Alpha House: A Shapeshifter/BBW Novel: The Complete Seven-Part Collection

by Lib Starling

  She stepped away, removed her jeans and a pair of pink boyshorts, and climbed onto the bed, her eyes far-off and heavy-lidded with the fever of her passion. Chase was just as quick to rid himself of his clothing – all except his silver amulet, which burned against his chest as his totem warred for dominance inside him. His cock was so hard it ached, and the sight of Roxy naked on the bed only doubled that sweet, luscious pain.

  She lay back, inviting him with her eyes, their depths as green and welcoming as the secret places of the forest. Chase covered her body with his own, pressing every inch of his bare flesh against hers, breathing with the rhythm of her own breaths, filling his mouth with the taste of her skin.

  His kisses traveled down, past the delicate curves of her collarbone with its freckles like scattered stars. He paused between her breasts, feeling her arch as his tongue traced a lazy figure-eight. And down further he went, pressing his lips against the slight rise of her porcelain stomach, marveling at the softness of her skin.

  The patch of red-gold hair between her round thighs tickled his chest, a touch as light as a feather’s. Again his inner wolf howled, demanding the pure sensuality of licking, tasting. Chase parted her legs and lost himself in her wetness, writhing on the mattress as much as she did, so intense was the sheer sensation of Roxy – her warm, spicy smell, the sweet salt of her flavor, the sound of her rising, panting cries as he brought her closer and closer to the edge.

  But he wanted to be inside her – he had to be inside her, to look down from above and watch her face as she plunged into ecstasy. He backed away; she caught her breath, her hands slowly unclenching from where she’d gripped the duvet. When he entered her, her cry of wild delight was so intensely gratifying that Chase nearly lost himself, teetering on the point of no return.

  He held still, fighting back the surge of pleasure, trying to ignore the way Roxy clutched at his back and hips, urging him on. After a moment he was in control again, of his human side and his totem alike.

  As he began to rock his hips, he used his hand, as he had before, circling lightly among her slick curls until her breathing became rhythmic and urgent. He slowed, drawing it out, teasing her with the nearness of release, until she was begging in a breathless whisper, Please, please, please…

  Smiling at her wild, desperate beauty, with anticipation of what was to come, Chase moved just a little faster, speeding his hips in time with his fingers until, with an indrawn breath, Roxy’s back arched off the bed and she tightened around him. Her cry of pleasure was half sigh, half high-pitched wail, and it set Chase’s totem into a fury of desire. As Roxy came down, Chase seized her hips and thrust furiously, his entire being centered on the hot, enfolding wetness of her, and on the ragged breaths she still struggled to draw through the echoes of her rippling bliss.

  She overwhelmed him, all sensory knowledge of her eclipsing his consciousness, until Chase himself was nothing more than Roxy’s smell and lingering taste, the artful curves of her body beneath his grasping, trembling hands. His orgasm struck him, a stunning blow that sent a field of blinding stars across his vision and stole the breath from his throat, shuddering through his body until he collapsed onto Roxy’s chest.

  Exhausted, he could hardly stay awake. He was suddenly sensitive everywhere, so that even Roxy’s gentle touch tickled as she stroked along his spine, murmuring so softly in his hear that he couldn’t make out the words.

  He was aware only of her – and aware, too, that even this closeness, lying atop her beautiful white curves, wasn’t close enough. He felt his totem reach lazily toward hers, toward that unknown wildness hiding within.

  As he drifted into sleep, Chase felt his wolf intertwine with her secret spirit, the two forms melding with one another like the arms of clouds that reach, stretching themselves on high, unseen winds, until they merge into one.

  Far in the distance, the thunder muttered as the storm moved on.

  .3.

  E vening was coming on, the ragged remnants of storm clouds tinted with a rosy hue. Roxy watched the clouds drift past her bedroom window, the colors of the oncoming sunset flaring and subsiding along their bellies as they shifted and eddied in the wind.

