explode, yet I couldn’t urge my feet into motion fast enough. I lunged ahead, slapping aside branches with both arms now, heedless of my cast, barreling through the woods in the direction I’d last seen Kaci. I could no longer hear Owen over the whoosh of my own pulse in my ears.
Until he roared, up ahead and to my right.
I put everything I had left into one more sprint, and seconds later, I burst through the tree line onto the side of a country road less than two miles from the ranch.
And froze, staring at the spectacle laid out before me.
Owen raced down the deserted street, already ten yards ahead, heading straight for a car parked on the shoulder a good three hundred feet in front of him. Over his head, both birds soared swiftly toward the car, descending as they came, Kaci still clutched—now struggling anew—in the talons of the nearest bird.
I ran after Owen as the driver’s side door opened and a man stepped out of the car. Owen huffed with exertion. My quads burned. The man pulled open the car’s rear door. The first thunderbird swooped gracefully toward the earth—and shock slammed into me so hard it almost knocked me off balance.
Three feet from the ground, the bird had feet. Bare, pale human feet, where there had been sharp, hooked talons a moment before. Then his head was human, but for the wicked, curved beak jutting in place of both his mouth and nose.
Surprised to the point of incomprehension, I slowed to a jog, my gaze glued to the most bizarre Shift I’d ever seen in my life. I could perform a very limited partial Shift. A hand, or my eyes, or even most of my face. But this was beyond anything I’d ever even considered. No cat could Shift so quickly, and what the thunderbird had just done was tantamount to a werecat Shifting in midleap!
This scary between-creature thumped gracefully to the ground several feet from the car, naked legs half-formed, torso mostly feathered, wings still completely intact. An instant later, Owen pounced on him.
Powerful wings beat the air—and my brother. Long brown feathers folded around Owen, stealing him from sight for an instant before they spread wide again, and the fight began for real.
Claws slashed. A beak snapped closed. Blood flowed. Owen hissed. The bird squawked, a horrible, screeching sound encompassing both pain and fear, and other things I couldn’t begin to understand. And a set of thin, gruesomely curved wing-claws arched high in the air, then raked across my brother’s flank.
Owen howled, and his own unsheathed paws flew. The car’s driver—a short, bulging man with a sharply hooked nose—stood carefully back from the melee, unwilling to intercede on either side in his current, defenseless state. Then his head shot up, and I followed his gaze to see the second bird swooping for a landing, twenty feet from the car, Kaci dangling from his talons.
I was running again in an instant.
The second bird dove lower and spread his huge wings to coast on a cushion of air. Then he opened his talons and unceremoniously dropped Kaci three feet from the ground.
The tabby landed hard on her left foot, then fell onto her hip with a dull thud. Her mouth snapped shut, cutting off a scream that had already gone hoarse. A heartbeat later, her captor simply stepped out of the air and onto the ground a yard away, on two human feet, his feathers already receding into his body, wings shrinking with eerie speed into long, pale arms.
He lunged for Kaci before his hands were even fully formed, but on the ground, she was faster. The tabby rolled out of reach, then shoved herself to her feet and raced across the road toward me. She had a slight limp in her left leg and her eyes were wide in terror, cheeks still dry. Though she’d been screaming for ten straight minutes, the tears hadn’t come yet. They wouldn’t until the shock faded.
The now fully human—and naked—thunderbird started after the tabby, but I was already there. Kaci collided with me so hard we almost went over sideways. Her forehead slammed into my collarbone, and her shoulder nearly caved in my sternum. I spun her around in my arms, putting my body between her and the would-be kidnapper. He’d have to go through me to get to her, and claws or not—hell, cast or not—I’d go down fighting.
At the car, Owen had the first bird pinned, muzzle clamped around his human-looking throat. At some unintelligible shout from the driver, the naked thunderbird glanced back, then turned and raced toward the car, having evidently given up on Kaci.
The driver slid into his seat and slammed the door, and the car’s engine growled to life. The last thunderbird glanced at his wounded cohort, hesitated, then dove into the backseat through the open door. An instant later, the car lurched onto the gravel road, showering Owen with rocks, and the vehicle raced around a corner and out of sight.
As soon as it was gone, Kaci seemed to melt in my arms, and it took me a moment to realize she’d just eased the death grip she had around my ribs. I stepped back and lifted her chin until I could see her face, then spit out the only coherent thought I could form. “You okay?”
“I think so.” Color was coming to her face, and her teeth started to chatter.
“What about your arms?” I held her coat while she carefully pulled one arm free. Then winced when she pushed up the baggy sleeve. Just below her shoulder were three thick welts, two on the front and one on the back, already darkening into ugly blue bruises. Her other arm no doubt held a matching set. “And your leg? You were limping.”
“I was?” Kaci frowned and took a careful step forward, then winced. “I think I twisted it when I…landed.”
“A quick Shift should fix that.” Kaci nodded, and I led her back across the street slowly, already pulling my cell from my pocket.
“Faythe?”
“Hmm?” I glanced down to find the tabby staring up at me, the shocked glaze in her eyes finally fading.
“I think I’m afraid of heights.”
I laughed. “I would be, too, after a ride like that.” I autodialed Marc while we walked, and he answered on the first ring, as I stepped onto the shoulder a good ten feet from Owen, who still had the bird—now unconscious—pinned to the ground.
“Faythe?”
“We’re on county road three, less than two miles from the ranch,” I said, and he exhaled heavily in relief. “I have Kaci and Owen has a prisoner, unconscious and bleeding. Owen’s bleeding, too.” From several obvious gashes on both flanks and across the left half of his torso.
“We’re on the way. How’s Whiskers?”
“Stunned, but okay. Her arms are bruised and she twisted one ankle, but it’s nothing a Shift and some hot chocolate won’t fix.”
Another relieved sigh, echoed by a satisfied noise from Jace. They were together?
“We’re on the way.”
I hung up and slid my phone into my pocket, then extracted myself from Kaci so I could inspect the prisoner without dragging her any closer to potential danger. “Wow. Good work, Owen.”
My brother huffed in response, and whined as I knelt and ran one hand gently over his flank, angling my body away from the bird, just in case he woke up. Owen’s injuries weren’t life-threatening, but they weren’t comfortable, either. If the bird had gotten near his stomach, he’d have been disemboweled.
