The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

Medical school, residency and five years of on-the-job experience at Riverview, and I’d never seen anything like this guy.
    The man - John Doe for now - looked like a cross between an extreme bodybuilder and a knight from some book of medieval tales. He stood quietly, no cuffs or restraints, arms folded across his broad, bare chest. Silky black curls brushed the edges of his tanned face. He was barefoot and naked from the waist up, clad only in bloodied jeans that hung in tatters against long, powerful legs.
    Way too long since I’d had a date. Yep. The flutters in my belly - definitely not OK. This was a patient, not some muscle hunk showing off in the gym.
    Though if more muscle hunks at the gym looked like this . . .
    Stop it.
    My eyes travelled over each well-cut line and bulge.
    John Doe’s eyes, molten emeralds, fixed on me, and my pulse quickened. The air stirred, then hummed, and I could have sworn he was radiating some kind of... power. I could almost see it, like the moonlit darkness shimmering against the office’s only window.
    Good God, I’m as crazy as he is.
    My heartbeat slowed, then revved again, this time with a funny, skippy, squeezing beat, and I couldn’t seem to get a full breath.
    No man could be this handsome.
    The sight of him was actually rattling my senses.
    And the power thing, that had to be in my head. In my imagination. John Doe was a patient. No supernatural abilities.
    But if anyone on Earth really does have superhero powers, this would be the guy.
    “Weird that he doesn’t have any visible frostbite,” the second officer was saying during my mute assessment. “Guess he got lucky.”
    Doing all I could to make myself be a doctor instead of a slack-jawed idiot, I inched back to allow the officers to escort the patient into Riverview’s admissions hallway.
    Those eyes.
    I could barely look anywhere else.
    / could dive into those eyes and swim for hours.
    My fingers curled. I could not have thoughts like this about a patient. It wasn’t ethical. It was downright slimy.
    The man’s lips parted, showing straight, white teeth. He smelled like cinnamon with a touch of cloves — fresh, but not overpowering. Delicious, actually.
    Don’t. Go. There.
    “Tox screen was clear, labs were normal.” The first cop patted the patient on the shoulder. “Hasn’t given us any trouble.”
    John Doe kept staring at me, like he was trying to decide something. His beautiful mouth curved into something like a frown, and he lowered his hands to reveal the design carved into his Betadine-painted and stitched chest.
    My eyes locked onto John Doe’s cuts, and my brain seemed to make a whining noise. In fact, it seemed to short out completely. There wasn’t enough room for me to assume a proper defensive stance to fight, but my muscles tightened from years of drilling and practice. I wanted a weapon. Felt like I needed a weapon. Riverview’s admissions hallway became a twisting, bending rabbit hole, and I was Alice, falling forwards and backwards at the same time, exploding into some nightmare version of Wonderland.
    “Doc?”
    One of the policemen . . . but I couldn’t shake off the five pounds of freak-out crawling up and down my spine.
    “You OK, Doc?” The second officer sounded a little worried. “Want to come back to us here?”
    But I don’t like to go among mad people, Alice remarked. My thoughts chattered outside my control, and I barely kept my teeth from following suit. Oh you can’t help that, said the Cat: we’re all mad here.
    John Doe’s full attention remained on me, and those unbelievably deep eyes grew wider and softer with concern. I also saw him struggle for some sort of recognition, as if he thought he should know me, but didn’t.
    “Oh, my God.” My voice didn’t sound like my voice. I really couldn’t breathe now. I barely kept myself upright. My vision blurred and swam, and all I could do was point at the cuts etched across John Doe’s heart.
    An odd arrangement of lines, like a phoenix in flight and on fire, burning to death as it screamed its fate to imaginary stars above.
    I had seen it before.
    I had seen it eighteen years ago in Armenia, when I was twelve, before my American soldier father brought me to the United States.
    The same pattern had been carved into my mother’s chest the day I found her dead in our living room.
Two
    Run.
    The urge was so strong I would have bolted down the admissions hallway and locked myself in my office if I hadn’t