The tiger landed on the T-Rex’s snout. Berserk with rage and predatory instinct, she forgot everything but the urge to attack. The tiger slashed and bit wildly, digging in her claws to stay on as the T-Rex bellowed and shook its head. She would bite. She would kill. She would drink the big lizard’s blood and roar her triumph to the skies!

Waves of fury and bloodlust washed over Destiny like she was caught in a storm at sea, helplessly tumbled head over heels by something far stronger than herself. She felt tiny and weak beside her tiger’s ferocity and strength. Besides, what good was Destiny? She was just a woman—a woman who didn’t even have a gun. The tiger was what Ethan needed, not the woman.

Destiny tried to make her tiger lift her head so she could see how Ethan was doing. But Destiny wasn’t in control of her body, and the snarling beast ignored her. The tiger, losing her grip on the dinosaur’s snout, sprang forward and sank her teeth into the back of the great reptile’s neck. Yes! Here was the place. Now she could kill her prey!

The T-Rex swung his great head in a panic, trying to knock the tiger off. Its head crashed into the tower, sending a huge crack up its side. But the tiger dodged the blow, then once again sank in her teeth, using all her strength to try to close her jaws.

Stop! Destiny cried. The tower! Ethan’s on the tower!

That got through to the tiger, which glanced up. Destiny and her tiger felt the same jolt of protective fear as they saw Ethan atop the leaning tower, bracing himself with one hand on a turret as he fought the pterodactyl that swooped and dove above him. He slashed at it with his sword, but the flying reptile was fast, dodging his blows and snapping at him with its long toothed beak.

We will kill the big lizard, growled her tiger. Then we will kill the flying lizard. That’s the best way to help him!

Not if he gets killed when the T-Rex knocks down the tower! Destiny shouted.

But her tiger, too filled with protective fury to listen, chomped down harder on the T-Rex’s neck.

The dinosaur let out an ear-splitting roar of pain and rage, and threw itself against the tower, desperately trying to dislodge the tiger. Her claws lost their grip on its back, but her jaws held tight. Destiny could only watch in horror as more cracks opened in the golden marble of the tower, and it began to tilt inexorably toward them.

As the tower started to fall, Ethan dropped his sword, as if in panic, and tipped his head to stare up at the pterodactyl. Seeing his unprotected throat exposed, it dove in for the kill, claws first like a hawk dropping down on a rabbit.

Ethan leaped upward and grabbed its feet just as the tower toppled. Screeching, the dinosaur flapped its leathery wings in a frantic attempt to stay airborne, but Ethan’s weight sent it spiraling down toward the ground.

Within the tiger, Destiny experienced the surreal slowing of time she’d experienced before in combat, allowing her to see many possibilities in a split second that felt like an eternity. The T-Rex, distracted by her attack, was too busy trying to throw her off to notice that it was about to be squashed flat by a hundred tons of golden marble. But her tiger had sure noticed. Her muscles were bunched to leap off the T-Rex. And once she did, the T-Rex would look up and jump clear as well. Their one chance to kill it would be gone.

Not yet, Destiny told her tiger.

The big cat’s instinctive fear of death was overwhelming. Her panicked shriek filled Destiny’s mind. Jump! Jump! Jump!

Her tiger was too strong for her. She was going to jump off, and then the T-Rex would kill her. And Ethan.

She had to save him.

Destiny fought her tiger, locking her muscles in place and her claws into the T-Rex’s neck. She watched, her blood like liquid ice in her veins, as the dinosaur thrashed and her tiger shrieked and the tower fell and fell as if in slow motion, blotting out the sky.

NOW!

Destiny released her hold on her tiger. The edge of the collapsing tower brushed against her tail as they jumped clear, then rolled head over paws on the marble street. A reptilian bellow was abruptly cut off as the tower smashed into the T-Rex with a tremendous crash.

Chips and fragments of marble flew out like shrapnel, and a cloud of golden dust rose up. When it settled, she saw a giant pile of shattered marble, and, protruding from opposite ends of it, a gigantic claw and the tip of a scaly tail.

But Destiny had no time to relax and be relieved. A furious reptilian screeching arose from the other side of the rubble pile, then a very human yell. She raced around it, intent on helping Ethan in his battle. She skidded around the corner, her paws slipping on the smooth marble, and found Ethan and the pterodactyl engaged in a desperate struggle on the ground.

The flying dinosaur’s toothed beak snapped, its razor-sharp talons slashed, and its immense leathery wings flapped wildly. It was so much bigger than Ethan that at first she couldn’t even see him. Then both wings slapped into the ground at once, and she saw that he was astride the pterodactyl with his strong arms locked around its neck, his face buried in its back to protect his head from its beak and claws.

