The shirt was nothing special. Certainly not sexy. But the way he kept running his hands over her arm or playing with her hair, April felt like a goddess.
Most men she’d known, early in the relationship, certainly put on a big show, but there was always a falseness. She could feel that they liked her and were attracted to her, but that they weren’t as into her as their words might suggest.
With Cyrus, everything was different. She was convinced that if every woman on the planet paraded through his house naked, he would ignore them so he could concentrate on his t-shirt-clad goddess.
She snickered at herself. How quickly her ego had grown.
Cyrus glanced over to her at the sound of her laughter and raised a brow. She felt her insides melt and nipples tighten as she remembered the look he had given her when his mouth had been on her.
The thought of a few more rounds in bed passed through her mind. She didn’t care if she was sore. The pleasure would be worth it.
He inhaled sharply, and for a moment, his eyes flared up.
A low growl escaped his lips. “Woman, you’re going to be the death of me.”
“At least it’ll feel good.”
He chuckled.
Her mouth went dry as he leaned in for a soft kiss. Her body molded to his as he deepened the kiss.
She was insatiable, a wanton woman. She didn’t even care. All she wanted was for Cyrus to keep making her happy.
A loud knock shattered the intimate atmosphere. She jerked away and silently cursed whoever had interrupted them.
Cyrus stood to answer the door, a slight frown on his face. He trudged over clearly as unhappy as she was about the interruption.
“Fucking Titus, you cockblock,” he muttered.
When he flung the door open, the leader of Luna Lodge wasn’t there. Instead, the young hybrid she’d seen the other day, Peter, stood there, panic on his face.
“The phones and comms are out right now,” he said, panting.
“What the hell?” Cyrus said.
“I ran as fast as I could. Lucius told me to get you.”
“What about Sol and Titus?”
“I don’t know.”
Cyrus frowned, and he tensed. The lover was gone. The warrior replaced him.
“What’s the problem, Peter?” he said.
“Some of the locals have scaled the fence at the edge of the woods and are making their way towards town,” Peter said.
“Damn it,” Cyrus said. He slipped on his boots and started lacing them up. “Go tell the men not to engage,” he said. “The last thing we need is another shitstorm.”
April sighed. Apparently, as much as she wanted to run away from work, that didn’t change the reality that she was at Luna Lodge.
Peter nodded and glanced over her way. He gave a short nod to her and then sprinted off the porch.
“I’ve got to go,” Cyrus said quickly. “I’ll be back soon.”
Before she could even open her mouth to protest, he was out the door.
Cyrus could tell she wanted to come with him before he even turned around. This was the exact sort of thing she was supposed to be reporting, and he was preventing her from doing that.
Part of him wanted to feel bad, but the other part just wanted to keep his people safe. Between the communications being cut and the guys inside the fence, things might get really messy. Besides, the last thing he wanted was to find out just where he sat on the importance scale for her.
They needed more time. Time to bond. To grow their feelings. Sure, he was already head over heels in love with her. Everything April did was just magical to him. There was no guarantee she felt the same way.
He shook his head. He needed to worry about her later, no matter how important she was. This was no time to have his head in the clouds. It was time for attention to detail and concentration if he wanted to make sure no one got hurt.
He followed Peter toward the fence near a dense group of trees. He could hear shouting and spotted a gathered group of hybrids, including Lucius, and four humans moving away from the fence.
“Stop where you are!” Lucius shouted to the intruders.
The men released the rope and continued to move forward, their steps slow and methodical, as if they were having to think extra hard about just moving.
Cyrus frowned and slowed as he closed. Something seemed off about the men. They didn’t feel right. He sniffed the air. They smelled like normal humans, but their movements were too rigid.
They all held pistols, but they were pointed down. The guns suggested their little trip was about a lot more than just yelling slurs at the hybrids.
“Stand back,” he shouted to the men.
The men took several steps back. He came to stand next to Lucius, who was situated just to the side of the men as they moved in slowly.
“They’re armed,” Lucius said.
“I noticed.” Cyrus nodded. None of the men had raised their weapons yet. He held on to hope that they could defuse the situation. They still were a decent distance away, but not so far that a sprinting hybrid couldn’t cover it in seconds.
“They fire, and this is going to be a bloodbath,” Cyrus said.
He wasn’t worried for the hybrids. They’d take out the humans before they got more than a single shot off.
Lucius looked over to him. “We can’t let that happen.”
Cyrus nodded. Four dead locals inside their compound would be more than trouble, and no matter how innocent they were, the hybrids would not come out looking good. He wasn’t even sure if they had decent surveillance camera coverage in that area if they needed to prove anything.
He contemplated the men as they stepped forward. Given the way the men were acting and some of the experiences the hybrids had already dealt with in town, a possibility came to mind.
“Mind control?” he asked.
Lucius shrugged. “It would make sense. It seems a little different than some of what we’ve seen before. Guess they’ve been tweaking it.”
Cyrus nodded. The behavior seemed more precise, like they had better control. “Maybe it’s the signal.”
