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We are
not
having this conversation….

“Sometimes one person has to die to preserve the greater good.”

I opened my eyes just to roll them again, having reached the end of my patience. “You think I don’t know that? It was
my
decision to turn Lance Pierce over to be executed. I’m very familiar with the concept of ‘greater good,’ thanks.”

“Good. If you’re in a situation like that again, I expect you to eliminate the threat. Or at least let one of the guys do it.”

“That won’t be necessary.” My teeth ground together so loudly I was sure he could hear it. “I can eliminate my own threats.”

My father exhaled slowly. “Faythe…it
is
self-defense, because he
will
hurt you if he gets the chance.”

“He already has. But I hurt him back.”

“I know,” he said, and I could practically hear the smile in his voice. My father was satisfied that I would do as I was told. And I would. But the matter sat on my conscience like a stone at the bottom of a river.

“Call me when you get close to the nest.”

“Okay.” I raised my hand to stifle a yawn.

My dad sighed. “Boys, make sure she gets some sleep.”

“No problem,” Marc said, though he was at least as tired as I was. Maybe more.

Half an hour later, Lance woke up, his consciousness heralded by a series of angry grunts and kicks against the side of the van. Jace raised a single brow in grim amusement, then leaned over the back of his seat to peer into the cargo hold. “Hey.”

I twisted in my seat to watch, and Marc kept glancing in the rearview mirror until I smacked his shoulder and pointed out the windshield. He was dangerous enough with his eyes on the road.

Jace glanced at me and I shrugged, so he leaned over Lance, then came up a moment later with a strip of duct tape.

“Where am I?” Lance demanded. “What the
hell
do you think you’re doing?”

“Balancing the scales of justice,” Jace said, his usual grin conspicuously absent.

“What does that mean?”

I closed my eyes, steeling myself, then unbuckled and climbed onto the backseat, where I leaned over next to Jace, trying to keep the left side of my face angled away from our prisoner. “Hey, Lance.”

“Faythe?” He clearly didn’t remember my awesome countertop-assisted kick to his skull.

“Yeah. Listen, I’m just gonna get right to the point.” Because I had to be sure. I was perfectly willing to hand him over to the thunderbirds to save Kaci’s life, but I needed to know that he was actually guilty, for my own peace of mind. Though, peace hardly seemed possible, after the week we’d had. “Parker’s worried about you. Brett told us you were the one who killed the thunderbird, and Parker’s afraid that if the truth comes out, Malone will throw you under the wheels of the political machine to save himself. So we’re here on behalf of my dad, to offer you sanctuary.”

“Sanctuary? You’re serious?” His brows furrowed in skepticism.

“Yeah. Sorry about the whole snatch-’n’-grab. We didn’t think Malone would let you just walk out.”

Lance shook his head, his hair catching against the carpet. “He wouldn’t have.”

“So, I just need to clarify a couple of points, then we can let you ride up front with the rest of the grown-ups.” I smiled, hoping he could see my friendly, reassuring expression in the fading daylight, but not the new slice across my face, which hurt with each word I spoke.

“Okay…” He was hesitant to trust me, and I didn’t blame him. But I stood a much better shot at convincing him than Jace did.

“Are you the one who killed the thunderbird? We heard it was totally justifiable. He was trying to butt in on your kill?”

“Yeah!” Lance’s face brightened, and his relief was obvious even in the dying light. “It was my kill. Anyone else would have done the same thing.”

I smiled again and nodded like a bobble-head doll. “So you killed him?”

“Yeah, but it was…”

“Great, thanks.” I turned to Jace. “Tape him back up.”

“What? No!” Lance shouted, and resumed his struggle. But as long as he couldn’t partially Shift his hands—and I’d certainly never taught him how—there was no way he could tear through the tape binding his wrists.

“You got it.” Jace dug in the bag at his feet and came up with a roll of duct tape.

“Where the hell are we going?” Lance demanded as I returned to my seat.

Jace leaned over to hold Lance still long enough to tape his mouth. “To New Mexico.” Our prisoner fought harder, actually rocking the van a couple of times as he kicked. “Oh, don’t worry,” Jace said, smiling at him coldly. “I’m sure you’ll have a chance to plead your case in front of the thunderbirds.”

Jace faced forward again, and we all tried to ignore the desperate racket from the back. After ten minutes of Lance’s nonstop, wordless begging, Marc turned the radio up, and Guns N’ Roses cautioned our passenger to live and let die.