Before she could do anything to help him out, the muscles of his arms bulged. There was a sharp crack, and the pterodactyl went limp. He had broken its neck.

Ethan jumped free, standing with his back to her. Instantly, he bolted toward the tower, shouting her name.

Unable to speak, she roared. Ethan turned around so fast he almost fell, then ran to her. He dropped to his knees before her, stroking her and burying his face in her fur. When he finally raised his head, she saw that his cheeks were wet with tears.

“I thought you were dead,” he saw, his voice raw and choked. “I was yelling at you to jump, but you didn’t. I couldn’t get free of that thing until it was too late.”

She was a tiger—a tiger who couldn’t even control herself enough to become human again—but he’d run toward her, not away from her, without even a second of hesitation. Even as she felt his arms around her, it seemed impossible.

As if he’d guessed her thoughts, he said, “I’m not afraid of you. I could never be afraid of you. Your tiger isn’t a monster, it’s a part of you—the part that’s wild and fearless. Angry and willful and stubborn, maybe, but that’s part of you too. That’s okay. I’m like that too. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be Marines and bodyguards, we’d be accountants or interior decorators or baristas. But no matter how fierce your tiger is, it’s only as fierce as you are. She’d never do anything that isn’t in your own heart. You’d never hurt me, so neither will she.”

It’s true, her tiger said. I’d rather jump into the big lizard’s mouth than hurt him.

I believe you, Destiny replied. Though she couldn’t speak aloud, she intended her words for them both.

It was no struggle to become a woman again. As she did, she watched as Ethan’s expression changed from one of intense relief to one of mingled desire and guilt, as if he was looking at something he knew he shouldn’t be. His face flushed pink, and he pulled off his shirt, turned his back, and held it out to her without turning around.

Only then did she realize that she was stark naked. Again. She snatched the shirt from his hand and pulled it on. He was tall enough that it functioned as a short dress.

“You can turn around now.” Her own voice came out choked and thick as she added, “That was the best thing anyone ever said to me. Thank you.”

Ethan swept her into his arms and held her tight. Only then did she relax and let go of the adrenaline rush of battle. He was so strong, and his muscular body felt so good against hers. For the first time in what seemed like years, she felt safe and protected. If another T-Rex came stomping in, they’d face it together.

“Don’t ever believe there’s anything wrong with you,” he murmured. “You’re perfect. And your tiger is perfect too. You just took down a fucking T-Rex!”

“It mostly took itself down, but I’ll take the credit for distracting it,” Destiny said. “But you! You took down a pterodactyl all by yourself. Bare-handed!”

With his face pressed against hers, she felt as well as heard his chuckle. “Is that more or less cool than doing it with a sword?”

“That is a question for the ages,” Destiny said. “But you started out with a sword, so I’ll give you credit for both.”

He didn’t reply. She was so happy that he was alive and she was alive and they had won and he was holding her that she assumed he was just savoring the moment, as she was. His skin was so warm…

No. Not warm. It was hot. And getting hotter by the second.

Alarmed, Destiny broke free of their embrace to look at him. Ethan’s face was very pale, with a bright red flush along the cheekbones. As she watched, he broke out in a sweat.

“I think the herb’s wearing off.” He stopped to cough, a painful, tearing sound. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse and weak. “Goddamn it. I didn’t want to be a burden—”

Then his knees buckled, his eyes closed, and he started to collapse. Destiny leaped forward to catch him. He was a dead weight, nearly knocking her down. She staggered, then crouched and pulled him over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Then she stood up, lifting from the knees. She could carry him, but he was much bigger than her, and heavy. She wouldn’t be able to get him very far, very fast…

…but the real problem was that they had no good place to go.

I suppose back to the palace is the best of a bunch of bad choices, she thought. With any luck, Ayers is the only one who managed to track us here, and now he’s dead and can’t report back. And anyone else who comes hunting us will find us just as easily in the jungle as in the city.

She carried Ethan back along the streets. Her tiger’s presence was strong in her mind as it paced back and forth, its tail swishing with anxiety and unfocused anger, but it didn’t try to take over. Destiny was less worried now that it would attack Ethan, and more that it would decide to run off into the jungle to hunt when she needed to stay human to take care of him.

No, I won’t, growled her tiger, sounding exasperated. Would you run off when he needs you? If you wouldn’t, I won’t either. After a moment, she added hopefully, But fresh meat would give him strength. Shall we make a soft, safe lair, and then hunt for him?

