by Lib Starling
Blackmeade students visited Jackson Hole in greater numbers than ever before. They stalked the wooden sidewalks in wary packs and keept tense watch on street corners by day and night. But no one could find a trace of the dark-haired witch.
Chase stayed in his room at first, fearful he’d be the victim of another uncontrolled shift. But as the days passed and his totem remained under his command, he grew steadier, and joined in the searches himself. He and Darien moved through the sage lands at dawn and dusk, the great char-gray wolf loping alongside the bull elk, both creatures running with their noses to the wind. Still Scarlett remained elusive.
One evening as the moon was rising, Chase caught the tentative whiff of Alexander moving hesitantly on the other side of his bedroom door. He opened the door before Alexander could knock, and was gratified by the erstwhile alpha’s tiny involuntary jump, the widening of his pale eyes.
Chase held his stare a moment, then stepped back into his room. “Come in.”
Alexander crossed the threshold almost submissively, his broad shoulders ducked and his eyes downcast. But when he raised his eyes from the floor, his spine stiffened at the sight of Chase’s suitcase and duffel bag spread across his bed. Both bags were stuffed nearly full with Chase’s belongings. But Alexander offered no comment, waiting quietly for Chase to make some explanation if he chose.
“Nobody has found her,” Alexander said.
Chase nodded. It was no more than he’d expected. Scarlett had surprised them all with the potency of her magic. Surely it was no difficulty for a witch of her skill to make herself vanish.
“How have you been since… since losing it?”
Chase reached up to the place on his chest where his talisman should have hung. His hand closed on the empty air near his heart. But he said, “Well under control. Nothing to worry about.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Alexander’s eyes flicked again toward the nearly-packed bags.
Chase sighed. It was petty to try to keep this information from Alexander. He’d find out sooner or later; Chase might as well be a man and tell him to his face.
“There’s nothing for me here anymore,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the bags. “I’m leaving.”
“Leaving Alpha House?”
“And the school. And Jackson Hole.”
Alexander blinked at him, stunned. “Where will you go?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll figure that out on the road, I guess. All I know is that there’s nothing for me here without Roxy.”
“I see,” Alexander said, nodding. “But the fraternity…”
“Still yours.”
Alexander made no move. Hope lit his eyes, but died away again behind a wall of wariness. “You won the fight. You beat me. You earned the right to lead. You’re the alpha of the brotherhood now.”
“I don’t want it,” Chase said. “It’s not the life for me, and the guys don’t deserve a leader who can’t give them his all. They’re a good group – a true brotherhood. You go on leading them.”
Silence hung heavy and dense in the room. At last Chase said, “It’s another good reason for me to leave. If I’m nowhere near Alpha Delta Phi, then soon enough everybody will forget… about the fight. That I beat you. You’ll still be the unchallenged leader of Alpha House.”
Alexander drew in a sharp breath, as if the concession pained him. But then he humbled himself, even offering a small smile. Its genuine warmth surprised Chase, and Alexander offered his hand to shake. “You’re a good man, Chase. I won’t forget this.”
Chase flung the last of his things into his suitcase, buckled it, and zipped his duffel bag closed. He slung it over his shoulder and walked past Alexander, out his bedroom door.
He would have left Alpha House without another word, but something gnawed at his conscience and made him turn back to face Alexander. The pale leader was already inflating again, filling once more with the natural sense of his own power and worth.
“One thing only,” Chase said. “Before I go, understand this: If you do end up with Roxy, you’d better be good to her.”
Alexander’s smile was thin and cold this time – the familiar confidence of the alpha.
“Because if you hurt her, Alexander, no force on Earth will keep me from finishing the job I started. I’ll hunt you until you can’t run any longer, and I’ll make you wish you’d never set eyes on Roxy. Do you understand me?”
The two young men stood locked together by the heat of their glares. Then slowly, Alexander nodded.
Chase threw his bags into the back of his Mustang, revved the engine, and sped up the gravel road toward the ridge that concealed Blackmeade from casual view. As he climbed, the dust of his going settled, and the dark spires of the campus looked small and feeble, the pale dot of Alpha Delta Phi an insignificant scar on the landscape.
His wolf stretched and shook itself, and seemed to bound along in the speed of Chase’s escape. His heart ached for Roxy and all he’d lost – but the promise of freedom buoyed his spirit.
Chase rolled down his window and leaned from the car as he drove, giving vent to a howl of joy that reverberated off the mountains. He didn’t know where the road would take him, or what the future might hold. But he and his totem were both ready to find out.
Part 4
.1.
