As he and Magnusson had decided, the battered central hatch was the weakest point. But Command had ordered the magnetic compass and ballast tanks targeted. Not every dragon could breathe fire under water, but Lars could. He exhaled until the metal casing of the compass glowed red and sagged uselessly on its pole. The triple-layered hull of the ballast tanks was a more difficult proposition. But the metal rivets finally popped under the repeated onslaught of several focused blasts. He spent a few more precious breaths on warping the seals on the main hatch. His work here was done. The spies would be forced to return to the surface or die.
Read the rest of Dragon’s Possession on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.
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Phoenix Ablaze
How will Phoenix Shifter Pierce D’Angelo get BBW Diana wooed and won, and persuade his reluctant fated mate to swallow the Egg of Immortality?
Pierce D’Angelo is one of the fabulously rich, much-decorated Texas D’Angelos. This Air Force hero is proud of his posting to Special Forces. But the shape shifter was wounded in action and diagnosed with PTSD. He’s doomed to fly a desk. 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.
Pierce has his work cut out for him to keep his buxom Diana safe from a vicious snake-shifting creep. Diana has little choice but to accept Pierce’s fierce protection. But when the dust settles and Curvy Diana discovers her heart has been given to a giant, fiery phoenix shifter – Pierce’s troubles will have just begun.
Laugh a little, cry a little, as these two fated mates discover the power of love to heal and the intimate joys of their phoenix bond.
Sizzle rating: Spicy. Phoenix Ablaze contains graphic episodes of hot, shameless, passionate Phoenix lovemaking between ravenous bedmates.
Phoenix Ablaze is Book 1 in Isadora Montrose’s brand new Alpha Phoenix series. It is a standalone novel with no cliffhangers and an HEA.
Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
Missiles roared out of an apparently featureless gray landscape. Two screeched past the fighter jet. The third scored a direct hit to the fuselage. The plane lurched sideways. Despite the tight webbing of the seat belts, the pilot and the co-pilot were tossed around in their seats like crash test dummies. The controls went slack in the pilot’s hands. Maj. Pierce D’Angelo wrestled futilely with his joystick. A split second later he accepted that his aircraft was in a nosedive from which he could not divert it.
“Take over,” Maj. D’Angelo ordered his co-pilot.
Lt. Edwin Hatcher was still flipping switches as per standing orders, one hand on his stick. He engaged and attempted to level the plane. His controls were as slack as D’Angelo’s. The plane began to spin as it maintained its downward trajectory.
“Eject,” D’Angelo ordered.
Despite the damage done to the aircraft, the mechanisms that released Pierce’s seat responded smoothly. He was in freefall at the count of three. His parachute deployed precisely fifteen seconds after he pulled the cord. Automatically, he checked for Hatch. The other officer shot past him, chute still unopened, orange ripcord handle gripped in one fist, the attached cord flailing wildly.
Pierce knew Hatch was in freefall. Neither of them had been issued auxiliary packs with backup parachutes. The uprush of air into Pierce’s parachute yanked him away from his subordinate. He saw rather than heard Hatch’s scream. Without a parachute, his teammate was doomed.
Pierce was unbuckling his own parachute before he realized he had made a decision. The canopy floated away as he shifted into phoenix. His buff-colored G-suit became confetti whisked away on the hot winds. A blazing bird spread his enormous wings to catch the fierce updraft.
Only the radiant glow of phoenix plumage could be seen by human eyes. The dazzling, paranormal rainbow colors of their feathers were virtually impossible for ordinary mortals to see — particularly at high speed. Pierce might appear as an iridescent blur too bright to focus on, but that was all. If anyone was observing his descent, he was now as good as invisible.
Far below him, Hatch’s body splayed out and spiraled helplessly towards the ground. Pierce could see that Hatch was unconscious. That was one blessing of freefalling. You passed out before you hit the ground. Before you died.
Pierce was strong. Impossibly strong. In greater phoenix, he was as large as a small plane and just as fast. His eyesight was more acute than an eagle’s. At will, with the touch of a single feather, he could set anything afire. But to save his brother officer, speed was what he needed.
