Phoenix Aglow Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  BOOKS BY ISADORA MONTROSE

  PHOENIX AGLOW

  A NOTE FROM ISADORA

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  NEW RELEASE

  COMING SOON

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY ISADORA MONTROSE

  Phoenix Aglow ©Copyright Isadora Montrose 2016

  Cover Art by Resplendent Media ©Copyright 2016

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the author, Isadora Montrose.

  Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers.

  Books by Isadora Montrose

  Bear Necessities

  Bear Possibilities

  Bear Affinities

  Bear Infinities

  Bear Fursuits Books 1-4 Bundle

  Bear Cubs for Christmas (available only in Bear Fursuits Books 1-4 Bundle)

  Bearly Begun

  Bearly Enough

  Bearly Ever

  Bearly Forever

  Bearly Beloved

  Bear Skin: A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance

  Dragon’s Treasure

  Dragon’s Successor

  Brides for the Bachelor Bears Books 0-4 Bundle

  Bearly a Bride (available only in Brides for the Bachelor Bears)

  Dragon’s Pleasure

  Bear Pause: A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance

  Dragon’s Christmas Captive

  Dragon’s Possession

  Phoenix Aglow

  Phoenix Ablaze

  Phoenix Aflame

  Billionaire Dragon Lords Books 1-3 Bundle

  Dragon’s Confession

  Bear Sin: A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance

  Phoenix Alight

  Amazon Author Page: https://amazon.com/author/isadoramontrose

  PHOENIX AGLOW

  AN ALPHA PHOENIX SHORT STORY

  BOOK 1

  by

  Isadora Montrose

  Welcome to the paranormal world of my glorious Air Force Alpha Phoenixes. Each story deals with the love story of a different member of the D’Angelo family.

  Every Alpha Phoenix romance is a standalone book that may be enjoyed entirely on its own. Each one ends Happily Ever After and the main storyline is always resolved. No matter where in the series you start, I promise you a fabulous, sensual read with a complete adventure and a guaranteed HEA and no cliffhangers.

  Dive in and enjoy the paranormal waters!

  Isadora

  CHAPTER ONE

  Michigan

  As he had done every night for six weeks, Lincoln huddled on his snowy branch and watched his mate’s house. Just because Beverly had stopped talking to him, didn’t mean that she didn’t need guarding. That asshole Perkins had made some nasty threats. And he had a history of making those who crossed him regret it.

  The winter winds sweeping across Lake Michigan cut right through his hawk-sized body. Linc puffed up his feathers to trap air and protect him from the icy cold. Although his feathers burned with paranormal heat, and even in lesser phoenix a single feather could have warmed him through, Linc kept his talent under strict control. Burning down Bev’s century oak was no part of his plan to win her back.

  Full phoenix was not an option in the city. In his greater morph, his twenty-foot wing span made him the size of a small aircraft. If he went full phoenix, sooner rather than later, even the most oblivious mortal would spot him. The neighborhood hushed as people took their dogs for a last walk before flipping off their Christmas lights. Bev kept her LED strings on all night. From dusk to dawn, the cheerful multicolored bulbs outlined her eaves and doorway.

  The light in Beverly’s room winked out. She was still sleeping alone. That was good. But not enough. He had to overcome her refusal to talk to him. No woman that luscious and kind was going to stay free for long. They were bonded. Didn’t she know that? Surely his fated mate wasn’t going to cut him out of her heart, just because of a minor misunderstanding? He hunkered down for another frigid vigil.

  Lincoln’s eyes opened as soon as the first bright line rimmed the skyline. The first rays of the sun turned the frost on the vehicles in the street to beads of water. Lincoln stretched his wings, preened his feathers as if Beverly Hernandez could see their brilliant sheen, and sang his ecstatic love song to the pink dawn. He hoped it had the desired effect upon his own true love. He filled his bones with air, again and again, and embellished today’s melody with a few flourishes.

  Just serenading his mate made him warmer. Happier. More vibrant. He flapped his wings. The blazing glory of his plumage flickered on the very edges of his vision. He extended his neck as far as it would go, stood on his toes, and poured his heartbreak into his singing. Bev raised her blinds. Her lovely face was a brief blur. His heart raced. But she did not open her windows.

  Lincoln finished his song with a ripple of descending notes, thrust off from his perch and sailed away. Beneath him, an elderly woman made her slow way along the sidewalk with a small, yappy dog bundled in a plaid sweater. As Lincoln swept past, the dog strained against its leash and barked hysterically.

  “Hush, Buster, there’s nothing there,” the woman scolded.

  Buster barked louder. Lincoln doubted the little dog could see him. Dogs’ color vision was restricted to yellow and blue. They could not see red, as humans could – let alone the ultraviolet glow of phoenix feathers. But Linc was certain the pooch had smelled him. Phoenixes might be practically invisible even to people, but nobody had ever claimed they were odorless.

