“You should know they have no Alpha,” I said warily, shifting to subtly move in front of Kaci. “Regardless of who speaks to you, you’re actually talking to all of them, so don’t be thrown off by their round-robin routine.”
Lance nodded curtly, then turned back to the bird who’d addressed him, dismissing me with apparent ease, though I found it much more difficult to reciprocate.
“The only right you have within our nest is the right to speak in your own defense. Succinctly,” said another bird, this one a younger man, whose talons clicked over and over on the floor, like a metronome counting down the last seconds of Lance’s life. “What would you say?”
Lance inhaled, then began to speak, glancing from one to the other of the birds who still bore a few human characteristics. He never even glanced at those who had fully Shifted, as if by keeping them out of sight, he could actually put them out of mind.
“Last week, I killed a thunderbird in a dispute over a meal. According to werecat law, it should have been my decision whether or not to share my meal, and I never offered…Finn a portion of my kill. By our law, my actions are justified, but I understand that your customs are different. I’ve broken one of your rules, and all I can do is ask for your mercy and plead ignorance of your laws. I swear I had no idea our cultures differed so dramatically.”
“Your culture is irrelevant here,” another bird said, while the woman beside her snapped her beak together over and over. “Your laws are simply words fallen on deaf ears. You killed one of ours in his own territory, and ignorance of our practices is no excuse.”
I knew from what little I’d spoken to Kai that the thunderbirds were aware of other species’ territorial boundary lines, if only so that they could avoid unnecessary encounters.
“I wouldn’t have killed him if he hadn’t fought back!” Lance snapped, gesturing angrily with one fist, and an alarm went off in my head.
Shut up! The silent shout reverberated in my skull, but I could not give it voice. It wasn’t my place to defend him—not simply because we shared a species. Lance was in the wrong, for both his crime and for letting Malone blame us. People had died because of him.
“Do you intend to imply that Finn’s murder was his own fault?” a young female demanded, her pale brown eyes blazing in fury. “That if he’d only submitted to an intruder’s strange practices in his own land, he would still be alive?”
“That may be,” said an elderly male bird, whose head feathers had begun to gray. “But none among us would debase himself for a few more years on earth. What good is life if you live it in dishonor?”
Lance had no answer for that. He had done the very thing the thunderbirds could not abide: he’d sacrificed his honor for his life. Worse yet, he’d let others pay for his crimes.
A petite woman stepped forward on small, sharp talons, weaving birdlike with each movement. “Have you anything else to say for yourself?”
Lance hesitated, his hands folded together at his back. “Just that I’m truly sorry for what I’ve done to Finn and for what I’ve allowed to happen to the south-central Pride. They are completely innocent.”
My exhalation was so ragged and heartfelt that it echoed in the near silence. Kaci squeezed my hand, and I knew without looking that she was smiling up at me. Most of the tension had drained from her bearing with Lance’s admission.
The small female bird turned to me. “Faythe Sanders, you and your kitten may go. Cade and Coyt will take you down.”
“Thank you.” I glanced at Lance, then turned toward the door. But Kaci’s grip on my hand pulled me to an abrupt stop.
“What about him?” She nodded toward Lance.
“That’s out of our hands, Kaci,” I said, pulling her forward. “Let’s go.”
She shook her head and stood her ground. “But we can’t just leave him. What are they going to do to him?”
“You should listen to your mother,” Brynn said, and I glanced up to see her standing on the edge of the crowd, holding her ever-morphing daughter on one hip. “Lance Pierce will be put to death for his crimes, and you don’t want to see that.”
She was trying to help; I could see that. She considered Kaci my daughter—even if not biologically—and she was trying to help, from one mother to another. Unfortunately, outside of the giant aviary, telling a child that someone is about to be executed is not a good way to calm that child down.
“What?” Kaci’s screech was almost bird-worthy. “They’re gonna kill him, Faythe. You have to help him.”I pulled her close and made her meet my stern gaze. “Kaci, there’s nothing I can do for Lance. We all have to pay for our mistakes, and Lance made a big one.”
