Two minutes later, a human child’s cry came from that same direction, followed by the distinctive snap of a twig beneath someone’s foot. Lance was too busy trying to keep Wren in hand to worry about moving silently. She was going to get him caught. If he had let her go, he might well have gotten away.

A quarter of a mile later, I glimpsed movement between two trees, and froze. Marc saw it, too. He tossed his head to the right, and I nodded. We would split up and approach them from two directions. He went left; I went right.

I picked my way silently around clumps of evergreen brush and tall, broad pine trees, avoiding the sparsely sprinkled deciduous trees both because the lack of foliage left me exposed and because the fallen twigs would snap beneath my paws.

Lance crashed through the undergrowth fifteen feet away, struggling to hold on to the squirming, crying toddler who twisted to peck at him with her beak one minute, then reached up in the next instant to tangle human fingers in his hair. Scared and angry, the toddler went stiff and let loose an eardrum-bursting screech without letting go of his hair. He jerked in surprise, and she came away with two great handfuls of dark waves.

Lance shouted in inarticulate pain and stopped to reposition the child. He crooned to her for almost a minute as he went, and when that didn’t pacify her, he started yelling. “Shut up! Just for one minute, shut the fuck up!”

A growl built in my throat, and I struggled to swallow it to keep from exposing myself, though I had serious doubts he could hear me over Wren’s cries and his own yelling.

I edged along with Lance, unseen, waiting for Marc to get into place; his had been the longer, more circuitous route. And finally I caught a glimpse of movement beyond Lance. Just a smear of shadow among heavily laden pine boughs, but that was enough. Marc was in position.

I was all ready to pounce when it occurred to me that in cat form, I’d have no way to hold the child, even if he handed her over voluntarily. Damn it!

Beyond frustrated and out of options, I retreated as quietly as I could and squirmed beneath the drooping boughs of a pine tree to force one of the fastest Shifts I’d ever done, counting on Marc to keep up with Lance in my absence. They couldn’t have gone far in under two minutes. Not with a screaming, struggling toddler in tow.

Fully human, I cursed silently as I crawled out from under the tree on my hands and knees, scratching my undefended human skin on pinecones, twigs and thorns. My hair caught in the pine needles over my head, and my toes sank into brittle leaves.

When I stood, naked, I couldn’t stop shaking from the cold, and I had to grind my teeth together to keep them from chattering. Wincing each time a thorn dug into my foot or a branch slapped my bare torso, I picked my way quickly toward Lance, whom I could still hear struggling with Wren.

Minutes later, I had Lance back in sight, and after several seconds of searching, I pinpointed Marc in the foliage behind him. Thank goodness I’d left my eyes in cat form. The silent, curious angle of Marc’s head illustrated his confusion and frustration over my Shift, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Nothing except back me up.

Lance stopped again to hoist Wren higher on his hip, still facing away from his body. She clearly felt heavier after a half-mile trek through the woods than when he’d first picked her up. She struggled and managed to catch his index finger in her beak while he adjusted his grip.

“Damn it!” Lance shouted. Blood welled from his finger, fragrant among the more bland scents of the winter-dead forest. “Hold still!” he shouted, trying to transfer her from one arm to the next.

Time to move. Very soon he’d either drop her, and she’d escape into the woods, or he’d lose his temper.

I took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the tree shielding me from sight. “Give me the baby, Lance.”

He gasped and squinted at me in the dark, without the benefit of Shifted eyes. Movement behind Lance told me that Marc was there but would stay out of sight in case we needed the element of surprise. “Faythe?” Lance asked, still squinting.

“Who else?” I stepped closer, and his eyes only widened briefly when he realized I was naked. “Give her to me, so I can take her back to her mother. You don’t need her anymore. Why didn’t you let her go?”

“You don’t understand. They’ll hunt me, no matter where I go. This little shit machine is the only thing that will stop them from killing me when they find me.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “But they’re not even looking for you. I told them I’d bring her back, and they’re all waiting for us in the road. Give her to me, and you can run a lot faster.”

His brows rose, and he repositioned the still squirming child on his hip again. “You’d let me go?”

I shrugged. “I don’t care whether or not they catch you, since they’re no longer blaming us for killing Finn.”

“Won’t they be mad if you let me go?”

“Probably. But how am I supposed to chase you down and bring Wren back to her family?”

He started to relax, the tension draining from his features as the truth of my words sank in. “So, I give her to you, and you just…let me go?”

I nodded. “I won’t even try to catch you.”

Lance thought about it. He knew he wouldn’t get far with a kid on one hip. And if the birds caught him, they’d never give him the chance I was offering. Finally he nodded. “Here.” He held the struggling toddler out with both hands, and I stepped forward to take her, my heart thumping in a sudden bout of nerves. She didn’t know me any better than she knew him. Would she try to peck my eyes out all the way back to the nest?