“You did. I had this big proposal planned so you could remember it forever. But see that’s the difference between us. I just move to Plan B. Do I get an answer? Or is no answer my answer?” He had to know.
“Are you sure about marrying me? Your parents aren’t going to like you marrying a Latina.”
“My parents are going to adore you, darling.” He kissed her temple.
She snorted. “They’re going to have a fit when they find out your bride’s mother cleans houses for a living.” She squirmed away from him and sat up. The covers fell away from her round breasts revealing sweet brown nipples, but she hauled them up again. Which was a shame.
“Is this why you’ve been keeping me at arm’s length over Amanda?” he demanded. “You think I’d let my parents veto my bride?”
“You have to admit that no five-star general is going to want his son to marry some wetback mechanic’s daughter. And your father comes from one of the richest families in America. They are going to think I’m a gold digger.” Her shoulders hunched under his arm.
“The D’Angelos aren’t that interested in money. We just seem to be lucky enough to hang on to it. We don’t define people by their income. Your parents are both naturalized citizens who pay their taxes.” He hugged her gently. “Your family is an all American success story. In one generation they have gone from poverty to the middle class – you and your brother Hector own your own businesses.”
“Luis is just an enlisted man.”
“A Marine. Private First Class is nothing to be ashamed of. And your little sister is going to make a great lawyer.”
“How do you know about Serena?”
Linc laughed. “What do I do for a living? I looked up your family as soon as I met you. But Serena told me she wanted to go to law school herself. She was explaining that she was able to go to college full-time only because you pay her tuition, so all she has to cover is her books and clothes.”
Bev wriggled a little. “I can afford it,” she said defensively.
“Hey, I think it’s wonderful. I know it took you seven years to finish college because you had to earn the money as you went. It’s great that you are helping your little sister.” He kissed her. “It’s one of the reasons I love you.”
“I can’t stop until she’s finished,” Beverly warned him.
“Of course not.” Linc picked up his beloved’s hand. “My parents are going to be thrilled I’ve finally found my fated mate. They are going to love your family. And they are going to love you.”
“Really?” Her voice was skeptical. “They expected you to marry down?”
He laughed. “We’re phoenixes, darling. We believe in love and happy ever after. They expect me to follow my heart. My father taught me to trust my instincts. What’s not to like in your parents? They are hardworking people – the backbone of this country. Great parents. Good citizens. To us D’Angelos, money isn’t as important as character.”
“Are you sure, Lincoln?”
“As sure as I was the first time I saw you.”
“Are you trying to tell me you fell in love when you met me?” Bev chortled.
“Phoenixes have great instincts when it comes to our mates.” He looked down into her wary brown eyes. “I knew you were the one for me, the minute I shook your hand.”
“Really? For gosh sakes, Lincoln, you knew nothing about me!”
“I knew all the important stuff.” He kissed her forehead. “No, not that you were a walking wet dream – although you are, my darling – but that you are kind and loyal and smart. It’s part of my gift.”
“You can tell all that about a person, when you meet them? Really. Then how come you didn’t realize Amanda was a liar?”
He laughed. “My gift is to know my destined bride when I encounter her,” he explained. “I’m not a lie detector. When I met you, all my senses went on high alert and I fell in love with you. I’ve been waiting for you to catch up. Do you love me? Will you marry me?”
“Surely your parents expect you to marry another phoenix?”
“Not necessarily. They want me to marry my destined mate – mortal or phoenix. If you marry me, you can become a phoenix too – if you want.”
“And if I don’t?”
He kissed her. “I will still want to marry you. You are the one woman in all the world for me. For today and tomorrow – for all the days of our lives. The only issue is whether or not you love me enough to mix your life with mine.
She took her time answering. “I don’t know if I’m up to living a life of secrets,” she admitted. “How do you manage hiding the fact that you are a shifter? And aren’t you worried I will tell people?”
He had to chuckle. “Don’t you remember how you laughed when I told you?” he reminded her. “Who would believe you?”
