I fought inappropriate laughter at the very idea. “Sorry. My colloquialisms seem to lose clarity in the translation. No defecation. No bodily fluids of any sort, except for blood, hopefully.”
The older female bird spoke up from somewhere to my left, and the crowd parted to reveal her. “You have caught our attention, Faythe Sanders. What blood can we spill for you, to absolve our debt?” Their obvious eagerness looked a little too much like feline bloodlust to me, but so long as it was working for us, rather than against us, I was willing to deal.
But first, a precaution… “So, this is a definite no on the reconnaissance?”
“Unequivocally.” Kai’s feathers had receded, but he opened and closed his wing-claws like fists in anticipation of a fight.
“Fine.” Though it was actually far from fine. But not unexpected. “Then I’m ready to call in your debt. We’ve tried to deal with Malone through political means, and that was a spectacular failure. So we’re going to remove him from power by force…”
“The only proper way…” The crone’s head bobbed eagerly, her beady eyes gleaming.
“… and you’re going to fight on our side.”
“Fight…”
The whispers echoed throughout the cavernous room, accompanied by more rustling of feathers, scratching of talons against the floor, and excited clacking of beaks. And after several seconds of that, the questions came hard and fast.
From above: “To kill or maim?”
“Whichever proves necessary.” I glanced up, but was too late to spot the speaker. “But you can only fight our enemies. Don’t touch our allies.”
From my left: “How will we tell you apart? You all look the same to us in cat form.”
“I don’t know.” I whirled, but again found myself speaking to the entire crowd. “We’ll mark ourselves somehow.” I rubbed my forehead, already overwhelmed by the number of details I hadn’t even considered.
“When do we leave?”
“Can we eat what we kill?”
“No!” I shouted, horrified by the images now forming in my head—birds perched on a field of corpses, tearing furry flesh from broken bones. “Even our worst enemies deserve a decent burial.” Except Luiz. We’d scattered his ashes to be trampled regularly. But that was another story…
Screeched from the back of the room, as I spun again, and Jace reached to steady me: “Will there be enough to go around, or must we compete for our kills?”
“Unfortunately, I suspect there will be plenty, but that really depends on how many of you are willing to come.” And that’s when I lost track of who was speaking. They called out from everywhere, having apparently forgotten I was even there.
“All of us!”
“We will all go…”
“It’s only fair…”
“Someone must stay with the children…”
“Some must stay to hunt…”
“Then we’ll draw quills. Feathers into the pile! The twenty drawn will go and fight!”
“Wait!” I had to shout to be heard. “Don’t you want the details?”
Kai frowned, one of the few birds still paying me any attention. “No. We want the fight, and the feast.”
“No! I said there will be no feasting! It’s a war, not a fucking dinner banquet!” I threw my hands up in exasperation. Mentioning war to a Flight of thunderbirds was evidently like dangling candy in front of a class full of children! Ruthless, deadly children… “Listen, please!” And finally the din began to die as several dozen sets of small, black eyes focused on me.
“I’m glad you’re all so eager.” And even more glad that they’d be fighting on our side. “But there are important details. This isn’t a free-for-all, and I won’t consider your debt paid if you don’t play by the rules.”
“Faythe, I don’t think they’re interested in our rules,” Jace whispered, inches from my ear.
“Well, that’s too damn bad,” I muttered, as the huge crowd of birds reassembled around us. Then I raised my voice to address the crowd. “Okay, here’s the deal. When we’re ready, we’ll give you a time and place. You show up and wait for the signal. Then you attack. You can only attack the enemy—again, we’ll make sure we’re clearly marked—and you cannot eat what you kill.” The fact that I even had to repeat that particular warning gave me chills. “If you’re hungry when it’s all over, pizza’s on me. But no snacking while you work!”
Marc chuckled, but most of the birds only looked confused.