Let’s see how he is when we get to the lair, Destiny replied. But you’re right, he probably could use some nice, nourishing venison broth. Though I don’t think the lair will be safe if we leave him…

Her tiger snarled angrily, as unable as Destiny was to see any way to keep Ethan safe if they left his side. For her own part, Destiny was afraid that he might not be safe no matter what she did. His skin burned hotter and hotter, and every breath sounded like it might be his last.

Weight or no weight, she flat-out ran back to the palace. She stopped at the drawbridge, listening for any sound of something inside.

Let me help, her tiger offered. I can hear and smell better than you.

You can’t shift, Destiny warned her. I’m still carrying Ethan.

I know. Just let me come a little closer to the surface.

Nervously, Destiny didn’t fight as she felt her tiger enhance her senses. Her hearing became much sharper, her sense of smell a hundred times more so. But hard as she sniffed and carefully as she listened, she heard nothing but the whisper of wind, the flutter of leaves, and the labored rasp of Ethan’s breath, and smelled nothing but dust and herbs and Ethan’s sweat.

She laid him down on the floor to pull up the drawbridge. When she stooped to pick him up again, fear struck through her heart at how pale and vulnerable he looked. They might be safe from enemies inside the palace, but his most deadly enemy was inside his own body, and there was no fighting that.

Just like me, Destiny thought, trying to keep the thought in the back of her mind, safe from her tiger’s prying claws. Neither of us has ever been afraid of what’s outside. Only of what’s inside…

She picked him up and brought him back to his bed, where she took off his boots and belt and tiger claws, and tried to make him as comfortable as she could. Destiny hated to leave him alone, but all her supplies were in the kitchen. She left the tiger claws on the bed beside him, just in case; she couldn’t imagine he’d be able to use them, but if he woke up, he’d at least know she was near. No one else would know to leave them by his hand as a defense and a comfort. Then she bolted out of the room.

She hurried around the kitchen, making use of the herbs she already had and cursing her inability to go search for more. But she didn’t dare leave Ethan alone in the palace. She made some more syrup for soothing coughs and hot tea to keep him hydrated, feeling all the while like she was slapping a Band-Aid over a bullet wound. Then she cut up another mango, dipped some cloths in cool water, piled everything on a tray, and returned to his room.

He hadn’t moved from where she’d left him. She set down the tray on the table and stroked the damp hair back from his forehead. His skin was like fire. He turned his head slightly, moving into her touch.

“You awake?” she asked quietly.

His eyes opened slowly. His blue-green gaze was glassy and unfocused.

“Ellie?” he mumbled.

“It’s Destiny. Ellie’s not here.”

He didn’t seem to hear her, and he obviously wasn’t seeing her. “Ellie, call in to the base for me. Tell them I’m sick. I’m not…” He coughed painfully. “…not fit to ship out.”

“I’ll make the call. Don’t worry about it.” Destiny wiped the sweat from his face with a damp cloth, then coaxed him to take a spoonful of the cough syrup.

He swallowed it, then closed his eyes. She was debating whether it was worth waking him up to get him to drink some tea when he opened his eyes, pushed himself up on one elbow, and shouted hoarsely, “Valdez! Valdez! Stop fighting, we have to go back! Merrick, grab his other arm!”

“Ethan, you’re safe in bed. You’re safe!”

He didn’t hear or even look at her, but kept on shouting orders from some battle long past until a coughing fit cut him off. When it ended, he slumped back into the pillows, exhausted.

“Oh, Ethan.” Destiny stroked his hair, which seemed to calm him. She lifted his head so he could drink some tea. He took a few sips, then turned his head away. She went back to stroking his hair.

“What’s it take, Dad?” he mumbled. “Straight As? A baseball scholarship? Or nothing? Nothing, right? There’s nothing I can ever do that’ll ever be good enough.”

“You are good enough,” Destiny said. But he obviously didn’t hear her.

“Recon Marine won’t be either,” he went on, his voice very hoarse. “But that’s not why I’m doing it. That’s for me, not you. For me!”

He began coughing again. When he finally stopped, she tried to get him to take some more cough syrup, but he refused it. She set down the spoon before he’d have spilled it all over the bed. It obviously wasn’t doing any good anyway.

She had never felt so helpless in her life. Ethan was trapped in nightmares and she couldn’t do anything but sit there and listen. If only there was some villain or monster to fight! She’d rather face a million T-Rexes than have to sit by Ethan’s side and watch him suffer, knowing all the while that all he needed was medical help that was just a short plane flight away, but might as well be on the moon for all her ability to get it to him.