Bev nodded. “I guess they would think I was delusional.”
“You didn’t believe me until I showed you. It isn’t difficult to hide in plain sight. Mortals do not expect people to become animals, so they don’t see us. We’ve been lurking on the periphery of human vision for centuries. Hiding is the easy part.”
“What’s the hard part?” Bev demanded.
“Persuading a woman that a giant predatory bird is her one true love. Bev, darling, I want you. I love you. I need you. Won’t you marry me and make my dreams come true?”
Her curly head nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. “I will.”
He let out the breath he had been holding. “Can we make love before we go grocery shopping?”
“No ring?” she asked tartly.
Chuckling, he rolled her underneath him. “Oh, yeah, there’s going to be a ring. A whopper that will tell the world that Beverly Hernandez is unavailable. It’s in my pants pocket. That’s your Christmas present.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Texas
Beverly stood with her newly minted husband on the edge of a cliff, and gazed appreciatively as the setting sun turned dusty sage bushes and mesquite into flaming candelabra and gilded the river snaking through the valley floor. It was June, but the air was rapidly cooling as the sun sank.
“It is beautiful out here,” she murmured. “But why aren’t we back at your parents’ place, dancing with our guests?”
“This can’t wait, my love.” Linc’s features were transformed to stern bronze by the low sun. Her laughing, happy bridegroom of an hour ago was gone.
“What is it?” she asked softly.
His big hands cupped her face. “I love you more than life itself, darling. I brought you out here to share my phoenix with my bride.”
“I thought that was what I got this afternoon when I said ‘I do’.”
His face stayed austere. “This gift is different. Hold out your hand, sweetheart.”
Beverly gave Lincoln her left hand. The broad gold band he had pushed over her knuckles six hours earlier, nestled against the huge ruby he had put there at Christmas. Both rings flashed in the waning sunlight. Linc gave her a hazelnut-sized egg the color of flames. She flinched as heat scorched her palm.
“Don’t drop it,” he entreated. “Grasp it. It is my pledge and my gift to my bride.”
Bev cupped the egg with her hand. Flames flickered about the egg, but although it remained hot, her skin adjusted to its searing heat. “What is this?”
“The Egg of Immortality. If you accept it, you will become a phoenix like me.” His big hands cradled hers so that the flames licked them both.
“Immortality? I don’t know if I want to be immortal. You didn’t say anything about this before.” Her voice shook.
His voice was grave, level, hard. “Phoenixes aren’t precisely immortal. We can regenerate, but we cannot do it indefinitely. We just live longer than mortals. Take my heart and share my gifts, Beverly.”
His hands sandwiched hers. The egg glowed through his fingers like the sun now sinking behind the hills.
“Can’t I think about this?” she demurred. “It’s a big decision.”
L
inc shook his dark head. “Once the sun goes down, it will be too late.”
“Why did you wait so long to tell me about this?” she wailed. “This is huge.”
“Because, I miscalculated. And right now, there isn’t time. The magic will only work while the sun is up. But whether or not you become a phoenix today, you will still be my own true love.”
“I’ll turn into a bird?”
His lips curved. “Whenever you will it.”
“I’ll be invisible.”
“Not exactly. You will just be hard to detect. Humans can’t see the ultraviolet component of phoenix plumage. But other birds get out of our way, so they seem to be able to.”
Bev shook her head and tried to step back. Linc’s hands tightened so she stayed in place. “I don’t think I want to live forever,” she said.
“You won’t. The oldest phoenixes in my family are centenarians, not ancient relics.”
“Can I change my mind, if I don’t like it?” she asked.
“Nope. But you don’t have to choose rebirth. Lots of phoenixes don’t. You know that my brother Harrison’s wife died.”
“Oh. Didn’t she become a phoenix?” Bev asked.
“She did. But she and her boys were killed by a drunk driver just the same.”
“Why did she choose death?” Bev wondered.
He shrugged. “Who knows? Rebirth isn’t automatic, you have to choose. And you have to be able to choose.”
