“About the trip up? Yeah, it’s a bitch the first time.” I regretted the words before the last one had even fallen from my lips; Lance’s first time would be his last.

Flustered, I started past him toward the open front door, beyond which dozens of thunderbirds waited for us in varying degrees of human form. When Lance didn’t follow, I turned to him. “You have two options—inside…” I gestured toward the open doorway. “Or down, the hard way. Which is it gonna be?” He hesitated, and I sighed. “Dignity, Lance.”

He spared one fleeting, terrified glance at the ground below, then squared his shoulders and walked past me into the huge main room of the nest—where he stopped, apparently frozen, three steps from the door.

I knew how he felt. Before this flight, Lance had only ever seen one thunderbird, and that poor cock had been alone and pounced upon before he had a chance to take to the sky. And now we were facing fifty or so of his closest friends and relatives, a much more representative—and intimidating—sample of the thunderbird population and their tendency to stick together.

And to avenge their own at all costs.

When Lance hadn’t moved several seconds later, I gave him a little shove, and he stepped forward slowly, trying to take in everything at once, his eyes already glazing over with the effort. He may have been going into shock, and frankly, that was probably better for all involved.

Before I could make a better assessment, or address any of the dozens of birds now staring at us, a door squeaked open overhead and I looked up to see Kaci step out onto the exposed second-floor walkway. “Faythe!” she shouted, and was running before the single syllable of my name faded into silence.

She raced along the hall and around the corner, nimbly avoiding the two fully human thunderbirds she passed in the process, and thumped down the stairs like a bull about to charge. But she was all smiles when she flew across the huge room and into my open arms.

“You came!” Kaci buried her tear-streaked face in the shoulder of my leather jacket.

“You say that like there was some doubt.” I pried her just far enough away that I could get a good look. Other than her sob-reddened face and an unusually pale countenance, she looked…fine. Which supported my theory that the birds would keep their word, so long as we kept ours. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Kaci wiped fresh tears from her face with the sleeve of her shirt—the one she’d been wearing since the day we were taken. “Just ready to go home.” Then she blinked and frowned, staring at my cheek. “What happened to your face?”

“It’s fine. Barely hurts. Just a keepsake from an old friend.”

Her frown deepened, and her hand rose as if to touch the scab, before she thought better of it and clasped her hands together. “That’s a joke, right?”