Christmas Flame

by Isadora Montrose

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  BOOKS BY ISADORA MONTROSE

  A NOTE FROM ISADORA

  CHRISTMAS FLAME

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PHOENIX ALIGHT PREVIEW

  PHOENIX ALIGHT: CHAPTER ONE

  PHOENIX ALIGHT: CHAPTER TWO

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY ISADORA MONTROSE

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  BOOKS BY ISADORA MONTROSE

  A NOTE FROM ISADORA

  CHRISTMAS FLAME

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PHOENIX ALIGHT PREVIEW

  PHOENIX ALIGHT: CHAPTER ONE

  PHOENIX ALIGHT: CHAPTER TWO

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY ISADORA MONTROSE

  Christmas Flame ©Copyright Isadora Montrose 2017

  Cover Art by Resplendent Media ©Copyright 2017

  Phoenix Aflame Preview ©Copyright Isadora Montrose 2016

  Christmas Flame Preview ©Copyright Isadora Montrose 2017

  Bear Fate Preview ©Copyright Isadora Montrose 2017

  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

  Dragon’s Treasure

  Bear Skin: A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance

  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

  Bear Fate: A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance

  Christmas Flame

  Desired by the Dragon: A Shifters in Love Fun & Flirty Romance

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

  A Note from Isadora

  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 heroic, billionaire 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

  CHRISTMAS FLAME

  ALPHA PHOENIX

  BOOK 5

  by

  Isadora Montrose

  CHAPTER ONE

  Grant~

  The sky was a midnight blue bowl of stars. The moon a slender curve on the furthest horizon. Spread beneath him was the familiar beauty of his family’s land, greenish-gray in the starlight. Grant D’Angelo angled his wings and let the wind carry him sideways until he hovered over the burbling, silver creek. Its liquid melody echoed the song in his heart.

  He opened his beak and poured his love song into the night, summoning his mate. He strained to hear her response, but although the hills threw his serenade back at him in crystalline waves, no other phoenix song gladdened the night air. He altered his melody, weaving greater passion and persuasiveness into his enchantment. Silence mocked his efforts.

  Again, and again, Grant circled over the drowsing land, his paranormal vision picking out the sleeping cattle and the small nocturnal mammals scuttling through the undergrowth. To them his song and his radiant plumage were equally imperceptible. The barn owl circling below him, in pursuit of mice for his babies, faintly heard Grant’s plaintive song but ignored it to focus on his hunt. Grant felt a pang for the hapless mouse, but it was not his place to starve the owlets.

  The moon was directly overhead, and his throat was aching when at last he caught a distant singing. The delicate, chiming notes spread through the air like hope. Their sweetness pierced his soul. He flew toward the sound and the radiant glow that was his mate.

  In the gray light of dawn, she was as bright as the sun. Her wings spread wide and beautiful. Even in the faint starlight she reflected a rainbow of paranormal colors. Her long, forked tail-feathers fluttered golden in her wake. Her plumed crown enticed him. And from her brazen beak issued music that challenged and complemented his own.

  The instant she spotted him, she turned and raced toward the horizon. Grant gave chase. He was larger, stronger, swifter. Soon he was sailing above her, echoing her song. Still singing, his mate spun in the air, executed a dizzying barrel roll and darted away in a burst of speed. Her wings blurred as she headed for the hills.

  This was no playful coyness, but a desperate dash for freedom. Ahead of him, her wings beat ever faster and her song grew ever fainter. Only the fact that she sang counterpoint to his tune persuaded Grant to follow. The sun popped up and turned the sky pink. His mate vanished. Bereft, Grant sang a lament that filled the dawn with sorrow. The clear sky darkened. Drizzle fell.

  The sound of his alarm woke him. Grant stared blankly at his hotel room. A chink in the draperies admitted the late morning sunshine. The bedside clock informed him it was nearly noon. After last night’s performance of Tristan und Isolde and the supper party that followed, he had gotten to bed at three in the morning.

  Why had he set his alarm for 11:45?

  He had a meeting with his manager and the artistic director of the Teatro Colón, the Buenos Aires opera house. He had better shower and make himself presentable before Linda knocked on the connecting door. Linda might be old enough to be his mother, but she had an embarrassing way of entering on her knock.

  He returned to the bedroom swathed in the thick hotel robe to find
her scrolling through her messages in the armchair by the window.

  “I ordered you coffee,” she said without looking up from the screen.

  “Good morning,” he responded. “It looks to be a pleasant day.”

  “What?” Linda raised her silver bob from her phone. “Oh. Good morning, Grant. We meet with Señor Mattemamo in half an hour.”