  Lincoln flew the several blocks to the balcony of his condo. On the snow-covered concrete, he transformed himself from a flaming, hawk-sized bird into a man. The snow was packed hard from all the mornings and evenings he had trampled it down in the last month. The wind whipped through the tall buildings and nipped his mortal ass. Crouching low to conceal himself from wakeful neighbors, Lincoln opened the sliders and crept into his home. He thawed out under a hot shower.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The doorbell was ringing when Beverly Hernandez stepped out of the shower. Figured. Probably the FedEx guy. If she didn’t answer, he would take her new coffee maker clear across town to the depot. Bev dragged her bathrobe on over her soaking-wet body while she trotted to the door. She opened it without looking out the front windows. Well, damn. Bad had just gotten worse.

  “Merry Christmas, Beverly,” Lincoln D’Angelo said. He held out a large bunch of flowers wrapped in shiny red paper with little green and white trees stamped all over it.

  Bev retreated on damp, bare feet down the short hall and into the living room of her little bungalow. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought maybe you’d be ready to talk by now,” Lincoln said calmly. “You still keep your vases on the top shelf?” He stalked into the kitchen and she heard him rummaging. Water splashed. He came back out holding her tallest vase. He had haphazardly stuffed it with pale peach roses and green ferns.

  Bev put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “I was angry,” she reminded him, “With damned good reason. Does that reason still exist?”

  “If you mean, did I force Amanda Larkin to give me back the key to my apartment? I did. Do you mean, did I fire her? I didn’t. That was her manager’s job. As you would know if you were answering my emails instead of dump
ing them.” Lincoln fiddled inexpertly with the flowers and greenery in the vase. He gave up after a few seconds and focused his blue gaze on her.

  The pale apricot and cream rosebuds were just starting to open. Even though they stuck out unevenly, his flowers were pretty and Bev’s favorites. Still she hardened her heart. “I don’t understand why she had one in the first place. You told me you only went out with her once. Yet obviously she was used to showing up at your place without calling.”

  “When you and I went to the Bahamas, Bev, I left my keys with Brad so someone could check on the condo.” Lincoln matched her fierce tone. “It invalidates home insurance if you leave your place uninhabited for more than a couple of days. He assigned her the job. That was the sum total of Amanda’s connection to my condo.”

  At six foot three, he towered over her, but it didn’t occur to Bev to back down. She met Lincoln’s glittering blue eyes with her own hostile gaze. “You’ve had two months to think that up,” she accused.

  “I said it two days after you slammed out of my place. I don’t know how many texts I’ve sent you. How many times I’ve left you voice mail.”

  Lincoln stalked her until her back was pressed against the wall and his long arms had trapped her. He didn’t touch her. He just looked down at her so much lust and longing on his hard face that she had to press her thighs together. Which was just another way in which she knew Lincoln D’Angelo was bad for her. He subverted her mind.

  “Took you two days to think it up, eh?” Bev folded her arms across her chest. Too late, she realized that the sash she had only loosely knotted was coming undone, and her movement had made the robe gape.

  “I thought two days was long enough to let you simmer,” he corrected. “Turns out I was wrong. Two days was just long enough to heat your righteous indignation into boiling rage.”

  How well he knew her.

  Lincoln seemed to notice her loose sash at the same moment she did. The flinty planes of his face softened. Red scored his cheekbones. His big hands found the trailing ends of the yellow sash and tugged until it tightened around her waist. “Amanda and I dated for about six minutes – long before she came to work for my company. She didn’t have a key to my place then. Hell, we never even made it to the bedroom. There’s no reason for you to be jealous, sweetheart.”

  His deep voice made her whole body quiver so badly she could hardly think. Could he be telling the truth? It was true that Bev had made it impossible for Lincoln to contact her. But it didn’t seem as though he had tried very hard to make up. And Amanda had sung a different tune. Bev was not about to forget the mortification of having the other woman walk in while they were trying out the dining table. She was so not going there again.

  “Amanda told it differently,” she said quietly.

  “Amanda Larkin is a narcissistic liar,” Lincoln said flatly. “You ever wonder why a woman as pretty as her is single?”

  Bev shook her head and water sprayed in an arc. Crap. She hadn’t dried her hair. It was going to set in a tangled mop of frizz. “I have to go get dressed,” she said.

  “Not on my account,” Lincoln said. His words were a caress.

  “I want to put some clothes on.”

  He pushed away from the wall in one athletic bounce and half bowed his head. “Go right ahead. I’m going to make coffee. Maybe you’ll be willing to talk sense when you’ve had some.”

  Bev was halfway to her room before she realized she was taking orders again. Somehow when Lincoln was around it was just easier to do what he said. She had never liked fighting, and Lincoln didn’t fight. It wasn’t so much that he was easy-going – he wasn’t. But when he said to do a thing, most people jumped into action. It would be nice if she could acquire the knack – without having to spend a decade and a half in the Air Force.

  She hauled on jeans and hesitated. She picked up first her old sweatshirt and then a heavy sweater and a cardigan. And discarded each one in turn. She put on her new long-sleeved tunic instead. The pretty bias-cut one with the pattern of aquamarine and turquoise swirls. She peeked in the mirror. The knot under the bust outlined her waist and made her look curvaceous rather than square, as the sweatshirt and sweater did. Was it too low-cut for having a fight with your ex?

