He stared at me. “Why do you bargain?”

“Fair question,” Aiden said.

“It is important to know if your bite at fullest power will affect me—or else I will always be worried that you will sneak up behind me in the dark.” True—but not the answer to his question.

Flattered, he smiled. It was Ben’s face, but it was not Ben’s smile. “I come,” he said.

And then Ben went limp in Kelly’s and Luke’s arms, and he began, brokenly, to swear. He looked up at me once, and I shook my head. It would take too long to explain—and at this point there was no good to be had telling the others. The weaver knew that we’d left our vulnerable alone in our home with only one protector—because Ben knew we’d left our vulnerable alone in our home with only one protector. And what Ben knew, the weaver knew, and what the weaver knew—Fiona and her mate knew.

Joel was home. That would have to be enough.

13

I FOUND SPARE CLOTHING, THE METALLIC EMERGENCY blanket, and a real blanket in the back of the SUV. It took me a few minutes because as bad as the outside of the vehicle looked, the inside was worse.

The leather upholstery was slashed, seat stuffing scattered in chunks ranging from baseball size to pea size. One of the inner linings of the doors had been broken into two. The whole of the back two-thirds of the car was liberally sprayed with blood, as were the first two shirts I found.

I took the results of my search to Ben. He was curled up on the ground shivering convulsively. Kelly had wrapped his large body around Ben’s to help him keep warm. Luke crouched with his hand on Ben’s shoulder, talking to him in a low voice. It didn’t matter what the words were, it was the familiar voice that soothed him.

It probably would have looked a little odd to someone who didn’t know they were werewolves.

Adam stood a little back from them, holding the chain attached to the collar Ben wore. Adam had to stay far enough back that if the weaver took Ben again, Adam would be able to control the situation. But I could see from the expression on his face that Adam would rather have been in Kelly’s or Luke’s position.

The lamppost group had ventured nearer. Aidan and Jesse had stopped at the rock that was James Palsic. Jesse stood next to it … to him. She glanced up furtively to stare at the eyes that had no recourse but to look back. Aiden touched him, running his hands over the stone gently, as if petting a dog.

I could hear him murmuring, “Remember who you are. Remember.” Over and over as if it were a spell, but I couldn’t sense any magic.

Li Qiang and Kent were keeping watch over them, but Nonnie approached Adam while Luke and Kelly grabbed the clothes and blankets from me and used them to wrap Ben up.

“He hasn’t talked again,” Luke said in a low voice. “We think he’s in shock.”

“No wonder,” I said. “My fault. If I’d worked it through better, I could have told you I needed him human. It would have been easier on him if you didn’t have to make him change so fast.”

“Werewolves are tough,” said Luke. “Don’t fuss, Mercy.”

“So we just wait?” Nonnie said tightly. “How long?”

Adam looked at her thoughtfully. After a moment she started to squirm.

“We wait,” he said softly, “for my wife to risk her life for your mate.”

He looked over at Ben, who was dressed in sweats that were too big for him on the bottom and just right on the top. Luke wrapped him in the soft blanket first, and then the thin metallic one.

Then he looked at Nonnie, who had lowered her eyes and looked as though she was seriously regretting saying anything. Adam shook his head at himself. I knew that expression.

In a much gentler voice he said, “Mercy is risking her life for Ben and anyone else who might encounter this creature because Mercy is the only one who has the ability to make this bargain.”

“Why is that?” Nonnie asked.

Then she held up a hand. “Sorry. Not my business. I’m sorry.” She looked at the rock and then back toward Adam. “What I should be saying is thank you. You had no need to come to our aid at all after what we’ve been doing.”

“Desperate people do desperate things” was Adam’s reply. “We all understand that.”

Kent gave a low warning whistle, then said, “It’s getting darker.”

He was right. The sun was still high in the intense blue sky, but the area we were standing in was growing shadowed. I inhaled—and bless Hannah’s granny’s potion—and the magic scent that was unique, as far as I could tell, to the smoke weaver filled the air.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the waiting is over,” I said quietly. I kissed Adam, and it was a good kiss even though I had to do it from an awkward angle so that I didn’t interfere with his ability to manage Ben.

Then I walked to the middle of the driveway, halfway between Jesse’s car and Adam’s. Away from all of the people. I was pretty sure that the smoke weaver had to treat with me, and complete our bargain, before he went out biting anyone else. But pretty sure wasn’t certain, and I didn’t want him closer to anyone else than necessary.

