The meeting with his family the previous night had gone amazingly well. His sweetheart was a hit with his parents, like he knew she would be. She’d been surprised by their immediate acceptance, but that was just the type of people his parents were. And Midas simply wanted his ambush members to be safe and happy. After that meeting, Cyrus felt like things could finally move forward between the two of them. They had an official date set for their mating, and then they’d finally become beloveds. He knew she craved that connection and solidifying their joining, and he was anxious for it as well.
Cyrus hated to leave Cella, but work beckoned. They had responsibilities and it wasn’t like he could just say he needed time off to sex up his mate. The hours between dawn and sunset seemed perpetually fast, as if some cosmic being knew that the time was precious and hit the fast-forward button. Like every night, they ate their first meal in the break room, him finding whatever culinary delight the chef had prepared, and her sipping on SyBl reheated in a coffee mug. When they’d talked about their nightly plans – whatever project he was working on in the nearly-finished restaurant and whatever office-related activity she had to tend to – then he walked her to her office and gave her a good, long kiss.
He wrapped a lock of her silky golden hair around his finger and rubbed his thumb along the soft strands. She looked particularly mouth-watering in a pair of black silk form fitting pants and a blue tank that hugged her curves and matched her eyes. He very much wanted to peel the clingy pants off her legs and drive her wild with his fingers and tongue, but instead he filed that idea away for later when they’d be able to enjoy each other’s company in the privacy of their chamber.
“Did I tell you how gorgeous you look tonight?”
“You might have mentioned it once or twice.” She smiled up at him.
“I’ll see you at break?”
“Of course.”
It took considerable effort on his part to pull himself away from her, but he managed by firmly leashing his cat in his mind and promising the time would move quickly if they just put their head down and worked. Of course he knew, as he walked out of her office and she blew him a kiss, that time spent apart from his mate was time that seemed to almost stand still.
He walked down the hall and out into the reception area. He greeted Angie, who was talking in hushed tones with one of her mates. He still couldn’t tell the twins apart, so he offered a general, “Hey, man,” and chin jut and walked out of the doors held open by Bellamin, the guard.
“Where’s your buddy?” Cyrus asked. Bellamin wasn’t a family member, but he’d been chosen to guard the doors each night along with Dylan, another coven member.
“He’s running late.”
“Take it easy,” Cyrus said.
“You too.”
When he stepped into the alley between the restaurant and the club, he huddled into his coat, the bitter January wind whipping down the alley like it was seeking out who it could freeze. As a shifter, cold didn’t bother him as much as it would a human, but Cleveland in the winter was mostly freezing all the time. He was thankful he didn’t have to walk far.
Entering the code into the side door, he walked in, stomping the slush off his boots and hanging his coat in the vestibule. He walked through the storage room and into the kitchen, greeting the vampires who were coming in for their shift. The second and third shifts overlapped by an hour, allowing the tigers and vampires to discuss anything that needed to be handled by the next shift.
“Hey,” he said to Gavin, who was closing up his toolbox. “How’s it going?”
“Great, man. You?”
“Not too bad.”
“I heard the meet and greet went well last night.” He straightened and put his hands on his hips. “Your mom was gushing to my mom this morning about how beautiful your mate is.”
“Well, I’d have to agree with her there.”
“Yeah. Then my mom asked why I hadn’t managed to find my truemate when you basically stumbled and fell into yours.”
“Sorry?” he said with a laugh.
“Nah. It’s all good. I deflected by asking Aeryn why she hadn’t told Mom she went out on a date with a guy from one of her classes.”
“I bet that went over well with Aeryn.”
“Yeah, she threw a fork at me. But it worked, Mom’s full attention went to Aeryn and not her poor, unmated son.”
Cyrus looked around the kitchen. “It’s looking good.”
“We’re on track to finish on time, thankfully. Midas has a job lined up for when this is finished, and he wants me to be the manager.”
“That’s great, man. Congrats.”
“Thanks. It’s about time he realized my greatness.”
Cyrus shook his head with a laugh. He went over the notes with Gavin for the work that had been done during his shift and left him to finish out his day.
“Tell your mom and dad I said hi.”
“Sure thing. Take it easy.”
