Shift. Rachel Vincent

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СКАЧАТЬ to speak. “Two days ago, one of our guys took down a deer, then went to ring the proverbial dinner bell. Before he was fifty feet away, this huge bird swooped down on his meal. Our man killed the thunderbird in a dispute over the kill. When we reported it, my dad went nuts. Said the last thing we needed was to piss off the thunderbirds. It took him a day or so to get there.…”

      I glanced at Marc to see if he’d caught that, and he nodded. How far out had they been, if it took their Alpha a full day to get to them? Of course, if they were expecting our attack, broad patrols made sense, but the Appalachian territory wasn’t that big.

      “…and by the time he did, he was almost…excited.” And anything that excited Malone would be bad news for us. “He didn’t want to bury the body. He said they’d come looking for their lost bird, so we had to sit still and wait.”

      “How did he know they’d come for it?” Marc asked.

      Brett started to answer, but Jace beat him to it. “When I was little, there was a flock that migrated through our territory every year. Cal claimed he’d actually talked to one once, but I never believed him. Guess he was telling the truth for once.”

      “Yeah,” Brett said over the line. “So we waited. Six hours later they showed up. Three of them. I have no idea how they found us. They can’t smell for shit with those beaks.”

      “But they can see for miles from the air.” Marc ran one hand slowly up and down my back. “At least, natural birds can.”

      “I always hated that phrase,” Jace said. “It makes Shifters sound unnatural.”

      “Anyway…” Brett ignored them both. “They landed, and it was totally bizarre. They Shifted in midmotion, with their feet first, so fast it looked like movie special effects.”

      I nodded, though he couldn’t see me. “I know. We’ve seen the show.”

      “Oh. Yeah.” Brett cleared his throat and continued. “Anyway, they landed and saw their boy dead, surrounded by, like, five of us. Three of us in cat form. They started to go feral. But before they could lunge, my dad said he knew who’d killed their man and wanted to make a deal.”

      “Then he set us up,” I guessed, my eyes closed in frustration.

      “Yeah. He told them that one of your cats had to have done it, because yours was the closest territory.”

      Marc growled. “Where the hell were you?”

      Brett exhaled heavily. “Four miles from your western border in the free zone. I’m sure you know why.”

      Yeah. Sounds like they were just as ready to invade us as we were to invade them. So much for Malone’s promise to Blackwell that he wouldn’t start the war.

      But then something even more infuriating occurred to me. They’d put five toms on our western border—the opposite direction we’d expect them to come from, because Malone was headquartered east of us, in Kentucky. But five wasn’t enough for a large-scale offense. Which obviously wasn’t what they were planning.

      They were counting on us to start the war. Expecting us to take most of our men northeast, into Appalachian territory, leaving Manx, Kaci and my mother largely undefended. At which point those five or so toms would sneak in the back way and plunder our most valuable resources. Our most treasured, vulnerable members.

      Fury crept up my spine in a white-hot blaze, but I forced it down. Their plans had obviously changed, and I needed to focus.

      “So, the thunderbirds promised your dad they’d get the tabbies out, then they’d rip us to shreds, one by one?”

      “That’s the gist of it, yeah.” Brett sounded miserable.

      “And you have proof?” Marc prodded.

      “My testimony, and the dead bird’s feathers, stained with his killer’s blood. Dad told us to clean up the mess, and I kept a couple of the feathers. I had a feeling this would go downhill. But I’m not sure how much good they’ll do. These birds can’t distinguish one cat’s scent from another’s.”

      “At least it’ll help with the council,” Jace said, voicing my exact thought. “But we’ll have to come up with some other way to prove it to the birds.”

      “If we can even find them.” I frowned, suddenly overwhelmed by the new burden, when we could least afford it. Kai was going to have to talk—that’s all there was to it.

      “I have to go. They’ve probably already noticed me missing,” Brett said, and twigs snapped as he made his way back toward the house from the woods.

      “Wait, Paul Blackwell is here. You have to tell him what you told us.”

      “I don’t have time now, but I’ll speak to him when I get there. But there’s one more thing. Our tom? The one who killed the thunderbird?”

      “Yeah?” I stood, eager to report to my father.

      “It was Lance Pierce.”

      Parker’s brother.

       Well, shit.

       Eight

      “Son of a bitch!” Jace pounded the arm of the couch and I jumped, his phone bouncing in my open palm. “To clear our name, we have to sell out Parker’s little brother. How’s that for a rock and a hard place?”

      “We can’t just turn him over…” I started, but my words faded into silence as soft sobs and footsteps sounded down the hall. I made it to the doorway just as Kaci flung herself into my arms. “What’s wrong?” Though, really, the sheer number of ways she could have answered that question was staggering.

      “He died. Charlie’s dead.”

      “Oh, no…” I wrapped both arms around her as my father stepped out of the somber crowd of toms still gathered around Owen’s room, now staring at their feet as if they were afraid that eye contact might trigger tears.

      Kaci was crying freely. She’d only met Charlie Eames that morning, but at her age, with all the tragedy she’d already witnessed, any death would have been traumatic. Murder, even more so.

      My father’s gaze was heavy as Dr. Carver followed him into the hall, both of them headed our way. “What happened?” I asked, pulling Kaci into the room with me so they could come in.

      “Internal bleeding.” Dr. Carver laid a hand on Kaci’s shoulder briefly, then sank wearily onto the couch next to Marc.

      “Did we make it worse by moving him?” I had to ask. Not that the answer would change anything.

      “Probably.” Carver twisted on his cushion to face me. “But we had no other choice, and the truth is that with such major, full-body trauma, his chances were never very good in the first place.”

      Kaci whimpered in my arms, and I squeezed her tighter. Physical contact was the only comfort I had to offer.

      My father sat stiffly near the front window, where crimson, late afternoon sunlight СКАЧАТЬ