Tied With a Bow

“good.” Evil practices and energies, therefore, could not be spiritual, so the fifth element could not be used to create a skinwalker.
    Religiously, “spirit equals good” was probably a perfectly fine doctrine. Magically, though, it was limiting. In the normal way of things, that limitation wouldn’t matter, but it mattered a great deal now. If there was a skinwalker and he had attacked her family the way Arjenie thought, her aunt and uncle and everyone were in great danger.
    They argued about it for another four or five miles. Finally Arjenie said, “I’m expecting a call from a shaman I know. She’s trained in Navajo ways, and she’s extremely accomplished. She’ll be able to tell me if I’m off base about this.”
    “Well.” Robin took a deep breath, as if settling herself down. “My ego might like it better if you’d take my word for it, but my ego isn’t always the best guide. If you’ll listen to this shaman, I’ll be satisfied.”
    Arjenie wasn’t at all sure that was true, if it turned out Nettie disagreed with Robin. But she let it drop. “What can you tell me about K. J. Miller? Do you think he might have some Native blood? Have you ever wondered if he might be Gifted?”
    “K. J.?” Robin was incredulous. “Don’t tell me you think he’s your skinwalker.”
    “Not many people would have access to the skin of a Kodiak bear. He’s hunted bear in Alaska.”
    Robin waved it away. “The man’s deranged and downright nasty at times, but that’s a long way from being a homicidal maniac.”
    “K. J.’s got some ancestor or another who was Apache,” Clay said suddenly. “I don’t remember how far back, but a great-granddaddy or something like that.”
    Robin gave her husband an accusing look. “Do not encourage her.”
    Clay returned her glance mildly. “I think we should listen to her. Not accept it as fact straight out, but listen.”
    “I’ve been listening.”
    “You’ve been arguing.”
    This silence was even heavier than the others had been. It made Arjenie’s stomach knot.
    About the time the quiet got too thick to breathe, Clay said, “I don’t know half of what either of you do about magical theory, but it seems like we should hear what that shaman has to say before we makes up our minds.”
    Robin’s breath huffed out. “Before I make up my mind, you mean.” But there was a thread of humor in her voice. “All right. Maybe I’m being a bit dogmatic.”
    Arjenie managed not to say, You think? Mostly because she loved her aunt dearly, but partly because they’d have gone off in another wrong direction then and they were nearly home and she still had to tell them the other thing. “I have something else to tell you that has nothing to do with Native Powers and magical theory. Well, possibly with spirit,” she conceded. “At least I have the idea that it partakes of all five elements, but that’s not my reason for telling you.”
    “I didn’t follow that at all,” Clay said.
    “You have to agree to hold this as secret as you do the land-tie.”
    Robin gave her a sharp glance. “This is about Benedict.”
    When her aunt wasn’t being close-minded, she was very bright. “Yes. It’s a big lupi secret. Do you agree?”
    They did, so she told them about the mate bond. How it was a gift from the lupi’s Lady, who might be an avatar of the feminine half of Deity, but the lupi didn’t think of her that way, so maybe not, and besides, the Lady didn’t want worship. How the bond was a physical tie that let her know where Benedict was and vice versa; that it made them physically highly compatible; that it could only be severed by death. Also that a lupus would be utterly faithful to his bonded mate and that the bond placed limits on how far apart they could be.
    “. . . so I couldn’t come visit when you asked,” she finished, “because Benedict couldn’t get away then. He wasn’t being all Svengali and controlling, and I wasn’t being all weak and dependent. We just can’t put that much distance between us.”
    “This is . . . a lot to take in,” Robin said. “You think this Lady the lupi believe in placed this bond on you? Not Benedict?”
    “That part is certain. The Lady is real,” she added. “Not a belief system or a creation myth. I haven’t heard her, but I know those who have, and they are entirely reliable. She’s an Old One.”
    Robin chewed that over a moment. “That’s a rather large concept to digest. That you know people