FUN & FLIRTY ROMANCE
MYSTIC BAY SERIES BOOK 5
by
Isadora Montrose
Coming Sept. 18, 2018!
A betrayed unicorn. An amnesiac phoenix. Their mischievous love child. Can Mystic Bay transform them into a happy family? Gentle unicorn Samantha must find the fortitude to forgive her fierce lover. Phoenix Rafael must open his shattered soul to love.
Good thing it’s never too late for love in magical Mystic Bay. Join Robin and Sully in another feel-good, romantic romp as they help Samantha and Rafael find their HEA and discover for themselves that a match made in West Haven, is a match made in heaven.
Keep reading for the first 2 chapters.
Fated for the Phoenix
CHAPTER ONE
Honolulu, Hawaii,
Four years earlier,
Samantha~
Rafael D’Angelo knelt before her. He took her hand in his larger ones. They were quite alone. Her roommates were both out for the evening. “Sami, darling, will you marry me?” He flipped the lid on a small blue velvet box.
“Oh, Rafe, it’s beautiful.” Samantha Belfast gazed stricken at the ring he was holding out to her. Amethysts the color of her hair surrounded a huge diamond. She gulped. A unicorn is always truthful. “I can’t accept it. I’m so sorry.”
Rafael rose gracefully and gazed down at her. Anger warred with puzzlement on his chiseled face. Her phoenix was so handsome and so masculine he made her weak at the joints. “Why not?” he asked softly.
“Unicorns only marry unicorns,” she explained. Hadn’t she explained that a hundred times. Their love was doomed. Had been right from the start.
His dark brows rose. “Always?”
“Since the world began,” she assured him. Her family was proud – as least as proud as modest unicorns ever got – of their pure bloodlines.
“I’m good enough to sleep with, but not good enough to marry? Is that it?” he ground out.
Samantha shivered. Even though his voice was perfectly level, she knew Rafael was furious. Every cell in her body quivered. How could she be mated to a male who terrified her?
“How can we truly be fated, Rafael,” she objected, “When you are a hunter – a bird of prey – and I am a unicorn – born to be pursued by hunters?”
Rafael shook his head. Not a hair on his closely cropped dark hair moved. He had told her he preferred to wear it short because it curled riotously if he let it grow longer than a half inch. But of course in the military, short was regulation.
“Dear heart, you and I love each other. How can we not be fated?” He held his arms open and she walked into them and laid her head on his heart. Peace settled into her bones as he enclosed her in a fierce embrace.
“You keep telling me that you love me,” he whispered into her hair. Her brown hair that she dyed to conceal its pale purple color from mortal eyes.
“I do,” she assured him. “Unicorns don’t lie.”
“Make me the happiest phoenix in the history of the world,” he urged.
She nestled into his broad chest. “We could never have babies,” she whispered sorrowfully.
He chuckled. “Of course we can. Beautiful babies. Phoenixes breed true. You will be a wonderful mother.”
“I would be too scared of hybrid vigor to have your babies,” she explained.
“Strong children would worry you?” His arms tightened. She knew he found her timidity off-putting. Phoenixes were risk takers. Daredevils. Heroes. Unicorns were cautious, careful, deliberate. As became a defenseless beast.
“That’s not what I meant. Back home that’s what how we describe the sorts of monsters that hybridization between shifters produces.”
He let her go. Almost pushed her away. “What the heck are you talking about?”
“When a hunter hybridizes with a non-hunter, the children are psychopaths.” Every child on West Haven had been taught from the cradle about the murderous, cannibalistic Haverstocks. Grizzly-fairy hybrids who had terrorized the entire island for decades during the nineteenth century.
“Rubbish.” He sounded very certain.
She told him about Owen Haverstock who had stolen and raped on West Haven until he snatched Olivia Fairchild and kept her. Together they had raised a brood of criminals that nearly wiped out every inhabitant before they were stopped.
