The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

throat as her chest deflated on a final breath. Too late. She was gone. And he was left with her broken shell in his arms.
    All around him the shadows shifted, dark forms rising from the bodies of the men who had come here to steal and rape and kill. They were dead. His will had seen them ripped limb from limb. But he had come too late. They had done their vile deeds before he arrived and so she was dead as well. His love, his wife. Dead.
    His fault.
    Rising, he held his arms wide, calling home the trinity. Again the shadows moved and three raced towards him, sleek in the night. They wound about him and through him, less than substance, more than shadow. He let his pain feed them, his rage and agony. Together, they burst into clear blue flames that spread and grew until every body, every drop of blood in the clearing was burned away in an icy inferno of smokeless blue fire.
One
    Freetown , New York , present day.
    Jen Cassaday pushed aside her grandmother’s yellowed lace curtains and stared out at the stranger in her front yard. He stood, legs apart, arms hanging easy by his sides, head tipped back as he studied the house. Faded jeans, scuffed leather jacket over a dark brown T-shirt, dark hair, hanging in long, ragged layers. From this distance she could see great bone structure and a frown. Maybe it was the frown that kept him from being pretty. Or maybe it was the scar that ran across his chin, an angry white line against tanned skin. Either way, he was something to look at.
    In one hand he held a newspaper, and the sight of it made Jen’s pulse twitch. He was not at all what she’d meant to attract when she placed an ad for a handyman. And with any luck, he wasn’t here about that.
    “Make your own luck,” she muttered, automatically quoting one of her mother’s favourite phrases. Then she snorted. What else besides the promise of work would bring him all the way out here? She was miles from town.
    Instinctively, she looked beyond him to the dark woods that flanked the field across the highway. Her skin tingled and her belly twisted in a tight little knot. The sensation had repeated itself over and over in the past few days, becoming stronger and more frequent. The sixth sense that was her legacy warned her: something bad was coming. She glanced back at the guy in her yard, watched him fold the newspaper and tuck it into his coat pocket, and wondered if he was the source of her unease.
    With a sigh, she let the curtain fall back in place. Angling on her crutches, she headed down the stairs just as his knock sounded, hard and bold. She took her time. No sense rushing. It was haste that had landed her in this mess in the first place. She’d taken a tumble down the stairs and ended up with the terrible triad: two torn ligaments and a torn meniscus in her knee. And in Jen’s opinion, they were taking their sweet time about healing, though her specialist disagreed.
    “Your recovery is remarkable, Jen. I’ve never seen damage like this heal without surgery. Certainly not this quickly. It’s something for the medical journals.” His comments had made her laugh. Her capacity to heal was nothing compared to some of her relatives.
    Setting the rubber tips of her crutches, she leaned her weight forwards and dragged open the front door. The sun was at her visitor’s back, and for a second Jen blinked against the glare. Then her eyes adjusted and she raised her head to meet his gaze. She was 5 feet 10 inches and she had to tip her head back to look in his face. It was an unfamiliar experience. Up close, she saw the dangerous edge to him. It was in the way he held himself, the tightness at the corners of his mouth, the way his eyes - a blue so clear and bright she’d never seen the like - took in every nuance of his surroundings in a glance.
    “You here about the job?” she asked, wanting him to say no, knowing he’d say . . .
    “Yes. Name’s Daemon Alexander.” He offered his hand.
    “Jen Cassaday.” She didn’t see a way around it, so she shook briefly. His palm was callused, his grip pleasantly firm. Something inside her yawned and stretched, an unwanted awareness of him as a man. As though in silent response, his grip tightened ever so slightly. She pulled her hand away as quickly as she could without seeming rude.
    For weeks she’d had that ad in the paper and he was the first person to apply. No surprise there. Everyone in town whispered about the haunted Cassaday place, and they were halfway