At Hal’s cabin, Destiny took a hot shower and changed into clean clothes from the stash of assorted clothing in the attic for the use of any shifters who’d gotten unexpectedly naked. After Ethan had taken his turn with the shower and emergency clothes, they all converged in the living room to sit by the fire and listen first to the story of Ethan and Destiny’s adventure (leaving out the part where they’d intended to get it on in the woods), then to the story of how Ellie and Hal had met. Destiny had heard it before but not in much detail, so she didn’t mind hearing it again.

Despite the loss of her car, her dress, her gun, her purse, and even her shoes, she felt strangely happy. She and Ethan had put away the very last of Nagle’s gang and so protected her friends, and she’d just met a man whom she felt very confident was going to become much more than a friend. With any luck, and if Hal and Ellie fell asleep soon, tonight.

“…and there she was, sitting in the police station,” Hal was saying. “But her head was down so I couldn’t see her eyes. I introduced myself and she looked up, and when our eyes met—”

He broke off, shaking his head, his expression alight with what Destiny could only think of as glory. “It nearly knocked me backwards. And my bear roared, ‘Mine!’”

“You were a bear?” Ethan said. “In the police station? A talking bear?”

Ellie burst into giggles.

“No, no,” said Hal. “When you’re a shifter, your animal is always with you. When you’re human, it’s a voice in your mind. That voice is the part of you that is the animal: your deepest, most instinctive, most primal self. And it’s the part of you that recognizes your mate.”

“Your mate,” Ethan echoed. “What does that mean?”

“Your true love,” Hal replied without a trace of embarrassment. “The person you’re perfectly compatible with. The person you’ll never fall out of love with.”

Perfectly compatible, Destiny thought. Sounds like me and Ethan.

They had so much in common, with their similar sense of humor, taste for excitement, cool under fire, even their shared love for dancing. They’d both been in the military. Even though they’d only just met, they had worked as well together to protect each other as if they’d been teammates for years. And, of course, there was their absolutely sizzling sexual chemistry.

Could Ethan be the one? Destiny wondered. My one true mate?

For an instant, she was filled with certainty and joy. Of course he was. He had to be. It felt so right.

Then Hal spoke again. “People who aren’t shifters can have mates too, of course—I’m Ellie’s as much as she’s mine—but they have to fall in love the regular way, over time. Shifters recognize their mates the instant their eyes meet.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”

“Like that,” Destiny repeated numbly, not even aware that she was speaking until she heard the words leave her mouth.

Hal nodded, then chuckled. “And, of course, my bear kept growling stuff like ‘Protect our mate! Take her to our lair! Feed her nuts and berries! Catch her a nice fat salmon! Only the best for our mate!’” More seriously, he added, “But yeah, I knew then and there. It was absolutely unmistakable, the instant I looked into her eyes.”

Destiny forced her glance at Ethan to seem casual, as if she was looking out the window at the stars rather than meaningfully staring into his eyes. But she did look into his eyes.

Nothing happened.

She felt like she’d been kicked in the gut. And then she realized something that made her feel even worse. She’d looked into his eyes before—she’d looked into them plenty of times in the short but eventful time since they’d met—and nothing had ever happened.

Well, no—not quite nothing. That first time they’d met, she’d felt a sort of jolt. And she was sure feeling a whole lot of things right now. But that jolt could have just been a whole lot of sexual chemistry, or the force of a strong personality. And her attraction could be because he was exactly her type: a gentleman and a soldier, sweet and funny and hot as blazes, and because they got along so well and they were so compatible…

But her tiger hadn’t said a word. And she was the one who would know.

Maybe she’d been snoozing.

Hey! Destiny gave her inner tiger a mental shove. What do you think of Ethan?

Her tiger tilted her head, a big cat’s equivalent of a shrug. He seems nice.

Nice, Destiny thought. Ugh. Nice is for best friends and bosses and brothers, not for fated true loves.

But she wasn’t going to let her tiger off the hook that easily. She tried again. Could he be my mate?

Her tiger gave her that head tilt again. Your mate? I don’t know. How am I supposed to tell?