“Hybrid vigor sounds like pure superstition to me,” Rafael declared firmly. Was that laughter underneath his flat baritone? “Just because one psychopathic grizzly shifter met an evil fairy and founded a criminal dynasty, doesn’t cancel the laws of genetics. No one in my family is a rogue. And you certainly are not. Even if you think psychopaths are made, not born, there is no way our children would be antisocial criminals.”
She could not agree. She couldn’t take the risk.
He tucked the ring into his pants pocket. “You need time, don’t you?”
She knew he was telling her what he believed to be the truth. That however didn’t make him correct. He held his arms open. “I love you, Samantha Belfast. Today and forever. Phoenixes love forever. You are my one true love. And I am yours.”
His mouth claimed her with a fiery kiss that swept her away on a tide of passion. She found the torrent of physical feelings that his touch produced overwhelming. Always. It almost frightened her to experience such intense emotions and this mind-blowing arousal. Unicorns definitely did not do over-the-top sex or explosive emotions.
Phoenixes did. As her lover showed her once again. She stopped thinking as he lifted her effortlessly into his arms and carried her into her room. He shouldered the door closed. Left the lights off. He set her on the carpet and began methodically removing her dress.
She unbuttoned his crisp sports shirt. Peeled it away from his bare chest. He was as smooth as a unicorn. Like her he wore dog tags. She placed her palms over his muscular pecs and enjoyed his silky skin and flat male nipples. She bent forward to lick them.
He groaned. A masculine noise that thrilled her to her soul. As if the music they made when they made love was thrumming through her veins. He angled her head and kissed her again. His tongue tasted every corner of her mouth, awakening the sensitive tissues again. He tasted of love, of desire, of man. In that moment she did not doubt that he had been created for her.
She was naked. He still had his socks on. He hauled the bedspread down to the end of the bed and placed her on the sheets. A moment later he was straddling her, socks off.
“I love you, Samantha mine.” He kissed her again. A kiss that began as a conquering act melted into pure seduction.
His warm damp mouth moved to her breasts. “Luscious,” he panted against the side. He took one nipple into his mouth and pressed it against the roof. She bucked as sparks surged from her breasts straight to her throbbing pussy. The same thing happened when he switched sides.
In self-defense she seized his cock with both hands. He was hard, thick and heavy. His turgid cock already oozing. She squeezed the head gently and slid down to the base to circle it with thumb and forefinger, squeezed gently, and moved back up.
“You’re killing me here,” he rumbled. His big hand cupped her sex. The heel pressed her clit while two fingers massaged her folds. “You are so wet, sweetheart.”
“Come inside me,” she invited.
He thrust home. The pressure was almost too much. He filled her. Not just her vagina. Her heart. Every movement was a pulse that chanted their love. She twined her legs around his waist, opening herself to allow him in just a little deeper. They rocked together as time slid away.
She woke when he got up to dress and go home. He reached a hand into his pants pocket and produced the ring box again. “I’ll keep asking,” he vowed.
CHAPTER TWO
Kilauea,
Rafael~
Night flying was always the greatest thrill. Perhaps it was the rush of being partially invisible to mortal eyes, or perhaps it was just taking greater phoenix. At any rate, tonight’s solo flight w
ould never be surpassed.
Tonight he would harvest living lava from the slopes of Kilauea. Tomorrow he would bestow his treasure on his fated mate and transform his unicorn into his phoenix bride. No wonder he was already buzzed.
His flight from Honolulu, where he was stationed, to Mount Kilauea would not take long. But he was determined to milk it. For a phoenix there could be no greater adventure or more intense thrill than creating an Egg of Immortality to transform his mate.
To any mortal onlooker at best he would appear no more than a blur of blazing light against the dark sky. A blur too bright to focus on. But to his phoenix vision the islands of Hawaii were spread out like a twinkling necklace. The lights of the cities dotted the plains and crept up the slopes of extinct volcanoes. The brighter blaze of the active volcanoes to the southeast were like jeweled pendants hung on the necklace.
Kilauea had been active for over a year. It was not an explosive volcano. But he didn’t require an eruption to create the egg. Just a molten flow of lava. Kilauea had that in spades. Huge lakes of magma flowed continuously over the existing lava plains and into the sea, creating new land.
