We need you to do some reconnaissance. A simple flyby over our ranch. All you have to do is count the cars and tell us how many men you see hanging around the property.”

Kai shook his head without a moment’s hesitation. “Not even if you fed me your firstborn, still wet and screaming.”

I blinked, but for a long moment, his words made no sense. Not the refusal. The part about cannibalizing my theoretical future child. “Well, isn’t that…gruesome? Who are you, Rumpelstiltskin?”

Kai frowned, as if I made no sense to him. “No thunderbird would claim a name so senselessly flamboyant.

Author: Rachel Vincent