by Chant, Zoe
He filled her with a single thrust, sliding into her ready wet heat. Destiny looked into his eyes, making it a moment of intimacy and connection as much as physical pleasure. She met his passion with passion, his desire with desire, his love with love. It was everything he had ever wanted. She was everything he’d ever wanted.
“I love you,” he gasped. “My mate!”
She cried out his name as she reached her second climax. He had never heard anything so sensual as his name on her lips, or seen anything so beautiful as her widened eyes. As his own ecstasy engulfed him, he held her close, glorying in the shared joy that had come to them at last.
Afterward, they held each other tenderly. Every curve of her body fit into every angle of his, like puzzle pieces.
Ethan would have loved to stay entwined with her for hours, if not days, but they had a much-delayed mission to go on. And if he was strong enough to make love, he was strong enough to carry it out.
Reluctantly, he sat up. “How long was I out? I mean before.”
She snickered. “I know what you meant.” Then, seriously, she said, “Just about twenty-four hours.”
Destiny cut off his exclamation of dismay with a shake of her head. “You needed it, Ethan. Shifters heal fast, but not instantaneously. Did you want me to wake you up earlier, so you could jump out of bed, tear off to the base, and collapse halfway there?”
He couldn’t argue with that. “When we get back to the US, we’ll stay in bed all day. All weekend, even.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
They shared one more passionate kiss, and he swung his legs over the side of the bed and cautiously stood up. A brief moment of dizziness washed over him, then faded. As he got dressed, he took inventory of his physical self. His side ached a little, and he could feel that he wasn’t quite up to his usual strength. But he was almost there. If he didn’t push too hard getting to the base, he should be fine by the time he arrived.
Destiny handed him his sword and tiger claws. “Here you go.”
“I thought I’d lost the sword.”
“I went back to the tower and retrieved it. Mine too. And my tiger claws.” Destiny patted her belt. “And I killed a deer for dinner. My tiger was beyond thrilled.”
“We’ve got venison?” Ethan asked hopefully. “Or did you mean you ate it as a tiger?”
“Both. My tiger had some, then I cooked some for me and you.” Quickly, she added, “Not from the part my tiger had chewed on!”
“Mudpuppy, I’m so hungry I wouldn’t even care.”
He accompanied her to the kitchen, where she retrieved some venison steaks she’d grilled over the fire, sliced up, and packed in a sort of lunch box of hammered bronze. Ethan’s stomach growled as she offered it to him.
“It’s not Aunt Lizzie’s barbecue, but…”
He was too busy eating the juicy, savory meat to reply. Once his mouth wasn’t full, he said, “You’d give Aunt Lizzie a run for her money.”
Still eating, they walked out together. As they passed the fallen tower, Destiny said, “I know it wasn’t our fault, but I feel bad about that.”
“Killing the T-Rex?” Ethan asked.
“No, knocking down the tower. It’s a historical monument. Or it should be, anyway.”
“It still could be. I mean, the whole city. We could contact some Indian archaeologists…” Ethan noticed the huge claw and tail-tip poking out from the heap of marble. “…or not. I don’t know if finding a fresh T-Rex could lead to shifters in general getting discovered, but maybe it’s better not to take any chances.”
Destiny contemplated the claw. “Yeah, I don’t think we want anyone finding any dinosaurs. But Mataji knows a lot of shifters in India. I bet if I tipped her off, she could arrange for a team of shifters to come dispose of the dinosaurs, then have someone ‘discover’ the city. Bingo! Historical monument!”
“How do you dispose of a T-Rex?”
She grinned. “I think I’ll let that one be someone else’s problem.”
When they reached the gates of the city and saw the jungle beyond, Destiny stopped. “We’d make better time as tigers. Want to take a walk on the wild side, jarhead?”
Yes, purred his tiger. We will run and track and hunt with our mate.
Ethan watched with enjoyment and barely restrained desire as she undressed and put her clothes and weapons in the backpack. He had to turn his back on her before he undressed himself. If they were both naked at the same time and watching each other, he’d either be unable to restrain himself, or she would, or they’d both lose their minds.