“If someone surrenders to you, knock him unconscious, but let him or her live,” I insisted. We’d discovered that during large-scale fighting it was easier to knock out surrendering enemies, rather than risk tying them up, which could lead to escape, betrayal, or both. We’d sort the bodies—both living and dead—after the action was over. “Everyone understand?”
“Why not simply kill them all?” a familiar voice asked, and when I glanced to my left for the source, I came eye to eye with Neve, the she-bird my father had shot during the onslaught against our Pride. She’d obviously fully recovered.
“For the same reason we didn’t kill you when we could have. Or Kai. We’re interested in winning—in removing Malone from power and dealing out justice. But we’re not in this for the slaughter.” At least, not once Malone’s blood was soaking into the ground and Colin Dean’s innards had been exposed to the rest of the world.
“Then you’re fools.” The old woman watched me in blatant disgust now. “You suffer abuse from a rival, yet you would cut that rival’s head off but let its body live. Your rival will grow a new head and rise again, and again you will make a pitiful effort to stop it, but never truly eliminate it. Mercy is a weakness, child. It is a trait of your human half, and you indulge it like a spoiled child. Just as the wolves did. I assume you know what happened to the wolves.”
Um, yeah. “Extinction. But they were killed by human hunters.”
“Yes, and by the bruins, and by us, and by some of your own ancestors, no doubt. Because the wolves bred weakness as if it were a virtue. If one group had risen to control the rest—or eliminate them—they wouldn’t have made such easy prey.”
“Malone’s allies comprise fully half of the Pride cat population. And you seriously think we should just…kill them all?” I could barely even conceive of such large-scale death, and so much of it pointless! “I don’t know about you guys, but our numbers aren’t exactly swelling. We’re doing well to maintain our current population, and killing off half of us is not going to help that.”
The crone shook her head, as if she pitied my ignorance. “But those who remain will be stronger, and the next generation will be stronger still, from having cleansed the gene pool.” She did not just say that. I glanced at Marc to see him scowling.
“Is that what happened to you guys? Until last week, our most recent thunderbird sighting was more than fifteen years ago. We assumed that was because you keep to yourselves, but maybe that’s not it. Maybe you’ve scrubbed your own gene pool so vigorously there’s little of it left. Maybe you’ll be next to follow the wolves.”
For a moment, the crone looked like she’d either burst into feathers or flames, and my heart pounded so hard the front of my shirt jiggled. Had I just insulted the entire thunderbird way of life, surrounded by several dozen of their best specimens?
But then the old lady burst into harsh, cackling, dual-toned laughter, black eyes shining. “You are soft with foolish, sentimental ideologies, but that comes with youth. You will grow harder and smarter, if you are not ground beneath your enemy’s boot. But if your people fight half as fiercely as you speak, your species might yet have a shot at survival.”
I exhaled heavily and felt both Jace and Marc relax on either side of me. Thank goodness my youth and foolish idealism amused her. They just pissed most people off.
“Let’s wrap this up,” Marc suggested softly, and I could not have agreed more.
“Okay, so that’s basically it. Only kill the enemy, and only if he doesn??
?t surrender. And no eating the casualties. We’ll let you know when we’re ready to go. It won’t be long, but you have to wait for word from us.”
Speaking of which…
While the birds protested the rules with reactions ranging from strong frowns to angry clucking, I dug my cell from my pocket and held it up. “Does anyone here know how to work a cell phone?” Or even what one is…?
Beck stepped out of the crowd, and I recognized him from the assault on our ranch as the bird who’d come to help Neve after she was shot. “I spoke on your father’s phone. Is yours like his?”
“Yeah.” Fortunately, I hadn’t yet upgraded to a smart-phone, and with fewer options on the device, there were fewer ways for the thunderbirds to mess this up. “Okay, I’m going to leave my phone here with you guys, and we’ll call you when we have a concrete plan.”
“Faythe, you can’t leave your phone here,” Marc said, angling me away from the crowd.
Jace nodded before I could reply. “It isn’t safe for any of us to be out of communication right now.”
