Top Gun Tiger (Protection, Inc. Book 7)

by Zoe Chant

  “Good lord. And here I always thought you were the hellraiser.”

  “Nah. Both of us.” He gulped at the tea, obviously trying to drink it quickly enough that he wouldn’t have to taste it. “Maybe she stopped after a while. I wasn’t there.”

  Hoping to distract him from the revolting tea, she said, “How old were you when your parents split up?”

  “Ten.” Ethan took another gulp. “They split up me and Ellie too. Dad moved across the country and took me with him. Before that, she and I had been inseparable. After, we saw each other once a year at Christmas.”

  “That’s rough. I can’t imagine.”

  “Aren’t your parents divorced too?”

  “Yeah, but Dad moved literally three blocks away. I saw him nearly every day, stayed over every weekend. It was years before Mom re-married, but my little brother calls his father Daddy and my father Papa.” Destiny hadn’t thought much about what that must have been like from her parents’ perspective, but now she realized how hard it had probably been. “Mom and Dad really knocked themselves out make sure we all stayed a family, even though they weren’t in love any more. I don’t think I ever told them how grateful I am.”

  “You should. Ellie and I would’ve given anything for that.” Ethan tipped up the mug to get the last drops, swallowed, and shuddered. “Got anything to get the taste out of my mouth?”

  He needs meat, raw and dripping with blood, her tiger advised. I’ll pull down a deer and rip out its heart. You can bring it to him, still warm and quivering. That will give him strength.

  Not enough yeccch in the world, returned Destiny.

  She offered Ethan another cup, this one filled with fresh-squeezed mango juice. His hands were steadier now, and he was able to hold it without help.

  “I have another herbal thing for your cuts,” she said. “It should stop them from getting infected and help them heal faster. It might sting a bit.”

  He smiled. “I think I can grit my teeth and bear a little stinging.”

  She pulled back the covers and began gently smoothing the salve she’d prepared into the incredible array of cuts and scrapes that marred his smooth skin. He felt a little less hot; she hoped that was real and not wishful thinking.

  Ethan sighed, but with relief rather than pain, and she felt his taut muscles relax under her fingers. “It doesn’t sting at all. It feels good, actually… Hey, how’d you learn all this? This is way more sophisticated than anything I learned in SERE training.”

  “When looking for edible grubs, turn over rocks before shoving your hand under them?”

  “Just takes one scorpion sting to teach you that lesson. And by the way, thanks for not bringing me grubs. I don’t think I could stomach them.” Then, his steady gaze fixed on hers, he persisted, “Listen, if I’m asking about something that’s classified, just say, ‘Forget it, jarhead,’ and I’ll never ask again.”

  “It’s not classified.” Destiny only realized that her hands were trembling when the salve smeared over his belly. She had to tell him. Otherwise, if she had to run, he’d think she’d been killed, or abandoned him. But the thought of him knowing just how flawed she was filled her with a horrible mixture of cold fear and hot shame. “I… I…”

  “Hey.” He laid his hand over hers. It was cooler: no longer fever-hot, just human-warm. But his blue-green gaze burned like a flame. “If something bad happened to you here… If someone hurt you when you were a little girl, that is nothing to be ashamed of. I’d never think badly of you because of something that was done to you against your will, or of something you did because you had to do it to survive…”

  “No!” To her horror, tears had thickened her throat, making her denial come out in a gulp. “No, no one ever hurt me here. They saved me! It’s me that’s the problem, me that’s weak, me that’s—that’s a danger to you, Ethan!”

  The anger and passion faded from his eyes, leaving them soft and bewildered. “How could you ever be a danger to me?”

  She had to protect him. This was the only way. At long last, she had to tell him the awful truth that meant he would never again look at her with trust, but only with fear. And, worse, disappointment. He’d only desired her because she’d let him believe she was desirable. And now he’d learn the truth.

  Taking a deep breath, she said, “Because I was born wrong.”