“Have you regenerated?” she asked.
Linc nodded. “In Afghanistan. We took a direct hit. Most of my team was killed outright. I was nine parts dead.” He cupped her shoulders. “I became fire, and then took phoenix. And then a man.” There was a shudder in his voice.
“Not a baby?”
“No one is ever reborn as an infant. Just as a perfect version of who they were before.” His voice was flat and hard, not coaxing. Plainly he wanted her to make a free choice.
“What do I do with the egg?” she asked.
“Swallow it.”
“In its shell?”
“That’s the way the magic works.”
“Magic?”
“Yup.”
“Is this about us having phoenix babies?” She voiced her suspicions.
“Nope. I told you our kids will be phoenixes. There have been a few marriages in my family where the gift was declined. The children were still phoenix shifters. But I have always dreamed of flying with my mate.” His hand tightened over hers. “Marry me and share my fate.”
“Where did you get the egg from?”
“I’ll tell you later. The story is too long to tell before the sun disappears. You must choose before nightfall.”
Her hand wriggled in his. He let her go. She peered at the flaming egg and touched it with her forefinger. “Why doesn’t it burn me, even though it’s on fire?” she asked.
“Is that what it looks like to you? On fire?”
“Yeah. It’s glowing like a coal.” She met his hot blue eyes. “What does it look like to you?”
“Like a white-hot coal surrounded by a halo of colors there are no words for.”
“You want me to swallow a live coal? What happens if it all goes wrong?”
“It won’t.” Linc’s voice was confident. “You will become the bride of the phoenix and we will have our nuptial flight here in above the desert.”
Bev opened her hand. The egg seemed to pulse. The sun dipped lower. The orange desert faded to gold. Did she trust this man? She did. Lincoln was the other half of her heart. Did she want to be an enormous bird with paranormal powers? Might be cool.
She put the egg in her mouth. Her whole being filled with light. She swallowed. Beside her Linc glowed and pulsed as the egg had done. She shook convulsively.
Linc caught her in his arms and kissed her. “You better take off your clothes,” he said against her throat. “You can’t fly in them.”
He backed away from her and began to strip. The sun dropped suddenly behind the hills and the desert sky turned black sprinkled with dots of light.
The transformation happened without any fuss. Beverly could not see herself, but Lincoln had turned into a six-foot-tall bird with long, trailing tail feathers that flashed a forked rainbow of dazzling light. A corona of flames crowned his head.
His beak was a terrible golden hook. He stretched his neck to the sky, puffed out his blazing breast feathers, and began to sing. Bev recognized the melody as the song she had heard morning after morning last winter. Unconsciously, she tipped her head back and matched him note for note.
She cautiously lifted her feet. Bronze scales gleamed above razor-sharp talons that made walking difficult. She had become a deadly predator. And yet, like a songbird, her mate was serenading her with a melody so hypnotic she had no choice but to join in. Her throat ached to sing, and her instinctive harmony poured out in counterpoint to his. The cliffs rang with their joy.
When their duet was only an echo, Lincoln bowed to her. He preened his breast plumage and pulled out a single plume. He laid this tiny, glowing feather before her and signaled to her to do the same. In the center of her breast a downy feather burned more fiercely than the others. She plucked it out. The pain was unexpected and devouring. But she set her feather alongside his.
The tiny scraps of down flared up as if their proximity fueled their fire. Involuntarily, Beverly jumped backward. But Lincoln pecked at the incandescent specks and picked hers up in his beak. His ruby eyes pleaded with her to do the same. His feather wasn’t hot to her beak. She had no words to describe the feeling. She watched her husband – her mate – tip his head back and swallow her feather. She did the same to his. Going down, it burned worse than the Egg of Immortality.
Linc bowed low to her. He spread his immense blazing wings and soared straight off the cliff. Even though it was dark, and the trees and bushes had lost all color, his feathers glowed as brightly as the noonday sun. She had no words for the paranormal colors.