If he got the message, I heard no sign.

The guys insisted I take the first sleeping shift—the only thing they’d agreed on since we left Malone’s—but I was hesitant to leave them both awake at once. Unfortunately, my exhausted body won that particular battle of wills, and I slept for four straight hours.

After the switch, Marc napped, Jace drove, and I Shifted my right arm over and over, gritting my teeth through the pain, until it no longer hurt in human form. An hour into that leg of the trip, when he was sure Marc was asleep, Jace shot me a sideways glance, as I concentrated on the wave of fur rippling over my arm from the elbow down.

“What happened with Marc?” he whispered.

I glanced into the backseat before answering. Marc was truly sleeping; I could tell. “He said I have to choose. And one of you will have to go.”

Several full minutes of tense silence later, he whispered again. “So…what are you going to do?”

I could only shrug. “I don’t know.” And I had no one to talk it over with. Everyone I would normally have gone to for advice was either busy running the Pride, itching to kill the other man in my life, or dead. How could I possibly be so alone, when I never seemed to have any privacy?

After twenty-two hours, two more doses of tranquilizer for Lance, four bathroom breaks, and four different sleeping/driving switches, Marc shook me awake where I dozed in the front passenger seat. I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and noted that the sun was low in the sky. Again. “What time is it?”

“Four-fifteen. We’re about half an hour away from where we picked you up.”

Barring disaster, and accounting for the part we’d have to walk, that meant we’d arrive with less than a quarter-hour to spare.

Lance was sleeping off his latest injection and Jace was snoring lightly from the middle row. “Want me to call my dad?”

He nodded stiffly. I’d hoped he’d warm up a little, given time, but so far he showed no sign of a thaw.

I autodialed my father and gave him an update, promising to call him as soon as we had Kaci. He swore he’d be standing by with a phone to toss out to Beck when the Flight was satisfied with the proof we’d brought.

“Faythe, are you okay?” my dad asked, after the details were worked out.

“Fine.” Technically that was true. There was nothing physically wrong with me. But he could tell there was something we weren’t saying.

I dreaded telling my father almost as badly as I’d dreaded telling Marc.

Jace woke up while I was on the phone, and when I hung up he handed me two bottles of Coke and four protein bars—the makeshift dinner we’d bought at the last pit stop. We ate in silence, and my nerves consumed me as surely as I consumed my meal.

We were almost there. The thunderbirds would either accept our proof or they wouldn’t, and there was nothing we could do about their decision, either way. Kaci would either live or she wouldn’t, and there was nothing we could do about that, either. But I was willing to die trying.

Twenty-five minutes later, Marc turned right onto the narrow gravel road leading to the nest. Three miles along, we met the first obstacle—huge rocks spanning the entire width of the road in a random arrangement I was sure the thunderbirds had personally placed. We had to leave the car there and hoof it the rest of the way.

Lance blinked in the last rays of sunlight when we opened the back hatch, and he began struggling immediately.

“Shut the fuck up,” Marc ordered, and hauled him out with a grip beneath both of the prisoner’s arms.

Lance wobbled at first, and danced like he had to relieve himself, which was no surprise, considering he hadn’t had a bathroom break in nearly twelve hours, since the guys had stood guard while he took aim on the side of a dark road.

“I think he has to pee,” I said, and Lance nodded frantically. Jace glanced away and Marc cursed rapidly in Spanish. We weren’t willing to free the prisoner’s hands, but neither of the guys wanted to help him out of his pants. Apparently they were dribbled on last time.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. I’ll help him.”

Marc growled. “I got it.” He hauled Lance to the side of the road and Jace and I stared at the ground as Lance did his business. Then we started walking.

The awkward, silent two-mile hike took nearly half an hour, even with us shoving Lance along when he started to drag. He was obviously reluctant to arrive at the site of his pending execution.

The sun hung low on the horizon when the nest came into sight, and Jace stopped cold, staring overhead with his face shielded from the glare by one hand. “Wow. How the hell are we supposed to get up there?”

“We’re not.” I followed his gaze, impressed all over again by the thunderbirds’ mountainside enclave. “That’s the whole point.”

When we stood near the base of the cliff, staring almost straight up, the door overhead opened and four mostly human thunderbirds filed out to stand at the edge of the porch looking down at us. At some unseen, unheard signal, they leaped from the edge one by one, unfolding huge wings from their sides like dark angels.