  Chapter 10

  Destiny’s Story

  You ever hear of a “throwback?” It’s when you’re born with some trait that your ancestors had, one that died out up until you. Like, Siberian huskies were bred from wolves, but that was thousands of years ago. Now they’re just dogs that look a bit like wolves. You can tell the difference because huskies have blue or brown or black eyes, but a wolf’s eyes are yellow or green.

  But every now and then, a Siberian husky is born with yellow or green eyes. It’s a throwback to its wolf ancestors. That makes it flawed. Defective. It’s fine as a pet or sled dog, but it can’t be exhibited at dog shows and they won’t let it breed.

  I’m a throwback. Like those yellow-eyed huskies. Born wrong.

  Hundreds of years ago, my ancestors were tiger shifters. But I was descended from the ones who had human mates, and whose kids had human mates. Eventually, the ability to shift died out. By my grandparents’ time, no one was still alive who could remember anyone who had been able to shift. By my time, it was a family legend that no one believed in any more.

  Until me.

  Thank God, I wasn’t born in a hospital. My mother didn’t like them. Didn’t like doctors. Since there weren’t any complications with the pregnancy, she hired a midwife and gave birth at home. It was all very gentle. I was put straight on her breast, and she held me until the midwife left. Then she handed me over to my dad to hold. I guess I didn’t like that. I let out a howl, and I turned into a tiny tiger cub and bit him.

  I didn’t have any teeth yet, but I still can’t believe he didn’t drop me. Dad’s a great guy. Mom took me back and cuddled me, and I turned back into a baby.

  And that was how it went for my entire childhood. I got upset or angry or even excited, and I turned into a tiger. I calmed down, and I turned back into a baby or a toddler or a little girl.

  It was lucky we had that family legend, because that gave my family some sort of vague idea of what was going on. No one thought I was a monster or a demon or anything like that. Once they knew the legend was real, they also knew that the people in my family who had been shifters had led normal lives. They hadn’t been locked in an attic, they’d been dressmakers and firemen and soldiers and so forth.

  My family figured that shifters must learn how to control the shift once they got old enough to understand why they ought to. So they told everyone that I had a problem with my immune system and couldn’t have visitors, but I was getting treated and hopefully it’d be fixed when I was older. They figured that if shifting is like knowing not to take off your clothes in public, I’d be able to control it by the time I was five, and if it was more like learning to play a musical instrument well, I could do it by ten or so.

  You see, they didn’t know any shifters, or know how to find any. If they had, they would’ve known that shifters usually don’t get the ability to shift until they’re older. Nine or ten, usually. Sometimes not until puberty. As a toddler, at the very earliest. And even then, they can control it themselves, though whether or not they want to might be a different story.

  Our house had a big backyard with a wall around it, and my family would sometimes sneak me into their van in the middle of the night, then drive out to the wilderness for a hiking trip. So I wasn’t locked inside all the time. But I never saw anyone but my family or their very closest friends.

  My family tried their best to make teaching me not to shift be a normal thing, like teaching me to read or not to throw tantrums. But I couldn’t do it. It was like they were trying to teach me to fly by saying, “Flap your arms! Now lift off!” And I’d flap and flap and flap, and finally I’d start cryin
g because it was the millionth time and I still couldn’t get off the ground, and then they’d say, “Don’t cry, honey, I know you’re trying. You’ll get it eventually.”

  But I knew I ought to be able to do it already. I felt like a failure.

  By the time I was nine or ten, they’d figured out that there was a real problem. They’d been trying the entire time to get in touch with some other shifters, but since the entire existence of shifters is a secret, they’d had no luck. They have some pretty funny stories about all the weirdos and lunatics they met on the internet. My poor dad had coffee with a whole bunch of them just in case they were for real, but none of them ever got past his screening to meet me.

  Finally, mom thought of trying something different. She pretended she was into genealogy, and she started tracking down every relative she didn’t already know, no matter how distant they were. Finally, she found a branch of the family who were still shifters, and we met them.