“Destiny?” Ethan whispered, startling her.

“I’m here.”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

He coughed. “I can’t breathe. Help me sit up.”

She lifted him and let him lean on her, with his head resting on her shoulder. The heat of his body made her break into a sweat, as if she was sitting by a raging fire. She wasn’t sure if he was still delirious or not. He’d called her by name, but his gaze was unfocused and his voice was distant and dreamy.

“I’ve loved you since the day I met you,” he said. “Every day, I wake up and think of you. Your beautiful eyes. Your laugh. Your hand in mine. Then every day, I remember that you don’t love me and you never will. And every day, my heart breaks all over again.”

“Ethan,” Destiny whispered, then stopped, unable to say more. She knew he was speaking the truth of his heart, but she didn’t know if he meant to tell it to her or if it was only his fever that had loosened his tongue. But more than that, his words broke her heart. Oh, she’d known he liked her a lot. That he had a crush on her. But how could he truly love her when she wasn’t his mate?

But he did. She could hear every minute of that two-year heartbreak in his voice.

Before she could say anything, he went on, “Dad was right. I’m not just good enough.”

“He was wrong!” She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. “Of course you’re good enough! You’re brave and strong and funny and hot—you’re everything any woman could possibly want. You’re everything I want!”

Destiny heard her own words as if they had been spoken by someone else, allowing her to know the truth of them. Slowly, she repeated, “You’re everything I want. You’ve always been everything I wanted. Ethan, your face is the face I imagine before I open my eyes, and then I see the empty pillow. It breaks my heart too. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I—”

She broke off. His lips were parted, his eyes wide and bright with astonished joy. The heat still came off him in waves and he might sink back into fever dreams at any moment. But she could see that right now, he was here with her. Whatever she said next, he’d hear and remember.

“I said no because I was afraid,” she admitted. “I’m not your mate, so I thought one day you’d meet her and leave me. But—”

“I hate that fucking imaginary mate!” Ethan burst out. “She doesn’t even exist, and she’s still keeping you from me. If I ever do meet her, I’ll show her the door so fast it’ll hit her ass on the way out.”

A snicker escaped from Destiny’s lips. “You don’t need to be mean to her. I’m sure you wouldn’t be anyway. You’re a gentleman.”

“You’re right. I’ll very politely escort her out. And then I’ll put out a restraining order on her, to make sure she stays out.”

She laughed again, a little incredulously. No one would ever do that to their mate… but what was a mate, anyway?

“I kept telling you that you weren’t a shifter, so you couldn’t understand,” she said. “But you understood better than I did. If a mate isn’t the person you love with all your heart and want to spend the rest of your life with, then I don’t want a mate. I want you. And I’m sorry I made you wait so long.”

“You’re worth waiting for. Destiny, you—” His words were cut off as he broke into a long, painful coughing spell. He covered his mouth with his hand.

When he finally stopped, gasping for breath, his hand fell to his side as if he didn’t have the strength to hold it up any longer. Where his palm touched, it left red smears on the blanket. Slowly, she raised her gaze to his face. There was blood on his lips, too.

Until that moment, she had never truly known terror. Nor had she known despair. It was only then that she realized that Ethan had been right: she’d been knocked down a thousand times, and gotten up a thousand and one. But this was something she could never get up from. The man she loved was dying in her arms, and there was absolutely nothing she could do to save him.

He was also looking at the blood on the blanket. Without fear, but rather the cool evaluation of a bad situation she’d heard in his voice when they’d been in combat together, he said, “I think I’m going to die if I don’t get help.”

Wild ideas raced through her mind. “I could carry you to the Apex base and break in—”

“Destiny.” He had to stop to catch his breath before he went on. “I won’t make it. But shifters heal better. Bite me.”

Never bite anyone who isn’t already a shifter had been so ingrained into her that it hadn’t even occurred to her to try it until he’d mentioned it. Cold fear struck deep into her heart at the thought of it. “Ethan, no! I’ll kill you!”

With that same detached calm as when he’d mentioned it, he said, “You said that was rare.” He pulled in a labored breath. “I hate to make you risk it. But it’s my only chance.”

Destiny felt paralyzed. If she bit him, she might kill the man she loved. If she didn’t, she’d be letting him die through inaction.

Her tiger surged up, trying to force her to shift. Destiny pushed back. There was a brief but fierce inner battle. To Destiny’s own surprise, she won.

He wants to be a tiger, said the big cat inside her. He needs to be a tiger. Set me free. He will recover, and we will all be free to hunt together, as we should.