Weren’t you paying any attention to Hal’s story? Destiny asked, frustrated. Do you get a ‘mine’ feeling when I look into his eyes?

Nope, her tiger purred, sounding so unconcerned that Destiny wanted to grab her by the ears and shake her. Never felt anything like that. Still don’t.

And then, adding insult to injury, the big cat curled up and went to sleep.

A hand touched her thigh. Destiny nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Hey, space cadet,” Ethan said. “Say goodnight.”

Her head jerked up. Hal and Ellie had already stood up. She leaned against him with every line of her body signaling her absolute trust, and he had his arms around her in a gesture of protectiveness and devotion.

That’s what mates look like, Destiny thought. Despite the fire, she felt chilled to the bone.

Hal and Ellie went off to their bedroom, leaving Destiny and Ethan alone together.

“You can take the sofa. There’s a sleeping bag I can use.” Ethan smiled at her. “Or we can wait fifteen minutes, then split one. What do you think?”

His blue-green eyes were hot with desire and the firelight made his hair shine like molten gold. She could feel the heat of his body from where she stood, as if the space between them didn’t separate them at all. He reached out for her. All she had to do was stand there, and then he’d hold her in his strong arms and press his lips against hers and—

It was the one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but she held up her hand. “Ethan, wait.”

He stopped. “Too tired? We don’t have to do anything, you know. We could literally just sleep together.”

About a million thoughts popped into her head at that:

He is nice. Not in a brother-boss-best friend way, in a good guy way that’s exactly what I want in my mate.

If we can’t make love, I’d rather cuddle up with him and go to sleep than not touch him at all.

If we did cuddle up, there’s no way we’d get any sleep.

Hal and Ellie have all the luck.

Destiny didn’t know how to explain—she didn’t want to explain—but her only other choice was to lie, and she couldn’t do that to Ethan.

“There’s something I have to tell you. That stuff Hal was saying about mates? It applies to me too. I like you a lot, but…” She almost stopped right there, then forced herself to continue. “You’re not my mate. I looked in your eyes, and nothing happened. I asked my tiger, and she said no.”

“But…” Ethan looked both baffled and outraged. “I don’t get it. Are you banned from having relationships from anyone but your mate? Hal’s in his thirties—are you telling me he was a virgin until he met my sister a month ago?!”

“No. I mean, I don’t know, we’ve never discussed it, but I assume not. I know he’s dated other women before.” She hurried to get off the topic of her boss’s sex life. “And no, it’s not banned. I’m not a virgin either.”

“Then what’s the problem? Okay, so maybe I’m not the love of your life…” A shadow of hurt flickered across his face, making her wince. He obviously didn’t like that idea one bit. But determinedly, he went on, “So what? I’m not asking you for a lifetime commitment. I’m only saying, let’s try it out. See how it goes. You know, the way everyone who’s not a shifter does it.”

Destiny was tempted. She was incredibly tempted. Sure, they could try it out. For all she knew, she wouldn’t meet her mate for another fifty years. She might not even have a mate at all. Why not take what he was offering, and let the chips fall as they may?

But there was a great big glaring problem with that.

“Ethan, you have a mate.” The words almost choked her, but she forced them out. “The perfect woman for you. The one you’ll love more than you love your own life. And she’s not me. She can’t be me. If I were your mate, then you’d be mine, and my tiger would know.”

“No.” He was shaking his head, his expression set in absolute denial. “I don’t have a mate. I’m not a shifter.”

“All that means is that you probably won’t fall in love at first sight. But she’s out there somewhere. And when you meet her, you will fall in love. The sort of love that Hal and Ellie have. And that’ll be it for you and me.”

“No, it won’t!” Ethan forced his voice down from a shout. In a low, intense tone, he said, “We could’ve both died tonight, and then what happens to this woman I’m supposedly meeting? To hell with her. I don’t believe in her. Let’s forget about things that might happen in the future, and take what we have in front of us. That’s you, Destiny. I want you, and I want you now!”

Destiny wanted him too. She wanted him now. But her mind had leaped ahead to what would happen if she let him persuade her. It would be wonderful; she knew it. But sooner or later, he’d meet his mate. And then what? Would letting go of him be any easier six months or a year or five years down the road? What if they were married?