  It wasn’t much fun, to be honest. They tried to be nice, but I could see how they looked at me: like I was a freak. And they had no idea what to do about me. Some aunt made a snooty remark about us being proof that she was right about ‘keeping the blood pure.’ Mom grabbed me and stormed out. Dad stayed long enough to get the names and phone numbers of every other shifter they knew, and then he thanked them for their time, told the aunt he hoped she was proud of herself for making a little girl cry, and left.

  Then we spent a year contacting other shifters. After a while, word spread in the shifter community and they started contacting us. We got emailed by shifters from all around the world. Only they all said stuff like, “That poor child, I’ve never heard of such a dreadful situation, I don’t have any ideas but let me know if there’s ever anything I can do to help” and “I’ve never even heard of anything like this but my auntie in Beijing knows lots of shifter history, here’s her email” and “I’m so sorry, in all my years I’ve never heard of such a thing, best wishes from Beijing.”

  It was horrible. I’d spent my whole life feeling like I was this freak and wishing I could find other people like me. Then I found them, and it turned out that I was even more of a freak than I’d realized.

  Finally, we got emailed by a woman in India. She was a ratel shifter—we had to look that up, it’s sort of like a badger—and she said she didn’t know how to help herself, but she lived in a town that had a lot of shifters and some of the families had lived there for hundreds of years. She said she thought that if we showed up, the town could collectively figure it out. It sounded pretty unlikely, but by then we were so desperate, we decided to do it.

  Then there was the problem of getting there. If I got on a plane, I might shift on the way. They could sedate me, but then they’d have to explain why they were putting an unconscious girl on a plane. Finally, they emailed one of the “if there’s ever anything I can do to help” shifters, who’d mentioned that he owned his own plane, and offered to pay him to fly us there. He refused to take any money from us and flew us there for free.

  It was the first time I’d ever been on a plane. He saw how excited I was and invited me to come into the cockpit and see how it all worked. My parents were nervous about me turning into a tiger and crashing the plane, but he laughed and said he was an Army veteran and a lion shifter and he’d be ashamed of himself if he couldn’t handle one little tiger cub.

  I didn’t shift once. I just sat there, completely entranced. He spent the whole trip teaching me to fly. When my parents were taking a nap, he even let me take the controls for a while. When we landed at the airport, he said he’d be happy to give me real lessons later. I said I was too young, but he said I could learn at any age and get my pilot’s license when I was sixteen.

  For the first time in ages, I felt like I had something to look forward to.

  By the way, that Army vet was Al Flores, Rafa’s great-uncle. He not only taught me to fly, he introduced me to Rafa and Hal. We eventually had yearly get-togethers to bond about being military shifters, which isn’t that common. Al and I would rag Hal and Rafa over being in the Navy—Al called our get-togethers “kid the squids.” And when Hal and Rafa decided to start Protection, Inc., I was the first person they recruited.

  Anyway, after my family and I arrived in India, the woman who’d emailed us, Priya Desai, picked us up at the airport and drove us to her town. It was an eight-hour drive. At first it was fun looking at the scenery, but after a while, I got so bored and antsy I turned into a tiger. Twice. So I had to spend a lot of the drive crouched on the floor.

  But once we arrived, things picked up. It seemed like the whole town turned out to greet us. They didn’t all speak English, so some of them just smiled. We got served really great food on banana-leaf plates, and some people gave me little gifts like a kite and a set of bead earrings and a painted clay tiger. I caught my mom shooting that guy a look like she thought it was tactless, but I loved it. I still have it.

  Then this old lady marched up, grabbed my wrist, squeezed my hand so tight I thought the bones would crack, and tried to shove something on to my wrist. I turned into a tiger cub and hissed at her. She held up a set of iridescent glass bangles and said, “These are for you when you can wear them.”

  I tried to snatch them with my claws. When I was a tiger, I had no self-control at all. She held them out of my reach and told my parents, “Bring her to my house.”

  Dad said, “When she changes back?”

  The old woman shook her head. “Now.”

  My parents glanced at Priya, who said, “That’s Mataji. Go with her, she’s the reason I thought we could help.”