A swirl of sparkling white stars surrounded Roxy, bright, lancing her sensitive eyes with burning light. She twisted, resisting the light and the pressure that seemed to accompany it, an unseen force that squeezed and pummeled from all sides. The more she resisted, the harder the force pressed, until she was gasping and screaming, her body stretching like taffy between two monstrous hands, her torso lengthening, her arms and legs thinning, morphing into stiff-jointed sticks.
“Help,” she cried, “help me!” But her voice was a harsh, high-pitched bark in her ears.
“Try.” Darien. His soft, somber tones cut through her terror. “Promise me you’ll stay calm, and remember you’re Roxanne.”
“Roxanne,” she said.
The white light disappeared. She was sitting on Darien’s bed again – no, not sitting. Lying, her long, warm, red-furred body stretched tensely across his comforter as Darien knelt beside the bed, peering anxiously into her face. Roxy tried to reach for him. Her paws scrabbled against smooth fabric.
“Feel your heart beating,” Darien said. “Feel the place inside you where your totem lives.”
She tried to remember. Where was that? What was it? Her totem… she felt inside-out, like a shirt pulled off a body and carelessly discarded.
“Sense that place, Roxy. It’s inside you. It’s where you are.”
She closed her eyes, and her sense of smell sharpened. She could smell Darien, the sweat of anxiety rising on his skin, the bitter-sour tang of tightly controlled fear like a foul cloud hanging over his head. She smelled the party below, the wheaty miasma of beer, the musky excitement of dozens of men – and a burst of rage, a spicy, sulfurous, sudden odor like a blast of hot air from some hellish furnace. Roxy breathed deep, pulling in the scents, amazed by their vividness and variety even as she still cowered in fear.
Her ears twitched; she heard two thumps like the deep impacts of heavy, distant things – she felt them pound in her chest. A moment later, the snarls of two huge animals locked in battle rose above the jeers of the crowd downstairs, above her own thudding heart and Darien’s ragged breaths.
“Focus,” Darien said. “Focus on what I told you. Let your other senses go.”
Impossible. Scent and sound together filled her body, overwhelming her even while they excited her.
“The place near your heart,” he said, “where your totem lives. It’s where you are. Go there, Roxy. Feel that place – feel its dimensions. Feel what’s inside.”
Through the animal thrill of her heightened senses, Roxy probed in the vicinity of her heart. There was a sort of hollow there, warm and familiar like a home burrow. There was something inside – a girl; a woman. She was hu
ddled around herself, clinging to her own body in utter terror. Her mind was like a black fog, obscuring itself by the moment as it fled in panic from reality.
The fox gasped. As she did, she could taste the woman’s fear on her tongue. It tasted of despair, of loss, of waning strength. She dug at the edges of the burrow, trying to widen it. She pressed her pointed muzzle inside, licked the woman’s cheek, called to her.
Come out. Let me inside. We are one.
“Keep trying,” Darien said.
The fox wedged her spirit-paws deeper, pulled at the burrow’s mouth. She pressed her slinking, slender form inside, wound herself around the woman, washed the tears from her face with a warm tongue.
Go, the fox said. Back to where you belong.
But I’m afraid, said the woman, sobbing.
Of what?
I’m afraid I’ll never find my way back – that I’ll never be myself again. She hesitated. The hand of her spirit rested on the fox’s head, rubbed between the pointed velvet ears. I’m afraid I’ll never be able to let you out again, too.
Now that you’ve seen me, the fox told her, there is no un-seeing. Now you know that we are one. Wherever you go, I go. But you must leave now, take back your form, or you will be trapped here forever.
I’m afraid, the woman insisted.
Do it. Be brave.
Darien’s voice echoed in Roxy’s ears. “Be brave.” And he said at the same instant as the fox, Come back to me, Roxy.
Roxy stretched herself outward. She felt the fox curl its spirit beneath her heart, and she emerged, feeling the strange confines of the vulpine body, its narrowness, its heat, its heightened senses slamming against her consciousness with a force that stuttered her heart. She kept emerging, pushing past the fear and the pain. A dot of white light glowed in the space before her eyes, and she pushed toward it, insisting, telling herself, I am Roxy. I am Roxy. Come back to me.
The light crashed in her ears like a cymbal. It shoved its way into her lungs, cutting off her breath. Roxy opened her mouth and screamed.
She lurched upright in her bed. Her white sheets were damp with sweat, and her limbs shook violently. In the dimness of her bedroom, Roxy held her hands up, examining her ten spread fingers, her smooth, furless skin. She thrust the covers aside and stared at her legs. Never before had she been so pleased by the sight of her dimpled knees and her plump ankles. She rotated her feet and flexed her toes, reassuring herself that they were not black-furred paws.
Roxy gave a shaking sigh and flopped back on the mattress. Her head poofed against her soft pillow, and she lay still, allowing the sensation of relief to drive the fear from her body.
It was a nightmare. Just a dream.