I rolled my eyes at them both, already digging in my other pocket. “Relax.” I held up my father’s phone, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. I felt guilty for claiming it—like I was taking another right I hadn’t earned—but we couldn’t afford the time for another flight to New Mexico just to tell the birds we were ready for them.
Jace grinned. “Good thinkin’.”
Even Marc looked impressed. Mostly. “What about the charger?”
I smiled and pulled it from my jacket pocket, unreasonably pleased with myself for having thought that far ahead. Fortunately, generators—and thus outlets—were among the few modern conveniences the birds used, mostly to provide light and heat.
I showed Beck how to use the phone—just the basics—then gave him a list of names that might appear on the screen when I called, just in case something went wrong with my dad’s phone.
“Okay, keep it plugged in somewhere where the children can’t reach it—” fortunately, most of the small ones couldn’t fly very well yet “—and don’t answer it unless the call is from someone on that list.” I’d left a very comprehensive list, but knowing my luck, some college friend I hadn’t heard from all year would pick this week to try to get reacquainted, and wind up talking to a thunderbird in New Mexico instead.
That would be fun to explain.
“How long will it take you to get to the ranch?” Marc asked, as one of the other birds carried the phone through an open doorway.
“We will need twenty-four hours’ notice, to account for rests in flight and recuperation before the fight,” the old woman said, and I wondered if she’d be fighting alongside her younger relatives.
I nodded. A day’s notice. We could do that.
When everything was settled, I took one last longing glance at my phone, now plugged into an outlet in a badly outdated kitchen, then let Cade—or maybe Coyt—ferry me to the road. The return trip was no less pleasant than the flight up to the nest, but when we’d all three landed on the ground safe and sound, I decided to count our blessings. No one got maimed or killed, and we’d secured air support for the upcoming fight. Which, with any luck, would give us the advantage we needed, even if Malone’s men outnumbered us. And they surely would.
We froze all the way back to the car, but once we had the heater going full blast, I called my uncle to make a report.
“Hello?” he said, by way of a greeting, his voice leery with suspicion. And that’s when I realized that his caller ID had probably showed my father’s name.
“It’s me. Sorry. I had to leave my phone with the thunderbirds, so I’m using my dad’s. I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
My uncle chuckled, obviously relieved, and his laugh sounded eerily like my mother’s. “I’ll take them in order of importance.”
But even that was tough to determine, so he got chronological order. “The bad news is that the thunderbirds won’t do recon for us, as I’d hoped.”
“That’s too bad. It was a good thought, though. What’s the good news? They’ve committed to the fight?”
“Enthusiastically,” I said, as Jace turned off the birds’ gravel road and onto the highway. “They’re scary-eager.”
“Wow. Okay.” His surprise was obvious, as was his relief. “So, how many are coming?”
I grinned at both of the guys in the rearview mirror. “Twenty. They’re drawing quills to see who gets the honor. And every last one of them is eager to shed tyrannical blood for us.”
I was ready to shed more than a little of it myself.
Thirty
“I could try Alex,” Jace said, reclining on the motel bed with his arms crossed behind his head. “But honestly, I think you’d have better luck with that than I would.”
“Not after I took his gun and left him tied up under the bed.” The memory made me smile as I leaned back in the chair and propped my feet on the rickety breakfast table. “I think the only other possible source we have on the inside is Kenton. He seemed less than thrilled to be playing his part, and I think he’s feeling guilty. Parker might be able to work that to our favor.”
“I think—” Marc paused, rolling his eyes while an airplane engine roared overhead, momentarily drowning out all other sound.
Our return flight didn’t leave until nearly six in the morning, which left us with a good eight hours to kill. Not enough time to drive instead, but too much to waste in an airport bar when we could be resting and mentally preparing for the coming battle.
When the plane had passed, Marc shoved my feet off the table and dropped into the chair next to me. “I think we’re missing the most obvious possibility. Maybe we shouldn’t be looking for a source on the inside, but a source on the outside.”
