The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

said on our journey up the mountain. Come here to call them. They’ll hear you if you truly need them.
    My legs instantly went rubbery, and I made my way to the couch and sat down, staring open-mouthed at Shant. My skin felt hot and cold at the same time, and my voice sounded shaky and weird when I found enough of my wits to speak.
    “Amberd. I didn’t ... I didn’t call you. My mother said I could go up the mountain, to the fortress in the clouds, but I didn’t do it. So how did you find me?”
    Shant touched his chest with his palm, and for a moment I saw the outline of the phoenix wounds that had so upset me when I first saw him at Riverview.
    This time, the effect was different. It felt like some sort of answer, or maybe a clarification.
    “I answered a debt of honour,” Shant explained in a tone that suggested sorrow and new understanding. “When an angel dies on Earth, they can use their essence to send a message to us, their protectors who failed them, and we are bound to respect their dying request.” He lowered his gorgeous head as I processed that my mother hadn’t been killed by a knife-wielding maniac, but by some loony fire-demon instead. Those marks on her chest when I found her - she had carved them herself before she died.
    The message.
    A communique to the Shaddai.
    That’s why Shant had shown up in my admissions office, bearing the same marks, or, more accurately, the memory of them. Of that message. He must have submitted to the police and emergency room staff because he wasn’t certain exactly who he was supposed to protect, only the general area where I was.
    “Someone bound me to you long ago, Dutch Brennan.” Shant’s eyes were so intoxicating I could hardly stand to look at him. “Someone wished for you to be protected, should the Raah ever come to know of your existence, and your life on Earth be threatened.” He kept looking at me, those green eyes swimming with a thousand emotions I couldn’t name. “Your birthday. When the Raah could sense you, so could we, and I answered the debt. Tell me - do you know who offered you such a gift?”
    My throat clenched, and I had to rub my jaws to make them work enough to say, “My mother.”
    In the long, quiet moments that followed, I was able to tell Shant what she looked like, and the Armenian name she used -and how she died, beaten and bruised, neck broken, with the phoenix carved over her heart.
    He nodded, eyes closed. “The Raah dispatched her many years ago. I remember the pain all Shaddai felt at her loss when we received her dying message. She had long been quiet on the face of Earth, and we had been wondering what became of her — then the tragedy.”
    I got to my feet, feeling unsteady, but I just couldn’t sit still any longer. “But how could my mother be an angel? Did she die? Come back down from heaven?”
    Shant’s eyes caressed my face as if he wanted to offer me comfort and support as I struggled to understand all this. “Angels are not dead humans, Dutch. Angels are their own race, long-lived, even immortal, if not attacked or wounded too grievously.”
    I wished he would come closer to me, and he seemed to hear my thoughts. He took a step, lifted his arms as if to reach out, then caught himself and moved back. My insides actually ached from wanting to touch him, like that would make everything real and OK and sane, like anything in my life would ever be completely sane again.
    “Many angels did not return to the sky in older days, when the world of men and the world of Heaven separated,” he continued, gazing steadily at me and making heat rise all the way to my forehead. “We, my people, the Shaddai, it became our sacred duty to guard those gentle beings who remained on Earth, as best we could.”
    So far, so good. I was getting it, even if I wasn’t having any success yet at understanding him, or luring him back into my arms. “Is it allowed, humans and angels, getting together?”
    As soon as I asked the question, I realized how it sounded, then decided I didn’t care. I was so far past coherent, rational thoughts and actions, it wasn’t even funny.
    “It’s outside the natural order, but it happens.” Shant’s gaze heated up even more, burning me like he was secretly one of those fire-monsters. “Attraction and love can be unexpected -and sudden. Love at first sight, as humans would say.”
    No kidding.
    He was coming towards me again, quietly closing in on me, and the glow from his skin