I smiled. “Right now. Load up.”
My pulse raced as I picked my way carefully through the woods, aiming for silence in spite of my awkward human form. I wouldn’t get to Shift. Someone had to call all the allies together and tie a bunch of orange flaps around feline legs. But I was armed. I had cat eyes, and I carried a crowbar in my left hand and a folding knife in my left pocket. And once the fight began, I’d have cat teeth, and claws on one hand.
That was the best compromise I could find between Faythe-the-Alpha and Faythe-the-fighter.
Jace was in human form, too, at least so far, to help me tie.
We’d gone about half a mile with me in the lead when brush rustled on my left, and I froze. My heart raced and I raised my crowbar. All movement behind me stopped, as our toms followed my lead, instantly on alert.
A dark blur soared over the brush to land in front of me, huge and tensed for action. I sniffed the air and relaxed. My cousin Lucas. He seemed to recognize me at the same time, and he stalked forward to run his head under my waiting palm. A moment later, more toms leaped over the brush, and my uncle stepped into sight from around a thick pine tree. Bert Di Carlo and Aaron Taylor were right behind him.
They’d contributed six men apiece—seven, including themselves—to the effort, which put our ground troops at a staggering forty-two toms, all ready and willing to kill—or die—for the cause. It was the largest offensive in living memory, even without counting the thunderbirds.
“Faythe…” My uncle stepped forward for a quick hug, then held me at arm’s length to study my face. “Are you ready for this?”
I gave him a firm nod, then a small smile. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“Ready and willing,” Di Carlo answered for them all, hugging my mother in greeting, and my heart beat so hard my chest ached. It was time.
But Marc wasn’t there. I pulled Vic aside for a moment and asked if he’d heard from Marc again, but he could only shake his feline head.
What if he’d gotten caught on the way in? What if he’d gotten killed? What if he’d simply changed his mind—decided not to come because he couldn’t stand to be near me?
“He’s probably just running late,” Jace said, rubbing one hand along my back. “He’ll be here.”I nodded, then pulled out my father’s phone and called myself. Beck answered on the second ring. “It’s Faythe Sanders,” I said, half whispering, even though we were still a mile and a half from the ranch. “Are you ready?”
“We are always ready,” the thunderbird answered, his dual-tone voice screeching softly into my ear.
“Good. Move in and perch nearby. When you see the fight begin, have at it. But remember the rules…”
“We know. Do not kill anyone wearing an orange flag, and do not partake of our kills.”
“Right.”
When I hung up, Jace, my mother, and the Alphas were already tying orange strips to the toms’ legs. I shoved the phone into my pocket and joined them, then tied a short strip to Jace’s upper arm.
“You can do this,” he whispered, as he tied a matching length to my left arm. “And I’ll be right there with you.”
I tried for a smile, but failed.
“With any luck, this is overkill.” We were attacking in the middle of the night for a reason. Hopefully, everyone would be asleep in human form, and we would give them no time to Shift. Baring catastrophe, getting to Malone should be easy, and I was fervently hoping that the biggest problem we’d have would be consoling the thunderbirds over the small scale of the promised slaughter.
Well, that and the guns. But hopefully Malone and his men weren’t hard core enough to sleep with their pistols.
When everyone was ready, we started forward again, and as we crossed the creek I’d played in my whole life, the thunder of giant wings roared overhead, beating the air as the thunderbirds overtook us.
Nearly two dozen of them.
My pulse surged again. We had the power, we had the numbers, and we had the home-field advantage. How could this go wrong?
Twenty minutes later, I peeked between two trunks on the edge of the tree line, staring at the back of my own house like a thief in the night. And that’s exactly what I felt like—I’d come to steal my life back, and heaven help anyone who got in my way.
Jace and my mother stood to my right, my Alpha allies to my left. Spread out behind us were our toms—including my brothers and lifelong friends—scattered among the trees.
I took a deep breath. Then I stepped into the yard.