He packed up his clothes and weapons, then reached inside himself to find his tiger. Ethan imagined being bigger, furrier, hunting by scent and on four huge paws…
…and the world seemed to shift focus. He was on all fours, in a new body that felt lithe and strong and fierce. He could no longer see in color, but all sorts of fascinating and distinct scents surrounded him. Ethan turned to see Destiny’s tiger watching him with brilliant eyes. He tried to smile at her, and found himself making a huffing noise instead. They padded up to each other, sniffing and nuzzling, then, for a brief wild moment, playfully nipping and rolling over together on the ground.
Then he picked up the backpack in his powerful jaws and they set off at a brisk lope. Their tigers had evolved to travel in this exact sort of terrain, and moved between the trees with far more ease than they could as humans, despite being far bigger. And it was a special kind of joy to run through the jungle with his mate beside him, tracking the acrid lizard smell of the Achillo-whatevers and the human scent of their controller back to the base.
We hunt, purred his tiger with satisfaction. This is what we were always meant for.
His mate hunted by his side. Ethan felt light as a feather, in body and heart and soul. The miles fell away behind them.
Chapter 14
Destiny
They reached the jungle surrounding the Apex base as the sun was going down. The scraps of western sky between the leaves glowed like the heart of a fire. Destiny’s keen tiger’s nose could smell concrete, engine oil, fuel exhaust, and other odors that had no place in a jungle.
She and Ethan stopped, concealed by dense trees and hanging curtains of vines. Destiny nuzzled him, then nudged the backpack he carried in his mouth. He dropped it and became a naked man.
It was good to see him standing strong and confident, not even winded by their long run. She’d been so afraid for him. But that was over now. They were on a dangerous mission, sure, but Ethan did dangerous missions for a living. And so did she. They’d already beaten a T-Rex! She couldn’t imagine that base holding anything that could scare her after that.
Once Destiny became a woman, she took a moment to unabashedly admire him. The stark patterns of his black tattoos covered his chest and arms, following and enhancing the natural angles of bone and swells of muscle. She feasted her eyes on his biceps, his triceps, his pecs, the light dusting of golden hair on his chest. She always had liked men with muscles, and Ethan was well-endowed in that department. In others, too. What a lucky girl she’d turned out to be.
“You look luscious,” Ethan murmured.
“So do you. Being a shifter suits you.”
“It’s hard to believe I was ever anything else.”
He bent down, and she tipped her face up. His strong arms encircled her, protective and loving. They came together for a kiss, breathing in each other’s scent and warmth and presence. His body melded against hers in a perfect fit.
They opened the backpack and dressed quickly, then slung their swords and tiger claws on their belts. She left the gun in the backpack; it was useless without bullets. With any luck they’d soon be able to ambush a guard and acquire a new one. A tranquilizer rifle, preferably. They hoped to be able to get in, radio for help, break out the prisoners, and get out without raising an alarm, and gunshots indoors would certainly do that.
As they began stealthily making their way toward the base, a rustl
e of leaves made them freeze and drop their hands to the hilts of their swords. They relaxed as they saw the source of the noise, a tiny shape moving behind a bush.
“Just a squirrel,” she said. “Or a little—”
The creature burst out of the shrubbery. It was so covered in clinging wet leaves and moss that Destiny couldn’t tell exactly what it was at first, other than that it walked on two legs.
“Is that a chicken?” Ethan said doubtfully.
The whatever-it-was stopped right in their path, showing no fear of them, and hissed. Destiny imagined she could hear a note of indignation in the sound. Also, it definitely was not a chicken, unless it was a mutant chicken with a whole lot of teeny fangs instead of a beak. It shook itself, sending moss and leaves flying, and revealed itself as a dinosaur. A very small dinosaur.
Destiny and Ethan stared at the creature. It somewhat resembled the Achillobators that had attacked them in the Golden City, but apart from being much smaller, it was black rather than mottled green, and had a sleeker shape. Its color made it blend into the rich black earth of the forest floor, so much so that it was hard to get a good look at it, apart from the gleam of its white fangs and the glow of its yellow eyes.
