by Zoe Chant
“Will darts bounce off your skin?” Destiny inquired.
“Umm.” Merlin scratched his chin. “I guess we’ll find out. I could be a small one, so I wouldn’t be hard to carry if they don’t…?”
Destiny rarely snapped at people, no matter how stressed out she got. She prided herself on calm under pressure. But she couldn’t help hissing at him, “You’re not going to stop anyone if you’re the size of a chicken!”
Merlin seemed unperturbed. “Ever had a chicken fly into your face?”
The enemies attacked before she could reply. Destiny, Ethan, and Pete ducked back against the walls as tranquilizer darts hissed into the room, smacking into walls and bedframes.
Merlin and Roland also ducked, but they were both in the line of fire and had no way to shield themselves. A dart missed Roland’s chest by a fraction of an inch, and another stuck in Merlin’s loose sleeve before clattering to the floor. The three at the door returned fire, but it was only a matter of time before both Merlin and Roland would be hit.
“Merlin, how close to done are you?” Ethan called.
“I need another minute!”
“We don’t have another minute,” Roland said grimly. “All of you, get out. Someone can come back for me later.”
Nobody budged.
“Pete, can you—” Ethan started to say, then broke off. Pete was no longer by the door, or anywhere in sight. “Goddammit.”
“You can talk him down later,” Destiny said, softly and for his ears only. “It probably is our best chance.”
“Yeah, but—” From the frustration on Ethan’s face, she was getting an idea of what it had probably been like to work with these guys. Brave and competent as they were, teamwork didn’t seem to be their number one skill.
A familiar roar, followed by familiar cut-off screams and the sound of stampeding feet, sounded through the room.
“Pete,” said Merlin unnecessarily.
There was a moment of silence, which was broken by the click of Roland’s handcuffs opening.
“Okay, Merlin,” said Destiny. “Chicken time!”
With his total lack of offense showing in his quick grin, the man vanished and a raptor stood in his place. It wasn’t chicken-sized, but more like a medium dog. It grew to the size of a large dog, shrank back to medium, and then seemed to give up. It darted out the doorway.
“So,” Roland said, a glint of ironic humor in his eye. “Guess the folk here were doing more than staring at goats.”
The raptor returned. It shrank to the size of a chicken, gave an irritated hiss, then turned back into a man.
“Enemies are dead or gone,” Merlin reported crisply. “And so’s Pete.”
Ethan sighed. “Let’s go after him.”
“That way.” Ransom pointed. Then he turned to Roland. “Can you walk?”
Roland stood up, then swayed. Ransom stepped up close, silently offering his shoulder. Roland accepted his support, and they all went through the door.
Ransom, now walking easily, led the way. He stopped only briefly, to confiscate a tranquilizer rifle from a dead Apex agent and remark, “Not much range on these things. But the armory would have sniper rifles. If we keep heading in this direction, we’ll get to it.”
Ethan murmured into Destiny’s ear, “You ever get the feeling like you’ve completely lost control of a situation?”
“All my life,” Destiny replied softly. “It’s okay, jarhead. We’ve got allies, even if they weren’t the ones we meant to get and they’re a little… new to this sort of thing.”
They turned a corner, and almost tripped over a dead saber-tooth tiger. Pete was kneeling beside it, bleeding from slashes in his face and arms. He didn’t look up at them until Ethan knelt down in front of him and called his name.
“I went to ambush those guys, and then…” Pete’s voice trailed off as he glanced around. “Is that a saber-tooth tiger?”
“A saber-tooth tiger shifter,” said Ransom. “You killed him.”
Pete looked from him to the others, bewildered. “Is this a different part of the base? How’d I get here?”
It was only because Destiny knew Ethan so well that she knew how frustrated he was. But his voice and face remained calm as he said, “As a cave bear, apparently. Listen, Pete, you cannot turn into it again. And don’t just go off without telling anyone. We need to work together if we want to get out of here in one piece.”
Pete didn’t argue, but the set of his face and shoulders was distinctly stubborn.
“Ethan’s right,” Roland said. “We do need to work as a team. All the same, I owe you. You gave us our chance to escape. Thank you.” He offered Pete his hand.
