by Lib Starling
“It might work.”
“But how do we do it?”
Darien gave a tight, scheming smile. “Scarlett loves a party.”
“But none of the guys will feel like partying, if they can’t trust their stays.”
“I don’t know about that.”
Darien glanced up at the jagged line of mountains that towered above Blackmeade Village. A thin sliver of white moon had just begun to peek over the tallest granite crest. Chase watched it in silence, feeling, through the agitation of the day’s turmoil, a deep, compelling pull.
“It’ll be full tonight.”
“And even with their stays going haywire, you know the brothers won’t be able to resist a party on a full-moon night.”
.5.
R oxy sat in her Jeep for a long time when she arrived home from work. Absently, she toyed with the etched gold medallion of her necklace, aware of little save for the cool feel of the chain’s fine links against her skin, and the fog of doubt and confusion that clouded her mind. She had been irritable since her conversation with Darien, on edge and suspicious, glancing behind her all the time as if she expected to see Jared in his dog-form stalking her, or Darien walking the streets of Jackson Hole in the guise of a huge bull elk.
The knowledge that shapeshifters were real – that any such being could exist outside the realm of imagination – both thrilled and terrified her. Confronted now by the certainty that reality was not what it seemed, Roxy felt deeply unsettled, as if she couldn’t trust gravity to continue to hold her to the Earth, or shouldn’t be surprised if the rain began falling up. And the mystery of it all intrigued her. Darien had been so utterly convinced that the necklace her mother had given her was a stay medallion. Where had her mother gotten it? What was Roxy’s connection to this strange new reality – what was her role in this world of shapeshifting men and the power they controlled?
She finally dragged herself from the Jeep and shuffled toward the house. She had worried over the mystery all day long, and now she was exhausted. She needed a nap – a nap and a good movie to take her racing mind off these troubling thoughts.
But when she entered the house, the screen door slamming in its noisy metal frame, Roxy felt no sense of ease. Something caught her up sharp and made her pause, glancing around the empty living room with her blood racing, her eyes frantic and wide.
What? What is it? she chided herself. She couldn’t identify exactly what had sent her into high alert. She knew only that a thick knot of emotion had tied itself around her, squeezing her chest and sickening her stomach.
Roxy breathed deep, trying to calm herself, trying to make sense of the wave of feeling. You’re just over-tired, she told herself sensibly. You have a lot to process – you need to relax.
But as she drew her steady, careful breaths, her heart lurched and her eyes watered with sudden tears. Roxy paused, clinging to the back of the couch with one hand to steady herself. She inhaled again, focusing.
Faintly, drifting far below the familiar smells of home, the air was laced with a tantalizing hint of sage brush, warmth, and clean, masculine sweat. It was a smell that spoke of open spaces, of running through the forest when the sun sank low.
Chase.
Roxy gasped, and her hand clenched into a fist, crumpling in the couch’s overstuffed backrest. Chase had been here. Recently. And that meant Chase had been here with Scarlett. What other reason could he have to be in their home? Certainly he hadn’t come looking for Roxy.
She had only a brief moment, the flicker of a single second to wonder why her sense of smell was so heightened – she had never been so sensitive to odors before – and then a wave of anger swept over Roxy’s soul. The anonymous force inside her seemed to snap sharp, white teeth in feral fury. Her jaw tightened, and Roxy gave a wordless growl.
Scarlett. The time had come to put an end to this mess. So Chase had cruelly used Roxy and discarded her heart. Fine. She could live with that. But Roxy didn’t have to live with Scarlett rubbing her victory in her face. She had a right to be comfortable in her own home, and if Scarlett couldn’t keep her hands off Chase, then Scarlett could get the hell out of the house.
Boiling over with loathing, Roxy stormed through the house and threw open Scarlett’s bedroom door. It was a violation, and Roxy knew it. They had an unspoken rule in the house that no one would intrude in another’s private space, but Roxy was beyond caring. Scarlett had already broken that rule by dragging Chase home to have her way with him right under Roxy’s nose. She felt ready to tear into Scarlett, ready to scream and claw at her, and Chase, too, if he should have the bad luck to cross Roxy’s path. But no one was inside – not the dark-haired boyfriend-thief and, thank God, not Chase.
