“There’s no time to call in the rest of our guys, much less the thunderbirds.” Who had to be contacted in person, thanks to their discourteous lack of a phone. And any other modern convenience beyond a few worn video cassettes and an old television for their children.
“We’re all strong fighters,” Jace said. “And getting rid of the guns will help even the odds.”
But even if we managed that, war wasn’t fought without casualties. We would lose someone. Maybe more than one someone. And that was not okay.
Fifteen minutes later, we peered between the trees at the back of our own cabin, listening and looking for anything out of the ordinary. If Malone knew we’d escaped, he’d have someone watching the cabin, and while we were more than ready to fight, we couldn’t risk starting something big before we’d gotten rid of the guns and warned everyone else. And warmed Marc and Jace up.
“I think it’s clear,” Jace said finally, and I nodded. I’d neither seen nor heard anything weird, and I knew every figure who’d passed by the window. But my father hadn’t been among them. Was he still at the lodge, unwilling to leave me there alone?
My heart ached in both gratitude and frustration, and I would have given just about anything for a cell phone at that moment, so I could fill him in.
“Let’s go.” Marc stepped through the tree line, then ran for the back steps. Jace and I raced after him. By the time we got there, Marc was knocking on the door. “It’s locked,” he explained, when I stopped on the step below him, uncomfortable standing exposed in the porch light.
The sheer curtain parted, and Teo Di Carlo’s face appeared. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he recognized Marc in the porch light, then saw me behind him. He fumbled with the doorknob, and a moment later ushered us inside.
“Have I ever mentioned how much I love central heat?” Marc headed straight for the coffeepot, still dripping with fresh, hot caffeine.
“And roaring fireplaces…” Jace made a beeline for the stone hearth. “Anyone got marshmallows?”
“How the hell did you get out?” Teo closed and locked the door as people migrated into the kitchen, drawn by our voices.
Marc poured coffee into two mugs, then reached for the sugar. “Faythe broke us out.”
“And who broke you out?” Vic asked, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the kitchen wall. He was still mad, and evidently rescuing Marc didn’t earn me any points in his favor, because I’d rescued Jace, too.
“What am I, helpless?” I grinned and accepted the mug Marc handed me, but Vic only nodded in acknowledgment of my skills. “Where’s my dad?”
“He’s at the lodge, questioning Malone’s every word to keep the council busy. We were just about to execute a jailbreak.”
“Yeah, I kind of have that covered.” I set my mug on the table and glanced around, trying to gather my thoughts. “Okay, Marc and Jace need food—something hot and heavy on the calories—and I need a phone.”
Vic fingered the phone in his pocket—the phone he was pointedly not offering me—while Teo pulled a glass pan of something hot, cheesy, and half-devoured from the oven.
“Here.” Brian Taylor handed me his cell, and I smiled at him in thanks. While the guys scooped big servings of baked pasta onto plates, I texted my dad to keep the other Alphas from overhearing our conversation.
It’s F. We r out. @ the cabin.
A moment later, his reply came: On my way. And in spite of the circumstances, I spared a moment to be amused by the fact that my father knew how to text. Ethan had taught him, insisting that the new skill would come in handy. My heart ached with the realization that he wasn’t around to brag about being right.
While Jace and Marc ate, I helped myself to a plateful of some vaguely Italian-looking combination of noodles, cheese, and tomato sauce, and had half of it scarfed before I noticed Vic scowling at us from the living room. Irritated now, I made eye contact and tossed my head toward the hall.
He nodded curtly and met me there, then followed me silently into the first bedroom we passed.
“Okay, get it over with,” I said, leaning against the closed door.
“Get what over with?”
“You’re pissed at me, and everyone can see that, but our lives just might depend on each other in the next couple of hours. So grow a pair and say your peace, then get over it.”
