Shift (Shifters #5)(60)

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.”
Thirty
“No 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.