Top Gun Tiger (Protection, Inc 7)

“Yup. Very poisonous. Don’t fall in.”

He looked back down, careful not to lean. Several white snakes hung in the water, writhing unpleasantly. As he watched, one made a sudden sideways dart and snapped at a big silvery fish three times its size. The fish thrashed for a few seconds, then went belly-up. The snake undulated up to it, unhinged its jaws until they were a gaping abyss lined with needle-sharp fangs, and engulfed the entire fish in a single gulp.

“Yikes,” Ethan muttered. “Guess we won’t be taking any refreshing swims around the palace.”

Destiny grinned. “Maybe not around, but in. It has an indoor swimming pool.”

“It does not—” Ethan began, then decided that he should believe everything Destiny said no matter how insane or unlikely it sounded. She hadn’t steered him wrong yet. “Snake-free, I presume.”

“Completely.” She laughed. “It’s not literally a swimming pool. It’s a giant bath, like the one outside but fancier. But it’s deep enough to swim in.”

They crossed the drawbridge, and Destiny pulled it up after them. He would have felt guilty about not helping her, but it was on a pulley system that was clearly designed to be easy to handle from the inside. Besides, he liked watching the play of muscles on her shoulders and back. A light mist of sweat lay over her brown skin, making it gleam like polished wood.

I could watch her pulling weights forever, he thought. I could watch her do anything forever. The way she moves is so beautiful. Like a dancer. Like a martial artist. Like a tiger.

He needed to stop obsessing over what he couldn’t have and count his blessings that he had her at all, even if it wasn’t the way he wanted. She was the best friend anyone could ever want, and he could count on her to help him rescue his men. It was better to be able to look at her beauty, even if he couldn’t touch, than to have never seen it at all.

Yeah. He’d just keep telling himself that.

Chapter 9

Destiny

O nce the drawbridge was up, Destiny relaxed a little. Even in the wildly unlikely event that Apex had tracked them to a city they’d only found by chance and no amount of deliberate searches had ever discovered, the water vipers would make short work of any rampaging hell pigs. Ethan had the safe place he needed to rest and recover.

If rest is all he needs, an uneasy voice within her muttered.

He looked terrible, pale and sweating and trembling just from the effort of staying on his feet. When she slipped her arm back around him, she could feel how hard he was working just to breathe. By the time she got him to the room that she suspected had been the maharajah’s bedroom, she was practically carrying him.

She laid him in the bed, took off his boots and belt, then, suspicious that he’d been hiding an injury, his pants and shirt. The black bruise on his side had spread past the edges of the tape she’d laid across his ribs. Broken ribs, for sure. Internal injuries? Pneumonia, like she’d surmised? Some other infection? All of the above?

He shivered, and she pulled the covers over him. He lay still, eyes closed, looking far more vulnerable than she’d ever seen before. Destiny stroked his hair, which was damp with sweat and very soft. He didn’t stir. The air rasped in his throat.

She wished she knew more about medicine than what she’d learned in a basic battlefield aid class, plus what she’d picked up from her paramedic pals. Then again, she suspected that the problem wasn’t her lack of knowledge, but her lack of supplies. What would Shane be able to do if he was here? He’d probably just know the exact name and dosage of the antibiotics he didn’t have anyway.

No, said her tiger. Knowledge is exactly what you need.

Destiny jumped, startled and uneasy. Her tiger’s voice had sounded so… forceful. Normally she was playful or lazy. Cranky, at most. And then there’d been those revolting demands to rip out the daeodon’s throat and drink his blood…

Yes, hissed her tiger. It would have been so satisfying. Next time, I won’t let you hold me back.

Forget about… Destiny didn’t even want to think it. Any of it. …all that stuff. What did you mean about me needing knowledge?

Medicine doesn’t just come from tablets. Those… The tiger snarled the next words with anger and revulsion. …those pills of yours don’t come from a factory. There’s medicine all around you, if you just remember it. Remember! The last word came out in a silent roar that left Destiny reeling.

She tried to remember the herb-gathering trips she’d gone on with Mataji. They hadn’t been in this exact sort of terrain—her area had been less of a jungle, more of a forest, and Mataji had said that Destiny’s own herb, sherneend, only grew atop a single mountain. But she’d pointed out other herbs that she’d said grew in the entire region.

Unfortunately, Destiny had been more interested in flying kites, catching lizards, and generally raising hell with Mataji’s rowdy grandkids. Now she wished she’d spent less time gathering long seed-pods to dry into rattling brown swords to fight mock duels with, and more paying attention to the priceless knowledge Mataji had to impart. If she’d only known!

You do know, her tiger growled impatiently. Focus your silly human rattle-brain, and remember!

Destiny closed her eyes and tried to relax, letting the memories come. Mataji had been spry for her age, trotting briskly along in her slapping flat sandals, with the edges of her green sari forever threatening to drag in the mud but somehow always staying spotless. She carried a cane, but just used it to bang on the ground to get attention, or to point. Destiny pictured that cane pointing, and tried to see what it pointed at.

A low creeper with white flowers. Mataji had said the dried flowers eased menstrual cramps. That had embarrassed Destiny horribly at the time since her period hadn’t even started yet, but it was kind of funny in retrospect given her go-to excuse for her actual pills.

A spiny red fruit that could be steeped in alcohol to make a liniment to rub on sore muscles. Destiny could use some of that right now, but it wasn’t as if she needed it, and anyway they didn’t have any alcohol.

Little brown seeds, to be chewed for toothache… A jagged-edged green leaf, to be crushed and applied to wounds… A yellow flower, for coughs…