Pierce folded his immense wings against his torso and prepared to dive. Like a blast from a suddenly opened furnace, a rush of hot wind battered him from the side, reminding him that this was the Arabian Desert. He fought for control. Despite the urgency and terror of the moment, he had to fight the dizzying excitement that accompanied flying faster than the speed of sound. As always, acceleration was itself an intoxicant.
Like the streamlined raptor he was, Pierce dropped headfirst, aiming for Hatch. Below him, his buddy grew bigger as the phoenix got closer. Twenty feet above the ground, he extended his wings, thrust his mighty legs forward, and snatched Hatch’s torso in his talons. His wings decelerated them both.
Pierce had pulled his buddy back from the brink of death. But he had not calculated for the extra weight and momentum of Hatch’s burly body. His balance altered. He destabilized. There was no time to correct his error. Pierce juddered and cartwheeled in the air on wings that had lost their lift. The ground rose up to meet him.
The landing knocked the air from Pierce’s lungs. His eyes opened. The dust had settled. He had a worrying sense of being newly awakened. How long had he been out? Pain overwhelmed him. Each breath was crippling agony. Hatch’s body was a dead weight, pinning him to the rocky ground. Had he killed himself attempting to save a dead man?
The hot wind roared down through the gray and rocky mountains, flinging a storm cloud of gritty dust around. As if this was a signal, guns blazed from the stunted shrubs a hundred yards to the north of them. Pierce did the only thing he could do. He became fire.
Crap. Despite Hatch’s flameproof suit, Pierce had set his buddy ablaze. If his co-pilot wasn’t already dead, he would be soon. But the fire roused the other man, who immediately began to roll in the dust, smothering the flames that enveloped him. Hatch had extinguished his G-suit and was pulling out his pistol, before the fire-that-was-Pierce had reached the clump of bushes that was his goal. Those dusty, desiccated shrubs ignited even faster than Hatch’s G-suit.
The enemy guns went silent. Hatch emptied his pistol into the clump of bushes where the muzzle flashes had come from. Pierce desperately tried to decide on his best course of action. When a phoenix became fire, he could regenerate. But the risk was great. It was always your last option. And he had never done it before. Other members of his clan had told him about regeneration. It hurt. A lot. And there were other drawbacks too.
But his phoenix form had been dying before he took fire. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he returned to human now. Probably nothing good. The pathway to rejuvenation was fire, phoenix, human. In that order. Excruciating agony clouded his thinking, but he struggled to reason out his options. The vegetation was too sparse to sustain him as fire for long. If he continued to blaze, he would burn away to ash. He had to take phoenix soon. And yet, remaining fire was tempting beyond his imaginings. Just as he had always been warned.
As if trying to extinguish him, the wind blew harder. But the fresh oxygen only made him burn hotter. Blue flames jumped from the flaming bushes that Pierce was now a part of, and blazed a path across the desert scrub setting it on fire. Smoke rose in towering clouds. The dusty, spiny
shrubs screening the guerrillas became a bonfire. Pierce followed willy-nilly. He was the fire, but he had lost control of his talent, and the brush fire had taken on a life of its own.
In the face of certain immolation, the guerrillas leapt up, abandoning their hidden emplacement. Bent double, they scurried away, beating at their clothing with panicky hands. An engine started. Their dust-colored armored vehicle roared out of a pile of rocks, heading away from the fire which stood between them and their prey. A black haze effectively screened them even from Pierce’s paranormal vision.
He gathered his remaining strength. He and the scrubby bushes had become one mighty conflagration. He would die if he did not abandon this form. He ignored the searing agony, and the desire to remain a flame, and thrust upward. His phoenix emerged from the embers as perfect as if he had never fallen. Never burned. More than perfect. Improved.
He felt larger and more muscular than before. Wider. Longer. Stronger. His forked tailfeathers streamed far behind him as he glided over the smoke. This was fantastic. Abruptly he lost altitude. This too was something he had been warned about. After regeneration, initially you were as clumsy as a raw-boned adolescent after first-change.