Beverly followed her mate. Her outstretched wings were lifted by the heat still rising from the hard baked ground. Automatically, she followed Linc’s lazy circuit, matching him wing dip for wing dip. Swoop for swoop.
In her head, she heard his voice as clearly as if he were speaking, telling her where to go and how to use her wings.
‘Trees to your left. Dip and swerve.’
She protested this invasion. ‘You can’t just waltz in and out of my mind. You didn’t tell me about this!’
‘It’s only when we’re in phoenix together, beloved. Don’t think. Act.’ Linc floated away.
His leisurely circles became a death-defying sequence of high-altitude athletic rolls, followed by a plunge toward the river. Bev unthinkingly followed his instructions, avoiding the grasping branches of the mesquite and angling her wings to catch thermals to lift her again from the river’s silver ripples. Cool.
Above her, the sky was dark blue velvet studded with intense specks of light, as if the stars were larger and brighter tonight. The moon was a dazzling boat that illuminated the world. The desert was crisply defined to her new eyes – every tree and bush gilded by moonlight.
Beside her, above her, below, her mate was a glorious potent beacon. Hot, sexy, enticing. Bev felt turbocharged. Reborn. Strong. Female. Desirous. Happy. She was flying in tandem with her mate. Their minds yoked together by love. This was indeed a gift worth having.
<<<<>>>>
I hope you enjoyed this short taste of my new Alpha Phoenix series and would like to read more about Phoenix shifters and their curvy fated mates. Phoenix Aglow is only the first in what I intend to be many romances in the Alpha Phoenix series.
If Phoenix Aglow intrigued you and left you wanting more, the next full length, standalone story is now out on Amazon. Phoenix Ablaze is the story of Lincoln’s younger brother Pierce and his fated mate Diana.
Pierce D’Angelo is a fabulously rich, and much-decorated Air Force hero who is proud of his posting to Special Forces. But the phoenix shif
ter was wounded in action and diagnosed with PTSD. He heads to his family retreat in the high Arizona desert to lick his wounds.
BBW nurse Diana Lowry has made a fresh start in Arizona after an unhappy teenage marriage to a domestic bully. She’s got her dream job, a nice apartment, good friends. She is not looking for a man – especially not a handsome, take-charge guy like Alpha Male Pierce.
How will Pierce get BBW Diana wooed and won, and persuade his reluctant fated mate to swallow the Egg of Immortality?
New Release
Phoenix Aflame
Sparks fly when Phoenix Shifter Col. Harrison D’Angelo and his billionaire clan sweep BBW Tasha and her daughter Rebecca into the protection of their family compound for the Fourth of July. To protect curvy Tasha and keep his young daughter with him, widower Harrison suggests a marriage of convenience.
Divorcée Tasha doesn’t want to remarry. But their little girls are best friends. Becky shares her mom’s peril. Unlike her ex, wealthy Alpha Male Harrison is obviously not after her money. Plus they can’t act on the sizzle between them unless they marry. Not with the kids watching their every move.
Alpha Male Harrison has no idea that Fate has handed him not just a bedmate but a second true mate. He has no intention of offering Tasha the Gift of the Phoenix. But when necessity forces him to share immortality with his new wife, their destiny is altered forever. Harrison now has to figure out how to keep his wife and daughters alive while earning the love he claimed not to want.
Spice alert: Phoenix Aflame contains scenes of rapturous passion between a muscular Air Force phoenix shifter and his voluptuous and ravenous fated mate.
Phoenix Aflame is Book 2 in the Alpha Phoenix series. It is a standalone novel with no cliff hangers and an HEA.
Phoenix Aflame Preview
“You can’t sleep here,” Tasha hissed. Even though she had been wanting Harrison to join her just a second ago, now that he was here she wanted to clobber him. Preferably with something hard and heavy.
“Sure I can.” He lifted the covers and rolled into bed and put his arms around her.
She turned to face him. “Aren’t you taking quite a lot for granted?”
Phoenix Aglow Page 3