by Zoe Chant
The daeodon looked from him to her. Its little piggy eyes gleamed red with triumph. It snorted, then bellowed. And then two thousand pounds of prehistoric monster came straight at them, shaking the earth beneath its cloven hooves.
Because Destiny was so close, she could see the adjustment Ethan made to his aim. He breathed out, and didn’t breathe in lest even that disturb his aim. Then he fired.
Two thousand pounds of prehistoric monster crashed down dead at his feet.
For a moment, even the jungle seemed to hold its breath with Ethan. Then he breathed in, and the trees exploded with the cries of birds and screeches of monkeys. She gave a quick glance at the hell pig to make sure it was really dead. It was. Ethan had hit it in the tiny, piggy eye—a one-in-a-million shot at such a small target, and a moving target at that.
“That was one hell of a shot,” said Destiny. “Good work, jarhead.”
Ethan started to reply, but a coughing fit cut him off. He took a step toward her, then swayed like he was about to pass out.
“Ethan!” She scrambled to put her arm around him and support him. He was still holding the gun, which she gently took from his hand and replaced in her holster. He leaned his cheek against hers. It felt like he’d just pulled his head out of an oven.
He took a deep breath, then straightened. “Sorry. I’m all right. Just got a bit dizzy for a second.”
“You are absolutely not all right,” Destiny retorted. “You’re burning up. What do you have? Some kind of tropical bug?”
“I doubt it. It wasn’t tropical where I came from.” Reluctantly, he said, “When I got tossed in the river, I was unconscious for a while. I breathed in a lot of river water, and then I lay in it for hours. I guess I caught a cold.”
“Uh-huh. That wouldn’t give you a fever like that. I think it might be pneumonia.”
Ethan stepped away from her, then staggered. He compromised by leaning against a tree. “Does it matter what it is?”
Destiny had obviously spent way too much time with paramedics: Shane and Justin and Catalina on her team, and of course Ellie. She’d learned more than she’d ever wanted to know about all sorts of nasty illnesses just from being in the same room while they were chatting. As a result, she had two different answers to his question, and she didn’t like either of them.
“Yes, it matters. A cold will go away on its own. If it’s pneumonia, you probably need antibiotics.”
“Do we have antibiotics?”
She went to her backpack and rummaged through the medicine kit. “Not anymore.”
Having to go through her clothes reminded her that she was naked. And she’d been cuddling Ethan while she was naked. She’d been so worried about him that it had barely registered, but one glance up at his appreciative face showed that it was registering with him. Her face flamed, and not from fever. She scrambled into some clothes.
“And the other thing,” she said once she was dressed. “If it is pneumonia, that’s serious. You need to rest, not trek through the jungle all day and then stage a raid on an enemy base.”
He shrugged. “Whatever it is, we can’t stay here. They’ve obviously tracked us down. What if the hell pig has ten little piggy buddies?”
“Can’t be close ones, or they’d already be here.” But she agreed with Ethan. “Let me grab his gun… oh.”
Unlike ordinary shifters like herself, the daeodon shifter hadn’t shredded his clothing when he’d shifted. His clothes were simply gone. The saber tooth tiger Destiny had fought in Santa Martina had also transformed without losing his clothes, and reappeared in human form fully dressed. Lucas, a dragon shifter, could do that too, and even take small items like his hoard bag—or a gun—with him. Sure enough, though the broken tranquilizer rifle Kritsick had dropped still lay on the ground, the pistol he’d held when he’d transformed was gone.
“Goddammit,” Destiny muttered, returning to Ethan. “We could’ve really used the ammo. Though since you can drop a charging hell pig with one bullet, maybe we don’t need a lot more. I still can’t believe we fought a hell pig.”
“Me neither.”
“And you’re right, we don’t want to meet his buddies, if he has any. Lean on me.” She offered him her shoulder. When he hesitated, she said, “If I were sick, you’d let me lean on you, right?”
