Shift (Shifters #5)(11)

The thunderbird nodded but remained seated, his broken arm resting carefully in his lap, but not quite cradled, as if showing pain would be admitting weakness. Werecats had similar instincts. Weakness means vulnerability, and admitting such to an enemy could get your head ripped right off.
But his refusal to stand was an outright insult, and his bold eye contact said he damn well knew it.
“Your name is Kai?” my father continued; we’d filled him in upstairs. The thunderbird nodded again. “Do you have some kind of proof I can examine, Kai? Because to my knowledge, none of my men has ever even seen a thunderbird before today. And killing someone of another species is precisely the kind of thing I would hear about.”
Though, there were always surprises. Toms like Kevin Mitchell, whose crimes went unnoticed until it was too late.
Kai sat straighter, though it must have hurt the stilloozing gashes across his stomach. “We accepted evidence in the form of sworn testimony from a respected member of your own community.”
“Wait…” I crossed both arms over my chest and ventured closer to the bars, confident that the bird was now too weak and in too much pain to lunge for me. And that if I was wrong, I could defend myself from one caged bird with a broken wing. “Someone told you we killed your…cock?” I resisted the urge to grin. What was a crude joke to us was serious business to him, and making fun of our prisoner would not convince him to cooperate.
Still, that joke was begging to be told. Later, when we needed a tension breaker. Where Kai wouldn’t hear.“Who?” I demanded, frowning down at him.
“Even if I wanted to tell you—” and it was clear that he did not “—it’s not my place to say.”
“So you won’t even tell us who’s accusing us?”
“No.” He turned slightly, probably looking for a more comfortable position on the floor, but flinched instead when the movement hurt.
“How is that…just?” I almost said fair, but bit my tongue before someone could remind me that life wasn’t fair. Few enforcers knew that better than I did.
The bird heaved a one-shouldered shrug with his back pressed against the cinder blocks. “We gave our word that we would guard his identity in exchange for the information he offered. We swore on our honor.” He looked so serious—so obviously committed to keeping his promise—that I couldn’t bring myself to argue. Instead, I turned to my father, shuffling one boot against the gritty concrete floor.
“It’s Malone.” To me, it seemed obvious. Of course, in that moment I was just as likely to claim that Calvin Malone was the worldwide source of all evil. So maybe mine wasn’t the most objective of opinions.…
For a minute, I thought he’d argue. But then my Alpha nodded slowly, rubbing the stubble on his chin with one hand. “That’s certainly a possibility.…”
“It’s more than that.” I unfolded my arms to gesture with them, careful not to turn my back to the caged bird. “Who else would try to frame us for killing a thunderbird?”
Marc raised one brow in the deep shadows, silently asking if I were serious. “Milo Mitchell. Wes Gardner. Take your pick.”
“If it was either one of them, he was acting on Malone’s behalf. It’s all the same.”
My father waved me into silence and turned back to the thunderbird. “If we don’t know who’s accusing us, how can we defend ourselves? Or investigate the accusation?”
Kai stared back steadily. “That is not our concern.”
“It’s in the interest of justice,” I insisted. “If you guys value honor so highly, shouldn’t you be interested in justice?”
“For Finn? Yes.” The bird nodded without hesitation, his good hand hovering protectively over the open wounds on his torso. “That is our only motive. For you? Not in the least.”
“But you’re not getting justice for…Finn?” I raised my brows in question, and he nodded. “…if you’re attacking the wrong Pride.” Not that I was trying to pin the tail on another cat. I was just trying to get the name of our accuser. “Right?”
Kai actually seemed to consider that one. “I agree. But that’s not my call.” 
“Whose call is it?” My father stepped up to my side. Marc was our backup, a constant, silent threat.
“The Flight’s.”
I frowned, uncomprehending. “So who decides for the Flight?”
Kai scowled at my ignorance. “We do.”
“All of you?” I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. Without a leader—someone to spearhead the decisionmaking process and keep the others in line—how could they function?