All around him the winds calmed. The dust storm died down as precipitously as it had begun. The smoke lightened. Pierce tried to level out, but his newly made wings were sluggish. It took all his concentration to get his flight feathers to work.
Like all birds, a phoenix’s feathers were individually under full control. But like any fledgling, Pierce had had to learn to fly when he came into his talent in his teens. It now felt as if he had to relearn the whole process. And this inhospitable place was no ideal training arena.
To his relief, he caught a thermal and soared, regaining altitude. He peered through the lingering smoke and dust. Lightning split the sky. Before the noise of the thunderclap had reached him, torrential rain soaked the parched earth. The heavy drops also extinguished Pierce’s flaming feathers and beat fiercely at his wings. Worse, it saturated his plumage. He plunged for a second time to the ground.
The violent downpour stopped as quickly as it had begun. But by then it was too late. Pierce made a clumsy landing a long way from Hatch. Probably at least a mile. The brief violent rain had washed the air clean. Pierce could see the other officer clearly now, even though Hatch had camouflaged himself with mud.
He took stock. He was hurt. Not as badly as he had been when Hatch brought him down. But badly. For sure his left wing was broken. And he was in bird form. Rule one was never stay in phoenix when mortals were around. He would heal quickly in this form, but not as quickly as a search team would reach him. Shit.
As he slipped into unconsciousness, Pierce commanded his battered body to perform a last change to human. The three jeeps sent to locate the downed jet found a naked and bleeding Maj. D’Angelo wearing only his dog tags. He lay motionless on the pitted desert ground, an apparent casualty of the enemy. He had a dent in one temple. His left arm was shattered. He was unconscious. Only his bleeding wounds proved he was alive. Patrol laid him beside Lt. Hatcher, and transported both men to the field hospital.
The fighter jet was salvaged by locals. For months, they eked out a living selling the scraps to the US military. A ragged goat herder told an improbable tale of a glorious bird that set the desert on fire, thereby depriving his flock of forage. This earned him a beating from the uncle whose goats had gone hungry, as well as a reputation as a masterful storyteller of enviable inventiveness.
CHAPTER ONE
Missiles roared out of an apparently featureless gray landscape. Two screeched past the fighter jet. The third scored a direct hit to the fuselage. The plane lurched sideways. Despite the tight webbing of the seat belts, the pilot and the co-pilot were tossed around in their seats like crash test dummies. The controls went slack in the pilot’s hands. Maj. Pierce D’Angelo wrestled futilely with his joystick. A split second later he accepted that his aircraft was in a nosedive from which he could not divert it.
“Take over,” Maj. D’Angelo ordered his co-pilot.
Lt. Edwin Hatcher was still flipping switches as per standing orders, one hand on his stick. He engaged and attempted to level the plane. His controls were as slack as D’Angelo’s. The plane began to spin as it maintained its downward trajectory.
“Eject,” D’Angelo ordered.
Despite the damage done to the aircraft, the mechanisms that released Pierce’s seat responded smoothly. He was in freefall at the count of three. His parachute deployed precisely fifteen seconds after he pulled the cord. Automatically, he checked for Hatch. The other officer shot past him, chute still unopened, orange ripcord handle gripped in one fist, the attached cord flailing wildly.
Pierce knew Hatch was in freefall. Neither of them had been issued auxiliary packs with backup parachutes. The uprush of air into Pierce’s parachute yanked him away from his subordinate. He saw rather than heard Hatch’s scream. Without a parachute, his teammate was doomed.
Pierce was unbuckling his own parachute before he realized he had made a decision. The canopy floated away as he shifted into phoenix. His buff-colored G-suit became confetti whisked away on the hot winds. A blazing bird spread his enormous wings to catch the fierce updraft.
Only the radiant glow of phoenix plumage could be seen by human eyes. The dazzling, paranormal rainbow colors of their feathers were virtually impossible for ordinary mortals to see — particularly at high speed. Pierce might appear as an iridescent blur too bright to focus on, but that was all. If anyone was observing his descent, he was now as good as invisible.
