Summer Surrender (Phases Series, Book Six) (8 page)

That wasn’t a lie at all. She felt awful.

“Do you need us to bring you anything? Meds? Pop to settle your stomach? Some dry toast?”

She smiled in spite of herself. “No. I’ll be okay. I think I just need some rest.”

“I’m really sorry if we’re the cause of this.”

If he only knew.

“It’s all right,” she forced out. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

After Josiah reluctantly hung up, Hollis laid down on the couch, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the computer screen. When she’d paused it to answer the phone, the guys were in mid-morph. And that’s where they still were staring out at her from across the room. Bones and muscles half shifted between animal and man. Daniel, with his eyes glowing, stared directly at the camera.

She closed her eyes, but there was no getting away from the images. They were burned into her brain. Scientific curiosity began to mix with the fear and anger.  If such a thing were possible, it seemed unlikely that only these three men had this ability. While there was clearly a familial aspect with Daniel and Dylan, Josiah wasn’t related to them—at least, not that she knew of.

So how many other people in the world had this ability? Of course, there had been legends about shape shifters since practically the dawn of time. Maybe they weren’t legends after all. Maybe they were all true, but no one had ever had the evidence before now. If she released this video footage, she could pretty much have any future she wanted. Research grants, talk show exposés, book deals. She could actually prove the existence of mythological creatures. And with it would come instant success.

Except that she didn’t want any of that. Despite her fear and anger, she genuinely liked them. Who was she kidding? She really liked them. More than she should. She didn’t want to ruin their lives and going public with this would do exactly that. She just wanted answers, and there was only one way she was going to get those.

* * * *

Daniel peered out the window at the sounds of tires crunching over the gravel driveway.

“Who’s here?” Josiah asked.

“Hollis. And she doesn’t look happy.”

She had her purse slung over her shoulder as she walked up the front steps. Daniel had the door open before she’d even had a chance to knock. She turned her face letting him kiss only her cheek, and she smelled vaguely of fear. Concern twisted his gut.

“Are you feeling any better?” he asked.

Her smile was tight. “Not especially.” She sat in the chair closest to the door. “What can you tell me about shape shifters?”

The world slipped from under his feet, but he refused to let it show. “Shape shifters? You mean like in horror stories?”

“No. I mean real shape shifters. People who morph from animal to human and presumably back again.” She pinned them each with a steady, distant stare. “Lynxes, in particular.”

What the fuck, man?
Josiah’s voice sounded in his head.

Daniel held her gaze. “I don’t understand—”

“Hey, that makes two of us. Because I don’t understand how two guys I know—two guys that I
had sex with—
can be both animals and men. Oh and your brother, too.” She paused to look at each of them. “I don’t suppose either one of you wants to clue me in on that?”

Ice water flooded his veins, but he forced himself to remain calm. “Why would you even think that?”

Her mouth opened and closed several times as if that were the last question she’d expected to be asked. “Because I
saw
you. All three of you.”

Josiah laughed. “Good one, Hollis.”

She jumped to her feet. “I’m not joking.”

“Right,” Daniel said in what he hoped was a soothing voice. “But sometimes our eyes play tricks on us. Especially when we’re tired.” He tried to tuck a flyaway lock of hair behind her ear, but she jerked away from his touch. He continued, undaunted. “And it’s not like any of us have gotten a lot of sleep lately.”

“Seriously?” Incredulity made her voice shrill, and frustration rolled of her in waves. “You’re going to try to pass this off as me being so tired from fucking you that I’m seeing things?” She looked at Josiah. “I can’t believe you two.”

Josiah simply shrugged. “Do you want some wine or something?”

She looked at him as if he were an idiot. “No, I don’t want any wine or something. What I want is for you two to level with me and tell me what the hell is going on around here.”

The color was high in Hollis’ cheeks, and her lips were pressed tightly together while she waited for them to respond.

Worry twisted his gut. He didn’t know which frightened him more—the idea of having his secret exposed or the possibility of losing her. The thought of never holding her again, of never seeing her smile or hearing her cry out when she came, made his chest ache. He knew Josiah felt the same way. Daniel could feel the other man’s fear from across the room.

“There’s nothing going on here,” Daniel finally said.

“Bullshit.” She dug through her purse. “Sit down. I’ve got something to show you.”

Reluctantly, he joined Josiah on the couch while she crossed the room to the TV and slid a disc into the DVD player. The screen crackled to life, and he saw the back porch of her cottage filmed with a night vision camera. His stomach dropped to his feet as he realized what she was about to show them.

Oh…fuck,
Josiah said into his head.

Oh fuck was right.

“So, the first night I was in the cabin, I was sitting on the back porch,” she said in her best teacher voice. “As I was watching the sunset, I noticed two huge lynxes—way bigger than average. So I thought what a great project for me and the kids—recording and studying data from habitat cameras.”

“That’s what was in the box you had delivered.”

“Give the boy a cookie.”

“All I can say is I’m
really
glad I decided to review the material before showing it to any of my students.”

He watched in horrified fascination as the images on the screen shifted and morphed—the animal bodies stretching and reforming, becoming men. Their faces were unmistakable. This was it. If she chose to share this, their lives as they knew them were over. He supposed they could go live in the wilds of Canada or something. Maybe head to Alaska…

“I don’t even know where to start,” she said. “But let’s skip over the part where shape shifters exist for a sec and jump to what the hell were you doing? As near as I can figure, I was sleeping here, and you two what? Took off for a middle of the night kitty run?”

“We needed to talk to Dylan,” Josiah volunteered.

“And what? He couldn’t stop by and chat over a beer like a normal person?”