Pete took it, then jerked his hand away as if Roland’s touch was red hot. “Sorry. Hurt my hand.”
There was no time for bandages, and Pete wasn’t bleeding badly. Still, Destiny took a quiet look at his injuries for future reference when they did have time, and was puzzled to see that he had no blood or bruises or swelling anywhere near where Roland had touched. And apart from when he’d pulled his hand away, he didn’t seem to be in any pain.
They came to a door at the end of the corridor. It led to a warehouse, with a lot of construction equipment and multiple doors out. Thankfully, it was empty. They scanned it for hidden Apex agents or traps, but saw none.
Just as they reached the middle of the warehouse, one of the doors slid open, revealing a bunch of Apex agents with tranquilizer rifles. Destiny, Ethan, and the rest dove for the nearest cover, which was a forklift and a bunch of crates. The hiss and clatter of tranquilizer darts filled the air.
Destiny scanned their surroundings. There was one door they could get to without going into the line of fire, but it was all the way across the warehouse. They’d have to run for it before the Apex agents figured out what they were doing and cut them off. She gestured to catch everyone’s attention, then pointed to it and mouthed, Ready, set—
The door slid open. A cacophony of roars, hisses, and shrieks arose as a multitude of monsters were revealed. Destiny caught sight of a huge wormlike thing with a gaping mouth lined with fangs, a mangy rat the size of a Buick, and things she couldn’t even begin to identify: creatures with stings, chitin, and tentacles dripping slime. And then the whole pack of them came charging and slithering and leaping across the floor toward them.
Ethan and Destiny fired their tranquilizer rifles at the creatures. But while both of them hit their targets, the monsters just kept coming. It seemed like they, like Pete’s cave bear, were either armored or immune.
Ethan’s security guard uniform exploded off him as he became a tiger. With a snarl of protective fury, he leaped in front of Destiny and stood guarding her.
Merlin tossed his rifle to Roland, who caught it one-handed, then became a full-sized raptor.
Roland joined Ransom in returning fire at the Apex agents, while Ethan’s tiger and Merlin’s raptor faced the monsters.
Fight, growled Destiny’s tiger, on fire with anticipation of the battle. Fight for your mate!
Destiny had no argument there, but she was gripped more by fear than by eagerness. Trapped between monsters attacking them and agents shooting at them, they were both outgunned and outnumbered. Even Pete’s cave bear would be hard-pressed to fight the immense lumbering thing at the rear of the pack, a monster like some hideous cross between a giant scorpion and a cobra.
Destiny became a tiger. To her keen tiger’s senses, the monsters seemed even more unnatural than they had to her as a human. They were deeply, profoundly wrong—soulless things that should not exist—and they horrified her tiger as well as enraging her.
But Destiny didn’t let herself get swept away by her tiger’s perceptions. She turned to Ethan and they nuzzled each other. She could feel the bond between them, alive and humming with love. Even if this whole adventure ended in their deaths together in this cold underground place, it would be worth it for those few days when they’d finally broken down the barriers between them an
d loved each other with their whole hearts. And Ethan didn’t have to speak for her to know he was thinking the same thing.
Side by side, they braced for their last stand.
Chapter 15
Ethan
Ethan’s mind knew that they were probably all going to die, but he still had hope in his heart. He couldn’t despair as long as he had his mate by his side.
Before the monsters could reach them, the constant hiss and clink of darts stopped, replaced by the solid thuds of bodies hitting the ground. He whipped his head around and saw, to his astonishment, that all the Apex agents lay sprawled on the ground. They seemed to have been shot with darts from behind, as there was no blood and he could see a dart or two sticking up from their backs. But no one stood behind them.
Ethan almost jumped out of his skin when Shane Garrity, the panther shifter bodyguard from Destiny’s team, seemed to materialize beside them. “Hey, Destiny. Did you get bored with us and find yourself a new team?”
Destiny let out a snort, then butted Shane’s leg with her head, as if to say, Stop talking and start fighting.
“Who are you?” Roland demanded.
“Friends!” The unfamiliar male voice echoed along the walls of the corridor. “Hold your fire, it’s Protection, Inc.!”
