Free Summer Surrender (Phases Series, Book Six) by Bronwyn Green

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