  Chase breathed quietly beside her, relaxed into sleep with one arm thrown across her body. He was strong, and even in sleep he held her firmly in place, but Roxy would have been perfectly happy if he’d never moved, if they could have stayed that way forever, drifting in the twilight space between dreaming and waking, content in one another’s arms.

  He did move, though, turning with a wordless murmur, and after a moment he yawned. She rolled to look at him, pulling the edge of her duvet over her body, for without his warmth she was cold now. His eyes met hers, and his smile was glad – satisfied.

  “Storm’s over,” he said quietly.

  “I guess I should get you back to your car.”

  He sighed. “I guess so. Back to Alpha House.”

  He didn’t seem pleased by the thought, and Roxy felt a thrill of hope. He’s not like the rest of them – Chase is different.

  They dressed in the warm, low light of approaching evening, then headed for the front door, holding hands. But as they rounded the corner of the hallway, Roxy started and nearly shrieked. Somebody was sitting in the living room, perched on the edge of the ottoman – a pale form alone in the darkness.

  A ghost! she thought irrationally, then scolded herself at once for such a foolish assumption.

  It was Scarlett. Her perfect white face was turned toward them, but she stared without emotion, as blank as a newly painted wall. Her hands were clasped around one knee in a pert, poised, business-like manner, and her back was very straight. But she said nothing, and her eyes were neither approving nor accusatory.

  “Scarlett,” Roxy said. “I didn’t know you’d be home tonight. I thought you were at work.”

  “I was,” Scarlett said. “I came home early.” No explanation.

  “Well… I was just about to take Chase back to his car.”

  Scarlett’s slow, tilting expression could hardly be called a smile, one corner of her mouth pulling upward in a knowing way, her eyes going flat – an expression Roxy knew all too well, having seen it before on the faces of the countless girls who had mocked and tormented her in her school days. “Did you two have fun in there?” she asked with a dangerous lilt to her voice.

  Roxy shivered. Scarlett had never treated her this way before – had never been the type to be hurtful and cruel. But that was exactly where this was headed – Roxy was an expert by now.

  She tugged at Chase’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Bye,” Scarlett called lightly as they headed out the door.

  “Shit,” Chase said under his breath as they made their way down the walk toward Roxy’s Jeep. “Somebody’s jealous.”

  Roxy slid behind the wheel and slammed her door, harder than she meant to. “I knew she was going to do this.” She cranked the key with a fury, stomping on the gas, and the engine roared to life.

  “Do what?”

  “Get all… weird.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Scarlett’s been determined to get Alexander into bed for a long time. Ever since that stupid fight at the party…”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. She insisted she didn’t care that Alexander was fighting over me, but how can she not care? A girl as beautiful as she is, passed over not only by Alexander, but every guy at the party… And they all kicked her to the curb so they could drool all over me.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Come on, look at me, Chase.”

  He grinned at her. “I am, and I like what I see.”

  “Well, most of the world doesn’t. Most of the world likes Scarlett.”

  Chase shrugged. “Then screw most of the world. They have terrible taste.”

  Roxy laughed. “Terrible taste? Come on; you know Scarlett’s beautiful.”

  “She is pretty – I’ll admit that. But who cares? Pretty
girls are a dime a dozen.” He rested his hand on her knee, rubbing in a slow circle. “I’d rather have pretty and amazing. Pretty and brave.”

  “Brave?” Roxy snorted. “You didn’t see me running from that wolf in the woods!”

  “You left the only life you knew and set out on an adventure, all alone, to make a new life for yourself. I’d call that brave. I wish I had the guts to do it.”

  Roxy shrugged. It didn’t seem brave to her. It seemed like survival – what she had to do, or else live in certain misery forever.

  “Pretty and smart,” Chase went on, grinning. “Pretty and… good in bed.”

  “Ha!”

  “Very good.”

  “For a virgin.”