The first to run in was a man Ethan didn’t recognize, tall and lithe, with brilliant copper-colored hair. The redhead took one look at the incoming monsters, became a snow leopard, and leaped into the fray.
A gray wolf plunged through the door, snarling, and joined battle. A moment later, it was followed by a leopard. Ethan knew who they had to be based on the shift forms of the other bodyguards on Destiny’s team. The wolf was the ex-gangster Nick Mackenzie, and the leopard was Ellie’s best friend, Catalina Mendez.
Ethan’s heart lifted as he too joined the fight. Destiny was at his side, protecting his back just as he protected hers. They fought alongside the snow leopard, the wolf, the panther that Shane became, and Merlin’s raptor. Both Ransom and Pete were laying into the monsters with the butts of their rifles, Ransom as calmly as if he squashed giant tentacled roaches with a repurposed tranquilizer rifle every day, and Pete with a fury that made even the monsters take one look and scuttle or lurch or crawl away.
Roland, who wasn’t in any shape for running around, had discovered the sword in Ethan’s backpack. With his back braced against the forklift, he used it to neatly dispatch any monster that came within range.
Within minutes, all the monsters were either dead or fled. Against all odds, they had won.
Ethan wanted to shout out his thanks to the team and his joy to Destiny. Except he couldn’t shout, because he was a tiger. What came out was a ferocious-sounding roar. Everyone stared at him. Sheepishly, he picked up his backpack in his jaws and padded to the other side of the forklift. Destiny followed him. They became human again, and quickly dressed. She was panting slightly from the exertion, her skin misted with sweat. Heat rose from her body, along with her irresistible natural scent.
Ethan didn’t even try to resist. Seizing this brief moment of privacy, his heart singing with love and his body thrumming with adrenaline, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. From the avidity of her response, she felt the exact same way.
A polite cough made them spring apart. The Protection, Inc. shifters must have gone back to the corridor to shift and get dressed, because they were emerging from it clothed and in human form. They had a perfect view of Destiny and Ethan.
Catalina grinned at Destiny. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” Then she winked at Ethan. “You, though… that was new.”
“Hope you enjoyed it,” he said, trying not to blush. Destiny kicked his ankle. “I mean, hope you didn’t enjoy it.” She kicked him again. “What?!”
“Stop talking, jarhead. You’ll only dig yourself in deeper,” Destiny advised him. To Catalina, she said, “Man, it’s good to see you.”
Nick, the ex-gangster werewolf, looked around incredulously. To no one in particular, he remarked, “What the fuck is going ON in this fucking place? Fucking monsters?” His gaze settled on Merlin, who was rapidly going from pony size to chicken size and back again. “Fucking dinosaurs? Are you fucking serious?”
Merlin finally managed to become a man. His security guard’s uniform was streaked with green slime.
“Yeccch,” he remarked, vainly trying to wipe it off and only succeeded in getting it on his hands too. “I’m jealous of you guys who don’t bring your clothes with you.”
“Don’t be,” the copper-haired man advised him. “The only thing worse than monster slime all over your clothes is monster slime all over you.”
“Good point.” Merlin stuck out his hand, then hurriedly withdrew it. “Sorry. Anyone got any wet wipes? I’m Merlin Merrick. Pleased to meet you.”
“I’m Justin Kovac. I have a medical kit in the corridor. Have someone else open it and take them out for you, if you don’t mind. I doubt that stuff’s sterile.”
“Wait, you’re Justin!” Ethan blurted out. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”
He’d only met Justin once before, for about thirty seconds, and he’d been distracted at the time by Shane having just gotten shot in the chest. The last Ethan had heard of him, he’d been so traumatized by his experiences with Apex that he’d dropped off the map and was refusing to contact anyone, even Shane.
“Yeah, I get that a lot. I’m Protection, Inc.’s newest bodyguard. And Fiona’s mate. Lot of stuff happened while you were overseas.” Justin’s look of amusement faded as he went on, “Looks like a lot of stuff happened to you, too. So you’re a tiger now. Did Apex have time to put you through Ultimate Predator, or did Destiny get to you first?”
