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“I’m going to use the ladies’ room,” Eleanor said. “I’ll meet you in the boardroom.”
Wes hesitated. “I can walk you there and wait for you.”
She laughed. “I think I’ll be okay. I’m literally in an office full of shifters who are paid to protect people. I’ll meet you in the boardroom.”
She walked down the hallway and, when they reached the t-intersection, gently pushed Wes in the direction of the boardroom. “Seriously, I’ll be fine. I’ll be right there.”
“Okay.” He dropped a kiss on her lips before walking toward the boardroom.
Smiling to herself, she headed the other way to the bathroom. The bathrooms were about halfway down the hall, next to the copier room. The exit light over the door at the far end of the hall flickered on and off, the red light fading a little more with every flicker. Reception was around the corner, and as Eleanor pushed open the bathroom door, she heard the faint jingle of the door opening and Daisy’s cheerful greeting.
She used the bathroom and washed her hands before studying herself in the mirror above the sink. She looked different. She looked… happy. Even though a shady corporation and an insanely strong shifter were after her, it couldn’t destroy her good mood. Not when she had Wes in her life.
Still smiling, she walked out of the bathroom and almost face-first into a large bald man coming out of the copier room. He wore a brown uniform shirt with “West Coast Paper” emblazoned on the front. The sleeves were so tight across his massive biceps that the fabric had ripped a little.
“Sorry,” Eleanor said, taking a step back and smiling up at the man. “I didn’t see…”
Fear washed over her, stealing her breath and leaving a bitter metallic taste in her mouth. Gone was the long blond hair and the overgrown beard, replaced by a gleaming bald head and a face with pale, thin lips and a deep dimple in the middle of his chin. But the muddy brown eyes were the same as was the madness lurking in them that she’d witnessed on the front lawn of Wes’s place.
“Hello, Eleanor Whitman.” The lion shifter grinned, revealing his razor-sharp fangs. “You have something I want.”
She tried to scream, tried to take a stumbling step back, but the lion shifter’s fist hammered across her cheek, and the world went black.
* * *
“Thank you for meeting with us, Mariana.” Cooper smiled at the pretty, blonde human.
“Sure. The story sounds interesting. Provided you have proof, of course.” Mariana reached to shake Wes’s hand. “Mariana Carminder.”
“Wes Masters.” He shook her hand. “Eleanor will be here shortly.”
“Great. So, Cooper said you’ve seen one of these enhanced shifters?” Mariana apparently wasn’t one to waste any time.
“Yes. He attacked Eleanor yesterday morning and tried to kill us both,” Wes said. “If it hadn’t been for Boone and Gray, he would have succeeded.”
“So, it took all three of you to fight him off?” Mariana studied Wes’s body. “You look in pretty good shape for an old guy.”
Cooper rolled his eyes. “Mariana, seriously?”
“What? I’m making an observation. It’s what I do,” she said.
“He was strong. Weirdly strong and fast. We know now that it was because he’s taking a serum,” Wes said.
“Right.” Mariana studied her phone. “So, did -”
She was interrupted by a high-pitched shriek of “you fucking cocksucker!”. Cooper and Wes froze before Cooper said, “Was that Lusa?”
Wes tore out of the conference room with Cooper right behind him. He ran down the narrow hallway, past the cubicles, and stared in horror at Lusa lying on the floor outside of the copier room. Boone knelt next to her with his hand splayed across the bleeding gashes slashed across her torso.
“Motherfuck, that hurts,” Lusa snarled.
“What the fuck?” Cooper said as Boone yanked off his shirt and pressed it hard against Lusa’s bleeding stomach.
“Fuck, Boone, that fucking hurts!” Lusa growled at him.
“Hold still,” Boone said. “Daisy, call 9-1-1, now!”
Daisy took off for reception as Lusa stared up at Wes. “He took her. The biggest fucking lion shifter I’ve ever seen took Eleanor.”