In the process it created explosions of gushing steam, scalding ocean waves and a widespread danger zone. Earthquakes were common. And the air rang continuously with the sound of the earth cracking and booming. Even mortals could hear these noises from the National Volcano Park.
To Rafael they were like the beating of drums inviting him to dabble in the lakes of fire. Since he had come into his talent at puberty, he had been alternatively enticed with stories of the delights of trips into the heart of volcanoes, and warned of the temptations it presented to phoenixes.
Phoenixes were not just gigantic, invisible birds of prey, capable of setting fires with their feathers and of controlling any blaze they set. Just as the legends claimed, they were also able to regenerate. By becoming fire they could survive injuries that would otherwise lead to death.
Phoenixes could not actually survive death. Dead was dead, no matter what the myths said. Although Rafe had never had to become fire, he had lots of relatives who had. In his family, joining the military was a matter of course. He had followed his father into the US Air Force, as had his brothers and sisters. Military operations gave his relatives lots of reasons to regenerate.
They all spoke of the exultant joy that swept through phoenixes as they burned with a living flame. The pain of being burned alive was countered by the waves of bliss that enticed them to allow their immolation to keep going. Once you became ash, that was it. You merged with the universe and could no longer be an individual.
It was a hard story to believe, but he believed. Why would his father, grandfather, and extended family lie? There had to be truth to the tale that for phoenixes fire represented both the gift of life and a potent threat to existence. His cousin Harrison, a colonel in the Air Force*, had told him how the stream of boiling magma had almost seduced him into suicide. And practical, level-headed Harry was the last man on earth to be suicidal.
Above him the stars glittered like a jeweled net. Below him the lights of houses and street lamps gave way to the radiant orange glow of Kilauea. He had reached his destination. He was in control of his destiny. Soon he would claim his timid bride and transform his beautiful mate into a phoenix as large and powerful and deadly as he was.
Just the thought of his Samantha was enough to make him execute a couple of barrel rolls from sheer high spirits. Samantha was so perfect for him. His mate was tall, lush bodied, deep bosomed and beautiful. But it was her gentle kindness that had drawn him to her.
He had never imagined that a phoenix from a clan of warriors would fall in love with a saintly unicorn shifter. Samantha was everything he was not. Calm, deliberate, gentle, sweet tempered, compassionate and generous. He had never seen her angry, or dismayed, no matter what wreckage of human life washed into their ward. Absolutely, he was unworthy of her. Yet she loved him.
She was the best psychiatric nurse in the Tripler Army Medical Center. He hoped Maj. D’Angelo was as good a surgeon as she was a nurse. Phoenixes were natural healers. As were unicorns. But there was something about being around Lt. Samantha Belfast that soothed anyone who came into her ambit.
When they had first become lovers, he had asked her to move in with him. She had declined demurely. “My family would be shocked,” she declared mildly. “Unicorns do not flaunt their love affairs. Besides, you owe your family name and the Air Force the courtesy of discretion.”
“I want to marry you,” he replied. “I just thought it was too soon to ask.”
“Far too soon, my beloved,” she said, her purple eyes shadowed. But ask he had, many times.
Last night she had finally accepted the diamond ring set with amethysts as lovely as her hair. She kept the lavender hair on her head dyed a dull brown, but her bush gave her secret away. She blushed when he whispered, “To match your secret garden, Sami darling. Will you make me the happiest phoenix in the world and wear my ring?”
“I will. I still don’t understand how we can be destined,” she said in her unflappable way. “And I don’t know how to tell my people. But I cannot live without you, Rafael D’Angelo.” Despite her moderate tones, he knew it was a vow. He had sealed it with a fierier pledge of his own. Now came the hard part. Obtaining the Egg of Immortality.
He swooped over the lake of molten lava. Close to the surface, the orange glow was highlighted with brilliant yellow. The boiling magma bubbles burst and threw living stone into the air. Dad had been correct. Even though he longed to transform his mate, the living fire called to his soul. He had to be wary and stay in control.
