Free Solstice Heat by Leila Brown Page A

dominant, you’ll fight. If you’re submissive, you’ll submit.” He didn’t smile, didn’t offer her comfort.
     
    “Basically I hide so this bitch coming to visit doesn’t try to tear me a new one. Gotcha.” Even as she said the words, her wolf cried out for her not to do it. To stand strong and fight. But what if she was a submissive? She didn’t want to bow down to another woman with him watching. Then again, she didn’t want to get her ass kicked in front of him either.
     
    As she heard the car pulling up, she walked into his bedroom, fighting her wolf the entire way. She left the door cracked enough that she could see into the living-room area.
     
    She held her breath as the doorbell rang; and he wheeled over to the door. She didn’t know what to expect but sure wasn’t prepared for the icy blonde who stepped through the doorway. She was impeccable. Her hair was perfect, although Gio knew the wind was blowing pretty hard, from the gush of cold air that followed her in.
     
    “Hello, Jason.” She slipped off black gloves, then her coat.
     
    Surely she wasn’t going to be there long enough to need to take that stuff off. Gio had no intention of staying hidden for longer than was absolutely necessary.
     
    “Toni, what can I do for you?” He sounded too welcoming for Gio’s taste.
     
    “Dane says you caused a shift. That you were actually healing.” She sounded surprised.
     
    Gio saw her big, encouraging smile and felt her wolf growl. She didn’t hear it; she felt it like a vibration through her skin.
     
    “What? You came to see for yourself? Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t change on command. I guess you’ll just have to take his word for it.” Something about his surly voice made Gio shift her gaze from Toni to him. Why did the woman’s concern make him so aggravated? Something wasn’t right.
     
    Gio sniffed the air. She smelled something that made her want to walk out and rip every strand of hair out of the blonde bimbo’s head.
     
    “Don’t be like that, Jason. Even our doctors said you wouldn’t heal. That you’d never shift again. If anyone had ever hinted that you would be able to shift and run—”
     
    “Then what? You wouldn’t have called off the engagement? You wouldn’t have told everyone what the doctors said? You wouldn’t have threatened every female who showed me the least bit of sympathy?” The anger and resentment in his voice were strong enough that Gio felt them like a backlash. She watched Toni snap back as if she’d been slapped.
     
    They’d been engaged? And the bitch had called it off after the accident? He’d failed to mention those two things when he’d convinced her to hide from his ex. For once she was in total agreement with her wolf when she opened the door and strode through.
     
    “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t tell them to do anything. They did it out of respect for me. For us. For what we had.”
     
    “That’s bullshit, and you know it. You don’t control all the women of the pack. And the ones I trust aren’t afraid of you—”
     
    “You got that shit right,” Gio said, taking the few steps to fully enter the room. She wasn’t sure Jason trusted her, but Little Ms. Perfectly Proportioned Blondie didn’t need to know that.
     
    “This is the human you converted?” Toni said in a tone that didn’t hold a second of surprise. She let out a little laugh, then glanced at Jason. “Was she the best you could do?”
     
    “From where I’m standing, his taste has actually improved.” Gio cocked her head to the side. “Something about that accident must have knocked him around enough to see you for the soulless bitch you are.”
     
    Toni sucked in a breath as her gaze swung back to Gio. The first thing Gio noticed was her fiercely blue eyes. The second was the way the muscles in her legs tightened. She sprang and pounced.
     
    Gio ducked, tucked, and rolled out of the way. She crouched and watched the woman slam into