“Wouldn’t have to. I’d carry you,” he muttered, but put his arm around her shoulders. For the sake of his pride, she neglected to point out that with her shifter strength, she was quite capable of carrying him, though probably not for a long distance.
“I don’t think we should head for the base,” Destiny said. “Not quite yet. Not if they’ve got people this hot on our tail. We’d probably get caught in a pincer: one group behind us, and one group ahead.”
“And I’m in no shape for it. I admit it. I’m not that proud.”
“That proud is just another word for stupid.” She pointed at a stream. “Let’s get our feet wet. Kill the scent.”
He nodded, and they took off their shoes, tied them around their necks by the laces, and waded into the stream. It turned into a wider creek, then split off into tributaries. Every time it forked, she took a branch at random. They were risking getting hopelessly lost, but they had to shake off their pursuit, and shifters were liable to track them by scent.
She was sure he was trying to take as much of his own weight as he could, but his arm was heavy across her shoulders, and his body was like a furnace. Every now and then, he broke into a cough that sounded like something was tearing inside his chest.
Despite the heat of the jungle, Destiny felt cold. Ethan was dangerously ill, they had no medicine, they were pursued by dangerous and powerful enemies, and they were hundreds of miles from help.
And she was about to lose control.
Chapter 8
Ethan
Ethan’s head was swimming, but he gritted his teeth and forced himself to stay on his feet. He might be useless when it came to protecting Destiny, but at least he wouldn’t let himself become a liability. He was so focused on forward momentum that he almost pitched over when she came to a stop.
They were standing at yet another fork in the stream. One ran down a steep hill over a bed of slimy-looking green rocks. The other vanished into a dark, ominous-looking cave. He didn’t like the look of either route.
“Downhill, we break our necks,” he muttered. “Into the cave, and we get eaten by a grue.”
Destiny’s clear laugh made him feel better, just by hearing it and knowing that whatever else happened, she was at his side. “Why am I not surprised that you play dorky old computer games like Zork, nerd boy?”
“Why am I not surprised that you recognized the Zork quote, nerd girl?” Studying the routes more closely, he said, “There’s no water coming out of the cave, so it has to go somewhere. I vote we face the grue.”
“Better than the hell hog.”
Destiny passed him her flashlight, and he lit the way as they ventured into the cave. The rippling stream echoed eerily across the black and empty space, which smelled strongly of earth and moss and bats. When he shone the light upward, a thousand pinpoint red eyes stared back at him, and the flock of roosting bats chittered angrily. He quickly moved the beam back down to the ground.
“Thanks a lot,” Destiny said. “I’m much happier now that I know there’s about a million rabid bats nesting ten feet over our head.”
“Would you rather have them lurking on the ceiling and not know they’re there?”
“Yes. Yes, I would.”
They followed the twisty tunnel downhill until it suddenly dead-ended in a pool. Ethan shone his flashlight on a wall of solid stone.
“Oh, damn,” she said. “Worst of both worlds: we have go back past the bats again, then down the slippery slope, and we lose time.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” he said, more to himself than her. “Water flows in but not out. It has to go somewhere.”
“Down? The pool must be deeper than it
looks. Or maybe there’s some tiny crack in the wall, below the surface, and it flows out from there.”
“Or maybe that’s not a wall,” Ethan said slowly. “Let’s keep walking. I want to see it closer up.”
The cold water was ankle deep, then calf-deep, then knee-deep by the time they reached the wall on the other side. Ethan felt so hot that he would have expected it to feel refreshing, but instead he felt simultaneously overheated and chilled: a deeply unpleasant combination. The only sensation that wasn’t awful was the warmth and solid strength of Destiny’s body next to his.
He reached out to run his hand over the wall.
It went through.
He felt as well as heard Destiny’s soft gasp. But it was one of wonderment, not fear.
The “wall,” he realized, was made of some kind of hanging lichen the same color as the cave itself. It hung in long narrow sheets, like flypaper, but appeared to be one solid mass until you actually touched it. Now that he was pushing one sheet aside, he could see more of the forest, the stream running along the moss…
…and a glint of gold.