  “I know.” Grant fished his underwear out of the dresser drawer. He always unpacked completely no matter how short his stay in a hotel was to be. Otherwise he would be forever making do. Bad enough he spent two-thirds of his life traveling. “Can’t you do that in your own room?” he asked the shining head.

  “What?”

  “Can’t you go look at your email and leave me to get dressed?” He spoke from the depths of the closet. “My dinner jacket needs to go to the cleaners.”

  “Sure,” Linda shot back. “But how the hell will your tux get cleaned if I do?” She grabbed the hotel phone and spoke briskly into the receiver. Her Spanish was bad, but whoever answered obviously spoke English, because she continued in English.

  She hung up and marched over to the closet and began to methodically search the pockets of the black jacket. She laid his passport, a handful of coins and an unused handkerchief on the dresser, before subjecting his pants to a similar inspection. She placed his billfold, a taxi receipt and a second handkerchief on the polished dresser.

  “Thank you,” Grant managed through set teeth.

  He took his clothing into the bathroom and looked at himself in the steamy mirror. The Angel of the Opera looked much the worse for wear this morning. He needed to settle down. Fragments of his recurrent dream taunted him. He had been ignoring his phoenix intuition for years and the results showed in his face. A phoenix without a mate was only half a man. He left the bathroom with fresh resolve. It was time and past time.

  Linda was handing over his tux to a uniformed employee. “We’ll need this back in two hours.” She held up two fingers.

  The man nodded. “Certainly, Señora Hoskins,” he said in perfect American English.

  “Shall we go down?” Grant asked.

  “We need to discuss what to say to Señor Mattemamo,” Linda objected. “Before we meet with him.”

  “You know what we decided, Linda. If he’s doing Wagner, yes. If not, no.”

  “He wants you for Verdi,” she admitted.

  Grant sat down. “Which opera?” He was tired of Rigoletto. Ditto Traviata. Perhaps he could make the trip to South America for Aida. He always enjoyed the elephants.

  “Don Carlos,” she said triumphantly.

  “I’m singing it in Milan next year,” he reminded her. “And we take it to Munich and London.”

  “And Señor Mattemamo hopes to bring that production to Buenos Aires. It would be a master stroke if he could advertise not only the La Scala production but La Scala’s tenor.”

  “Hmm.” It was a tempting role. “What are the dates?”

  Linda got out her laptop and began to look at his calendar. “April of 2021. You have time between Parsifal in Milan and Trovatori in Sydney.”

  “How much time? I’m going to be a married man. I won’t be able to just hurl myself across the world without a break.”

  Linda narrowed her hazel eyes. “What the hell?” she yelped. “Married?”

  “Hmm. It’s time I grew up.”

  “Your fans don’t want the Angel of the Opera to be a married man.”

  “They adored Pavarotti. And Domingo. Happily married and yet heartthrobs. My public will have to deal with a Grant D’Angelo who doesn’t have a mistress in every city.”

  “Not mistress,” she corrected soberly. “Mistress doesn’t strike the correct note of devil-may-care, international glamor. Girlfriend.”

  Grant groaned.

  Linda laughed. “If your public only knew. But, admit it, there is no PR value in D’Angelo the Musical Monk.”

  “You would know. But I have plans,” he said. “I intend to be married by spring. My public will have to settle for Grant D’Angelo paterfamilias Americanus.”

  “What plans? Who is she? Carmen Buscelli?”

  “Kindly remember that my affair with the adorable Carmen exists only in your publicist’s fertile imagination. You have never met my future wife.” And he was not about to share Genevieve’s name with a woman dedicated to creating news out of his private life. Genevieve was not going to discover she was the chosen bride of the Angel of the Opera from some tabloid.

  Linda snorted. “So will you do Don Carlos or not?”

  “How many performances?”

  “Six.”

  Grant thought. “If I have a week or ten days to recover before Sydney. And the same after Milan.”

  “You have eight days between Milan and BA. But I was hoping to squeeze in an oratorio in Sydney before Don Carlos. It’s Susanna,” she coaxed.

  As always, Handel tempted him, but Linda had to stop overworking him. “Your job is to think of my vocal cords.” Although phoenixes usually enjoyed extremely long lives as singers. Look at his great-grandfather’s example. Benito D’Angelo had sung into his eighties, although the books assumed he had retired at sixty-five. And his recordings sounded as great as Caruso’s.

  “Either Susanna or Trovatori, but not both.” He folded his arms.

  “We have a contract for Trovatori,” Linda sulked.

  “Then no Susanna,” Grant said firmly. “Or no Don Carlos.”

  “There’s more prestige in singing Don Carlos,” she allowed.