His scowl only grew. “You slept with Jace.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. And frankly, I don’t have to justify that to you.” He started to object, but I cut him off. “Mostly because it’s unjustifiable.” And suddenly I felt Ethan’s absence stronger than I had since the day he’d died. I needed to talk to someone about Jace and Marc, and as awesome as my father’s advice was, he was still my dad.
“Well, at least you recognize that.” He huffed, but looked half-mollified by my admission.
“Will you sit?”
Vic hesitated, then pulled a desk chair away from the wall and sank into it. I let my back slide down the door and sat with my knees pulled up to my chest, looking up at him, drowning in the overload of pain and conflict that came rushing back, now that we were out of immediate danger. “I’m lost, Vic. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He rolled his eyes. “And I thought this was going to be hard…. You just tell Jace thanks for the ride, you’re sorry you’ve turned him into a panting puppy dog, but what happened was wrong and you can’t live without Marc.”
Tears filled my eyes and I brushed them away before they could fall.
“Shit,” he whispered, and the chair groaned beneath his shifting weight. “It’s not that easy, is it?” I shook my head but refused to look up. “Do you love him?”
I nodded and wiped unshed tears on my sleeves. “I wish like hell that I didn’t, but if wishes were raindrops, I’d already have drowned. The truth is that I can’t stand the thought of losing either one of them.”
“Fuck.” Vic got up from the chair and sank to the ground a foot away. The distance he left between us said he still disapproved, but he’d put himself on my level, in full talk-it-out mode. “Marc knows it’s serious?”
“Do you think he’d be this pissed if he didn’t?”
“I think he’d have killed Jace already, if he didn’t think he’d lose you for it.”
“I know.” I reached up to snatch a tissue from the desk on my right.
“You have to choose.”
“I know.”
“You have to choose Marc.”
I had no answer to that. I did have to choose Marc. But I had to choose Jace, too. Yet that wasn’t an option. And I couldn’t hover in decision purgatory much longer.
“I’m sorry, Vic. More sorry than you could ever imagine. I just want you to know that. And to know that this isn’t some stupid rebellion. I would never risk what I have with Marc over something like that. This is real, and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and it’s torture for all three of us. And it’s all my fault.”
“Well, you’re right about that.” Another man who wouldn’t sugarcoat things for me. “But I think Jace shares more than a little of the blame.”
I blinked to clear my vision and wiped the last of my tears on the tissue. “Is there anything you wouldn’t have done for comfort after Sara died? If you were alone with her best friend, and you’d both just lost a huge part of your lives, and you were both hurting so bad it felt like the pain would swallow you alive?”
“Faythe, I honestly don’t know. But that doesn’t excuse…”
“I know. I’m not saying it excuses anything. I’m just saying that’s how it happened, and afterward, I realized it didn’t feel as wrong as it should have. I mean, hurting Marc felt horrible, and still feels horrible, but the rest of it—loving Jace—doesn’t feel wrong.”
Vic watched me for a moment, like he didn’t know what to say, and I couldn’t blame him. I knew exactly what that felt like. But before he could decide on a response, the front door of the cabin squeale
d open.
“Faythe?” my father called. I scrambled to my feet and threw open the door. My dad stood in the middle of the floor, winded and trying to catch his breath. “I’m fine, Dad. We’re all fine.”
“Not for long.” He paused to suck in another deep breath. “I ran all the way here, but I could hear them behind me, about a quarter of a mile. I think they know you’re gone.”
“Okay.” My heart pounded so hard I could barely hear anything else, and the rest of the room seemed to fade into the background as I focused on my father. “This is your call, Dad. We can surrender and wait while you guys go for the guns—we think they’re in the shed behind Malone’s cabin. Or we can stand and fight now.”
“We’re going to get the best of both worlds.” He glanced over my shoulder. “Brian, go through the woods and get the guns. Take them deep into the forest and drop the whole box, then come back ready to fight. We’ll destroy them later. On the way, call Aaron and Rick and tell them to get their men ready.”
“I’m already on that, Greg,” Bert Di Carlo said from the kitchen doorway, his cell phone at his ear.
