{"product_id":"tied-with-a-bow-isbn-9780425243299","title":"Tied with a Bow","description":"\u003cb\u003e#1 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author Lora Leigh headlines  an all-new paranormal romance anthology that turns up the holiday heat.  \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e#1 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author Lora Leigh features the  Breeds in her story. \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author Virginia  Kantra brings a haunting tale of a fallen angel. USA Today bestselling  author Eileen Wilks returns to the shapeshifing Lupi for another  magical tale. National bestselling author Kimberly Frost introduces a  new paronormal world of muses and vampires.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e Lora Leigh\u003c\/b\u003e lives in Pennsylvania. \u003cb\u003eVirginia Kantra\u003c\/b\u003e lives in North Carolina. \u003cb\u003eEileen Wilks\u003c\/b\u003e lives in Texas. \u003cb\u003eKimberly Frost\u003c\/b\u003e lives in Texas.\u003cp\u003eUpon a Midnight Clear\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eVIRGINIA KANTRA\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eTo Carolyn Martin, who knows a thing or two about angels.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eChapter One\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePARIS, FRANCE, DECEMBER 1792\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe angel came down in the long gallery of the Conciergerie prison, the notorious antechamber to the guillotine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStone walls could not keep him out. Stench and darkness offered no deterrent. He was a child of the air, elemental, immortal, one of the First Creation. As long as he did not materialize completely, he could go anywhere.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCold seeped through the blocked grates and up from the flagstones along with the miasma of human misery. The corridor was alive with sighs and sobs and vermin. In the bloody wake of revolution, the prisons of Paris were filled to bursting with the \u003ci\u003eci-devant\u003c\/i\u003e aristocracy and their suspected sympathizers. Few had the money or influence to secure the comforts of a private incarceration, a bed, food, firewood, perhaps a chamber pot. Cells intended for one or two prisoners held four, six, a dozen men, women, and children, packed together on the filthy straw like so many bottles of wine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the stone blocks adjoining the exercise yard, some poor soul had scratched BIENVENUE EN ENFER. Welcome to Hell.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut this was not Hell. There were still those here who called on God in their distress. So the angel had come, drawn by a dying mother’s prayer to provide . . .\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot escape, the angel acknowledged. He felt the brush of some  unusual emotion, threatening his angelic detachment. Frustration, perhaps.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe children of air were forbidden from interfering directly in worldly affairs. With rare exceptions, humans must work out their own fate, their own salvation. But the angel could offer comfort to ease the woman’s soul from this life to the next.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis frustration—if that’s what it was—deepened. Tonight, solace did not seem enough.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe flexed his shoulders at the admission, feeling a prickle between his shoulder blades. He was an angel of God. Comfort was his stock in trade. It must suffice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA woman’s hoarse Latin slipped through the bars to hang like frost in the air. “\u003ci\u003eSancta Maria, Mater Domini nostri, ora pro nobis pec-catoribus.\u003c\/i\u003e” \u003ci\u003eHoly Mary, Mother of our Lord, pray for us sinners.\u003c\/i\u003e “\u003ci\u003eNunc et in hora . . .”\u003c\/i\u003e A cough. “\u003ci\u003eEt in hora . . .”\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMore coughing, deep, wracking.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Lie quiet, Maman.” A girl’s voice, sweet and clear and welcome as water in this dirty hole, speaking the King’s French. “You must save your breath.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe angel followed the voice through the square iron grate into the cell. Two women—a woman and a girl, rather—huddled on the straw inside. The girl knelt on the brutally cold floor, supporting her mother’s shoulders, trying to ease her breathing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe child was very pretty, the angel observed dispassionately, with a delicate nose, a heart-shaped faced blunted by a firm, rounded chin, and eyes as blue as an October sky. But it was the mother who had called him here. Citoyenne Solange Blanchard, former Comtesse de Brissac, convent bred and barely thirty.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003ci\u003eNunc et in hora mortis nostrae,\u003c\/i\u003e” the \u003ci\u003ecomtesse\u003c\/i\u003e whispered. \u003ci\u003eNow and at the hour of our death.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Maman, you must rest,” the girl scolded gently. “You need your strength.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe angel could have told the girl that no amount of rest would make any difference. The infection in the \u003ci\u003ecomtesse\u003c\/i\u003e’s lungs had attacked her already weakened system.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut the girl’s tenderness moved him anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe spread his power over the dying woman like wings, extending over her the peace of the presence of God.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSolange opened her eyes in the darkness, focusing on his face. “An angel,” she whispered. “Come to save us.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe was hardly surprised that she could see him. She was very near death. “I cannot,” he told her gently.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMust not.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Save her,” the woman insisted. Her daughter, thirteen-year-old Aimée. “When I am gone, she will be alone.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe girl chafed her mother’s hands. “Maman, you must not upset yourself.” Doubtless the child believed the \u003ci\u003ecomtesse\u003c\/i\u003e was talking to herself, out of her mind with fever and grief.