He didn’t know or understand a lot about it, but he’d heard Val discuss it more than a few times.
Lucius snapped his head over toward him. “Exactly! That would explain the comms. They are trying to boost their signal. See how far the range is.”
Cyrus eyed the men from town. “If it’s a signal, isn’t there something we can do about it?”
Lucius nodded for Peter to come over. The young hybrid rushed there.
“Go to Val. Tell her what we were talking about, and see if she can interfere with it enough that we can reason with these men,” Lucius said.
Peter turned to leave, but Cyrus held up his hand.
“Give me your weapon,” he said. If things did go badly, he wanted to be prepared.
Peter nodded. He handed Cyrus his gun and sprinted off.
“Think that will work?” Cyrus said after glancing between Lucius and the men.
Lucius shook his head. “I’m not sure, but it’s either that, or we risk tackling them.” He grimaced. “Since shooting really isn’t an option.”
The way he said it, it sounded like he would have preferred to just take out the intruders.
Cyrus opened his mouth to say something else but stopped as a floral scent drifted through the air. He turned and found April standing off in the distance, her gaze fixed on the men as she moved closer.
He cursed to himself. He’d run the most direct route. She’d followed along a path. The end result was she was closer to the men than he was.
Some day he was going to have to convince her to start listening to him.
Chapter Nineteen
April stared with curiosity at the townspeople as they moved slowly toward the hybrids. She walked closer and was surprised at the glazed look on their face. It was as if they weren’t fully there.
They didn’t look drunk. Maybe they were high. Still, it didn�
��t make much sense. It seemed unlikely that four middle-aged men from town would all get high than decide to raid Luna Lodge.
Her heart thumped wildly in her chest. This was the sort of shit that happened in zombie movies. The people would act weird and then suddenly lunge to rip out someone’s neck.
She doubted zombies were real, but until a few years ago, she wouldn’t have thought the hybrids could exist.
“April, stay back!”
She turned and spotted Cyrus. He was on the other side of the men, along with several other hybrids. She’d been so focused on the townspeople she hadn’t even noticed the hybrids.
Somehow, still, she’d ended up where he was. It was like her body knew where he was the moment she stepped out there, like they were connected. Though she wished she was closer to him than the men.
April turned back to the man she was near and started to back away when he stopped dead in his tracks. He lifted his head to look at her and stared at her with his strange glazed-over eyes.
He shifted, and she realized the men all held small handguns. She swallowed, having not seen earlier they had weapons.
“Hello,” she said nervously.
She didn’t really had a plan when she came out there other than she needed to do her job and observe the situation. Now suddenly she was a lot more in the fray than she ever expected to be.
April glanced back over at Cyrus. His body was tense, and his eyes were fixed on them. Her gaze dipped down, and she realized he had a gun as well.
Her heart pounded over the possibility a gun battle was about to start.
“We’ll protect you,” the man looking at her said.
The eerie and hollow sound to his voice made her shiver. Something was definitely off with this guy. And the rest of the men didn’t exactly look any saner.
“That’s okay,” she said and waved her hands. “I’m really okay.”
The man stepped toward her again. “We’ll protect you.”
April glanced behind her, wondering if maybe she should just make a run for it.
He reached out with surprising speed and clasped her wrist with a firm hand. He pulled her hard. April yelped in pain.
“Let her go,” Cyrus said, his voice a growl.
He wasn’t far from them. He’d closed the distance between them in no time and stared at the man who was now trying to pull her to him. He raised his gun.
All four men raised their guns in return. The other hybrids lifted their guns as well.
Fear lanced through her. Her pulse thundered in her ears. She couldn’t believe what was about to happen. She had to do something, anything, to try and stop it before things got out of hand.
April held up her free hand. “Wait!”
The men all turned to look at her. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just lower your weapons.”
Cyrus stared at her for a moment before nodding to the hybrids. They hesitated for a moment and then lowered their weapons.
April turned back to the man who had a death grip on her arm. “Why don’t you put your gun away, and we can all talk about this?”
The man stared at her for a moment before he started to pull on her again. “We will protect you.”
April frowned. He just kept saying the same thing. “Protect me from who?”
The man stilled. A few beats of silence passed before he said, “The enemy.”
A chill ran through her. It didn’t take many guesses who exactly the enemy was.
“They aren’t in control,” Cyrus said. “This may not be as simple as talking them out of it.”
April looked over to where he stood. He may have lowered his gun, but he still held it in such a way he could raise and fire at a moment’s notice.
“What do you mean they aren’t in control? If they aren’t in control, then who is?”
“Not sure. We’ve seen this before with some of the people in town. Some sort of mind control.” His jaw tightened. “As for the who, likely your boss, Senator Woods.”
April frowned. Mind control? That didn’t make sense. That sort of thing couldn’t possibly be real. She sighed as she stared at Cyrus.
She was starting a relationship with a genetically engineered super-soldier, but questioning if mind control was real.