“I think it’s a velociraptor!” Destiny exclaimed. “Remember, Ayers said they were the size of a chicken.”
The velociraptor, if that was what it was, let out another hiss. Then it suddenly began to grow. Ethan grabbed Destiny’s arm, and they jumped back as the dinosaur went from chicken-sized to Ethan-sized in less than three seconds.
“What the hell…” Ethan muttered, drawing his sword.
So did Destiny. “Must be another Apex agent. We can’t let it report back!”
The dinosaur leaped away, changing shape as it did. A blond man in desert camouflage fell over backward into a bush, exclaiming, “Oops, sorry!”
He sprang up, started to hold out his hand to them as if he was asking for a shake, then pulled it back as Destiny instinctively followed the movement with her sword. “I’m friendly! Ethan, tell her I’m friendly.”
“He’s friendly.” Ethan sounded more resigned than relieved. “Very friendly.”
“I meant to turn into a man, not a man-sized raptor,” the blond guy said, as if that explained anything. “I’m still getting the hang of this.”
“Who are you?” Destiny asked, bewildered.
Ethan made a gesture of introduction. “Destiny, this is Merlin Merrick, from my fire team. Merlin, this is Destiny Ford, my…”
Destiny had to repress a snicker as she watched Ethan fish for an explanation that wouldn’t keep them there all day. But Merlin was a shifter, he’d know what mates were… or had Apex only turned him into a shifter after he’d been captured? There was an easy way to find out.
“Mate,” Destiny said firmly. “We’re mates.”
“Oh.” Merlin blinked a pair of extremely blue eyes at her. “You don’t sound Australian.”
The snicker escaped. “I’m not. It’s a shifter thing. It means…” Now it was Destiny who had to fish for an easy explanation. As the words left her mouth, she realized that she was repeating Hal’s explanation to Ethan from those two very long years ago. “He’s my true love. Shifters mate for life.”
“Congratulations,” Merlin said, as if that didn’t seem the slightest bit odd to him. He seemed sincerely pleased. “And you fight with a sword, very nice. Do you play video games? Ethan’s true love would definitely play video games.”
“Merlin—” Ethan began, sounding exasperated.
It was obvious that the two of them had a lot of clashes under the bridge. Destiny decided to cut the argument off at the pass. “Let’s do the pleased to meet yous later. Here’s the important thing about me: I’m an Army vet, former military police—” She overrode Merlin’s remark of “A mudpuppy, cool,” by continuing, louder, “—a tiger shifter, and also I’m a bodyguard in a private security agency where everyone’s some kind of shifter. If we can get into the base, I can radio them to come back us up. They don’t know I’m here.”
“Merlin, is anyone following you?” Ethan asked.
“I doubt it,” Merlin replied. “I don’t think they know I’m gone yet. I escaped about an hour ago, when I figured out that I could change my size and squeezed through a duct. I’d meant to make a wide circle through the jungle, in case they did check my cell and launch a search, and squeeze back in through some other duct that wasn’t guarded.” Proudly, he added, “I camouflaged myself so if anyone did see me, they’d think I was a… hmm…”
“A chicken-sized leaf monster?” Ethan inquired.
“Something more normal in a jungle than a stealth-sized raptor,” Merlin concluded. “Listen, do you know where Ransom and Pete are?”
“No,” said Ethan. “We were hoping you did.”
Merlin shook his head. “I woke up in a lab. They weren’t there with me and nobody would tell me what happened to them or you. A doctor said they’d put me through some process called Ultimate Predator 3.0. He said it would give me special powers, and once I got them, I had to work for them or die. Then they stuck me in a locked room. Someone really screwed up to give me shrinking powers, then put me in a room with vents.”
“They didn’t know what powers you’d get,” Destiny said. “I have some friends who got caught by this same organization—it’s called Apex—and they think the powers have to do either with your personality, or with what you want at the time you get them.”