“I think you’ve already established that you don’t think we’re particularly normal,” Daniel said, trying to stifle his bitterness.

“You turn into cats. Giant cats,” she sputtered. “No. That doesn’t fall under anyone’s definition of normal.”

“It falls under ours,” Josiah said quietly.

That simple comment deflated her somewhat, and she sank onto the edge of the chair while the DVD played on a continuous loop. “I suppose it does.”

“So what are your plans, now?” Daniel asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said carefully. “What are you going to do with the recording?”

“Well, I’m not going to sell it to the Weekly World News, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Actually,” Josiah said, “that had crossed my mind, but I’m more concerned about scientific journals and medical journals. This sort of discovery could make your career.”

“If I shared these, it would ruin your lives. I can’t even believe you’d think I’d do that.”

Daniel stood, stalked over to her chair and leaned down, his hands on the armrests and trapping her in the supple leather. “You’ve gotta understand, ever since we came into our abilities we’ve been forced to hide them from everyone.” He softened his voice as he held her gaze. “Eventually, we’d hoped to share the secret with our mate. And yeah, we’d kinda been hoping that maybe you were the one.”

He watched her beautiful brown eyes widen as that information sank in. “You barely know me,” she whispered.

“Animals have an innate ability to sense their potential mates. So do we.”

He smelled both fear and arousal on her skin. “I-I have to go.” Hollis ducked under his arm and darted out the front door.

Panic gripped him as he remembered what had happened to Kelsey all those years ago. “Hollis, wait!” He followed her outside, but she wasn’t alone. Dylan was there in his lynx form, padding purposefully toward Hollis as she backed toward the woods.

Daniel followed. He knew that Dylan wouldn’t hurt her, but she didn’t know that. He wanted to be close by in case she needed him. Josiah clearly had the same idea.

Hollis stumbled, catching herself against a tree, and Dylan sat before her, effectively trapping her. As she stood there breathing heavily, Daniel stepped forward. “It’s okay, Holl. He’s not going to hurt you.”

Chapter Six

Hollis managed to hold back a snort of disbelief. There was a giant, fucking lynx capable of gutting her with a couple careless swipes of his huge paws sitting not more than three feet away from her. It was a little hard to take Daniel’s word for it.

Her eyes darted to Daniel then back to the lynx in front of her, but she didn’t speak. As she stared at Dylan, he shifted. Her stomach lurched at the horrible, wet sounds of his bones cracking and muscles stretching and popping sounded eerily loud in the quiet of the night.

Seeing it happen on a recording was nothing like witnessing it happen three feet away. And despite the stomach-turning sounds that were now imprinted in her memory, she was utterly fascinated. She couldn’t seem to make her feet carry her to the car. She was frozen in place.

With nothing but the tree for support, she stared at the three men. She wouldn’t have really been comfortable facing down three angry human men. The fact that these guys weren’t entirely human should have amped up that discomfort a hundred-fold. But as she scanned their faces, she noticed that any anger that had been present on Daniel’s and Josiah’s faces earlier was gone. In place of it was a vulnerability shadowed by sadness. Her heart ached. These were the men she knew. These were the men she’d been tumbling head over heels for. They didn’t want her to go. The truth was she didn’t want to leave. Not really. She just wanted things to go back to the way they were before she’d discovered their secret.

But that wasn’t possible. And now she was having a stare down with Dylan who was crouched on the ground. Despite everything, she knew she was safe the men—even Dylan. If he’d wanted to hurt her, he could have done it long before now.

Rising in all his naked glory, he stood in front of her.

Her gaze skittered everywhere. At Daniel and Josiah. At him. At his rapidly filling cock. He snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her to him, bringing his mouth down on hers. Her lips parted on a gasp of surprise. Though her fear had begun to subside, adrenaline still pumped through her body. The attraction she felt for Dylan and her feelings for Daniel and Josiah funneled the adrenaline rush into desire, muffling her thoughts about shifters and mates until all she could her was the rushing of blood in her ears. Giving in to the moment, she melted against the heated length of Dylan’s tightly muscled body.

Dylan knew the second she accepted his touch. Her nipples hardened against his chest and he could smell the heat rising from her pussy.

Lifting his head, he stared into her sleepy brown eyes. “Your scent drives me crazy,” he whispered as he nipped at her jaw line. “I smell you on them constantly.”

A breathy whimper escaped her at his words.

He might not want her in the forever sense that the other men did, but he’d finally admitted to himself that he did want her. He’d been nearly certain she was interested in him, too, but her hands skimming over his body proved it.

Daniel had stepped close to her side, brushing his lips along her neck and up to her ear. “Shifter mates mate with more than one member of the pack. Partially to help protect our secret—the fewer people who know the better—and partially because we typically like to share.”

Her nipples hardened against Dylan’s chest as Daniel spoke, and she tentatively stroked Dylan’s tongue with her own as he continued to plunder her mouth.

He could tell by her taste that she wasn’t his mate. His chance for a mate of his own had died with Kelsey. He shoved down the pain and focused on the warm, willing woman in his arms.

“Dylan’s not ready to mate,” his brother continued. “But he does want you. We all do.”

Dylan lifted his head and started into Hollis’ sleepy brown eyes. “You okay with that, sugar? Me joining in every once in a while?”

He watched her as thoughts clearly chased themselves round her head.

Finally, she nodded and looped her arm around Daniel’s neck and pulled him in for a searing kiss. Dylan couldn’t help but grind his cock against her soft mound. She moaned into his brother’s mouth so Dylan did it again. Breaking away from Daniel, she turned toward Josiah, grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him close, kissing him, too.