  The coffee smelled wonderful. Lincoln had opened the blinds and set two places at her little kitchen table. Butter was sizzling in a pan and as she entered the kitchen he tossed in beaten eggs and began to stir them around with a spatula. “You want one piece of toast, or two?” he asked without turning his dark head.

  “One, thank you.” Bev poured herself a cup of coffee and admired his fine ass. The man was a wonder of nature. Broad shoulders tapered to narrow hips and the heavy thighs of a weightlifter. Her mouth watered and she rinsed her longing down with coffee.

  “Tastes better,” Linc said, “If you let the machine finish.” It was an old argument. Was it more important to get caffeine in your system, or to have the perfect cup of coffee? They came down on different sides.

  “Newsflash,” she shot back. “My coffee maker’s broken. It has to be turned off manually. It won’t ever be done.”

  He dished up eggs onto two plates that already held buttered toast and sliced oranges. “That’s how fires start,” his voice was gruff. It was his worried voice.

  “I ordered a new one. That’s how you got in. I thought you were the FedEx guy with my new machine.”

  Bev forked up eggs. They were good. Lincoln was a good cook. He was good at most things. He liked domestic things. Home-cooked meals, cuddling in front of the Friday night game, mowing the grass. Sitting across from him eating eggs he had cooked and toast he had buttered, made Bev realize how much she had missed him.

  “You opened the door, thinking I was a complete stranger, in your f – bathrobe.” Lincoln swallowed the F bomb before he said bathrobe. But he might as well have exploded it in her kitchen. He was furious. His eyes were glacially cold and his mouth was a thin, grim line.

  “I wasn’t thinking.” Bev tried to head him off at the pass.

  His chest swelled. His face stiffened. She knew he was trying to contain his wrath. Lincoln owned a security company. He spent every day cleaning up after criminals. It was how they had met. She had hired his company after an overnight break-in at her printing business.

  Lincoln always shook his head over the fact that most people called for a security system only after they had already been robbed. He spent too much time talking to women who had been beaten or raped when they were burgled.

  Bev couldn’t take her eyes off his wide chest. Suppressing his desire to roar at her was placing a great deal of strain on Linc’s ribcage and his crisp blue-plaid shirt. If he didn’t exhale soon, those buttons were going to go flying. Her lips curved involuntarily. She might as well have lit a match.

  “Are you trying to prove I’m uncivilized?” he roared. “Because you’re going the right way to do it. Geez Louise, woman, you don’t answer your front door in your fucking bathrobe. Not when that little squirrel is still after you.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Dylan Perkins is the sort of asswipe who blames everyone but himself for the sewer he is swimming in,” Lincoln continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “He’s not going to escalate from pilfering office supplies to rape,” Bev said ignoring his tone.

  “His juvie records are sealed,” Linc retorted through white lips, “But I have a pal who remembers he was charged with arson and sexual assault when he was a minor. Kids like that go on to become serial killers.”

  “Serial killer? Dylan Perkins was afraid to talk to customers – that’s why he was in charge of ordering supplies instead of working the front counter.”

  Lincoln shook his head at her. “Bev, you are too trusting for your own good. Dylan isn’t a shy little introvert who happened to steal fifteen grand of your office supplies. He’s a con artist who inveigled himself into the one position in your firm that would allow him access to money. I’ll
bet when that audit comes back, that you will be glad I made you change all your credit cards and passwords.”

  “Why am I just hearing this now?” she snapped.

  “Because every time my people send a report, it goes unanswered.”

  “I asked Melody to handle the D’Angelo file,” she responded sheepishly.

  “Well, she hasn’t made a single decision. And if she has implemented our recommendations, she hasn’t informed us.” Linc’s voice was back to being level.

  “I’ll look into it on Monday,” she promised. “But I thought you said con artists just melted when they were caught?”

  “Most do, but Perkins has a history that suggests scams are a way to fund his other activities.”

  “Like what?”

  “Stalking. Peeping.” Lincoln rolled his shoulders as if shaking off an unpleasant burden. “If you’d let me put that peephole in for you, the way I said I was going to,” he continued. “And set up some decent security, you’d at least be able to tell what the guy coming in to rape you looked like.”

  “Do you think rapists only rape women in bathrobes?” she asked conversationally.

  “Nope. But for those guys who are just borderline, easy makes it possible. In some strange way, they think it amounts to permission.” He held up a big hand. “You know damn well, Bev, I’m not suggesting women deserve to be raped, or that it’s their fault. But the thought of you waltzing to the door, fresh from the bath, in that excuse for a garment.” He set his big square jaw, and his eyes blazed. His breakfast congealed forgotten on his plate.

  * * *

  He was going to ruin everything again. He hadn’t been here half an hour, and already he was yelling at his mate. He wanted to patch things up. He wanted Bev back in his bed. In his life. But the thought of her opening her door in her robe to some wannabe pervert, made him see the world through a blaze of red. Didn’t she realize what a temptation she was? That scumbag Perkins had made some pretty graphic threats after she fired him.