Solstice Heat

• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Epilogue
  
• Loose Id Titles by Leila Brown
  
• Leila Brown
  

“You did what?”

Jason pretended not to hear as Donovan’s voice thundered over the sound of the quiet music he’d started playing in the background. He’d been cleaning the house all morning—not to mention trying to move things so it looked inviting. On the former, he thought he’d done an excellent job, but the latter was an entirely different thing. Hell, he probably shouldn’t have made the changes he had. He put it down to nerves. Nerves that he hadn’t felt since he was a young pup.

“Stop cleaning and tell me you did not just invite some stranger up here in the hope of mating with her?” Donovan’s voice echoed around the room with his barely leashed power buffeting the walls.

“She is not a stranger.” He’d been talking to her online for almost three months now. And yes, he’d asked her to visit to see how they’d suit. If things turned out like he planned, he would take her to the solstice ceremony and turn her. If he changed her before she knew what they were, he’d be trapping her in their world, but he couldn’t tell her and give her a choice. Their pack had very serious laws about outsider knowledge. Anyone who knew was either turned or killed. A policy he’d instituted after the locals started telling tourists the tales of the Climax werewolves.

“And if she doesn’t want to be turned?” Donovan moved around and stood in front of Jason’s wheelchair.

“Why do you think she’s coming early?” Jason pushed the wheels forward, bumping into Donovan. “Do you think I’m into torture? She’ll be the first woman—the first fuckable woman—I’ve been alone with since the accident. Well, alone and in any condition to do something about it.”

“Why couldn’t you just pick one of the women from the pack? Any number of them would gladly move in here and take care of you.” Donovan stepped back as Jason hit him with the chair again.

“Really?” Jason angled his head up to stare at Donovan. “Name me one woman in the pack who wouldn’t either see bedding me as a duty or as a means of gaining status. Name me one woman who wouldn’t look at me with pity in her eyes instead of longing. One woman who would look at me and see the man I am and not the man I was.”

Donovan opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked up and to the right as if he mentally went through the list of every emotionally free female of the pack. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again and raised a hand, but after he caught Jason’s eyes, lowered it.

“Exactly. I’m getting a new start here. I have no intention of letting you or anyone else ruin it for me. So you’re either with me or against me. If you’re with me, great. If you’re against me, get the fuck out.” He knew his old beta well. Donovan might question his choices, might even throw up some alternatives, but in the end he always had his back. Just like Jason had his, even when it had cost him his legs.

* * *

“You have arrived at your destination.”

The small mechanical voice droned on as Giovanni Odell looked up at the large, ranch-style house in front of her. She gazed down the wooded drive, wondering if she had been too rash in her decision to come up here. The costs of the flight and rental car were nominal—not even worth the thought—but coming here without backup and without telling her sister where she was going? Not one of her brighter ideas.

No. If she’d told Celestine where she was going, then she would have had to admit to monitoring Celestine’s online activities. Although her sister was twenty-one, Gio had kept her sheltered from the type of man who’d invited—no, demanded—she come up here. Even though Gio had busted her butt to send Cel to an all-girls high school and all-girls college, somehow Cel had fallen into e-mailing an online predator.

Her blood boiled at the thought of what could have happened. Gio released a pent-up sigh and got out of the car. Time to pull up her big-girl panties and deliver a smackdown.

Gio’s anger built with every step she took. She kept repeating that this could have been Cel. Her baby sister. She replayed images of Cel growing up through her mind until she could barely hold back her anger, until it was a writhing, seething mass just below her skin. She drew in a deep breath, then rang the doorbell.

Soft, calming music wafted through the door. There was no doubt in her mind now. The door opened, and she saw red.

The man in the doorway stared up at her from just below her breasts. Gio took stock of him. He was a large, muscled man with dark hair and a defined five o’clock shadow. She watched him survey her from the bottom of her toes on up. His gaze rested on her hips, then moved to her breasts and finally hit her eyes. The male appreciation she saw there did nothing to calm her temper. Instead it inflamed her, helped her put aside all the sympathy the wheelchair could have invoked. It wasn’t like she didn’t know that pervs came in all shapes and sizes. Did he use the wheelchair to elicit sympathy before he pounced on young women?

He wheeled back. “Please come in.”

This would be quick. She would tell him exactly what she thought of him and his little lure for barely legal girls; then she was going to stop at the nearest police station before going home.

She stepped over the threshold, looked to the left, and saw another man. Every ounce of control she’d been holding on to swept away. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing—inviting young women up here to such a remote cabin. Did you think Cel didn’t have a family? That no one would miss her? You jackass!”

She took a step toward him. He wheeled backward for each step she took forward. He would run out of space first.

“Holy shit!” A large African American man who’d been sitting on a black leather couch farther in the room, stood. The muscles in his arms were almost as large as her calves. She needed to keep her eye on him.

“Oh, so you thought you would bring my little sister up here with your sad story about being in a wheelchair and do some type of gang bang?” She advanced on the guy whose picture she’d found in the last e-mail, determined not to give him any sympathy because he was in a wheelchair. He didn’t deserve any.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you…” The guy’s words trailed off as Gio bent and put her face just a few short inches from his.

“Don’t lie to me. I saw the e-mails you sent my sister. You should have made her get her own e-mail account instead of using mine.” She hissed before pushing his chair back with her right foot.

“Look, I don’t know who you are, but if you’d wait a second and talk to us like a rational—” The second guy put his hand on her shoulder. Surprise lit his face as she grasped his hand and yanked hard. He landed on the ground with a hard
thud.

She wasn’t a lightweight, and she’d taken enough self-defense courses that she could handle herself. Not to mention the small can of mace in her pocket. She was going to say her piece, and they were going to listen. She was still holding the guy’s wrist as he went to sit up. She twisted until he grimaced, and then stared down at him.

“Stay down.”

As those words left her mouth, she watched the guy in the wheelchair move. More like twitch. He growled at her. Actually growled, like an animal. Then suddenly he
was
an animal. She saw the change with her own eyes. His hair spreading like a rippling wave, the bones in his face cracking and moving under his skin. It seemed to happen in slow motion, but some part of her brain knew only seconds had ticked by. She tried to swallow, but her throat wouldn’t cooperate, and her scream died before it reached her lips. The beast was now at least two times as large as the man.