She was very warm and very soft, and he regretted it very much when she untangled herself. But then the T-Rex shook the tower again, and they once again had to grab on to each other. This time she didn’t let go, and he certainly wasn’t going to. Stealthily, he lowered his head and inhaled the intoxicating scent of her hair.
“Of everyone I’ve ever known, you’re the one I’d most want to have on my side when I’m out of bullets and treed by a T-Rex,” she said.
“Same here. Also on the bright side, it is literally impossible for this situation to get any worse.”
The T-Rex shook the tower and roared. There was a sharp bang. A hairline crack appeared in the marble beneath their feet, and a piece of a turret split off and shattered on the street below.
Ethan’s belly tightened. He’d thought they were safe as long as they stayed where they were, but not if the T-Rex could shake the whole tower down like a Jenga stack.
Destiny’s eyes glinted with a greenish spark that alarmed him; he’d last seen it right before she’d nearly lost control and become a tiger. “I could shift and jump down on it. If I landed on its back, I might be able to get my teeth around its neck.”
His arms tightened around her in instinctive protectiveness. “Absolutely not. That thing is twenty feet tall and bullets bounced off it! It’d knock you off and stomp you flat.”
“Got a better idea?”
“Anything that doesn’t involve you committing suicide!” Ethan thought for a moment. “I could jump down on its head and stab it in the eye.”
“That’s not better!”
The tower shook violently. There was another loud crack, and the split in the marble widened. Ethan thought frantically, but he couldn’t come up with any better ideas. Stab in the eye it was. He let go of Destiny and stood up, drawing his sword.
“No!” Destiny shouted. She grabbed his arm, snarling. Her eyes were now green as the forest, the pupils contracted into slits. She was about to shift.
He sheathed the sword and held her tight. “Easy. Easy, history nerd. You can control this…”
A pterodactyl swooped out of the sky.
It was like some hideous cross between a giant bird, a giant bat, and a flying lizard, with immense yellow-green wings made of thin membrane. Its vicious fanged beak opened wide as it dove toward them. Ethan let go of Destiny, leaped to his feet, and whipped his sword from its sheath to slash at the diving pterodactyl. It veered away, but not before he clipped one of its wingtips. It let out a piercing shriek, then circled in the sky above them like a vulture.
The T-Rex gave the tower its hardest shake yet, knocking Ethan and Destiny sprawling. He heard crashes as pieces of it came off and smashed on the ground.
Okay, Ethan thought grimly. I was wrong the first time. But now the situation can’t get any worse.
Shredded cloth flew out in all directions as Destiny suddenly became a tiger. Roaring ferociously, she leaped over the edge.
“No!” Ethan yelled. He rushed to the turret, his blood running cold with terror, just in time to see the T-Rex get a faceful of angry tiger.
Chapter 12
Destiny
T he tiger landed on the T-Rex’s snout. Berserk with rage and predatory instinct, she forgot everything but the urge to attack. The tiger slashed and bit wildly, digging in her claws to stay on as the T-Rex bellowed and shook its head. She would bite. She would kill. She would drink the big lizard’s blood and roar her triumph to the skies!
Waves of fury and bloodlust washed over Destiny like she was caught in a storm at sea, helplessly tumbled head over heels by something far stronger than herself. She felt tiny and weak beside her tiger’s ferocity and strength. Besides, what good was Destiny? She was just a woman—a woman who didn’t even have a gun. The tiger was what Ethan needed, not the woman.
Destiny tried to make her tiger lift her head so she could see how Ethan was doing. But Destiny wasn’t in control of her body, and the snarling beast ignored her. The tiger, losing her grip on the dinosaur’s snout, sprang forward and sank her teeth into the back of the great reptile’s neck. Yes! Here was the place. Now she could kill her prey!
The T-Rex swung his great head in a panic, trying to knock the tiger off. Its head crashed into the tower, sending a huge crack up its side. But the tiger dodged the blow, then once again sank in her teeth, using all her strength to try to close her jaws.
Stop! Destiny cried. The tower! Ethan’s on the tower!
That got through to the tiger, which glanced up. Destiny and her tiger felt the same jolt of protective fear as they saw Ethan atop the leaning tower, bracing himself with one hand on a turret as he fought the pterodactyl that swooped and dove above him. He slashed at it with his sword, but the flying reptile was fast, dodging his blows and snapping at him with its long toothed beak.
We will kill the big lizard, growled her tiger. Then we will kill the flying lizard. That’s the best way to help him!
Not if he gets killed when the T-Rex knocks down the tower! Destiny shouted.
But her tiger, too filled with protective fury to listen, chomped down harder on the T-Rex’s neck.