My bear paced under my skin, restless and irritable. A prep table had wobbled when I leaned on it, and I’d barely resisted the urge to rip the damn leg off and fix it myself.
Even worse, Peppa hovered at my side, fussing about garnish placement, and I almost snapped for her to give me five inches of space.
She was my boss, friend, and a lioness shifter…but even Peppa gave me a wary look. “You’re in a mood.”
“I’m not,” I denied.
She snorted at my obvious lie and walked off with a shake of her head.
I set a perfect sear on the next ribeye, but even that didn’t settle me. Every breath dragged in the usual mix of kitchen smells, but beneath it all was something faint and teasing. Each time I caught a whiff of whatever it was, my bear lunged toward it instinctively.
Then it vanished. Again.
I growled low in my throat, flipping a steak harder than necessary.
Aero slid beside me to plate dishes for table six and gave me a side-eye. “You’re like a bear with a sore paw today. Snapping at everything. Should I warn customers or just duck when you throw a pan?”
“I haven’t thrown anything,” I muttered.
“Yet,” he corrected cheerfully.
I fixed him with a glare, but he wasn’t fazed. Aero was mated and had a son, so it was almost impossible to ruffle his feathers.
He leaned a shoulder against the counter, studying me. “You good?”
“Fine,” I bit out.
He grinned. “Peppa says you’re on a rampage because something’s bothering your bear.”
“Peppa talks too much,” I snapped before scrubbing a hand down my face. “Shit, sorry.”
Aero blinked. “Holy shit. Did the great Bexley North just apologize?”
“Don’t push it.”
He laughed and carried the plates out, leaving me alone with my frustration.
I had no idea what the hell was wrong with me today. All I could do was focus on work and keep my polar inside my skin because shifting into a one-thousand-pound bear in the middle of the kitchen wasn’t an option.
So I plated another dish, handed it off to a runner, and forced myself to breathe.
During a small lull an hour later, I headed into the dining room to see how busy it was, nodding to Booker when I saw him seated at a table with Alara and his parents, Elias and Mira. Worried I might’ve accidentally growled at the lynx shifter who was his fated mate when Booker introduced us earlier, I tried to soften my expression…only to catch that elusive, alluring scent again.
My nostrils flared as I tried to drag it deep into my lungs, but failed yet again, pissing my polar off even more.
As more of my friends found their fated mates, he ached for ours. But I worried that fate had already passed me by.
I left Chicago when Peppa bolted from that nightmare head chef at Castagna and decided she wanted something new. I followed because the kitchen there had started to feel like a cage. I didn’t know how successful her new restaurant in Timber Ridge would be, but Peppa was my friend, and head chefs who were shifters were few and far between.
Then she found her fated mate not long after we all moved down here. So did Aero. And then Thora, who was human and hadn’t even known shifters existed when we lived in Chicago, turned out to be Rome’s fated mate. Which we discovered when the wolf shifter visited during the birthday party we’d thrown for her at the restaurant.
Meanwhile, Larken and I were the last two from Chicago who hadn’t found the person for us, and she seemed perfectly content. Then again, our pastry chef was human, so she might not even have a fated mate out there.
My bear grumbled loudly enough in my head that I had to turn away and push back into the chaos of the kitchen just to keep myself distracted.
It was good that I returned because tickets soon piled up at the expo window faster than I could clear them. I got into the zone at the grill, but then the bell over the front door chimed again, and my entire world stopped.
The scent that had been teasing me for hours slammed into me so hard I had to brace my hands on the prep table.