  “You’re a natural.” He squeezed her knee lightly, and she squirmed, trying to stifle the ticklish laughter. “Pretty and,” Chase went on, “something more.”

  Roxy eyes him sideways. “What more?”

  “Something I can’t quite name,” he said, though Roxy had the strange, skin-prickling feeling that he could name it, but chose not to. “Something I like. Very much.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

  “I’ve already been everywhere I want to be.”

  “Regardless,” Roxy said, blushing, “I’ve known all along that it must burn Scarlett up, how… how into me all the guys at your frat seemed to be.” It felt so strange just to say it – to admit out loud that all those men had found her attractive. And it pained her, to realize that something she had wanted for so long – to be desired as much as a girl like Scarlett was desired – had turned into a curse. “I don’t want to lose a friend over this,” she said, the threat of tears stinging her eyes.

  “Hey.” Chase turned to her with real concern. “You won’t.”

  “You don’t know how mean girls can be.”

  “Come on – you and Scarlett are grown women, not girls. You’ll work it out. She’ll get over it. Just wait and see – as soon as a guy starts hitting on her – and like you said, she’s pretty enough; she’ll have no shortage of guys who want her – she’ll forget all about it and everything will be cool between you.”

  Roxy smiled tentatively as she turned off the highway toward the trailhead where Chase’s Mustang waited. “Do you really think so?”

  “I promise,” he said. “You’ll see what I mean. There’s another party next weekend. Bring Scarlett and Brooke; you’ll see how it is. Once Scarlett gets her flirt on, this will all be forgotten.”

  They parted with a long, lingering kiss, and Chase promised that, now that he’d be back at Alpha House once more, he would call Roxy soon.

  Very soon, he told himself as he headed up the dirt road toward Blackmeade. Roxy was now more irresistible to him than ever before. He had felt her totem calling to his, pulling at him, enmeshing with his own. He was certain she didn’t realize that she was a shifter – or that he was a shifter, for that matter. Her totem, when it touched his, had felt too unconscious, too unschooled. It was as inexperienced as she had been that day in the field, with the golden light spilling all around them and the long grass moving like waves on the sea.

  But Chase knew what he’d felt. Against all odds, against the rules of genetic inheritance, Roxy was a female shifter.

  He wanted to be the one to awaken her, to raise her awareness of the power within. He wanted to be the first to see her shift, to share in her wonder as she took her totem’s form for the first time – just as he had been the one to witness that first, precious transformation.

  But how? He knew that a first shift was a sensitive, potentially dangerous thing. It was a skill passed from father to son, or from uncle to nephew, the inheritors of that rare ability guiding their family members through the process step by step. They had learned at Blackmeade how those unfortunates who experienced a sudden, even traumatic first shift sometimes ended up psychologically scarred, unable to ever shift to their totem form again – or worse, unable to shift back to a human.

  Roxy had no one to guide her, and Chase feared for her, when the first shift came.

  When would it occur for a female? Did anyone know? Surely there had been a few women in the past who had inherited the ability, rare though it was. He resolved to scour the library at Blackmeade, starting the very next day, learning all he could about female shifters… if anything could be learned at all.

  He felt resolved, too, about Alpha House. He would finish out his final year at Blackmeade, sticking with his brothers until graduation. They were like family to him, after all, and they needed his support as much as he needed theirs.

  And if staying at Alpha House means fighting Alexander again? His jaw clenched. If staying means beating him – becoming the leader myself, casting Alexander out? His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

  Blackmeade was the only place where he could hope to learn about Roxy’s predicament – the only place where he might uncover the knowledge to protect her.

  “I stay,” he said to the foothills that blurred in the speed of his passing. “No matter what the consequences. For Roxy’s sake, I stay.”

  .4.

  E ven before that fateful night when he’d been obliged to pull Alexander off Jack – the night he had first seen Roxy – Chase had never been much of a partier. But tonight, as the brothers of Alpha House rolled in kegs of beer from one of Jackson’s microbreweries and plugged in the strands of Christmas lights that illuminated the living room, the spirit of excitement infected him.