“Good.” My father looked at each of us individually, me last of all. “This time we fight.”
Anticipation buzzed in my stomach like angry wasps, fear and bloodlust combining to spin my head and steel my spine. “I confiscated three guns, but there are two more in use, plus the five Malone still has locked up. Assuming he hasn’t already distributed them. Colin Dean has one of those two, but anyone could have the last. So some of us should Shift, but we also need a few in human form, to disarm those last couple of ‘task force’ members.” I pulled my shirt over my head, hopefully emphasizing the urgency.
“Agreed.” My father glanced around at the room full of toms, all waiting for his orders. “Lucas, Jace, Vic, and I will stay human. The rest of you Shift. Quickly. We’ll do our best to get rid of the guns, but stay out of the line of fire just in case.”
Marc already had his shirt off and his pants unbuckled when I grabbed his arm and pointed toward the bedroom, where we’d be shielded from the initial onslaught. “In there.” Because we were more vulnerable in mid-Shift than at any other time in our lives. At least, since infancy.
Marc headed for the bedroom and grabbed Di Carlo’s other enforcer on the way.
“How many are coming?” I asked, unbuttoning my jeans in the bedroom doorway.
My father’s frown deepened as his gaze settled on mine. “I couldn’t tell. But more than came for you the first time, I’m betting.”
I nodded and ducked into the bedroom, leaving the door open a crack so we could get out without hands to twist the knob. I shoved my jeans and underwear to the floor, listening to my father as I dropped to my knees on the hardwood, still fumbling with the latch on my bra.
“Okay, our primary objective is to disarm and disable,” our Alpha called from the front room, as the first jarring bolts of pain emanated from deep within my joints. “But because we may be facing men with guns, if it’s kill or be killed, opt for the former.”
On my left, Marc was in mid-Shift between the two twin beds, and suddenly I wished I’d thought to put at least one mattress between me and the door, thus between me and any potential bullets. But it was too late to move. Once my Shift began, I could only ride the waves of pain. Or let them ride me.
“Once this first group is subdued—” they were coming to rearrest me, hopefully not expecting us to actually attack “—we’ll have to move quickly. We’ll tape up the survivors and regroup, then head out through the woods to Malone’s cabin. He’s our primary target, but obviously we’ll have to deal with anyone else who gets in the way. As quietly as possible, to keep from tipping him off.”
My knees popped, and I groaned. Pain echoed the length of my legs, radiating outward from the center of my bones. My ribs ached fiercely as they and the accompanying muscles were reshaped to accommodate a feline layout of organs. As I stared at my hands, splayed on the floor, my palms began to plump beneath me. My fingers creaked as they shortened and thickened, growing pads suited to rough terrain.
“But above all, don’t let any of them leave.” My father’s boots scraped the floor in the living room, and it became hard for me to simultaneously concentrate on his words and force my Shift to come faster than it would on its own. “If they warn the rest of Malone’s men, we’ll lose the element of surprise and be outnumbered. Got it?”
There were mumbles of assent from the men still in human form, but I couldn’t help wondering if we actually had the element of surprise in the first place. Surely they weren’t expecting me to just turn myself in and be hauled off quietly. Again.
“I hear them,” Vic said, his voice low enough to avoid detection by the toms headed our way, but loud enough to be heard in the adjoining rooms, over the grunts and heavy breathing of so many simultaneous Shifts.
My heart rate doubled. Moments away. My pulse echoed in my ears, a fanfare to announce the coming attraction. We were on the brink of actual war—the first American inter-Pride brawl in decades—and I wasn’t ready.
I dumped the extra adrenaline my nerves spawned into my Shift, forcing my body through the paces faster and faster. My entire head ached with pressure so severe it felt like my skull would squeeze my brain out my ears.
Instead, my face lengthened and pain exploded along the new length of my jaw. My cheekbones stretched with an odd screeching sound heard only in my head, as my ears traveled forward and all outward sound was temporarily suspended. My nose flattened and darkened, and a long, bare muzzle now took up most of the bottom half of my field of vision.