My father had gone still, and I couldn’t interpret his silence, or his willingness to let me continue questioning the bird on my own. But I wasn’t going to complain. If I messed up, he’d step in. “What if you disagree? Isn’t there some sort of…pecking order?”
The thunderbird nodded reluctantly. “It is only invoked in extreme cases.”
“Like this one?” I spread both arms to indicate the bird’s assault on our entire Pride.
That time Kai smiled, showing small, straight teeth he hadn’t possessed in bird form. “We were unanimous about this.”
I shook my head as if to clear it, and my hands curled into fists. “You unanimously decided to hold an innocent child responsible for an unfounded allegation of murder that has nothing to do with her? How is that honorable?”
The prisoner’s expression twisted into a mask of contempt. “We would not have hurt the child, even if she is our natural enemy. Nor would we have hurt you, if it could be helped. Finn was killed by a male cat, and in exchange for that information, we also agreed to try to remove the female cats from your encampment before the true melee begins.”
Melee?! Were these ninja birds? Green Berets with feathers?
My father went stiff on the edge of my vision, and Marc growled at my back. And for a moment, I was actually too surprised for words. But then indignation surfaced through my shock, singeing my nerve endings with infant flames of anger. “You agreed to remove us?” I turned to my father before the bird could answer. “I told you it was Malone.” He’d initially tried to get his paws on Kaci through political maneuvering, and when that didn’t work, he’d breached our boundaries to take her by force. My brother Ethan had died defending her, and Kaci’s blossoming sense of security was shattered. As was her confidence in our ability to protect her.
“I think she’s right, Greg.” Marc stepped between us and I could see that he wanted to put an arm around me. But a public display of affection would be unprofessional in front of the prisoner. Even simply comforting me would make me look weak.
My father nodded, convinced. Then he turned toward the bars. “You have no phones? So how can we get in touch with your Flight?”
That cruel smile returned, though this time it seemed less confident. “You can’t. They can only be reached in person, and even if I told you where to go, you couldn’t get there on your own. And in this shape—” he lifted his broken arm, jaw clenched against the pain “—I can’t take you.”
“Then how did Malone do it?” I demanded, stepping close enough to touch the bars. I wanted to wrap my hands on them, shake them in anger. But I knew from experience that they were too strong to rattle, and that gripping them in my current state of desperation would make me look like the prisoner rather than the interrogator. Especially since he currently had the upper hand. And damn well knew it.
“If you mean our informant, he was never in our nest. Our search party found him with Finn’s body.”
“How did you make a deal with him, if you weren’t all there to agree?” Marc asked, and I was relieved to realize I wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand this hive mentality thing the birds evidently had going on.Kai shrugged again. “We function as a unit. A promise from one of us will be honored by all.”
“So, if we were to convince you of our innocence, you would promise to stop dive-bombing our toms, and the rest of you would honor that promise?” I could work with that. I was good at convincing.…
But Kai shook his head, and his lips tightened beneath another grimace of pain. “I cannot offer my word in contradiction to a standing agreement. Even if I wanted to. It would dishonor my Flight.”
Damn it!
My father turned away from the thunderbird without a word and headed for the stairs, which was our signal to follow. On the third step he paused and glanced at me over his shoulder. “Feed him, then close the door, but leave the window open.” Which would make us look merciful for the moment, and ensure that we’d get maximum effect out of closing it later, if we had to.
I nodded, and as my father left the basement, I turned back to the caged bird. “Do you eat normal food? People food?”
He grinned nastily. “I don’t suppose you have fresh carrion?” None that we were willing to let him eat. My stomach churned at the very thought.
But Marc only smiled coldly. “Personally, I feel more like poultry. Extra tasty crispy.”
Six
“No one leaves the house in groups smaller than three,” my father said, and I groaned on the inside, though I acknowledged the necessity. We’d had similar manpower restrictions in the Montana mountains during my trial, thanks to the psychotic band of strays trying to forcibly recruit Kaci. But at least then we’d been able to fight back.