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.