“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.