Top Gun Tiger by Zoe Chant

Author:Zoe Chant [Chant, Zoe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Ethan

Ethan had never seen Destiny cry before. He’d seen her upset and worried, like when her teammate Shane had been shot, but even then she’d stayed strong for his sake. She’d always been so cheerful and tough, it had seemed like she’d never had a moment of weakness or self-doubt in her life.

But then she’d told him her story. He hadn’t interrupted, letting her get it all out, but he’d watched as she struggled at times just to get the words out. And now tears flowed down her cheeks as she sat there calling herself names. Weak. A liability. A freak…

“Whoa, whoa!” Ethan sat straight up, grabbing for her hand. “Destiny, you’re none of those things. Don’t ever call yourself any of that crap again.”

She jerked her hand out of his grip. “But it’s true. Everyone else can control their shift. I’m the only shifter in the world who can’t do it unless I swallow a pill!”

“So what? That doesn’t say anything bad about you. I had a friend in high school who had diabetes. Would you say he was weak and flawed and a freak because he had to give himself an insulin shot every day?”

“That’s different.”

“How?” Ethan demanded. “How is it different?”

“It’s a shifter thing. You can’t understand.”

Ethan had developed a deep hatred of those words. They were the exact ones she’d used when she’d rejected him, all those years ago. It was true that he wasn’t a shifter, and couldn’t know what it was like to be one. All the same, it didn’t seem like any other shifters, other than that one snob aunt, had looked down on Destiny for being the way she was. Instead, they’d done their best to help her.

He pictured her at eleven, and the image made him smile.

“What?” she asked suspiciously.

“You must’ve been an awfully cute little girl. You had an entire town bending over backward to help you.”

“They were just nice.”

He flicked her arm. “You were adorable. Admit it. Chubby cheeks? Little pigtails? Pastel plastic barrettes shaped like animals?”

She sniffled, swiped her hand across her eyes, and gave him a wavering smile. “Right on all counts. Four pigtails tied top and bottom with dangly pastel plastic balls. When I see photos of me, I want to pinch my cheeks.”

“It was more than that, though, wasn’t it? Sure, you were a cute kid. And it sounds like the shifter community likes to help each other out, and that one town was extra-nice, and Mataji obviously enjoyed a challenge. But you also had Al Flores offer you flying lessons when you were eleven. You had shifters all around the world emailing each other to try to help you.”

“Like I said. They were nice.”

“I’m sure they were. But I think they also saw something special in you. I think they saw a girl who was brave beyond her years, who’d spent her entire life locked up but jumped straight into an adventure the instant she got a chance, who’d been knocked down a thousand times and got up a thousand and one.

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