Chapter 18
Tuesday morning, Seneca and Sunny were at the burger stall prepping for the lunch shift and the new burger of the day that she’d picked from one of his cookbooks: the Safari Burger.
It was a standard beef patty with smokey jack cheese and a tangy sauce made from mayo, mustard, and pineapple juice, which they paired with shoestring fries.
They tested the burger that morning in the commercial kitchen and it was a hit with the bears who were there working.
At the burger stall, Seneca organized the refrigerator while she used chalk markers to write the burger options: a kid’s meal with a slider and small fry, a regular hamburger, a cheeseburger, and the burger of the day.
“Do you like the lunch or dinner shift better?” she asked.
“I like lunch better in the fall and winter, but in the spring and especially in the summer, I like the dinner shift better because it’s not quite so hot. In August it’s a hot nightmare standing at the grill for hours over lunch.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she said.
“We did get those neck fan things this summer to help keep us cool and they were helpful, but it was still pretty miserable here. Not like the ice cream stall. Tayme and Rory get to stand next to a freezer all day.”
“Lucky.”
The park was quiet. He actually really liked this time of day, when it was just the staff prepping for the park to open and no humans milling around.
He could hear the janitorial staff moving around and the occasional call of a bird from the aviary or one of the baby animals in the petting zoo, but otherwise it was peaceful.
She looked around as she stood, her mouth turned down.
“You okay?” he asked.
She rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah. I just feel…strange. I think I keep waiting for Dario and his enforcers to show up again.”
He hummed. “We’ll keep our eyes open for anything out of the ordinary and we’ll keep each other safe.” He smiled at her and she returned it, relief shining in her eyes. “I’ve got you.”
He took her hand and brought her around the stall and drew her close. She closed her eyes with a sigh and leaned against him. “I don’t want to live in fear.”
“Me either.”
They spent the next hour prepping the burger stall, working side by side. They moved in sync like they’d been working together for years and not just days. He’d always enjoyed working the grill, but having his mate by his side? It was bliss on a supernova level.
He cast a glance at her and couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have such a beautiful soulmate.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re beautiful.”
Her cheeks pinked and she elbowed him with a chuckle. “You’re damn sexy yourself.”
He leaned down to kiss her, when something caught his eye. A glint of metal and a blur of movement, and then the world exploded into thick smoke.
“Down!” he shouted, pushing Sunny away from the explosion and down to the concrete.
“What happened?” she asked in between coughing fits.
“Keep low, we’ll get away from the smoke,” he urged, giving her a push away from the thickest part of the noxious smoke. He grabbed his walkie and hit the button. “Code red! Burger stall. Smoke bomb. The park has been infiltrated!”
Justus’s voice crackled over the walkie. “On the way, hold tight!”
Sunny coughed as they crawled through the smoke. He couldn’t see but he knew where he was going and he had a tight hold of her shirt. “It’s Dario,” Sunny wheezed. “It has to be.”
Seneca agreed, his bear roaring in fury. As they cleared the edge of the smoke and he could finally see, he rose to his feet with Sunny at his side and found himself facing a wall of enforcers and Dario standing behind them, arms crossed and a cruel expression on his face.
“I’m not here to fight, but I will spill blood if necessary. Bring Fallon to me or I’ll kill Sunny.”
Everything inside Seneca went very still for a heartbeat, and then his bear exploded in a rage so white hot that he was instantly on his paws, tucking Sunny behind him. His clothes were in tatters around him, his body bulking at the sheer anger that rose inside him.
How the hell dare that male threaten Sunny?
He roared, fangs bared, and launched at the nearest enforcer, careful to stay close enough to Sunny to keep an eye on her.
Security team members arrived moments later as Seneca tossed a jaguar away, the male landing on a nearby table with a dull thud. Park shifters joined the battle, his dad coming to fight next to him.
He could feel Sunny behind him. He kept an eye on Dario, trying to get to him to put an end to the fight. It was pure chaos, and Dario managed to keep himself just out of reach.
Seneca slammed a jaguar to the ground and landed on him with all his weight, feeling the crunch of his ribs, and then he swiped at another with his big paw, sending him flying. He caught Dario out of the corner of his eye as he attempted to skirt around the fight to get to Sunny.
He growled and lunged, but Dario was fast and he missed his side, managing to only swipe his claws against his arm.
Dario snarled and spun and something metal shone in his hand. It arced through the air as he swung it down and Sunny screamed his name a moment before pain shot through him as a blade was embedded in his side.