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe whole country was mad. After centuries of privilege, the Old Regime was paying for its sins of pride and abuse of power. In three short years, the \u003ci\u003ecomtesse\u003c\/i\u003e had been stripped of everything: lands, tithes, and titles. The life of her husband. Their son.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese humans went too far in redressing old wrongs. They had no concept of Heavenly justice, no understanding of divine mercy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eComfort\u003c\/i\u003e, the angel reminded himself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Your family will be reunited soon,” he assured Solange.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe would be dead by morning. And her daughter would follow, executed within the week, sacrificed to nationalist fervor and bloodlust.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnderneath the familiar flowering of compassion, anger stirred, like a worm at the heart of a rose.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSolange wet her dry lips. “One day. Not yet. You must . . .” Another cough rattled the \u003ci\u003ecomtesse\u003c\/i\u003e’s frail frame. She met the angel’s gaze, the light of faith or determination in her eyes. “You \u003ci\u003ewill\u003c\/i\u003e save her.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSuch faith should be rewarded.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShouldn’t it?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I will.” The words falling from his lips caught him by surprise.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe was an angel, bound to discern the will of God, to protect, and to obey. He regarded the dark sweep of the child’s lashes, the sheltering curve of her shoulders.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat if the charge to protect, the call to obey, pulled him in different directions?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe would be punished for his disobedience, of course. Not for the first time. Michael, leader of the Heavenly host, took a dim view of insubordination. But perhaps Gabriel would intercede for him. It was almost Christmas, after all. The season of miracles. There was some precedent for his intervention in human affairs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“You promise,” Solange insisted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRecklessness seized him. “I swear.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe girl glanced up, almost as if she heard him. Those clear blue eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe angel jolted. She saw him? Was she that pure? That innocent? Or was she like her mother, close enough to death to feel the brush of his wings?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The answer to our prayers,” Solange said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Can he get us out of here?” Aimée asked, direct as a child, pragmatic as any of her countrywomen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Of a surety he can save you,” Solange said. “You must go with him.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe girl raised her head. He had no idea what she could make out in the dark. She should not have been able to see him at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“You will have to help my mother. She cannot stand.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe angel held Solange’s gaze for a long moment.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I do not go with you, \u003ci\u003emignonne\u003c\/i\u003e,” the \u003ci\u003ecomtesse\u003c\/i\u003e said softly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAimée stuck out her rounded chin. “Then we will not go.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“My dear . . .” The \u003ci\u003ecomtesse\u003c\/i\u003e coughed. “You have no choice.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I won’t leave you.” The girl’s voice rose, provoking glances and whispers from her fellow prisoners.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut the cell’s other inhabitants were too respectful of her grief, too fearful of fever or sunk in their own despair to intervene.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I cannot remove her against her will,” the angel said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“You promised to save her,” Solange said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIrritation flickered through him, crackled like ozone in the air. Frustration with her, with himself, with the sins of men and the limitations of angels. “She does not wish to be rescued.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntervention was one thing. He might be forgiven for granting a dying mother’s prayer. But violating a human being’s free will was another, far more serious offense.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe looked at the girl, her springy dark curls, her clear, wide eyes, the jut of that childlike chin. She was old enough to make her own decisions.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis chest tightened. And far too young to die. Her goodness shone in this mortal Hell like a star.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSolange continued as if he had not spoken. “I have family in England. A cousin.” Her voice, her strength, flared and faded like a sullen fire. “Héloïse married an Englishman. Basing. Sir Walter Basing. You will . . . take my Aimée to them?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No,” the girl said fiercely. Her cheeks were flushed, her shoulders rigid. “It is my life. My choice.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStubborn. He would need to silence her to get her past the prison guards.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe did not look forward to taking solid form, to descending into the flesh and the stink and the pain of human existence to lug her through the barricades. He dare not save them all.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut the girl would live. She would be safe in England. He would be damned before he’d let this child’s light be extinguished.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis lip curled. He might be damned, anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe breathed on the girl, catching her slight body as she slumped.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey didn’t have much time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Berkley","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300087124197,"sku":"NP9780425243299","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780425243299.jpg?v=1767742621","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/tied-with-a-bow-isbn-9780425243299","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}