They landed in front of us with a massive gust of wind and the thunderous beat of huge feathers against the air. Two of the birds were unfamiliar, but I recognized Cade and Coyt, though I could not for my life tell one from the other.

Like last time, the birds stood mute, so I stepped forward, hauling Lance with me by one arm. He planted his feet on the ground, refusing to move so that I had to literally drag him through the dirt. Like his resistance would mean a damn thing in the long run.

“Here’s your proof, right on time.” I shoved him forward another step. The thunderbirds eyed him in malice so deep and cold that I got a chill just from looking into their eyes. “Now bring Kaci down.”

Cade—or maybe Coyt—shook his head. “You must present your evidence.”

I huffed in irritation but knew I really had no choice. “Fine. But you’re gonna need more ferry-birds.” I gestured behind me, to where Marc and Jace stood as my silent backup.

Coyt—or maybe Cade—shook his head. “Only you and your evidence. Your men will stay here.”

“N
o way in hell.” Marc’s words were more growl than voice. “Where she goes, I go.”

The thunderbirds didn’t even spare him a glance. “If you’re ready…?” The bird nearest me gestured with one wing-claw toward the nest high above us.

“Yeah. Just a second.” I turned to Marc and Jace, fully aware that with my back to them, the thunderbirds could rip me in two before I even knew the blow was coming. At my side, Lance watched everything with wide, terrified eyes, pulling so hard against the tape binding his wrists that the muscles stood out in his arms, even beneath his long-sleeved tee.

Duct tape was truly the most awesome substance known to man—or Shifter—but even it would wear out over time. If they planned to hold him very long before…dealing with him, the birds would need to rebind him soon.

“Faythe, you can’t be serious,” Marc hissed, pulling me away from the birds and closer to him and Jace. “What’s to stop them from killing you and Kaci once they have you up there?”

“We would not harm her or your kitten, if Faythe Sanders has done what we’ve asked,” either Coyt or Cade said, addressing Marc for the first time. He glanced up, then his focus returned to me, his scowl evidently permanently fixed into place.

“
That’s
what will stop them.” I gestured toward the birds, to include the statement of their intentions. “I brought what they wanted, and they won’t go back on their word. And, anyway, there’s nothing either of you could do even if they hauled you up there. There are at least fifty grown thunderbirds in there, Marc. We’re on their turf. The best way for all of us to make it out of here alive is to play by their rules.”

“She’s right,” Jace said before Marc could object. “It’ll be worse for everyone if they feel threatened in their own home.”

Marc ignored him. He was busy eyeing me in an intense combination of frustration and fear. “You keep going places where I can’t protect you.”

I blinked at him in surprise. “Yeah. I do. But I keep coming back.” I reached out to run my hand over the delicious, dark stubble on his chin. “This is my job, Marc, and I swear I will do everything I can to get myself and Kaci out of there quickly and unharmed.” I glanced at Jace to include him in what I was about to say. “But listen, even if they don’t send anyone down here with you, they’ll be watching you, and their eyesight is incredible. If you guys start bickering or making trouble, they will come down here and end it, and there’s nothing I can do to stop them. So I need you to promise you’ll just stand here and wait quietly. Everything else that needs to be done or said can be addressed later. Okay?”

“Like we have a choice,” Marc grumbled, while Jace nodded mutely, the fists clenched at his sides the only indication that he was just as unhappy about the situation as Marc was.

“Thank you.” Turning, I held up a one-more-minute finger for the birds, then faced Lance, who looked like he was about to be thrown into a volcano. I had no doubt that if he thought he stood a chance, he’d have already taken off into the woods. “If I take the tape off your mouth, can you keep quiet and listen to me?”

He nodded hesitantly, and I decided it was worth the risk. I was about to hand him over to his death. Surely the least I could do was tell him how he’d gotten there and ask for his cooperation.

I peeled back one corner of the tape over his lips, then carefully pulled it the rest of the way off. Fortunately for Lance—and the stubble that had grown on his chin and cheeks over the past twenty-four hours—removing duct tape doesn’t hurt nearly as badly as pulling off a Band-Aid; I could attest to that personally.

“Okay. First of all, I’m truly sorry about the way this had to go down, but I want you to know that we had no other choice. You pretty much sealed your own fate when you killed Finn. Did you know that was the thunderbird’s name?”