What if they had kids?

She felt herself pressing her fist to her chest, as if she’d been stabbed in the heart and had to stop herself from bleeding out. She sure felt like she had. But he wasn’t a shifter—he couldn’t understand the way she did. And that meant she had to make the hard decision for them both.

Her voice dropped so low that it sounded like a tiger’s growl. “Fine. You don’t understand what it means to be mates. I get it. This is all new to you. But here’s the important thing. I’m saying no, Ethan. The answer is no.”

Ethan looked like she’d kicked him in the stomach. He actually took a step backward, as if she really had. “All right. I don’t understand. But you’re saying no, so… I respect that. You ever change your mind, let me know. But I’m not going to keep hassling you when you want me to lay off.”

“Thanks. You’re a good guy. And I hope we can still be friends.” She sighed. “If it’s not too weird. And awkward. And frustrating.”

Ethan straightened up, visibly pulling himself together. Putting on a mask of unconcern, he said, “Aw, no, mudpuppy, we can still be buddies. I’ve been turned down before. I’m a big boy, I can take it.”

“Okay. Good. We’re on, jarhead.” Destiny blinked hard, forcing back the sting of oncoming tears. Making herself sound casual, she asked, “Hey, I never asked. How long are you planning to stay in Santa Martina?”

He shrugged. The easy flow of conversation between them had dried up, which hurt as much as everything else. “A couple weeks, a couple months. I go where they send me, when they send me. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

She retreated to the bathroom to brush her teeth and take her pill. She normally took them first thing in the morning, but it was almost dawn now. She swallowed it, then changed into a borrowed nightgown, hoping Ethan would be asleep or pretending to be when she got back. Sure enough, he was in the sleeping bag when she returned, his face buried in the pillow. When she turned out the lights and got under the blankets on the sofa bed, he waited ten minutes, then snuck out to the bathroom.

Destiny lay awake trying to argue with the feeling that she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. But was it so wrong not to enter into a relationship that she already knew was doomed? Sure, she’d dated men before without worrying about mates. But they’d been casual affairs: just for fun, nothing serious intended on either side. She couldn’t imagine anything she did with Ethan not getting very serious, very quickly. And then, doom.

No. She was definitely doing the right thing. Sometimes that hurt and was hard, because life could hurt and be hard.

But if Ethan wasn’t her mate, who in the world was?

After the trial at which Ellie’s courageous testimony put all the gangsters in jail, Ethan deployed. He only had time to give Ellie a quick call, and then he was gone. Destiny foolishly, pointlessly, hopelessly missed him every single day that she didn’t see his blue-green eyes. Six months later, he came back, and every single day that she did see him, she foolishly, pointlessly, hopelessly missed the relationship they didn’t have, had never had, never would have. Missed him, even though he was right there. And then he deployed again, and she missed him again. More fool her.

And so it went. For two endless years, while she watched as one by one, each of her teammates found their mates. She was happy for them, of course, and not only because they’d found love. With their mates, they also found a missing piece of themselves, had some jagged edge smoothed out or some old wound healed. And the same was true of their mates. They’d all been made whole.

What’s the piece I’m missing? Destiny sometimes wondered. How would I change, if I ever found my mate?

She asked her tiger, sometimes, but the big cat only gave her a lazy shrug. How should I know?

Every time Ethan returned to Santa Martina, tanned and tired and happy to see his sister, the pang of love and misery that stabbed through Destiny’s heart felt like it would just about kill her. After the first time, she made sure she didn’t catch his eyes until a few seconds had gone by; that one unguarded look of raw longing she’d caught the first time had nearly made her throw herself into his arms.

But where would that lead? To him meeting his true mate and realizing how trapped he was, and her pretending it didn’t break her heart when they broke up—or worse, got divorced—so he could be with the woman he really loved.

No. Being with Ethan was a fool’s game, doomed from the start, and Destiny’s mama hadn’t raised a fool. She’d enjoy his company when she got it, but only as a friend. And when the time came, she’d dance at his wedding and make herself look happy, and never let on that her heart was breaking inside. And that was that.

Until Ethan deployed again.

And didn’t come back.