Page 3 of Donner

Huh. My omega. Where had that thought come from? I barely knew how to be a golden eagle shifter. I knew even less about mating. I only knew I was an alpha from my time in the military, and I knew the scent of an omega because I'd delivered a few babies in my time as a medic.

"When are you off?" Jax asked, drawing my attention back to his gorgeous blue eyes. He was already gyrating his hips and bopping to the music.

"I'll be on break in," I looked at the athletic tracker on my wrist for the time. "Five minutes." I glanced down at his shoes and got distracted by his hose and … were those garters? Jax had all the makings of my favorite fantasy. I had to flick my wrist above my tracker to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

Jax touched my chest, bringing my attention back to his pinched expression.

"Huh?"

"What's your name?" His tone indicated he'd repeated the question. "I don't see a name tag."

"It's Beau."

"Beau." His expression relaxed back to an easy smile. "I like that. Like a bow on top of a present."

That was a new take on my southern name, but I didn't argue. I waved as he walked backward onto the crowded dance floor, and then the throng swallowed him up. I caught a hint of his hair here and there.

I lost track of him when my coworker, Ferris, came to relieve me for my break. Ferris was a Black man my height and about my bulk, though he was human through and through. His shaved head made him look like the badass bouncer he was. People tended to avoid him, but he was the nicest guy working at the club. I was glad to call him my friend.

"Tell Davey it's time to get back to work." Ferris pointed to our tall and skinny white coworker dancing between a woman and man who'd arrived together. Davey's skin stood out in the crowd. He couldn't tan to save his life, despite his dark hair. Sometimes, I wondered if he worked 3rdshift because he was a vampire. "He's been on break for twenty minutes now."

I gave Ferris a quick nod and made my way across the dance floor to Davey. It was already crowded, and it took me longer than I thought it would.

Then, a blaring alarm sounded when I was only a foot away from him. All hell broke loose.

"Fucking fire alarm," I said under my breath.

Davey looked up at the red flashing lights on the ceiling and then finally noticed me. "Can't we just stay?" he asked when I reached his side.

He wasn't only talking about staying on the dance floor. He wanted to ignore the alarm and risk a hefty fine. "We're on the top floor of a high-rise hotel where there was a real fucking fire just last week," I said. "We are not staying."

I understood his frustration, though. People were constantly pulling the hotel fire alarms, thanks to a new social media trend. It was never the same person twice. Most of the time, they weren't even staying at the hotel.

A crush of people pushed by me, then, separating me from Davey. I turned back toward Ferris, but he was already standing at the door to the stairwell, ushering folks inside. The bar elevator locked down with every pull of the fire alarm, so the stairs were the only way out. The blaring siren had switched to a voice telling everyone to remain calm and head for the nearest stairway or exit, but even I had trouble hearing the words over the music.

I'd been through enough of these things in Ferris's position closest to the door, where it was easier to hear. On the dance floor, the pounding bass drowned out almost everything except the siren's wail.

In the pandemonium, I turned to see if anyone needed help and noticed people tripping over something on the floor. That was never a good sign. I moved toward the obstacle, pointing confused people toward the stairwell. Finally, I cleared enough people away from a huddled mass on the floor.

Shit. I was too late. I leaned down and caught another whiff of omega, along with hay and peppermint. The new scents were mixed with coppery blood.

"Jax," I whispered. "I'm so sorry. Where are you hurt?" I carefully checked the pulse at his neck. Thankfully, it was strong. He had a laceration across the top of his head, but I watched it heal before my eyes. Before I could check him for any broken bones, he pushed himself to his hands and knees.

"Ugh. What happened?"

"Fire alarm. Everyone panicked." My anger spiked. Neon Haze was one of the hottest clubs in Miami, but they still didn't have a good emergency action plan. I'd been pushing for them to wire the electrical to cut the music and bring up the house lights whenever the building's warning alarms went off, but they'd ignored me.

Jax tried to sit back on his heels and nearly toppled to the side. I gathered him in my arms in a bridal carry and picked him up. "Shh. I've got you. Let's get outside, and then I can see how badly you're hurt."

Jax didn't say anything more, but he wrapped his arms around my neck in a death grip and tucked his head between my shoulder and neck. It felt too intimate and like he belonged there at the same time.

My legs started to burn after slowly descending two flights of packed stairs with the rest of the evacuees. To keep my mind off the pain, I imagined another scenario, where I was carrying Jax to our hotel room on our wedding night.

I snorted. Me, confirmed bachelor and sworn single guy, on his wedding night. I'd never believed in fated mates before, but now I was starting to wonder. There was so much I didn't know about being a shifter, thanks to my absentee dad leaving my mom while she was pregnant with me. He never returned, and we both got a huge surprise when I shifted into a giant bird for the first time when I hit puberty.

I laughed to myself down another seven flights of stairs, but then the hard slog continued down another twenty. At least we were going down, and Jax was light. Any heavier, and I would have handed him off to the security guard waving us by on the twelfth floor.

Finally, I felt the street heat as it permeated the lobby. All the exits on the main floor were open. Unlike the last time someone pulled the alarm and ran, I smelled smoke. It reminded me of the time a guest had gotten a bagel stuck in a toaster and then left it there until it caught fire.

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