Lance shook his head, and his gaze jumped from me, to the birds now surrounding him in case he tried to run, to Marc and Jace, to the woods, up to the nest, then finally back to me. He was clearly terrified.

“Well, it was. So far you’ve acted like a total, spineless punk throughout this entire ordeal. But now you have the chance to act like a man. To represent your species honorably and to do the right thing.”

He started to open his mouth, probably to ask a question, but I shook my head and rushed on.

“The thunderbirds have Kaci Dillon up there in their nest, and if I don’t hand you over to them, they’re going to kill her. And you know damn well that she has nothing to do with this. You were obviously willing to let an entire Pride full of toms die for your mistake, and in my opinion, you’ve outed yourself as morally reprehensible with that one. But are you willing to let them kill an innocent tabby? A
child?
Or will you redeem yourself and help me save her life?”

If Lance had any enforcer pride left, any vestiges of morality and selflessness still clinging to the rotting corpse of his honor, hopefully such an appeal would move him. Most toms had an ingrained soft spot for children—the future of our species. And all enforcers had sworn oaths to protect their Pride’s tabby.

The truth was that I would trade him for Kaci whether or not he played along. But I thought he had a right to try to redeem himself before he died.

Lance blinked, then glanced at the waiting thunderbirds before turning back to me. “What do I have to do?”

A huge sigh of relief built inside me, but I swallowed it, unwilling to let him see how little faith I truly had in him, how surprised I was by the possibility that he might cooperate. And how doubtful I was that he would actually stand tall when he realized that doing so would not miraculously save his life.

“All you have to do is tell the truth. And my personal suggestion would be to offer a sincere apology and try to explain the difference between our culture and theirs. Throw yourself on their mercy.” I thought the chances of such a plea actually saving his life were slim to not-a-chance-in-hell, but that would give him something to focus on, other than his own impending demise. And distraction was really all I had to offer him.

“And if that doesn’t work, you have two options. You can go out like the whiny little bitch Malone considers you—he obviously didn’t think you were man enough to stand by the truth—or you can hold strong until the end. Die with dignity.”

Lance swallowed thickly, then nodded hesitantly, holding my gaze as if he needed me to hear something. To truly believe something. “Faythe…it wasn’t my idea. I didn’t really have a choice. It was either go along with Calvin or wind up…well, like Brett did. If he’d do that to his own son, what would he have done to me, if I’d tried to fight him?”

“No one ever said enforcing was easy, Lance.” Nor life, for that matter. “Sometimes you have to make a tough choice, knowing it might get you killed. This time, you made the wrong one.” Though, oddly enough, the result was about the same. All he’d gained was an extra week of life under Malone’s tyranny.

I’d have chosen death over that any day.

“I think we’re ready,” I said, turning to Cade. Or maybe Coyt.

The birds nodded in unison, and with powerful, nearly simultaneous flaps of their huge wings, they took to the air, nearly blowing me off my feet in the process. Lance stumbled back, and Jace shoved him forward. An instant later, one of the two unfamiliar thunderbirds snatched his arms, his wrists still taped at his back, and as soon as he dangled in the air, the second bird grabbed him by both ankles.

Lance screamed as he was lifted into the air facedown. His eyes were wide, watching the earth fly by beneath him until the wind became too much and he had to close them.

I glanced up just as Cade—or maybe Coyt—flapped his wings over me, whipping my hair into knots that might never brush out. Strands lashed my forehead and caught in my mouth, and my very breath was stolen by the rush of air over my face. But I stood still and raised my arms, ready as I’d ever be for a trip I hoped never to suffer through again, once we had Kaci.

The first bird took me just below my shoulders, his talons squeezing mercilessly. But this time, I found the painful pressure comforting; surely a lax grip would have increased my chances of falling to my death. When I hovered twenty feet in the air, the second bird swooped to grab my shins. Then, with practiced ease, the two birds synchronized the beat of their wings—amazing, considering their proximity to each other—and we rose steadily toward the nest, bobbing for a heartbeat between each powerful flap before soaring up with the next.

I risked a single glance at the ground, and through the strands of long black hair whipping around my face, I saw Marc and Jace standing watching me side by side, each with a hand shielding his eyes from the crimson glare of the setting sun. From so high up, the differences between them were almost impossible to find. They were two anonymous bodies on the ground, watching helplessly as I was flown away from them both.