“Oh.” Merlin nodded. “Well, I definitely wanted to get out. And here I am. Out!”
Destiny was relieved that he didn’t seem particularly traumatized by his brush with Apex. Maybe it was because his stay at the lab had been too short for them to do anything horrible to him. But she hoped that the T-Rex shifter had also been telling the truth, and their new version of the Ultimate Predator process was less dangerous and damaging than the old one. If the worst that had happened to Ethan’s other two teammates was that they’d become shifters and gained powers, well, Merlin certainly didn’t seem unhappy about that.
Ethan gave Merlin an extremely brief summary of what had happened since they’d last seen each other. Destiny was impressed with Ethan’s ability to explain everything that Merlin actually needed to know in about five minutes, mostly by dint of not stopping whenever he tried to interrupt with a question.
“I like your original plan,” Ethan concluded. “Let’s keep it. We circle around, and you squeeze into a duct and let us in. The three of us can take it from there.”
Destiny was relieved to hear his obvious confidence in Merlin’s abilities, since she didn’t have any tactful way to check for herself. But any man Ethan trusted was good enough for her.
The three of them slipped through the jungle, working their way in the direction Merlin indicated. The sun set, and in the darkness of the night they could hide unseen in the cover of the jungle and survey the base. No one seemed to have discovered Merlin’s escape yet; there was no commotion or search parties that they could see. And while the entrances were all guarded, no one was guarding the vents.
“Here we go,” whispered Merlin. “I’ll try and get out that door there.”
He first became a raptor even bigger than the one they’d first seen, about the size of a small pony. Then, with an exasperated hiss, he shrank into his chicken-sized (or, Destiny supposed, velociraptor-sized) form. Like the T-Rex and daeodon shifters, he took his clothes with him when he transformed.
The raptor’s sleek, black form was even harder to see now that night had fallen, and she almost lost sight of him as he darted out of the jungle and across the ground. He was briefly very visible indeed as he clambered up the green wall of the base, and then, with a lithe wriggle, he vanished into the duct.
“He seems to be taking everything surprisingly in stride,” Destiny whispered.
“Merlin’s like that,” Ethan whispered back. “I’m appreciating it a whole lot more now than I used to.”
They waited,
watching the doors. If Merlin wasn’t able to take out the guards himself, hopefully by stealth and in silence, they’d have to jump in and help him. And whether they did so as tigers leaping out of the jungle or sword-wielding humans charging out, it would be neither stealthy nor silent. And then they’d be dealing with a whole ‘nother ball game.
A door opened, and a blond man dressed as a security guard stepped out. Destiny tensed, waiting to see if the other guards would recognize him, but they didn’t. She heard voices, but not what they were saying. Merlin made an animated gesture and pointed. Both guards turned to look, and he neatly shot them both in the back with his tranquilizer rifle. He caught them as they collapsed and dragged them inside.
Destiny and Ethan ran out of the jungle and into the base. There they found Merlin shoving the unconscious guards into the nearest room, an office already occupied by another unconscious man in nothing but boxer shorts.
“Sorry they’re not your size,” he said to Destiny.
“I’ll make do. I’m used to changing on short notice.” When Merlin gave her a puzzled look, she explained, “You take your clothes with you when you shift. Ethan and I don’t. I think it has to do with whether you turn into an ordinary animal or something… else.”
“But why—” Merlin began.
“Later,” said Ethan.
He and Destiny ducked into the office, where they stripped the guards, put on their uniforms, and took their tranquilizer rifles and IDs.
As they were changing, Destiny chuckled. “‘Later?’ No one has any idea why mythic and extinct shifters can take their clothes with them!”
“You haven’t had to work with him,” Ethan said. “If I’d said ‘nobody knows,’ we’d still be out in the corridor listening to him coming up with a hundred reasons why.”
While Destiny rolled up the bottoms of her pants, Ethan stashed their regular clothes and swords in the backpack. It was an unobtrusive black one, so hopefully it wouldn’t attract any attention.