Roxy gritted her teeth and glanced helplessly around Scarlett’s room. She wanted to catch something up and throw it against the wall, wanted to shatter something dear to her former friend. She wanted to ruin Scarlett’s belongings, ruin her life the way Scarlett and Chase had ruined her own.
Roxy ordered herself to calm down, told herself she was thinking like a child, or like a wild animal. But still the rage shook her, racing through her veins like a freight train out of control. Roxy breathed deep again, struggling to rule her own anger. The smell of Chase was even stronger here, and Roxy recognized with a pang of loss the potent, musky scent of his aroused desire – she had smelled it that day in the grass, and again in her own room when the thunder storm had rolled over Jackson.
Over the smell of Chase, she detected a biting, mineral/chemical odor. The unfamiliarity of the smell rocked her out of her rage. Roxy sniffed again, trying to identify it, trying to make sense… makeup.
It was Scarlett’s cosmetics she smelled. Roxy inhaled again. Yes, and there was the artificially fruity scent of Scarlett’s hair-smoothing serum, and the acrid singe of hot hair from Scarlett’s flat iron. She had taken special care to tart herself up.
Roxy slid open the closet door and pawed through Scarlett’s clothing. Her sexiest, tightest black dress was gone. It wasn’t the kind of thing even Scarlett would wear on a simple date. And that meant…
“Party,” Roxy said aloud.
She spun on her heel and darted for Brooke’s room, knocked on the door and nearly grabbed her friend by the shirt when Brooke opened. “We’re going to Alpha Delta Phi tonight.”
“Roxy…”
“We have to go. There’s a party.”
“I don’t think you’re in any shape for a party,” Brooke said gently. “Why don’t you take it easy tonight?”
Roxy turned and paced down the hallway, then back again. She knew her eyes were wild, knew she looked crazy – but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. Her anger and confusion and fear were tangling inside her, clawing at one another as if they warred for the right to control her. She felt as if she would crack open, and anything might come out – screams, hysterical laughter, her own troubled soul.
“We have to go, Brooke. Scarlett is there.”
“So what?”
“I have to put a stop to this – what she’s doing to me.”
Brooke took Roxy by the shoulders to stop her pacing, and looked into her face with real concern. “I was wondering if Scarlett’s – uh – dating was hurtful to you. But I didn’t want to bring it up. I think you should talk to her, Rox, but I don’t think now is the time. It’d be better if you were calm…”
“I won’t be calm until I take care of this, Brooke! She’s hurt me too deeply, and we need to settle things before I can move on. It has to happen tonight – it must be tonight.”
“Why? Can’t you leave it until the morning, when you’re not so angry?”
“It must be tonight, and either you go with me or I’ll go by myself.” Roxy couldn’t have said why she insisted on that night – on instant and forceful resolution. She only knew that the force inside her compelled her, and that she responded to its command as obedient as a well-trained dog.
Brooke looked at Roxy steadily for a long time, b
iting her lip. Finally she said, “I don’t think you should be driving, as upset as you are. So if you really can’t wait until tomorrow, I’ll go with you. Just let me get a jacket and my keys.”
.6.
T he wind moved sluggishly in the foothills, carrying only the barest whispers of scent from the big Victorian house. Chase held himself still and alert among the sagebrush. He watched the yellow glow intensify in Alpha House’s windows as the night deepened. A spray of white stars had flung themselves across the darkening sky, their light barely picking out the pale delineations of the Alpha Delta Phi letters nailed over the frat house’s door.
The gravel road ran between Chase’s vantage and the gathering party. He waited, watchful and tense, his face turned away from the towers of Blackmeade University. It was as if the campus had eyes, and its rows of long, narrow windows watched him with the expectation of generations of shifters. I don’t want to be like you, Chase said silently, resisting the urge to twitch his skin like an animal shaking off flies. I want to be in control of my own future. But the watching eyes didn’t care, and the feeling of being judged only intensified Chase’s anxiety.