Not metallic gold, but a warm smooth amber shade. Gemlike.
A golden city lay before them, nestled into the cup of the valley. Slender towers, delicate minarets, homes and temples and palaces and streets, were all carved from the same lovely amber stone. Ethan’s heart leaped. This was no simple village, but a sophisticated city. It would have cell phones, a hospital, hot food and warm beds…
And then he registered the lack of human voices and saw the empty streets. Rainbow-colored parrots flew in and out of windows, monkeys swung from the arched bridges, and a tiny spotted deer bolted down a street, its hooves clattering. But there were no people. The city was deserted.
Destiny exclaimed, “The Golden City!”
“You know where we are?”
“Not exactly. But I know what it is. Hundreds of years ago, a maharajah—that’s an Indian king—had a dream of building a golden city in the wilderness. He hired all the best architects and city planners and stonemasons, and they built this city. He was going to move his entire kingdom here. But before he could, he dropped dead of a heart attack. His son thought the whole thing was weird and impractical. He not only scrapped the plans to move the kingdom, he was so embarrassed by his dad’s weird idea that he destroyed the maps showing where it was and banned it from even being mentioned. After a generation went by, no one knew where it was. Explorers have searched for it. But we’re the first people to find it!”
“That’s amazing,” Ethan said. “History nerd. And the other nice thing about it is that if no one’s found it yet, it’s invisible from above.”
Destiny nodded. “I’m pretty sure I flew right over it, and I didn’t spot it. It must be completely hidden by the tree cover.”
“I don’t suppose the maharajah put in any beds before he dropped dead?” Ethan asked hopefully.
“Let’s find out.”
They pushed through the vines and stepped into the Golden City. Once he was actually in it, he could see that it hadn’t been lived in for many years, if ever. Dry leaves blew across the roads, flowering vines twined up the towers, and the patches of greenery that he supposed had once been parks or gardens were tangled thickets. Ornamental ponds and fountains were still full of water, probably replenished by rain, but it was green and murky. Huge, bulgy-eyed frogs sat on lilypads and hung motionless in the water, then leaped away with shrill squeaks and plops when they came close.
But the marble itself was perfectly preserved, without cracks and or stains. Many buildings were beautifully carved, and the fountains were decorated with statues of lovely women, handsome warriors, or wild animals. The humid air was scented with the perfume of tropical flowers and the tangy scent of ripe fruit.
Ethan forgot his illness and exhaustion, and felt that he was walking through paradise with the one woman he’d want to share it with.
“Mangoes!” Destiny exclaimed with glee, pointing to a tree laden with orange-yellow fruits. “Oh, I haven’t had a good one since I was eleven. The ones you get in the US are from Mexico, not India, and they’re just not the same.”
Leaving Ethan sitting on a bench of golden marble, she ran to the tree, swung up into the branches with agility that reminded him of Merlin, plucked a few fruits, gracefully dropped back down, and sat beside him.
“Think you could eat something?” she asked.
He’d had no appetite for days, and when he’d forced down the granola bar, it had felt like sandpaper on his sore throat. But Destiny had been right that he had to keep his strength up. And though he still wasn’t hungry, the mangoes smelled wonderful. He nodded.
She took out a pen knife, neatly cut one up, started to offer him a slice, then pulled it back. “Your hands.”
Ethan glanced down at his hands. His left was covered with blood, the fingertips still swollen and painful, and his right was black with soot from rummaging through the burned-out wreckage of the plane. “Can’t be helped.”
“Sure it can.” Destiny sliced off a smaller piece. “Open your mouth, jarhead.”
Ethan opened his mouth. Though he saw it coming, he still couldn’t quite believe it when Destiny put the chunk of mango between his lips. He had a wild temptation to catch her fingers in his mouth… but no. She’d said no. Nothing had changed since then.
