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She frowned back. “He doesn’t think he’s a wolf – he is one. Or part of the time, at any rate. He’s a skinwalker.”

Reggie’s nose wrinkled. “Like in the old children’s stories?”

“Stories have real life origins,” she countered. “It’s old magic, yes, but Oliver’s seen his transformation with his own eyes.”

“Ah, yes, Oliver,” Connor said. “And there’s no chance he’s gone up north and had a little too much ice rose?”

Her frown became a scowl. “Ollie’s not a liar. If he says Leif’s a skinwalker, then that’s what he is.”And I’ve seen him, she didn’t say. “He’s stronger and faster than a regular man,” she continued, “traveling quick and quiet. If it’s a stealth mission you’re wanting to organize, then wouldn’t a man who can become a wolf be an asset?”

They couldn’t argue with that.

But Reggie said, “Ifhe can.”

“He can,” she insisted. “And I’m going to go scouting across the forest and find him.”

“Not alone, you’re not,” Connor said.

“Oh?” she asked. “Gotten brave, have you? You can sit behind me in the saddle.”

His expression became stern. “We’ll make a proper scouting party of it, then. You can fly, we can ride.”

Amelia sighed.

Leda said, “I for one think Amelia ought to go on her own.”

Amelia slid a gaze toward her, wondering what she was up to, and earned a quick wink before the men turned toward her.

“You know how wolves are,” Leda continued, “touchy and territorial. If you lads ride up on them, making a great ruckus, they might get their backs up. Better to let a woman handle the first meeting: less chance of bloodshed that way.”

All three stared at her, Connor and Reggie openly gaping.

“Are you daft, woman?” Reggie finally asked. “Send a lamb to slaughter, why don’t we!”

“Ahem,” Amelia said. “I’ll have Alpha, if you recall.”

“Well, you’ll have us, too,” Connor said like a challenge. “Whether you like it or not,my lady.”

She rolled her eyes skyward. “Fine, fine. Try not to get yourselves killed.” She pushed her chair back and stood. “Be ready in the morning, right at dawn. A dragon waits for no one.”

~*~

“There’s something wrong with this forest,” Leif grumbled, and swatted aside a low limb that snapped back and struck him across the back of the head. He growled at it, to no avail.

Beside him, Ragnar gracefully ducked a similar branch without mishap. “Do you think so? I like it.” The way he tipped his head up to view the canopy, smiling faintly, chest swelling on a deep inhale proved that he did.

“Why?”

“I’m not really sure,” Ragnar said. They’d reached a tiny, chuckling stream, its water clear, its pebbles smooth and slick with algae. They stepped over it; the scent of water nearby proved a better place to stop and drink lay somewhere ahead. “There’s so muchlifehere. You can tell it doesn’t sleep in the same way the forests do back home. There’s lots of good smells: deer, and hare, and birds! There’s so many birds.”

They’d spotted a group of tall, ground-dwelling birds the day before, with heads that reached their waists and long, red waddles on their throats. Turkeys, Leif recalled, from his lessons as a boy. The rest of his Úlfheðnar had been fascinated. The beasts had tasted good, in any event.

“She’s cautious, this forest,” Ragnar said. “She doesn’t know quite what to make of us, but she’s not hostile to us. To humans, sure: this is the sort of forest you could get good and lost it. She hides her creatures, keeps them safe, and kills the men who would come after them.”

Leif frowned. A skittering to their left smelled of disturbed moss, and something small and hot-blooded. A rat, he thought, one that sprinted away from them, its nails scrabbling up a tree trunk some hundred yards away and then falling still.

“Why do you think there’s something wrong with it?” Ragnar asked, and Leif’s frown deepened.

The problem was, he didn’t really know.