The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

with cinnamon and a hint of cloves. He was wearing jeans again, no shoes, no shirt. His black hair rippled in the mountain wind, but I couldn’t feel the cold any more, or the bite of the air on my ears and cheeks.
    I couldn’t feel anything but his hands on my arms.
    So strong.
    So warm.
    He was here. He was actually here. He had come to me when I called. Even though I had only spent part of a day and night with him, he was so familiar, so right, like a piece fitting into the jigsaw puzzle of my existence with a tight, certain snap. How empty my old life would have been if I had tried to keep going without at least trying to get to know him. The ache of the truth struck me so deeply and suddenly that my chin trembled.
    Shant pulled me forwards and we pressed against each other in the mountain sunlight.
    Then, before I could start sobbing like a complete idiot, Shant let go of my wrists, wrapped me in his powerful arms, and kissed me.
    The taste of him, the heat of him stole my breath and reason. I felt free and captured, safe and completely at risk. I was alive. I was eternal when he touched me. Everything in the world had to be as warm and bright as this moment, this place, and I didn’t think I’d ever mind daytime again.
    Shant nibbled at my bottom lip, then moved his mouth to my ear, my nape, then lower, to that perfect, sensitive spot between my neck and shoulder. Shivers and chills covered every inch of me, and I laughed as I ran my fingers through the black silk of his curls.
    He lifted his head and gazed at me, searching my soul, asking a dozen questions without saying a word.
    I had the answer, just one answer, to all of them.
    I suppose I had known it the first time I saw him, or at least the moment he finally touched me in my apartment. I just hadn’t admitted it to him, like he had been brave enough to admit it to me.
    “You,” I whispered, then kissed him again, and pulled back to gaze into his liquid emerald eyes. “You change everything.”

Taking Hold
Anya Bast
    She could lose this child. Oh, please, God, no. Not another one. Her heart wouldn’t be able to stand it.
    Lily stopped near a tree and inhaled the cold crispness of the early winter air. She didn’t need a wolf’s nose to know that snow was coming, a lot of it. Every step she took further up Elgonquinn Mountain ratcheted her panic skywards. So far she was doing a good job of using that reaction, instead of letting it use her, but it was close. There was nothing she hated more than not being able to control the circumstances affecting those she cared about . . . and she cared very much about this boy.
    Deadfall rustled under the paws of the shifter accompanying her. Mac, a hulking silver-tipped wolf, came to stand beside her. He raised his nose to the wind to hunt beyond the scent of the impending storm for any trace of Casey, the lost boy they sought. Three days ago he’d just vanished into the forest. His parents were frantic, but had been commanded by the pack alpha to allow Mac to hunt for the child. The pack had only sent one lone wolf to search for Casey, which showed how much faith they had in the boy, or maybe it showed how little hope.
    As a trained nurse, she’d volunteered to accompany him.
    But she and Mac would have to find shelter soon or all three of them would be lost. Lily feared most for the child. He was fifteen, a man in the eyes of the pack and able to look after himself, but not from her all-too-human perspective. Or maybe it was her past that coloured her perspective and made her think of Casey as younger than he truly was.
    Lily knew him. She did a lot of volunteer work for the Elgonquinn Mountain shifter school system. Casey was a solid beta, not particularly strong as wolves went, but not a weakling either. He loved music and girls, just like any other teenage boy. He liked to read too, something he didn’t want his peers to know. Lily fed him fantasy novels on the sly. Of course, he especially liked books about vampires, werewolves and other paranormal entities. Every time she thought of that boy out there all alone her chest went tight with fear.
    The one lone wolf they’d sent to search was a true lone wolf: Macmillan Hardy was the best tracker the Elgonquinn Mountain pack had to offer, and he was a telepath to boot, not a skill all shifters possessed. He worked often with the Elgonquinn Mountain forest wardens, an alliance that was rare in the chilly - no, frigid — relationship between human and