“Is everybody ready?” This time my father’s voice was low, steady with a false calm.
I could only whine in answer, and I was acutely aware of Marc standing next to me now, fully Shifted. He stood between me and the door, obviously intent on protecting me until my Shift was over.
My entire body began to itch as fur sprouted over my skin, beginning along my spine, and flowing to cover every inch of me, except for my paw pads. My teeth grew so quickly they forced my mouth open, and I nearly bit off the end of my own tongue, as backward-facing barbs suddenly sprouted all over it.
Whiskers shot out of the sides of my muzzle, stark white against the dark blur of my own fur. They twitched as I sniffed the room. Almost there. Just waiting on… My claws.
Even as I pictured them, my finger- and toenails grew hard and sharp, lengthening to deadly points. I sheathed them, then unsheathed them again and dug into the floor, picturing them piercing vulnerable human flesh.
And just as my tail began to swish, fully formed and twitching angrily, my father gave the “get ready!” signal from the front room: he went completely still and totally silent.
Marc and I padded silently to opposite sides of the bedroom door, where we were least likely to be shot and most likely to surprise any intruders.
Soft footsteps climbed the front steps. Malone’s men were in stealth mode, too. Did they think we didn’t know they were coming?
I peeked into the living room to see my father standing to one side of the front door, his back against the wall, Lucas on his left. Jace and Vic mirrored them on the other side.
The footsteps stopped. They must have realized something was wrong. How could they not, with the lights on, but no one in sight through the windows? With no voices carrying from inside.
The first man paused in front of the door. His dark silhouette spanned the entire width of the small window cut into it. His shadow turned, and I heard the faintest of whispers as he spoke to the toms behind him. I couldn’t make out his words, but the message was clear: we were up to something. Or else we’d left. Run away.
My heart thumped in my ears, and suddenly I wondered if we should have. Were we making a fool’s mistake, taking on men with guns while we were armed with nothing but anger, shielded by nothing but courage?
Either way, it was too late for a change of plans. The silhouette canted to one side and
kicked the front door open.
I knew several of the faces, but had no names to go with them, and at a glance they all seemed to be carrying guns. Brian was too late to get rid of them. Malone’s men stared into the apparently empty living room, and our men in human form held their breath. They couldn’t disguise their heartbeats, but if the intruders’ pulses were rushing as loudly as my own they’d never hear heartbeats, anyway.
“They ran.” The first tom lowered his gun. “Bunch of cowards fucking ran away.” He stepped over the threshold, and two more followed before the first one turned around.
Jace seized the nearest man’s gun arm and pulled the tom in front of him, shielding himself from gunfire. Vic did the same with the second man to turn.
My father lunged with a speed I’d seldom seen from him. He grabbed the lead man’s hand and forced the gun to one side, then pulled the tom to the left, out of sight from the doorway and out of the line of fire. It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to worry, beyond the wordless adrenaline-laced terror already surging through me.
The tom tried to jerk free. My father squeezed his hand so hard I heard the bones crack from fifteen feet away. The tom howled and dropped his gun. Lucas bent to snatch it.
“Toss your guns inside and step forward with your hands on your heads.” My father’s voice carried absolute authority, a fact I’d recognized long before I took my first steps. But the three men still standing on the porch were completely unfazed.
“Not gonna happen, Councilman.”
My father was seconds from losing his temper. “Drop your guns, now!”
“She’s in here.” The first tom craned his neck in my father’s grip to glance around the cabin. “I can smell her. But the rest of them are Shifted. Call for backup.”
Footsteps pounded on the porch as the last three toms turned and ran, two of them armed.
My father roared. His face flushed with fury, and his fist smashed into the side of the tom’s head. The tom collapsed to the floor with a thud. “Get them!” my dad yelled, his throat half-Shifted, his words barely understandable.