  He would see Roxy again – the certainty of it thrilled him. They’d texted one another, and Chase had even called just to hear her voice when Alexander wasn’t nearby to see what he was up to. But to see her again – to touch her – that was an anticipation sweeter than any he could imagine.

  What Alexander might do when he saw Chase holding Roxy in his arms, Chase had no idea. I’ll deal with it when it happens, he told himself with quiet determination.

  The past few days, since his encounter with Roxy on the trail and the delicious lovemaking that had come after (the memory of which still burned along Chase’s veins), he had kept to himself, avoiding Alexander and most of the other brothers as well. He knew a confrontation was inevitable, but he had no time to plan for it, or to imagine how it might play out. He was entirely focused on his quest for knowledge, hunting through every obscure book in the long, dark stacks of the Blackmeade library until the staff finally kicked him out each evening.

  Chase knew that he couldn’t allow Alexander to distract him from his goal. Roxy’s safety and sanity might depend on Chase finding out all he could about female shifters, and she was his top priority. There would be time enough to deal with Alexander when Roxy had come through her first shift safely.

  Even though he knew Alexander’s rage would be aroused by the sight of Roxy and Chase together, Chase still couldn’t suppress his thrill of anticipation. But he lectured himself sternly as he helped the guys set up for the party.

  Don’t flaunt it. Play it cool until you can get some privacy. Don’t rub it in Alexander’s face – for Roxy’s sake, you have to play it cool.

  By the time Logan had his DJ station plugged in and the wheels spinning, the first guests were arriving. Guys from some of the other fraternities were the first to show up – those Houses which didn’t particularly care whether Jared and his Sigmas knew they’d been associating with Alpha Delta Phi. But soon after, a car came over the crest of the distant hill, the first town girls to make an appearance.

  Chase watched from the porch with idle curiosity as the unfamiliar black Jetta rolled to a stop in front of Alpha House’s lawn. The windows were heavily tinted, and he couldn’t tell how many girls were inside, or who they might be. He was taken aback when Scarlett stepped from the car, and no one else.

  She smiled brightly at Chase as she crossed the dry lawn – a friendly look, nothing cold or sly about it, as he’d expect to see on the face of a jealous woman.

  Maybe she’s over her resentment already, he thought. He
hoped so. He could tell how it plagued Roxy, to think that one of her only friends in this new town was angry with her.

  “Hi,” he said as Scarlett climbed the porch steps. “Roxy’s not with you?”

  A momentary flash of… something crossed Scarlett’s face. Chase wasn’t sure whether it was annoyance, anger, or wry amusement, and it was gone before he could decide, replaced with Scarlett’s perfectly pleasant smile.

  “Brooke had to close tonight at the café,” she said, “so Roxy’s waiting for her to finish up. They’re going to come down together in the Jeep. But I had the whole day off work, and I got bored waiting around for the party to start, so…” she shrugged, laughing.

  “So here you are.”

  Scarlett tucked a lock of her dark hair behind one ear, smiling up at him. She was a pretty girl – Roxy had been right about that. Her small, fine nose and full lips were balanced by large eyes, which she accentuated with expertly applied make-up. Her eyes seemed to shine with a startling vividness in her pale, smooth face, and as she chatted, Chase found it difficult to look away. Was it her eyeshadow that captured his attention, artfully painted in a smooth transition of subtle colors? Or some deeper fascination in the eyes themselves – in Scarlett?

  He nodded through the one-sided conversation, making quiet uh-huhs or ohs wherever they seemed appropriate, and forced himself to tear his gaze away from Scarlett’s eyes. But then it seemed the only place he could look was at her body. She wore another sleeveless top, as at the last party – silver this time, with a faintly metallic sheen. Her small, narrow shoulders looked very delicate, her neck graceful and inviting.

  Chase blinked; Roxy was coming soon – he couldn’t wait to see her. He…