Rip his throat out!
Her tiger’s snarl was so unexpected and vicious that Destiny barely repressed a start.
He’s got a gun aimed at my head, Destiny replied silently.
Her tiger snarled again, long and low and predatory. We can move faster than a puny human. Rip out his throat and drink his blood!
Gross, Destiny replied. Stop talking. You’re distracting me. Don’t worry, we’ll get our chance to fight.
Kritsick broke the silence. “Ever heard of a daeodon?”
“No,” said Destiny. “Ever heard of a Sig Sauer? That’s what Ethan has aimed at your head. He’s a Recon Marine; he won’t miss. Kneel down and put your hands on your head.”
The Apex agent went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “It’s an extinct mammal from the Miocene era. A wild boar the size of a rhinoceros. They call them ‘hell pigs.’”
“So?” Destiny inquired. “You got one on a leash?”
Kritsick bared his teeth in a nasty smile. “I’m a daeodon shifter. My hell pig gives no quarter. You two surrender now, and I’ll take you in safe and sound. Make me show you my daeodon, and you come in trampled or chomped or tusked half to death. Or all the way to death. He’s a little hard to control.”
“Destiny?” Ethan called. “Is there even such a thing as extinct animal shifters?”
“I came across one once,” she admitted. “A saber-tooth tiger. He was running a gang in Santa Martina. I’ve never heard of any other extinct shifters before. We only found out what he was when he shifted and bit Rafa. I shifted and bit him, and he took off. Never saw him again.”
“Hugo O’Dell?” inquired Kritsick.
“Yeah,” Destiny said. “That’s the guy.”
“He was one of ours. An early experiment, back when we were using common criminals.” The agent gave a humorless chuckle. “He made the mistake of running away from us. We took care of him. Now do you believe me?”
“Who cares,” Ethan said. “If you don’t get down on your knees right now, you’re a dead man. Your hell pig can’t survive a bullet in the head.”
“Sure it can,” said Kritsick, and shifted.
One moment Destiny was looking at a man in jungle fatigues; the next instant, she was faced by the hell pig. Just like he’d said, it was a wild boar the size of a rhinoceros. But he hadn’t mentioned the bulging armor plates around it
s face, the ivory tusks, or the maddened red eyes. She’d never seen anything like it, saber tooth tiger included. That had just seemed like an unusual type of big cat. This was a true monster, a prehistoric beast that should never walk the earth.
Ethan didn’t flinch. His gun was already leveled at the beast, and he fired. There was no way he could have missed—not him, not with a creature that size and at that distance.
But the hell pig only shook itself. If the bullets had wounded it, Destiny sure couldn’t see any blood. It let out a ferocious bellow, pawed the ground, and charged straight at her.
Destiny wasted no time waiting for it. She summoned her tiger—was it her imagination, or did the big cat seem to spring eagerly to the forefront?—and leaped over the charging daeodon’s head. Four tiger paws landed on its back. She tried to dig in her claws, but they scrabbled uselessly over its back. It seemed to have some sort of armor just below its skin. Her claws left bleeding scratches, but they were very shallow. She couldn’t even get enough of a grip to hold on.
She bent her head and closed her strong tiger’s jaws over the back of the hell pig’s neck, and bit down as hard as she could. But her teeth met the same resistance her claws had. She left shallow scratches, no more.
The hell pig let out a bellow and shook itself. Destiny went flying, and slammed into a tree. The impact left her breathless on the ground.
The daeodon turned, swinging its heavy head from side to side. A long rope of saliva dangled from its tusked jaws.
Yecch, Destiny thought. What’s worse than getting tusked to death by a prehistoric pig? Getting drooled on by a prehistoric pig, then tusked to death.
Ethan fired at the thing, three times in rapid succession. She hadn’t been counting the shots, but he couldn’t have many left. And he was wasting them. The hell pig just twitched its flanks like it was beset by flies.
She shifted back to her woman’s form and shouted, “Stop! It has armor!”
Ethan stopped shooting. She was going to suggest that he climb a tree when he bolted toward her. The short run took way more out of him than it should have, leaving him gasping. But he stood over her, feet braced, face white, her Sig Sauer aimed straight at the hell pig.
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.