The lake invited him to plunge beneath its boiling surface. Even a phoenix could not survive such temperatures. He wanted to sip from the surface of the lake. Instead he held back, watching as bubbles popped and thrust miniature fireworks into the air. He circled, relishing the heat rising from the cauldron of lava. George Washington! It was a potent inducement, promising a glorious union that would surpass all other joys.
Only the thought of his Samantha enabled him to resist the allure of death. On the glowing lake, a bubble the size of a basketball burst and threw a spreading cone of light a hundred feet into the air. Each droplet was a scrap of burning rock. He pounced and carried his living ember away in his beak. His heart was racing from his brush with death and with the knowledge that he had captured the prize that would turn his mate into a phoenix.
He did not know if Sami would remain a unicorn after she had eaten the Egg of Immortality. His cousins had told him how to activate the egg, and assured him that the ceremonial dance that followed was entirely instinctive. But they had transformed mortal women. He just hoped that a shifter that was already telepathic would appreciate the telepathic bond of mated phoenixes and be prepared to accept the gift of immortality.
When he and Samantha made love, their auras proved they were meant for one another. Nothing else could account for the way they resonated and amplified in perfect harmony.
As long as Sami was lying in his arms, she could read his mind. But he had no such access to her thoughts. He longed for the fullness of a phoenix bond. To share his heart and soul with his fated mate. Surely his soft-hearted, tender unicorn would see how vital it was for their closeness to be a two-way street?
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CHERISHED BY THE COUGAR
A SHIFTERS IN LOVE
FUN & FLIRTY ROMANCE
MYSTIC BAY SERIES BOOK 2
by
Isadora Montrose
Available on Amazon. Read it next!
When rumor names him as Jimmy’s father, cougar shifter Ryan Rutherford is compelled by the head of his clan to marry BBW witch Claudia Peterson.
Former Marine Ryan shows up on luscious Claudia’s doorstep to inform her that they’re married. The attraction between them is instant, but sorceress Claudia suspects it’s only a spell. Alpha Male Ryan worries that his curvy wife gave her heart to Ji
mmy’s father.
Enjoy another sexy romp as these two wary souls discover their bond is soul deep and a match made in West Haven is indeed a match made in Heaven.
Keep reading for the first 2 chapters.
CHAPTER ONE
Portland, mid-October
Ryan
“Would you mind repeating that, sir?” Ryan Rutherford barely restrained himself from bellowing at Cougar One.
“I said you are married,” Charles Rutherford reiterated dryly. “I know that it comes as a shock, but I have evidence.” He handed Ryan an envelope. “Please make a note of your witnesses, and the officiant.”
Ryan goggled. The wedding had been performed by Robin Fairchild, the fairy who owned and ran the Tidewater Inn. The fairy who was mayor of Mystic Bay. The witnesses were his own grandparents, Charles and Leona Rutherford. Even with cobra venom frothing in his blood, Ryan didn’t think he would have forgotten getting married. Or that Cougar One would have taken part in a secret wedding.
Sheer pride made him match Cougar One’s dignified calm. After all his grandfather was eighty-eight. If Grandfather could deal with this forgery without hysterics or a heart attack, so could Ryan.
“Do I know the bride?” he enquired politely.
“You must remember the Petersons?” Charles continued in that same dry, almost amused tone.
The Petersons were all witches and warlocks. “Dr. Peterson has a clinic on the island.”
For over a century, to the Rutherford Clan ‘the island’ had meant West Haven, Oregon, one of the dozens of tiny islands in the San Juans. They had summered at Cat’s Head Cove in their island compound since Cuthbert Rutherford had bought the land.
“Correct. Virginia is a physician and Tom runs a whale watching business out of the harbor. They have three daughters. They are all sorcerers. Claudia is the youngest.”
Ryan searched his memory. “A cute, little round kid with blonde hair? About so high?” He held his hand just below his heart.
Adored by A Dragon: A Shifters in Love Fun & Flirty Romance (Mystic Bay Book 4) Page 17