“Meaning…?” I was tired from all the travel and stiff from my recent beating, even after the Shifting marathon, and would have loved to lie down—but the room had two beds. Jace had claimed one, and Marc’s duffel lay on the end of the other. I couldn’t take a nap without making an all caps DECLARATION, and they both knew it. At this rate, I’d wind up sleeping in the bathtub.
“Meaning we don’t have to talk to someone on the ranch to find out whether or not Malone’s there. Wouldn’t it be easier for Jace to just call his mother?”
I raised an eyebrow at Marc. “That’s not a bad idea.” I twisted toward Jace in the hard chair, wishing for a pillow. “You think she’ll fall for that again?”
“I don’t know. She’s in denial, but she’s not brain-dead. She knows I used her last time, and she knows the basics about what happened to Lance Pierce. She may not know the whole story behind Dean’s pretty new face, but she probably knows I was involved.”
“None of that matters,” Marc insisted. “She’s your mother, and she’s already lost one son. She’s not going to give up the chance to reconnect with her firstborn, even knowing he’s using her. Look at Ryan and your mom.” Marc glanced at me briefly, then turned back to Jace. “Karen’s one of the smartest, most insightful women I’ve ever met, but she has a total blind spot where Ryan’s concerned, even knowing what he did. Your mom has to know deep down that whatever Malone told her about you isn’t true. She’ll talk to you.”
Jace sat up on the bed, frowning, and I could practically taste his reluctance. “Even if she does, she’s not going to give up sensitive information.”
I leaned forward, catching his gaze and holding it. “We don’t need to know what Malone sleeps in. We just need to know whether or not he’s on the ranch. And you don’t have to actually ask her. Just steer the conversation around to him. Ask if he’s mad that you called. If he can hear what you’re saying. That way if he’s not there, she’ll tell you.”
Jace nodded slowly. “Okay. That sounds like almost as much fun as being stoned to death, but I’m in.” He shrugged, and his gaze met mine boldly. “You know I’ll do whatever you need done.”
Marc’s growl was almost low enough to go un
noticed. But I noticed. “Just make sure your mom’s not running the same scam on you,” he snapped. “The last thing we need is for you to tip our hand, so she can call Malone with the details.”
Jace bristled and sat up straight. “Back off. I’m not an idiot.”
Marc’s brows furrowed into a hard, dark line. “No, you’re just an opportunistic bastard who slept with a friend’s girlfriend before her brother’s body was even cold!”
Anger flared deep in my chest, but before I could yell at Marc for bringing Ethan into this, Jace launched himself from the bed. If he’d had fur, it would have been standing on end. “You are way over the line, and you better step back while you still can.”
Marc started to stand, but I beat him to it, and when I begged him silently to stay seated, he leaned back in his chair, but still gripped the armrests. I nodded in grateful acknowledgment of his cooperation, then turned to Jace. “Sit. Please.”
Jace glared at us for a second, then sank fluidly onto the edge of the bed.
I angled my own chair to face them both, then sat, fighting the urge to bury my head in my hands. Or in the sand. “Guys, I know what I’ve put you through, and I can’t even tell you how sorry I am. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and for the past few days, I’ve been too busy figuring out how to take care of the Pride to concentrate on more personal matters. And I know that’s not fair to either of you. But I owe it to the Pride—to all of you—to give the fight my full attention right now. After that, though, I swear…”
“You just lost your dad and your brother.” Jace scooted closer across the bed, his brows furrowed in sympathy. “And two days ago you were nearly beaten to death, then got kicked out of your home. That’s enough to deal with. Take your time.”
“Thank you.” I gave Jace a tense smile, then turned to Marc.
He sighed heavily and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, heartache dulling the brilliance of his eyes. “There’s nothing I can say right now that isn’t going to make this worse. I can’t pretend I’m okay with watching you two together, or waiting for you to make up your mind.”