Scarlett had already arrived at the party. Darien had agreed that it would be best if Chase kept well away until the witch had grown comfortable and complacent – until she’d settled into the night’s festivities and her guard was down. They were both sure she’d be looking for Chase, and God only knew what kind of tricks she might have up her sleeve to get back at him for exposing her falsehood with her “stay.”
Jack was ready inside the house, though, and Scarlett had no reason to mistrust him. True to his coyote totem, Jack was always ready to participate in a good prank, and when Darien had let him in on the plan to dupe a witch into showing her true colors, Jack had been instantly on board. He would be ready to lead Scarlett into a display of magic as soon as Darien gave the signal, and then Chase would arrive at the party in time to corroborate Jack’s claim that the girl was a witch bent on harming the brotherhood.
The three of them had rehearsed the plan carefully. Darien and Jack were satisfied that all would go well, but Chase couldn’t shake the feeling that something about tonight was wrong.
Witches – who can trust them? And who knows what powers Scarlett has.
Maybe she could see the future – maybe she had some charm to protect her against conspiracies or entrapment.
Maybe she already knows what we’re going to do. Maybe I’m powerless to protect Roxy from this magic.
No – there had to be a way to secure Roxy’s safety. Tonight would do the trick – it would, Chase insisted stubbornly, glaring down at Alpha House from his vantage on the dark hillside. And once he was sure Roxy was safe from the witch, Chase would be free to leave Blackmeade forever.
It’s almost done. You just have to get through tonight. Then Chase would put this all behind him – the school, Alexander’s alpha spell, and the memory of what he’d done to Roxy.
Chase watched the upstairs window, waiting for Darien to give the signal: the blinds opening and closing three times. He began to fidget. The night was chilly, and Chase was impatient for action, ready to move beyond Blackmeade and start his life anew – if his grief over hurting Roxy would allow him enough peace to assemble a new life.
The faint purring of a distant engine caught his attention, and Chase turned toward the crest of the hill. An unfamiliar car made its way down the long gravel road, passed through the outer houses of Blackmeade Village, and pulled to a stop outside Alpha Delta Phi. The headlights snapped off, and Chase saw two female forms emerge. The tinny slam of the car doors came to him a moment later, the sound delayed by distance. Town girls – nothing unusual about that.
Then the wind shifted, and Chase caught Roxy’s unmistakable smell: lush and alluring, but tinged with a sharp note of anger.
“She’s not supposed to be here,” he stammered aloud.
Chase and Darien had both agreed that there was no way Roxy would show up; she was still too angry, they felt sure, to feel up to a party. And yet there she was, storming up the steps of Alpha House like a bull advancing on a matador.
She’ll be inside with Scarlett when Jack provokes her…
As a virgin shifter, there was no telling what Roxy might do if Scarlett, cornered and exposed, lashed out with her magic.
She’s in worse danger than before!
Chase glanced desperately up at Darien’s window one more time, but the blinds remained untouched. He would have to show himself at the party now, and ruin Jack’s clever ambush.
He began jogging across the sage-covered hill, pushing through the brush toward the road. All the while he kept one eye on Darien’s window. Light spilled weakly through the slats of the blinds, and above the peaks of Alpha House’s Victorian turrets, the full moon seemed to watch with lazy amusement.
Chase gained the gravel road and moved faster, running in the moonlight. He sped past the quiet homes of staff and a few other fraternities, but long before he reached the yard of Alpha Delta Phi, the blinds on Darien’s window flew open. Chase cursed and waited for them to drop again, then to rise – the signal. But instead the window pane swung outward, and Darien’s head and shoulders leaned out, his neck craning as he scanned the hills. He caught sight of Chase running. Darien reached with one arm, beckoning with a desperation Chase felt surging in his own blood.
“Chase!” Darien shouted. “Hurry!”