  I’d shifted back by the time we got to her house. It was a really cool house. It had an indoor swing, a polished wood plank suspended from the ceiling with cloth ropes tie-dyed blue and green. Mataji sat in it and made it sway like a rocking chair. The rest of us sat on cushions on the floor.

  One of her daughters brought us a tray of drinks and sweets and snacks. My parents sipped and nibbled to be polite, but I was a bottomless pit for sweet things and I tried everything.

  “Have you heard of a case like our daughter’s before?” Mom blurted out.

  “Throwbacks, yes,” Mataji said. “Shifters who can’t control the shift, not exactly. I did some research before you came and I found one account of a boy who turned into a wolf, ran into the woods, and never came back. But it wasn’t clear to me whether he stayed a wolf permanently, or whether he’d just run away from home.”

  “Do you have any ideas of how you could help her?” Mom asked.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I need to ask you some questions first.”

  I could tell this was going to be one more horrible, frustrating disappointment. I tried to change the subject. “Can I try your swing?”

  “Not yet. My grandfather made it, and I don’t want to risk it getting clawed. You can swing all you please when you can be sure you won’t damage it.”

  I knew where she was going with that, and so did my parents. Mom told her I desperately wanted to control my shift, but I just couldn’t.

  “I understand that,” Mataji said. To me, she said, “I’m not trying to bribe you. I’m giving you some things to look forward to, so it’ll keep your spirits up for a long, difficult process. Also, I imagine you have a lot of regrets by now. Don’t you? Birthday parties you couldn’t go to… Friends you couldn’t make… Favorite clothes and toys you destroyed.”

  It was so true. I thought of everything in my life that had been ruined by me not being able to control myself, and I started crying.

  Mataji went on, “So I don’t want to add to your regrets. Not even by a few broken bangles.” Then she gave me a sharp look. “Why didn’t you shift just now? If you’re upset enough to cry…?”

  “I only just turned back into a girl,” I said.

  “So you don’t do it too soon after the last time?”

  I sniffled and nodded.

  “How much time would have to pass before you can
shift again?”

  “I guess about half an hour.”

  “Hmm.” Mataji rocked a little faster. “What’s your tiger feel like right now? Why isn’t she taking over?”

  Why aren’t you? I asked.

  My tiger yawned. Too tired.

  “She says she’s too tired.”

  Mataji smiled. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Who was the last known shifter among your ancestors, and how many generations lie between them and her?”

  At that point, my dad couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m sorry, Mataji. I don’t mean to be rude, but we never really got introduced, except by name. Are you a… a pack leader? A witch—”

  Mom jabbed him in the ribs.

  “A wisewoman?” Dad corrected himself.

  Mataji stopped rocking and raised her eyebrows at Dad. They were very impressive eyebrows. “First, ‘Mataji’ isn’t a name. It’s a polite way to address an older woman. Like ‘Grandmother.’ Second, I’m not a pack leader. I’m a mongoose shifter. We have families, not packs. Wisewoman? Well, I try to never stop learning, which is certainly a way to become wise. As for why Priya called you here, many herbs grow in this area, and I’ve studied their uses. It’s possible that one of them or a mixture of several could help.”

  That got Mom excited. Remember how she didn’t want to go to a hospital to have me? She’s big on alternative medicine. She exclaimed, “I knew it! This is what we’ve needed all along. Ancient shifter wisdom, passed on through the generations…”

  Mataji smiled. “In a sense. I’m a pharmacist. Plenty of drugs originally come from plants. Aspirin is from the bark of the willow tree. Digitalis, which you take for heart conditions, is from foxgloves. And I’m on an email list for shifters with an interest in shifter-specific medical issues, like dragonsbane poisoning. Let me ask you some more questions. Has Destiny ever bitten anyone in the family?”

  “Sure,” Dad said.

  “Broken the skin? Made them bleed?”

  “Not on purpose!” I said.

  She looked at me. “That’s not why I’m asking. Have you? Who?”