He roared and staggered, blood pouring down his side. He tried to rise to get to Sunny to protect her, but his legs buckled. Dario pulled the blade free and raised it again.
And then—
* * *
Sunny saw Dario swing a blade down into Seneca’s side and she screamed his name as fear swamped her. Seneca struggled to get up as Dario pulled the knife from his side.
The world blurred.
She screamed “No!” from the depths of her soul, the word morphing into a roar of rage as her tigress surged forward, feral and desperate. Her bones ached sharply and her body tingled.
And then she was gone.
No…not gone. Different. Changed.
Claws sprouted from her fingers. Her vision sharpened.
Her body had morphed from human to tiger, her fur bristling as she bared her fangs for the first time.
She didn’t stop to marvel at how amazing it was that she’d actually shifted. She slammed into the nearest enforcer and sent him flying, and then she lunged at another, raking claws across his chest with a howling snarl that echoed through the park.
Seneca was bleeding! Too much. Too much blood, too much copper in the air as he struggled to get up.
Dario pulled the blade from Seneca’s body and lifted it again with a cruel smirk.
With a roar born of something feral and deeply protective, she leaped over the fighting males between her and Seneca and straight toward Dario.
He turned, eyes wide in surprise.
She knocked him to the ground, the blade clattering to the asphalt.
He screamed and tried to knock her off, bucking his body and slamming his fists into her skull. She locked her jaws around his throat.
He thrashed. Shouted. Growled.
But she didn’t let go.
Her instincts screamed at her to protect Seneca at all costs.
To ensure it ended right now.
And she did.
With a hard shake of her head, a loud snap echoed in the air and Dario went limp.
Blood roared in her ears and an odd silence followed.
“Sunny? It’s over,” Marcus said, his shadow falling over her. She lifted her gaze to him. He was battered and bruised. How many park shifters had come to fight with them? Hopefully, all the jaguars were dead.
“Dario’s dead,” Marcus said. “You can let go. Go to Seneca, he needs you.”
She released her hold and shook herself out. Staring for a moment at the dead male, she wrinkled her nose and sniffed. Her body was buzzing with adrenaline as she hurried to Seneca.
She wanted to turn back to human but she didn’t know how.
So she purred and nudged him.
“Hey, let’s get him on a dolly,” a female with graying-blond hair said. “I’m Doc Paula. You’re Seneca’s mate? He’s going to be okay; we’re going to move him to the paddock and wake him up so he can shift. Can you shift?”
She shook her head with a yowl.
“It’s her first time,” Marcus called from where he was speaking to one of the jaguars who was injured but talking.
The sound of a heavy-duty cart rolling toward them grew louder, and then there were males lifting Seneca onto it and hurrying him away.
She followed, paws silent on the pavement, her heart pounding in worry. Seneca was hurt. He was unconscious. She couldn’t lose him.
She wouldn’t.
The males moved the dolly to the bears’ paddock and pushed him over the grass away from the gate and then moved him off it.
“He’ll be okay,” a male said.
Sunny looked up and realized it was Justus. She yowled.
He had to be.
Doc Paula was digging in her bag and pulled out a small packet. “He’ll heal once he shifts. I’m going to wake him up now.”
She cracked the packet and waved it under his nose.
Nothing happened.
Sunny snuffled him, leaning close to pick up the sound of his heart beating.
Then Seneca’s body jerked and he roared so loudly that the ground vibrated. With a growling groan, he shifted back to human. The deep wound in his side healed, slowly but surely, as he groaned and opened his eyes.
“Sunny?” His eyes went wide, his brows high, then he pressed a hand to his side. “Ouch, shit. That fucker.”
“He’s dead,” Justus said. “Your mate took him out. Bad. Ass.”
Sunny sat on her haunches and her whiskers twitched. No one had ever called her a bad ass before.
Doc Paula checked his side as it healed and gave him some wipes to clean his skin. “I’m off to help the others. If you need me, holler. I don’t know much about tiger shifters, but if she’s like other big cats, she’s stuck in the shift for a few hours. If she can’t shift back, though, lemme know.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Seneca said.
He reached for Sunny and she moved to him with a purr.
“You did so good, sweetheart. You protected me when I couldn’t protect you. I’m so fucking proud of you.”
If she could cry tears of joy, she would have.
She settled beside him as the security team congratulated her for her quick thinking and putting an end to the fight.
For the first time since the smoke bomb had appeared, she took a moment to reflect on what had just happened.
She’d shifted.
And killed Dario to protect her mate.
Something that she’d always hoped would happen had happened when Seneca was in danger. She was a shifter now. And she’d kicked ass.