“Fine.” I thought for a moment. “How ’bout a phone number? We need to talk to your Alpha. Or whatever you call him. Or her.”

Kai shook his head and indulged a small smile. “No phone.”

“Not even a land line?” Marc asked, settling into the second chair.

“Especially not a land line.” The bird paused, and after a calming glance at the open window, he let contempt fill his gaze again, then aimed it at both of us like a weapon. “Your species has survived this long by sheer bumbling luck. By constantly mopping up your own messes. We’ve survived this long by staying away from humans and by not making messes in the first place. We don’t have phones, or cable, or cars, or anything that might require regular human maintenance. Other than a few baubles like programs on disk to entertain our young, we have nothing beyond running water and electricity to keep the lights working and the heat going.”

I grinned, surprised. “You need heat? Why don’t you just migrate south for the winter?”

Kai scowled. “We are south for the winter. Our territorial rights don’t extend any farther south than we live now.”

I filed that little nugget of almost-information away for later. “Okay, so you live like the Amish. How can one get in touch with your…Flight?”

Kai almost smirked that time. “In person. But in your case, that would be suicide.”

I couldn’t stop my eyes from rolling. “So you’ve said. Why exactly is your flock of Tweetys ready to peck us to death on sight?”

The thunderbird’s eyes narrowed, as if he wasn’t sure he could trust my ignorance. “Because your people—your Pride—” again he said it like a dirty word “—killed one of our most promising young cocks.”

I blinked for a moment over his phrasing and almost laughed out loud. Then his meaning sank in. Male thunderbirds were called cocks. Seriously. Like chickens.

And he thought we’d killed one of theirs?

“We will attack until our thirst for vengeance is sated, even if we have to pick you off one by one.”

I glanced at Marc in confusion before turning back to the bird. “What the hell are you talking abou—” But my question was aborted for good at the first terrified shout from above.

I glanced up the stairs toward the commotion—deeply pitched cries for help and rapid, heavy footsteps—then back at Kai. The thunderbird was grinning eagerly. His anticipation made my stomach churn.

Then Kaci’s panicked screeching joined the rest, and I raced up the concrete steps with Marc at my heels.

Five

I threw open the door and we burst into the kitchen in time to see my uncle Rick and Ed Taylor tear down the wide central hallway toward the back door, momentarily shocked out of fresh grief by whatever new horror had just ripped its way into our lives.

Marc passed me in the hall, and I was the last one out of the house—other than Owen, who looked frustrated and furious to be confined to his bed. By the time I made it onto the small, crowded back porch, the screaming had stopped, though I could still hear Kaci sobbing softly somewhere ahead. The only other sounds were the quiet murmurs of several Alphas trying to figure out what had happened and someone’s agonized, half-coherent moans.