A circle centered, more or less, on my position in the middle of the circular drive, and continued to darken, as if someone were drawing it with shadows.

Kelly and Luke had pulled the blankets off Ben again. And then Adam kissed the top of his head and pinned him to the ground so he could not move. Kelly stood on one side of them, Luke on the other, ready to help in case Ben broke free.

Like a Christmas snow globe, the dome over our head, cutting us off from the rest of the world, was invisible. But I could feel the resulting pressure drop as the circle sealed. Circles like this were something I associated with witchcraft. But this didn’t smell like witchcraft—it smelled like the smoke weaver.

The darkened edges of the circle began to fill with smoke, covering the ground in folded layers that grew thicker and rounder until they reminded me of the rolled-up dough for a cinnamon roll before you cut it, or … the coils of a snake.

The smoke had left a little area around Adam’s group and another around James’s rock. I didn’t like the look of them separated.

“Kids,” I called, “get closer to Adam.”

Jesse and Aiden tried, but the smoke between them thickened and grew taller. Just before I lost sight of them in the smoke, I saw Luke make a rolling leap over the top of the coils. Hopefully he made it to Jesse and Aiden. I believed that Kent and Li Qiang had meant it when they told me they would guard my family, but I felt better having one of the pack with them.

I now had a smallish area to stand in, about ten feet around, but clear, more or less to the top of the dome—though even the surface of that dome was darkening. Meanwhile, the layers and layers of coils were becoming more real, and solid. Giant silver scales glinted iridescently in the filtered light that drifted through the smoke.

“Smoke dragon,” I said.

Beauclaire had called him that. There was evidently some truth in the appellation, though I thought that “wyvern” or even “serpent” might have been more accurate. The only dragon I had seen had had four legs and wings.

I supposed that there could be more than one kind of dragon, but this creature did not carry the amount of magic that dragons were reputed to have. While I didn’t see limbs, there might have been wings in the mists of smoke that filled the space not occupied by the smoke weaver.

The coils stirred, as if the weaver had heard me name him. One of the coils nearby moved and a giant, reptilian head slid over the mounds of his body to look at me through eyes that might have been fist-sized gemstones.

The head was as tall as I was, but still it seemed small for the size of his body. It didn’t look exactly like a snake’s head, but it resembled that more than a dragon’s. The weaver’s muzzle was long and almost delicate.

He snorted and a salty, watery gel covered me.

I wiped my face off impatiently. Coyote mates of Alpha werewolves don’t care if smoke dragons cover them in snot. We certainly wouldn’t squeal.

Instead, I asked him, in what I felt was a reasonably calm tone, “Why the show?”

There is not enough magic in your world to allow me to take my true shape, the smoke weaver said, though he wasn’t really talking. There was sound, it was a voice—but it wasn’t coming from the serpent’s mouth. I must make a place where I can gather it sufficiently. This takes time.

“It is an acceptable inconvenience,” I told him, not untruthfully. I didn’t care about circles—I cared about the time. Joel, I reminded myself, against two werewolves. If Fiona, “equally dangerous” as Charles, weren’t one of them, I wouldn’t have even worried.

I am here, the smoke weaver told me, in blood and bone.

He seemed to be waiting for something, so I said, “Yes, you have thus fulfilled the first part of this bargain.”

I don’t know why I used forsoothly speech; it just seemed the right thing to do—and when I had no clue, I tended to go with my instincts.

I was still musing about language when he bit me. The strike came without warning. My reactions were fast, but I didn’t have time to even flinch. He clamped his teeth over my left shoulder and the upper part of my chest.

I made an involuntary sound, as much of surprise as hurt—and it did hurt. It felt as though someone had stabbed me with something hot. That pain burned, and when he pulled his head back, the breaks in my skin where his teeth had been had trickles of smoke coming from them.

“Mercy,” Adam said.

“He surprised me,” I said back. “I am fine.” But I could have saved my breath.

As if it had been difficult for the smoke weaver to hold on to his enormous shape, the coils dissolved into grayish smoke that covered the globe of the circle so that we could not see out nor anyone outside see in. Then the inner part of the circle cleared until nothing lay between me and the others except for a dozen yards of driveway pavement.

Adam could see for himself that I was fine—so far.