He’d eaten mangoes before, but Destiny had been right: the ones in America weren’t the same. This was soft and silken in his mouth, ripe and juicy, with a peach-like scent like that long-ago cobbler, but with a sweet and tangy flavor that was all its own.
Destiny sat there and fed him the entire mango, bite by bite, before she even tasted her own. She was just showing him a soldier’s camaraderie, helping out a buddy who was hurt, he supposed. It shouldn’t feel as tender, let alone as sensual and romantic, as it did. When he imagined himself doing something similar for any of his men in a similar predicament, though, he immediately thought of three or four different ways he could get them some mango without letting it touch their filthy hands, starting with handing them the knife so they could use it like a fork.
“Thanks.” He felt awkward, because what he really wanted to thank her for was the exact thing he couldn’t mention: her treating him like a lover rather than a buddy. To cover it up, he said, “So you’ve been to India before?”
She shot him a strangely nervous look, then nodded. “My family visited once, when I was a kid.”
“That’s a long way to go for a family vacation. Did your family have friends here?”
“Umm.” Once again, she gave him that furtive look. It didn’t suit her. “Not exactly. More like friends of friends. Hey, let’s see if there’s any clean water. A bath and bed would hit the spot, right?”
Ethan nodded, a little bewildered. Why was she acting so weirdly evasive about a childhood visit to India? The only times he’d ever seen her be anything less than completely straightforward were when they’d first met and she hadn’t told him she was a shifter—but that had made perfect sense in retrospect—and when she’d been forced to mention her embarrassing female problem.
Which also made sense, he supposed. Women usually didn’t like to talk about their periods with men. He hoped she wasn’t going to come down with excruciating cramps. Though if she did, he hoped she wouldn’t be too embarrassed to tell him. Maybe he could rub her stomach or apply hot compresses or even just distract her with conversation—whatever would make her feel better.
But what could possibly be embarrassing or a secret about a family vacation twenty years ago?
And, he suddenly realized, why in the world had she hiked with him in an Indian jungle for two days without ever mentioning that she’d been there before?
“Ah-ha,” said Destiny, interrupting his thoughts. “I knew it. We have an actual bath!”
Ethan blinked down at a shallow swimming pool divided by a delicate sheet of thin marble. It was fed by the stream, and the water was clear and inviting.
“How’d you know there’d be something like this?”
“They were popular in India at the time this city was built, so I figured a maharajah would put one in. Look, it even has a privacy screen, so we can both bathe at the same time.”
“I won’t peek,” Ethan promised, and looked away. But Destiny stuck around to help him pull off his boots, which was hard to do when it hurt to both use your left hand and bend over. He shooed her away before she could do more. “I got the rest.”
He had to peel off his clothes, which were covered in mud and blood and river gunk. When he saw the disgusting heap they made, he felt bad for Destiny for having to touch them—and him. That bath was coming not a moment too soon.
He slid into the water. It was lukewarm, a little cooler than the air, but incredibly refreshing. When he sluiced off all the mud and dust and blood and river water, he felt as if he was also washing away his pain and weariness, leaving him clean in every way.
He could hear the cheerful splashes of Destiny bathing beside him, and see the shadows of her curvy body through the paper-thin marble. No details, or he’d have felt like he was spying and turned away; just the shape and movements of a gorgeous, sexy woman.
A gorgeous, sexy woman who doesn’t want you, he reminded himself. So hands off.
He pulled his filthy camouflage uniform into the pool and scrubbed it against itself, watching as swirls of mud were caught by the current and rinsed away, leaving the water in the pool as clear as ever. When he was finally sure it was as clean as he could get it without soap, he laid it out on a sunny patch of marble. It would dry soon enough, and in the meantime, he could just stay in the water.
“Ethan?” Destiny called. “I’m going to poke around a bit. Do some reconnaissance. I’m leaving you the gun.”
“Sure,” he called back. “I can’t get out anyway without flashing you and all the monkeys.”
Her laugh echoed in his ears as her footsteps receded.
“Ethan? Hey! Ethan!”