Cade and Coyt dropped me on the overhanging porch with a bone-jarring thud, and I remained crouched on the floorboards—a little frightened by the cracks I saw between them upon such close inspection—until they landed on either side of me, silent but for the last beat of their wings against the air.

“What the
hell?
” Lance shouted, and I stood to find him standing with his back—and his bound hands—pressed against the front wall of the nest. He glared at me, arms shaking, face pale. “You could have warned me….”

“About the trip up? Yeah, it’s a bitch the first time.” I regretted the words before the last one had even fallen from my lips; Lance’s first time would be his last.

Flustered, I started past him toward the open front door, beyond which dozens of thunderbirds waited for us in varying degrees of human form. When Lance didn’t follow, I turned to him. “You have two options—inside…” I gestured toward the open doorway. “Or down, the hard way. Which is it gonna be?” He hesitated, and I sighed. “
Dignity
, Lance.”

He spared one fleeting, terrified glance at the ground below, then squared his shoulders and walked past me into the huge main room of the nest—where he stopped, apparently frozen, three steps from the door.

I knew how he felt. Before this flight, Lance had only ever seen one thunderbird, and that poor cock had been alone and pounced upon before he had a chance to take to the sky. And now we were facing fifty or so of his closest friends and relatives, a much more representative—and intimidating—sample of the thunderbird population and their tendency to stick together.

And to avenge their own at all costs.

When Lance hadn’t moved several seconds later, I gave him a little shove, and he stepped forward slowly, trying to take in everything at once, his eyes already glazing over with the effort. He may have been going into shock, and frankly, that was probably better for all involved.

Before I could make a better assessment, or address any of the dozens of birds now staring at us, a door squeaked open overhead and I looked up to see Kaci step out onto the exposed second-floor walkway. “Faythe!” she shouted, and was running before the single syllable of my name faded into silence.

She raced along the hall and around the corner, nimbly avoiding the two fully human thunderbirds she passed in the process, and thumped down the stairs like a bull about to charge. But she was all smiles when she flew across the huge room and into my open arms.

“You came!” Kaci buried her tear-streaked face in the shoulder of my leather jacket.

“You say that like there was some doubt.” I pried her just far enough away that I could get a good look. Other than her sob-reddened face and an unusually pale countenance, she looked…fine. Which supported my theory that the birds would keep their word, so long as we kept ours. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Kaci wiped fresh tears from her face with the sleeve of her shirt—the one she’d been wearing since the day we were taken. “Just ready to go home.” Then she blinked and frowned, staring at my cheek. “What happened to your face?”

“It’s fine. Barely hurts. Just a keepsake from an old friend.”

Her frown deepened, and her hand rose as if to touch the scab, before she thought better of it and clasped her hands together. “That’s a joke, right?”

A really bad joke…“Okay, he wasn’t a friend. More like a mortal enemy.” Now, anyway.

“Did you kill him?” Kaci asked without missing a beat, and it was my turn to frown.

“Of course not!” Though, apparently I was alone in believing I was right to let him live. “But he’s gonna be in a lot of pain for a very long time.”

“Good.” Kaci glanced around at the crowd of thunderbirds watching us closely. Listening. Waiting. “Can we go home now?” she whispered.

“Come this way,” called a screechy voice, uneven with age, drawing our attention to the far end of the room, where I’d last addressed a smaller crowd of birds.

“In just a minute,” I whispered to Kaci, and waved Lance forward. He came slowly, still standing tall, but staring at me as if I were his one shot at salvation. The irony truly stung. How could he look at me like I was supposed to save him when I was the one turning him in?

Maybe I should have just knocked him out
.

“Who’s that?” Kaci stared at him openly.

“This is Lance Pierce,” I said, and he met and held Kaci’s gaze, as if his curiosity could not be denied. Maybe he wanted to know who I was trading his life for. Or maybe, like most toms, he couldn’t turn away from the sight of a young tabby, the very treasure enforcers—and indeed all toms—were taught from infancy to protect.

Kaci’s eyes widened and she edged closer to me as the circle of birds grew tighter around us, herding us to the end of the room. “Parker’s brother?”

“Yeah.” The floor of the great room was packed with birds now, and hardly a glimpse of empty floor showed, but for the five-foot circle surrounding us, putting us at the center of their unnerving attention. “He killed Finn.” A single glance up confirmed my suspicion: the perches and ledges had been abandoned. Everyone wanted to participate.