Destiny looked into Ethan’s eyes, and saw the predator within him. Her tiger was right; all she needed to do was set his own beast free.

“You sure, jarhead?”

“I’m sure, mudpuppy.”

She helped him sit up in bed, propped against the headboard and some pillows. Then she stepped back and pulled off her shirt—his shirt. It still smelled like him. She stood naked before him, the jungle air warm on her body and his regard hot on her skin.

When she reached into herself to become a tiger, she found that doing so felt different than it ever had before. When she’d been a child, it had always been completely involuntary and, once she understood that she should only do it when she intended to, a shameful proof of her weakness. Later, after she’d started using the pills, it felt like a simple physical action, like drawing her gun, with no sense of connection to the big cat within her.

Destiny had always known that her tiger was a part of herself. But she’d never truly felt it. First she’d fought her tiger, then she’d built a wall between them, and then, when she’d lost her pills, she’d fought her inner beast again. But now she felt attuned to that other self. She was her tiger.

When she’d been a child, her tiger cub had contained the full force of a strong-willed child’s anger and frustration. The little girl trying to suppress those feelings had never had a chance against the part of herself that expressed them.

But now she was an adult, and so was her tiger. She didn’t have to fight herself in a desperate battle for control or lock up her feelings in separate boxes. She could accept all of herself, and just be herself.

I never got to grow up, her tiger said. Those herbs kept me too quiet to grow or learn. I was always a cub at heart. Until you stopped taking them, and I began making up for lost time.

Her tiger had been acting like a rebellious teenager, ever since she’d stopped the pills. No wonder she’d been so much trouble!

And now? Destiny asked, though she already knew the answer.

Now we are one, her tiger purred.

The shift felt as natural as breathing. Destiny avoided looking at Ethan’s face; she was afraid that if she did, her terror of him dying would come rushing back. It was best to simply act, and do it quickly and without thought. She lowered her muzzle to the bed and bit his forearm just deep enough to draw blood.

Destiny became a woman again. She pulled her shirt back on with shaking hands, and turned back to Ethan. If anything was going to—to go wrong—it would happen very quickly. Her gaze focused first on the trickle of blood from his bitten arm, then moved to his chest. He was breathing. And he kept breathing. Was it her imagination, or were the harsh gasps of his breath softening?

“You did it.” There was no mistaking it: his voice was stronger. “Destiny, you saved me.”

The force of her relief made her weak at the knees. She dropped down beside the bed, laid her head on his chest, and let her tears flow. For the first time, she cried in front of another person and felt no shame. She had no need to put up a bright front of strength and cheer. Ethan would understand; Ethan loved her; Ethan would live.

He didn’t tell her to stop crying. He didn’t speak at all. He just held her, stroking her back and hair, while she let herself feel all the pent-up emotion of everything that had happened that day. Everything that had happened since she’d first met him, and turned him away for reasons that now seemed absurd. Who cared about mates when she could have Ethan?

She wept until her tears dried up, replaced with a deep sense of inner peace. At long last, she lifted her head, and looked into the blue-green ocean of his eyes without fear.

Mine, her tiger purred with immense satisfaction and absolute certainty. Our mate.

“What?!” Destiny burst out. “Now you tell me?”

Ethan looked equally amazed and baffled. “Is your tiger saying we’re mates? Because mine is sure of it.”

“So’s mine.” To her tiger, Destiny demanded, Why didn’t you say so before?

With an air of injured innocence, her tiger said, I didn’t know before. I told you, I was a cub at heart. You can’t know your mate when you’re a child.

Destiny repeated that, adding, “It was those pills! They didn’t just give me control over my shift. They were stopping my tiger from growing up with me. Mate recognition doesn’t kick in until you’re old enough to do something about it.”

“Mataji didn’t know that would happen, right?”

“No, I’m sure she had no idea. And I did need them at the time. I just should have stopped taking them later, once I was more mature.”

Unexpectedly, Ethan chuckled. “So, you’re saying you literally had an inner child.”

“Smartass.” She poked his arm—not the bitten one. “You must be feeling better.”

“I am.” He was still fever-hot, but not blazing like he’d been before, and his breathing had eased. His eyelids fluttered, then closed. He seemed to force them back open. “Sorry. I’m really tired.”

She stroked his forehead. “Go to sleep. You need it.”

“One thing first.”

He reached up a hand, caught the back of her head, and pulled her down to him. Their lips met in a kiss that was short but felt eternal in the very best way, a kiss of both passion and comfort.

A kiss of love fulfilled at last.