The men followed me, cats moving much more stealthily than I could on two legs, and I caught my uncle’s gaze, then pointed toward the guesthouse. Our allies and their men were going to guard the guesthouse, front and back, to keep as many of Malone’s men off us as possible, while we attempted a relatively peaceful assassination in the main house. Then we’d deal with the fallout.
At least, that was the plan.
But as our allies spread out around the guesthouse, Mateo Di Carlo and my cousin Lucas among them, I started to get a very bad feeling.
Jace and I headed for the back porch of the main house, with Michael on my left and Owen on his other side, both in cat form. On Jace’s other side, Vic and Parker stalked silently, their white, warm puffs of breath the only sign that they were living, breathing beings, and not cold, efficient emissaries of death, come to help me send Malone on his way.
I tucked my crowbar under my Shifted left arm as I climbed the back porch steps, glad concrete didn’t creak. I wasn’t sure whether or not Kenton would have thought to change the locks, so I had my keys, just in case. And if they didn’t work, I’d kick the door in. Not exactly stealthy, but definitely expedient.
However, before I could test the knob, it turned on its own, and my heart jumped into my throat. The back door swung open slowly and Colin Dean leered at me, his gun aimed at my chest, his mutilated cheek stretching beneath deep shadows in the dark hallway.
“Back for more already?” He glanced at Jace then and arched one brow, like they shared some intimate secret. “We just can’t keep this little puss satisfied for long, can we?”
Thirty-three
“Dean.” My pulse tripped, and I tried futilely to slow it as a shiny set of cat eyes blinked at me from deeper in the hallway. Then a second pair of eyes. Then a third, fourth, fifth… Too many to count
They’d already Shifted. Which meant they’d known we were coming. I stepped back. Jace’s hand steadied me when I almost missed the bottom step, and my mind raced. How had they known? How long had they known? Long enough to bring in more men?
I opened my mouth to demand to talk to Malone—I couldn’t kill him if I couldn’t see him—but before I could, the guesthouse door squealed open behind me, and somebody snarled.
I turned to find more toms in cat form pouring out of the guesthouse, flowing like a river of black fur to surround our allies. At least another dozen. We weren’t outnumbered yet, but it was much closer than I’d hoped for. And they definitely were not caught off guard.
“Surprise!” Dean stepped onto the porch, and I took another step back. “When we heard you were coming, we thought we’d throw a party in your honor. Hope you don’t mind, but we invited a few extra guests.”
“How did you know?” I demanded, trying to control the slight tremor in my voice.
“Well, it turns out that little Melody Malone is definitely her father’s daughter. She overheard her mother telling loverboy here where her daddy was, then called Cal directly to report the suspicious phone call. Cal called in every tom within driving distance, and told us to sleep in cat form, just in case. Though I have to say, we didn’t think you’d show up quite so soon….”
“Where’s Malone?” I demanded, seething.
“He’s around. Pulling the strings from behind the curtain. Smart Alphas don’t expose themselves to the melee. After all, who’s going to run things if the Alpha dies?” Dean stepped onto the middle of the top step, and cats poured out of the house behind him and leaped to the ground, face-to-face with my own men. At my rough estimate, I counted nearly a dozen. Some of them I knew, some I didn’t, but none of them looked surprised.
Jace tugged my right arm, and I started to back up with him, but Dean shook his head. “Don’t move, pussycat. Or I will shoot you.”
Michael snarled at my side, and Jace was growling deep in his mostly human throat, but there was nothing they could do. We were fast, but bullets were faster. Fortunately, so far Dean was the only one in human form, thus the only one carrying a gun.“What’s the matter, Faythe?” Dean taunted, as his toms slunk closer. Two of them faced Jace, snarling softly, trying to steer him away from me. “I thought you liked being outnumbered by men. This is like your dream date, right?”
I slid my keys into my pocket and took the crowbar in my right hand, determined not to rise to the bait. “Why don’t you put down the gun and fight fair?”
“We already tried it that way, and I mopped up the floor with your tight little ass. Not to mention your face. Now put down the crowbar, or your boy takes a bullet.” He swung his gun toward Jace, and my heart clawed its way into my throat.
“Faythe, he’s bluffing…” Jace mumbled.