The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance (Trisha Telep) (Kitty Norville 0.50)

He spread his wings.

I knew I should have been terrified, but there was no fear in me at all. At that moment, I felt safer than I’d ever felt in my life - and I couldn’t stop looking at him.

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After a moment, I lifted my arms and wrapped them around his neck.

He took off, not in a brutal rush of speed, but in a quiet, weightless whisper.

My heart gave a flip, like when I rode roller coasters or tried to spar blindfolded in the gym. When I caught my breath, it seemed easy, almost natural to be lifted so high, to be above ground and flying.

We floated together towards the winter stars as moonlight blended with his faint silver glow. All the while, he kept his eyes on mine, like he was searching every inch of my soul. That strange power he had, something almost magical, warmed me so much I knew my cheeks had to be flushed. I wished I could see into his essence, the depths of his being, so I could understand him, and maybe understand myself.

As we drifted over the snow-capped roof of the hospital and the skyline of New York City spread beneath us, we spoke at the same time, and we asked the same question.

“What are you?”

Four

“I’m just Dutch Brennan.” Lame answer, but the truth, which seemed like my only option, given that I was high above New York City, in the arms of a winged man who helped me fight some kind of ravening fire-monster. “I’m nothing. I’m nobody. I only killed that thing because I work out.”

John Doe’s jaw flexed. I wasn’t certain, but he looked like he might be impressed. “With . . . weapons.”

“Sayokan.” I leaned into him, enjoying his warmth, his body, his unusual smell. “Martial arts, Turkish-style.”

Another jaw flex.

His silence drove me to keep talking. “My father taught me, then found me other masters after he moved us to New York City. I live in SoHo now.”

I rattled off the address, and John Doe made a slight course correction.

“Now it’s your turn,” I said as he descended slowly towards what I recognized as my neighbourhood, then my building.

A moment later, he rumbled, “I’m Shaddai.”

The word gave me that sensation again, of things I should be remembering, but the meaning didn’t come to me. I waited, assuming he would explain, but he didn’t.

“What’s your name?” I asked him as he touched down on my balcony and set me on my feet. “Can I at least know that much?”

I tested my knee and found I could walk with no pain at all, which only increased my wonder and confusion. I unlocked and opened the balcony doors of my third-floor apartment before I turned back to him. The ever-present glow of the city illuminated his look of contemplation, then decision. “Shant,” he said, still using the deep, rich bass of a very big, very sexy man. “I come from Mount Aragats, and I have been on Earth three hundred and six of your years.”

That made me freeze in the doorway, trapping him outside in the snowy night. Tiny white flakes brushed against his bare shoulders and wings, then melted to sparkling droplets. He didn’t move or challenge me. He simply stood, wings folded against his muscled shoulders, and gazed at me with those green eyes, waiting.

For what?

My approval?

My belief?

Shant.

The name meant, roughly, “thunderbolt” in Armenian.

Fitting.

My insides shivered with my outsides. “Three hundred and six. OK.” I managed to move enough to fold my arms. “We’ll leave that alone for now. But Aragats? As in the mountain in Armenia?”

He nodded, his expression calm but solemn, as if he understood this might have meaning to me. Which, of course, it did. Mount Aragats was the only trip I remembered taking with my mother before she died. There was a special structure on those slopes - ruins of great stone towers joined together.