Ethan rushed to reassure him. “Apex never had me. At least, not for more than about fifteen minutes. Destiny made me a tiger. She had to, to save my life. I was sick…” Everyone was listening to him with bated breath, except for Destiny, of course, who was watching her teammates with bated breath to enjoy their reactions. He joined her watch as he added, “And we’re mates!”
A flash of astonishment crossed Shane’s imperturbable face for about a millisecond, then was gone. “Congratulations. I always thought you were.”
“You did not,” Destiny said, giving him a playful shove.
“Fucking awesome!” Nick exclaimed. He slapped Ethan on the back hard enough to nearly knock him over, then turned around and gave Destiny the exact same whack.
Catalina flung her arms around Destiny and congratulated her, then gave her a poke in the chest. “Why’d you wait so long, you weirdo? You must’ve known he was your mate ever since you met!”
“I didn’t!” Destiny protested. “I was taking a medication that turned out to block my ability to sense my mate.”
Catalina, a paramedic, nodded wisely. “Those unexpected side effects can really get you. A lot of meds have ones that doctors don’t warn you about.”
“Ah-ha,” said Justin, amusement dancing in his dark eyes. To Destiny, he said, “So that’s why you rushed off after Ethan. The mate bond told you he was in danger.”
“It couldn’t have,” she said. “We weren’t bonded yet.”
Justin shrugged. “I knew when Fiona was in danger before we even met.”
“Oh, so Destiny’s your girlfriend?” Pete gave them a surprisingly sweet smile. “Good for you, man.”
“Mates are more than that,” Nick said. “I’m mated too. It’s true fucking love. Unbreakable. Forever.”
“There’s no such thing,” Ransom said flatly. Then, obviously realizing he’d been rude, he shrugged and said, “Just speaking for myself.”
“Congratulations,” Roland said. But though he sounded sincere, his mind was obviously on other things. Urgently, he addressed the other members of Protection, Inc. “Did you see any other prisoners? Any women? A tall woman, African-American, middle aged? Beautiful…”
“No, sorry,” Justin said.
Reassuringly, C
atalina said, “But if she’s here, the others will find her.”
“Others?” Destiny asked.
Nick nodded. “We split into two teams. Lucas, Rafa, and Fiona are the other one. They’re tearing it apart, looking for prisoners and booting everyone out. When there’s no one left inside, they’ll blow the place sky-high.”
“It’ll be Fiona’s third time,” Justin said fondly. “She’s gotten a taste for it.”
“What about Hal?” Destiny asked.
The other Protection, Inc. members shot Ethan slightly guilty looks, then turned to each other. Apparently Shane was silently appointed as the bearer of the news, because he said, “Hal’s not here. Ellie went into labor right when we were gearing up to go. She’s absolutely fine—Catalina checked her—but he couldn’t leave her to give birth alone.”
Ethan groaned, feeling the emotional weight of all those years apart. “I did, though.”
Destiny put a hand on his shoulder. “Ellie will understand. Anyway, sooner we’re out of here, the sooner you’ll see her. Let’s get going.”
They headed back out into the maze of corridors, with Justin leading the way. As they walked, Ethan said, “How’d you all find us, anyway? We kept trying to find a radio to call you, but we never did. And Fiona’s GPS was destroyed when our plane crashed.”
“Yes, but her computer had recorded its last location, so we knew your last known area. And I can track people. It’s one of my Ultimate Predator powers.” Justin’s expression darkened, then cleared. “I didn’t ask for it, but it comes in handy. I already had a lock on her, so once we got close, I just pointed the way. Hold out your hand.”
Ethan offered his free hand to Justin, who clasped it for a moment, then released it.
“There,” Justin said. “Now if you get in trouble and need help, I can always find you. We can always find you.”
Though Ethan had felt nothing special at the physical touch, Justin’s words went to his heart. He’d joined Protection, Inc. for several missions, but he’d never been a real member of the team. Now Justin was, and Ethan still wasn’t… but the team could always find him now. It made him feel like he belonged, in a way that was different from how he and Destiny belonged together. As if he was part of a family that was suddenly much bigger than just him and Ellie.