Cyrus met Merrix and the vampire crew in the back of the kitchen to share the tiger crew’s notes. Once everyone knew their assignments, Cyrus gathered tools for his assignment – installing the fixtures in the men’s restroom. The restroom was one of the nicest ones he’d ever seen. It was as ritzy as the rest of the place, all chrome and crystal, but managed to still maintain an edge of masculinity. As he shouldered the tool bag, he glanced at his phone to check the time, which as he always noticed, was not moving as fast as he’d like.
He emerged from the storage area that housed the tools, amid the hustle of the tigers leaving and the vampires arriving, catching a glimpse of Gavin who gave him a wave goodbye. Making his way through the kitchen, he headed toward the swinging door and paused. He smelled something unusual – a tiger he didn’t recognize.
He sniffed the air again, drawing on his cat’s keen sense of smell. He hadn’t imagined the scent. It was all over the door. But the scent had a strange hint of something “other” he couldn’t place. Almost as if it were artificial. Which didn’t make a lick of sense.
Feeling a bit like a bloodhound, he moved slowly through the kitchen, following the scent. It led to a ladder which hadn’t been put away in storage, but instead was leaning haphazardly against a row of stainless-steel counter tops. The fixtures had all been installed, so there was no reason for the ladder to be out.
Merrix appeared, strapping a tool belt around his hips.
“You see anyone new in here tonight?” Cyrus asked.
“Since I came on shift?”
Cyrus nodded.
Merrix looked thoughtful and then shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of, but I wasn’t really paying attention. Why?”
“I’m picking up a weird scent here, but it’s not a tiger I recognize.”
Cyrus put his hands on his hips and looked around the kitchen. Except for the ladder, nothing seemed out of place.
So why was he scenting someone he didn’t know?
“Do you know every tiger in your ambush by scent?” Merrix asked, brows raised.
“Yeah. Don’t you recognize the coven members by scent?”
“Hell no, there’s way too fucking many. I’d know the locals – the ones who live at the club or in the apartment complex where I live – but not any of the ones who don’t live around here. I mean, I’d recognize whether someone was a vampire or not, but not if they were a member of the coven.”
“The ambush is good sized, but the cat recognizes members, it’s an instinctive thing.”
Merrix took a deep inhale through his nose. He let the breath out in a quick rush and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t smell anything different. I hate to say it, but you guys all smell the same to me, like the jungle.”
Cyrus shook his head with a laugh. “Really?”
“Yeah. I think my nature always categorizes shifters that way. All wolves smell like fall and dragons smell like burning coal.”
Something niggled again at the back of Cyrus’s mind, his spine feeling like someone was jabbing a needle in between the vertebrae just to screw with him. There was something out of place here.
Something that didn’t belong.
He swept his gaze around the kitchen again, and then he saw it. A vague shadow on the tiled floor. Looking up, he saw that something was partially blocking one of the box lights in the ceiling.
“That’s weird.” He pointed to the ceiling. Next to the oddly shadowed light, one of the ceiling tiles had been left askew.
“The fixtures were completed a few days ago,” Merrix said. “No one should have been messing with them or the tiles.”
Cyrus went to the ladder and brought it near the fixture, setting it up and stepping up the rungs. The unfamiliar tiger’s scent was heaviest on the tile and fixture, and at this point, he could definitely tell there was something artificial about the smell. But the only reason for someone to add artificial tiger scent to themselves would be if they were trying to disguise who or what they truly were.
Like a human, masquerading as a tiger during a shift change, when things were chaotic and loud.
And no one noticed a male on a ladder messing with the tile, not even him.
Carefully pushing up the edge of the tile, he saw wires that didn’t belong there and the scent of C4 that he recognized from demolition projects he’d done in the past.
His cat let out a warning in his mind that was as clear as a bell. Get. Out.
“Bomb!” Cyrus yelled, leaping down the ladder. “Get everyone out!”
Cyrus and Merrix rushed toward the males in the kitchen. He shoved two ahead of him, propelling them toward the back door, when a terrible noise erupted from within the ceiling. He felt heat and the powerful blast, that propelled him like a rag doll. He had only a heartbeat to think about Cella, to wonder if she’d be safe. If there were more bombs.
If she would be okay without him.
The blast forced him sideways as the ceiling collapsed, burying him where he landed somewhere in the kitchen.
His last thought was Cella.
And then nothing.