“So did I!” She glanced at him, then back at me. “I messed up a lot. People died. But no one killed me, ’cause I didn’t know what I was doing. That’s what you said. You said I wasn’t really guilty if I didn’t know what I was doing. And he didn’t know what he was doing, either. You heard him. He didn’t know thunderbird law, so he’s not guilty, right?”
I shook my head slowly and closed my eyes, trying to figure out how to explain. “It’s not the same, Kaci. Lance…I’ll explain it to you later, okay? When we get home. Let’s go.” I turned toward the door, and again she refused to move.
“No. You have to help him, Faythe. That’s your job. We can’t leave him here.”
My heart ached for her, and over my own reluctance to hand over a fellow werecat to be executed. But I’d made my decision and it was far too late to change my mind. “Kaci, my job is to protect you, and I’ve done that. We have to go. Marc and Jace are waiting for us outside.”
But she only shook her head and turned back to Brynn. “How?”
“How what?” Brynn asked, and the baby bird on her hip Shifted its nose and mouth into a tiny, sharp beak and began nipping at her mother’s arm in a bid for freedom.
“How will he die?” Kaci stood straight and tall, as if steeling herself for unpleasant information. Information I didn’t want her to have, even if I didn’t know precisely what it was.
“He will be eaten, of course.” Distracted, Brynn set the struggling child on the floor as she spoke, and clearly had no idea the effect her words would have on Kaci. “Consumed by the family of his victim.”
Oh, hell…
Kaci’s eyes widened, and her mouth opened and closed, as if her response had been stolen by sheer horror. “You’re going to eat him?”
Such a sentence was unheard of among werecats. Man-eaters were among the most reviled of our criminals, and those most severely punished before they were executed. And the idea held special horror for Kaci, because a few months earlier—starving and half out of her mind—she’d partially consumed a hunter she’d killed while stuck in cat form.
Nothing Brynn could have said would have upset her more.
We were all watching Kaci, me in concern, as I tried to herd her toward the door, the birds in detached curiosity. They obviously could not understand her reaction. But so focused were we on the young, near-hysterical tabby that no one paid much attention to Brynn’s little chicklet, scampering from bird to bird, as if she were playing tag in a great forest.
No one paid attention, that is, until she gave a sudden startled squawk.
Every head in the room turned, and Brynn gasped in horror. “Wren!”
Lance stood in the center of the circle, holding the child by her currently human waist, her thin legs and talons dangling, his broad hand loosely gripping her neck. “Promise you’ll let me go, or I’ll kill her. I swear I’ll do it.”
“Lance…” I warned, as all around us, the birds who’d retained a few human features Shifted completely into avian form, and the entire throng pressed subtly, aggressively toward him. “You don’t want to do this. This is not the way to get on their good side.”
“They don’t have a good side!” he snapped, glancing at me briefly before returning his attention to the birds posing the most immediate threat. “I mean it. Stay back or I’ll pull her arm right off.” His hand slid from Wren’s neck to her pudgy little elbow, and the child giggled like it tickled. Then, as if in response to the touch, her arms Shifted into small, beautifully feathered wings.
Lance jerked in surprise and dropped her arm, then grabbed her neck again before anyone had a chance to make a move toward the child. By sheer, bumbling luck, he’d managed to grab the toddler with her back to him, and all her most dangerous parts—beak, claws, and talons—were facing away. He could hold her like that for quite a while, if necessary.
Kaci made an odd noise and I glanced over to see her staring at Lance in horror and mounting fury. She looked disillusioned, and I felt almost as bad for her as for the child Lance held hostage.
Wren began to struggle, obviously tired of whatever game she thought they were playing. She flapped her wings but couldn’t reach back far enough to bother Lance. When that didn’t work, she squeezed her eyes shut in concentration, and one wing Shifted almost instantly into a chubby little arm, though the other remained stubbornly feathered.