Tied With a Bow

separated them. Benedict crested it and saw Arjenie, Josh, Sammy . . . some distance away, Seri struggled to keep up, and while he didn’t see Adam, the wind carried his scent. And in spite of everything, he grinned in the way wolves and dogs do.
    His mate had found a way to move quickly. She rode piggyback on Josh—who could have left the human Sammy behind, even with his burden. Arjenie didn’t weight much. That he hadn’t meant . . . what?
    Benedict headed down the hill to her.
    “Benedict,” she whispered as he drew close. “Oh, it’s so good to . . . Your leg! You’re hurt. I knew you were, but—how bad is it? Oh, you can’t answer. Josh, put me down, I need to get down—”
    Benedict stopped. Let the moon’s song reach through him, uniting with earth . . . and wrenching into one solid, shrieking pain.
    His fourth Change of the day took longer than the first three. Most of the pain vanished as soon as he stood on two feet once more, except the wound. Which had opened up slightly when it shifted from haunch to hip and thigh.
    A hundred and twenty pounds of warm woman wrapped herself around him. “You must be so cold. I’ve got Adam’s jacket—he’s roving in wolf form—his pants and shirt, too, if you want those. Your poor leg.”
    He breathed her in for one second, then leaned back to look down at her. It was a lot colder in this form than the other. “No time. I won’t stay in this form long. You and Josh and Adam need to know what we’re up against.”
    She nodded seriously. “A skinwalker.”
    He grunted in surprise. “You . . . How could you know?”
    “I figured it out. And I talked to Nettie, and she agreed and told me what to—is that Havoc?” Delight lifted her voice.
    “Partly. You talked to Nettie?”
    “She would know, wouldn’t she? About skinwalkers and how to deal with one. And she did, which is why she taught Sammy the chant. He’s not Wiccan anymore, so he can use it, but I am, so I can’t. And what do you mean, that’s only partly Havoc?”
    “The rest is Coyote. He’s riding inside her. Long story. We’ve found the skinwalker.”
    “Oh, thank the Light! Benedict, did you see him? He stole a little girl.”
    This time his jaw dropped. “How could you possibly know about her?”
    “Aunt Robin was trying to Find the child. She felt it when the skinwalker crossed onto her land and she felt the little girl. She called me. Have you seen her? The little girl? Is she all right?”
    “She’s asleep. Or so I’m told.” He looked at the little dog—who wasn’t on the cold ground anymore but was being held and petted by Sammy. Well, Havoc deserved it, whether or not Coyote did. “Did your aunt understand what the skinwalker intends to do?”
    She shook her head, her eyes large and worried.
    “The Power the skinwalker serves has been asleep a long time, but he’s known to Coyote as one who hates the sidhe, and that hatred extends to those touched by sidhe magic—to Wiccans in general and your aunt in particular. He means to sacrifice the child in your sacred grove—the one consecrated to the Lord and Lady, where your coven meets. Where the token of your aunt’s land-tie is buried. He’ll create death magic there, blaspheming the land, and it will spread through the land-tie to your aunt, and through her to the whole coven.”
    “Sweet merciful heaven,” she whispered. “Well. That stiffens my spine.”
    He frowned. “What do you mean?”
    “I have a plan. Well, the basic idea came from Nettie, but I fine-tuned it.”
    A chuckle sounded in Benedict’s mind. And now you know why I wanted you.
    Benedict repeated himself this time silently. What do you mean?
    Why, to bring her here, of course. And your men, who may be needed. And that foolish, bungling young neophyte with them.
     
     
    Solstice Eve. Members of her aunt’s coven would be getting ready for the circle to be held tomorrow night, the song and the music and the ritual. Just ahead of Arjenie, in the clearing consecrated to the Lord and the Lady, the clearing that faced the sacred grove, someone was getting ready for a very different ceremony.
    She could see him. He’d lit a small fire, and she could see him moving in front of its dancing flame, bending and straightening rhythmically in his own dance as he chanted. The scent of the herbs he’d cast on that fire hung in the still air. She couldn’t identify all of them, but she knew he’d used sage.
    Sage was for cleansing. For purifying.