Far below him, Hatch’s body splayed out and spiraled helplessly towards the ground. Pierce could see that Hatch was unconscious. That was one blessing of freefalling. You passed out before you hit the ground. Before you died.
Pierce was strong. Impossibly strong. In greater phoenix, he was as large as a small plane and just as fast. His eyesight was more acute than an eagle’s. At will, with the touch of a single feather, he could set anything afire. But to save his brother officer, speed was what he needed.
Pierce folded his immense wings against his torso and prepared to dive. Like a blast from a suddenly opened furnace, a rush of hot wind battered him from the side, reminding him that this was the Arabian Desert. He fought for control. Despite the urgency and terror of the moment, he had to fight the dizzying excitement that accompanied flying faster than the speed of sound. As always, acceleration was itself an intoxicant.
Like the streamlined raptor he was, Pierce dropped headfirst, aiming for Hatch. Below him, his buddy grew bigger as the phoenix got closer. Twenty feet above the ground, he extended his wings, thrust his mighty legs forward, and snatched Hatch’s torso in his talons. His wings decelerated them both.
Pierce had pulled his buddy back from the brink of death. But he had not calculated for the extra weight and momentum of Hatch’s burly body. His balance altered. He destabilized. There was no time to correct his error. Pierce juddered and cartwheeled in the air on wings that had lost their lift. The ground rose up to meet him.
The landing knocked the air from Pierce’s lungs. His eyes opened. The dust had settled. He had a worrying sense of being newly awakened. How long had he been out? Pain overwhelmed him. Each breath was crippling agony. Hatch’s body was a dead weight, pinning him to the rocky ground. Had he killed himself attempting to save a dead man?
The hot wind roared down through the gray and rocky mountains, flinging a storm cloud of gritty dust around. As if this was a signal, guns blazed from the stunted shrubs a hundred yards to the north of them. Pierce did the only thing he could do. He became fire.
Crap. Despite Hatch’s flameproof suit, Pierce had set his buddy ablaze. If his co-pilot wasn’t already dead, he would be soon. But the fire roused the other man, who immediately began to roll in the dust, smothering the flames that enveloped him. Hatch had extinguished his G-suit and was pulling out his pistol, before the fire-that-was-Pierce had reached the clump of bu
shes that was his goal. Those dusty, desiccated shrubs ignited even faster than Hatch’s G-suit.
The enemy guns went silent. Hatch emptied his pistol into the clump of bushes where the muzzle flashes had come from. Pierce desperately tried to decide on his best course of action. When a phoenix became fire, he could regenerate. But the risk was great. It was always your last option. And he had never done it before. Other members of his clan had told him about regeneration. It hurt. A lot. And there were other drawbacks too.
But his phoenix form had been dying before he took fire. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he returned to human now. Probably nothing good. The pathway to rejuvenation was fire, phoenix, human. In that order. Excruciating agony clouded his thinking, but he struggled to reason out his options. The vegetation was too sparse to sustain him as fire for long. If he continued to blaze, he would burn away to ash. He had to take phoenix soon. And yet, remaining fire was tempting beyond his imaginings. Just as he had always been warned.
As if trying to extinguish him, the wind blew harder. But the fresh oxygen only made him burn hotter. Blue flames jumped from the flaming bushes that Pierce was now a part of, and blazed a path across the desert scrub setting it on fire. Smoke rose in towering clouds. The dusty, spiny shrubs screening the guerrillas became a bonfire. Pierce followed willy-nilly. He was the fire, but he had lost control of his talent, and the brush fire had taken on a life of its own.
In the face of certain immolation, the guerrillas leapt up, abandoning their hidden emplacement. Bent double, they scurried away, beating at their clothing with panicky hands. An engine started. Their dust-colored armored vehicle roared out of a pile of rocks, heading away from the fire which stood between them and their prey. A black haze effectively screened them even from Pierce’s paranormal vision.
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