end, the very fate of the world rested in the hands of the victor.
    “I wish to be one of you,” Thom had finally confessed to Merlin on the evening of his eighth day. “I want to help save the world.”
    Her eyes had turned dull. “That isn’t your destiny, Thom. You must return to the world of man and be as you were.”
    She made that sound simple enough, but he wasn’t the same man who had come to Avalon. His time here had changed him. “How can I ever be as I was now that I know the truth?”
    She’d stepped away from him. “You will be as you were, Thom ... I promise.”
    And then everything had gone blurry. His eyesight had failed until he found himself encased in darkness.
    Thom awakened the next morning to find himself back in England, in his own house . . . his own bed.
    He’d tried desperately to return to Avalon, only to have everyone tell him that’d he’d dreamed