  “Then I don’t see the problem. Shall we go to lunch?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Genevieve~

  “The Frankfurt Consulate is the largest US consulate in the world,” Capt. Genevieve Carson told her phone. “There are about a gazillion military attachés. I’m just one of many.”

  Her friend Eleanor D’Angelo’s chuckle warmed Genevieve. “Is it true you report to Gen. Stonewall himself?” D’Angelo was awestruck.

  “Nope. My superior officer reports to an officer who reports to Stonewall.”

  “Oh. I thought you were going to Frankfurt to be the general’s helicopter pilot?”

  “So did I,” Genevieve returned dryly. “The Air Force had other ideas. I’m assigned to a desk.”

  “Typical,” Capt. D’Angelo commiserated, one career officer to another. “And what’s Frankfurt like?”

  “Very, very German. Spotlessly clean. Very cultural. Very correct.”

  “What exactly do you do?” demanded Eleanor.

  “You know I can’t answer that, Captain,” Genevieve retorted. Not that what she did was any big deal. Decoding excerpted sections of low-security text didn’t exactly put her at the forefront of international espionage. But a rule was a rule. She had sworn secrecy, so secrecy her country would get.

  “Sorry, Gen. I meant in your spare time.”

  “Oh. That’s the fun part. I have lots of free time. We’re strictly nine to five at the consulate. I go to museums. Concerts. Art galleries. Explore the city. It was rebuilt after World War II, with replicas of the old buildings. Absolutely drips history. And then there are all the Air Force bars near the consulate. Which is where I heard that your brother got married.”

  “Which one?” Eleanor shot back.

  “Pierce. Heard he left Special Forces.”

  “Yeah. Pierce was injured. He’s flying a desk now. He got married last year*. He and Diana just had a baby boy.”

  “Hey, that’s great. I didn’t know that. What’s his name?”

  “James.”

  “Congratulations, Aunt Nell. And your other brothers?”

  “Harry remarried. He and Tasha are expecting**.”

  “Wow! How is Quincy taking having a stepmom?”

  Eleanor laughed. “She and Tasha’s daughter Rebecca are BFFs. It’s my understanding that the girls arranged their marriage for their own convenience and the baby is also their doing.”

  Genevieve choked on the idea of some
one arranging Col. Harrison D’Angelo into anything. “You give him my respectful congratulations.” It was difficult to be friends with Eleanor and Frankie’s family seeing as how their father and brothers outranked her. No matter that she had known the family since she was seven.

  “I’ll do that. You wouldn’t believe how Tasha’s mellowed him.”

  “That’s good. But tell me, Eleanor, how’s Frankie doing? Your sister is so cagey these days.”

  Eleanor gurgled. “Well, that’s quite a tale, girlfriend. Tasha has almost no family. Just a brother. But what a hunk! Cameron Reynolds is in the Air Force too. He and Frankie absolutely sizzle when they’re together. Only Frankie acts like he’s contagious. While Cam acts like she’s the cure.***”

  Genevieve felt for the poor schmuck. A D’Angelo could be hard on an unwary heart. “Yeah? She didn’t say anything to me, and we talked last week.”

  “She hasn’t said anything to me either, Gen,” Eleanor said dryly.

  “Then I’ll add that bit of info to the Espionage Act.”

  “You had better. Will we see you at Christmas, Gen? That’s actually why I called. I have leave and I’m going home to Grape Creek for six glorious days.”

  “I envy you! I don’t get stateside this holiday. I’m stuck in Frankfurt for the duration. I get to spend Christmas Day as I please, but not to leave the city.” Had she chatted enough that she could now casually ask about Eleanor’s non-military brother?

  “Grant’s singing Handel’s Messiah in Frankfurt this Christmas.” Eleanor announced before Genevieve could frame a casual question.

  She knew. On December 22, 24 and 26. With every performance sold out since June. The Angel of the Opera was this season’s hottest ticket. His fallen-angel face was plastered all over Frankfurt. She and Mel had failed to get tickets. She and Dan had told anyone who would listen that they knew the famous tenor personally.

  But Genevieve feigned ignorance. “Is he?”

  “Yup. Mom is madder than a wet hen, even though he told her at Thanksgiving. I’ll tell him to give you a call. You can be homesick for Texas together.”

  Genevieve wanted no pity calls from Grant. Bad enough she had this foolish crush on a guy who thought of her as merely his kid sisters’ fat little friend. “Don’t put yourself out. I’ve got plans for the holidays,” she assured Eleanor. “I’ve been invited to Christmas dinner by some colleagues. You remember Melanie and Dan Gilmore?”