Roxy shoved her way up the porch steps and through the crowd of party-goers, the blood rushing in her ears so loudly that she could scarcely hear Brooke calling out for her to wait.
“No,” Roxy growled, flinging the door of Alpha House open so hard it bounced off the inside wall.
A few town girls drew back, exclaiming into their cups of beer and rolling their eyes at Roxy’s intrusion, but she moved past them, oblivious to their annoyed glances.
She was not oblivious to the way the men all turned toward her. The stares of each male burned into her flesh, and their sudden silence – the conversations they’d dropped mid-word to watch her – could have muffled the thumping music. Roxy reveled in their attention, allowing their hungry stares to fan the flames of her anger into a firestorm of power and confidence.
She didn’t even care if Chase was here – strong as she now felt, wild as she felt, she would spit her scorn right into his face.
“Scarlett!” she yelled.
Across the dance floor, beyond the swaying forest of moving bodies, Roxy’s hard stare locked onto Scarlett’s face. The dark-haired girl lounged against a wall, one hip thrust out seductively, smiling over the rim of her cup at Jack, who chatted her up with a sly gleam in his easy smile.
At the sound of her name, Scarlett looked up, startled. But her surprise quickly fled, replaced by an expression of calculation. Scarlett stepped away from Jack, her painted lips moving lightly as she muttered something under her breath.
She walked a few paces toward Roxy, but stopped on the edge of the dance floor, keeping the knot of dancing girls between them. Scarlett’s smile was taunting.
Roxy began pushing through the crowd. She had no idea what she would do when she was face to face with her roommate, but she knew it wouldn’t be pretty. Dimly, Roxy was aware that her anger was ruling her, and she was embarrassed by her lack of control. But a force much stronger than shame pushed her onward, demanding retribution. Scratch her, the force shouted inside her skull. Bite her, hurt her, savage her! Roxy was as powerless to deny its demands as she was to stop the beating of her own heart.
“Don’t, Roxy!” Brooke called from somewhere inside Alpha House. But she was impeded by the crowd – by the ring of men who closed, silent and intense, around Roxy as she moved – and Brooke couldn’t reach her.
Scarlett blinked serenely, watching Roxy come. She set her drink on a nearby end table with quiet composure, then straightened, still mumbling words Roxy couldn’t hear.
“You total bitch,” Roxy raged when she reached Scarlett at
last.
Scarlett’s eyes danced with amusement, flickering from side to side.
Roxy looked around them. The brothers of Alpha Delta Phi had drawn close, leaning in eagerly as the last of the dancing girls, sensing a fight, squeezed out of the ring toward safety. The men watched Roxy with feverish stares, their muscular chests heaving with excitement. The music stopped playing with the scratch of a needle against vinyl.
Roxy wasn’t afraid. In fact she felt powerful, as if there was nothing she couldn’t do, and nowhere Scarlett could run to escape her fury.
“A little worked up, aren’t you?” Scarlett said.
“How dare you fuck Chase in my home? Do you have any respect for other people?”
Scarlett shrugged. Her little black dress clung to her slender frame and she rested her hands on her hips, as if to emphasize the obvious differences between their bodies. “What can I say? Chase wants what he wants. I’m not going to deny him what he wants just because your bedroom is down the hall.”
Roxy’s gritted her teeth.
“Get over it,” Scarlett went on. “You’re just not his type.”
The wildness inside Roxy boiled over. She swung a fist toward Scarlett, but in that moment something white and blinding flashed before her eyes, and she had the sensation of falling. In a frantic moment of clarity, she assumed she had tripped, and braced herself to strike the floor. But although she could feel the ground beneath her – could feel her legs and arms pressing into it, her belly and chin resting on it – she registered no hard impact. The weight of a great swath of wool fell over her head, pinning her body against the ground, and she struggled against the fabric. It enveloped her body like a sleeping bag, tangling with her thrashing limbs.
One of the men – Alexander, she thought – shouted: “Get all the girls out! Now!” Women shouted in dismay and called insults as they were hurried from the house.