But even accepting that mind control was real, it was hard to believe Senator Woods was involved. He obviously didn’t like the hybrids, both his public and private statements made that obvious, but surely he wouldn’t go this far.
The more she thought about it, the less confident she was. He’d made it clear to her just how important her findings were, and what he expected.
Also, she’d studied about town protests of Luna Lodge, and it’d been a while. It was mighty convenient that a major protest and then break-in would occur while she happened to be there evaluating Luna Lodge.
If the men were attacked, it would make the hybrids come off poorly in the reports and allow Woods the ability to do exactly what he wanted. Reverend John’s death had turned a lot of people against the hybrids, and he was a frothing madman who’d almost killed a woman.
Maybe the men were being mind controlled. Maybe they weren’t. That didn’t change what she had to do. She turned back to the man.
“I’m not in danger,” she said and struggled to pull herself away. “They aren’t the enemy. They are my friends. Please. There doesn’t have to be any trouble.”
The man stared at her for a moment before letting her hand go. April fell backwards onto the hard ground. She rubbed her wrist but was glad to be free. She let out a sigh of relief. Reason had one out in the end.
“April, don’t move,” Cyrus said, his voice low and tense.
She looked up and blinked. She was now staring down the barrel of a gun.
Cyrus cursed the man in front of him. He cursed Woods and anyone else who would put the lives of innocent people at risk to get what they wanted.
The idiot in front of him was doing the one thing that was all but guaranteed to trigger a hybrid’s animalistic nature: threatening his bonded. It was taking everything in him not to rip the man limb from limb.
He shook with the need to do so. “Let her go,” he said with authority.
The man turned to look at him but kept his gun still pointed at April.
For a moment, the men from town all swayed where they stood. A look of confusion appeared on their faces before being replaced with the blankness from before.
Cyrus hoped that was the result of Val finding a way to break into the signal controlling them.
The man pointing the gun at April straightened, as if the signal had suddenly gotten stronger.
Cyrus let out a low growl, but the man didn’t seem to notice.
“Stop it,” he said through gritted teeth. “Drop the gun.”
The man clenched his finger on the trigger, and Cyrus knew that time was running out. It was either do something and deal with the fallout or let her get shot right in front of him.
Fuck it. This wasn’t even a question.
Cyrus snapped up his hand and squeezed off one round. The man’s hand that held the gun dropped instantly as the man went to clutch his arm. For a moment, he stared at Cyrus with a hint of clarity and fear before dropping to the ground with the other men from town.
The other hybrids raised their guns, probably half-expecting the men to hop up and open fire. Everyone waited. No one stirred.
Cyrus knelt and reached down to feel the neck of the man he shot. He still had a steady pulse. He bit back a growl. The instinct to avenge the threat against his bonded was still intense, but he summoned his self-control.
He’d saved his woman and stopped the threat. There wasn’t even a body that Woods could parade around on television. He turned and stared at April.
In the back of his mind, Cyrus could hear Lucius shouting orders to the men, but it was only April that mattered to him.
She rushed into his arms, squeezing herself to him as she shook.
They sat there lik
e that for some time. One of the hybrids ran off, and after several minutes, Rachel arrived, a first-aid kit in hand, followed by Peter. Around that time, the men started moving, awaking from their slumber.
Still, it all was distant, like a movie he was barely paying attention to. It didn’t matter to him. He was right where he needed to be.
After a while he pulled back from April and helped her stand.
“We should get you back,” he said softly.
She nodded against his chest.
“I need to get started on the paper work for this,” she said softly.
Cyrus tensed. “What?”
April looked up at him. “I need to fill out the report while the details are still fresh in my head. I didn’t exactly bring anything to take notes with.”
Anger raged through him. She had just put them all at risk, and the first thing on her mind was her damn job and appeasing Major Dick and Woods.
Cyrus stepped away from her. He’d been wrong, so wrong. Apparently everything he felt was one-way after all.
“Peter,” he called out to the passing hybrid. “Take Miss Piper back to the dorms.”
“What?” April said.
Her voice was small as she spoke, and he knew he couldn’t look at her right now or he’d give in.
“I have stuff to take care of,” he said coldly. “So you can fill out your paperwork.”
He stormed away, not daring to look back.
Chapter Twenty
Cyrus scowled at the paperwork sitting on his desk. It seemed like Titus was hell-bent on keeping him busy with stupid and all-but-pointless work.
Three fucking days. It had been three days since he’d last seen April. She was still there at the Lodge, finishing up the week and making her final assessments. Apparently, Major General West thought that they didn’t need to stay the full time, as they had gathered everything they needed for a thorough report.
April was leaving soon and would likely never come back.
Despite the pull, he’d kept his distance. He couldn’t risk being with someone who put their whole existence in jeopardy.
His heart pulled a bit, and he knew that fear played more a factor than he wanted to admit. April had been the same woman he’d come to know. She had always been upfront about the fact she was there to do a job. Cyrus had just managed to put that out of his mind while other parts of his body did the thinking for him.
Cyrus: #11 (Luna Lodge) Page 9