But only the day before, it had been real. She had lived every moment of her nightmare as Darien talked her through the return shift in his bedroom, while the fight between Chase and Alexander had raged audibly below them. Roxy gripped the cool gold medallion of her stay, remembering the sounds of their fury, the way those snarls and growls had invaded her mind as she’d struggled to reverse her shift and return to her human form.
Her finger traced the animal face etched into the medallion, and despite her fearful memories, Roxy smiled.
Mom was right – I found out what animal is on my necklace, for sure. A fox.
She wondered what that meant for her – about her – that the spirit dwelling inside her was that of a fox. She thought of foxes as being clever, sly, quick, and lithe – none of which attributes Roxy saw in herself. She pulled the covers back over her and poked at her own round, soft belly. I am especially lacking in the litheness department. She smiled, stifling a giggle.
Then she stilled, staring up at the ceiling in wonder.
Before yesterday – before her first shift – Roxy would have felt badly about that. She would have berated herself over her plumpness, not giggled over her body’s imperfection like a happy, joking kid. But now, she… didn’t care. No – it wasn’t that she didn’t care. She realized with dawning wonder that she liked herself. She liked her roundness, her bigness, her shape like an ancient fertility charm. The entire world was eager to tell her how she had failed as a woman, because she didn’t conform to society’s narrow standards of beauty. But she didn’t feel like a failure. Not anymore. She felt exotic and wild, cherished and free. She felt like a goddess. And anybody who thought otherwise must be as dull and inconsequential as a tarnished penny.
Roxy rolled onto her side, watching the sky outside her window. It paled by degrees, slowly warming from the steel-gray of predawn to the rose-pink glow of a brilliant sunrise. Her hands moved over her breasts, her belly, her wide hip that rose from the bed like a mountain’s lush slope. Her own touch was loving, and tears of gratitude filled her eyes as she watched the sunrise intensify.
Maybe foxes aren’t especially clever or sly, she decided. Maybe what makes them so special is that they don’t give a shit what other people think.
She liked that idea. She liked the new power she felt stirring inside her – the fox totem awakened, her self-respect blossoming.
And Chase, she thought suddenly. The smile froze on her lips, faded away to nothing. Do I care what he thinks?
There was no doubt that she had seen Chase in his totemic form – the massive wolf standing over his felled, snow-white foe – and that white wolf had been Alexander. The moment she’d looked upon the battling wolves, she had recognized them both. Alexander’s ice-blue eyes couldn’t be mistaken, not even in his lupine form. But Chase’s natural power and wild pride were just as easy to spot. As Roxy had stared at them, leaning on Darien’s arm, she recalled the slinking gray shape that had drifted through the forest that day she’d met Chase on the mountain trail.
Now she thought about the wolf – fighting in the living room of Alpha House, and moving free among the shadows of the forest – and wondered, did she care what Chase thought about her? Remembering what they’d shared together still stabbed a fierce thorn of pain deep into her heart. But Roxy felt strong now, and knew without a doubt that she’d never let herself be used again.
She had misjudged Chase from the first. He was a frat boy to his core, and it was Scarlett he wanted, not Roxy. Both she and her fox felt certain of that.
Roxy twisted the chain of her stay around her fingers. She felt her fox respond with a small, inaudible noise of agreement. There was nothing to be done about Chase, except to move on. And now she was strong enough to do it.
.2.
R oxy raised her fist to the dark, scarred fir of Alpha House’s door. Her knock was hollow and loud, sure to be heard even over the snores of the sleeping fraternity. It wasn’t long before Darien answered. Roxy knew he’d received her text early that morning, asking to speak with him, and that he’d be waiting for her arrival.
They sat on one of the mismatched, overstuffed couches in the vast living room, across from the enormous brick fireplace with its carved oak mantelpiece stained by age and soot. The house smelled of men – sweat and suspicion, the harsh gusts of their near-constant sexual desire.
It smelled, too, of the strength of their bonds, and fear and sadness over bonds broken. Roxy breathed deep, remembering the two wolves striving across the living room floor with their white fangs bared. Chase’s smell was faint, nearly faded away. She wondered where he’d gone.
It had been more than a week since the party and Roxy’s fateful virgin shift. The dreams had continued every night; the voice of her inner fox whispered to her in dreams each night, and the more familiar she grew with the feel of her totem spirit, the less she feared shifting. Now she longed for it, but she knew instinctively that it was nothing she ought to fool with on her own. She took Darien’s hand, looking eagerly into his face, and dove into the reason for her visit.
“I want you to teach me how to shift.”
“Good,” he said. “I can, I think. I’ve never taught anybody before, but I walked you back to your human form without any mishaps.”
“Thank
you so much. I’m grateful for anything you can teach me. It’s sure to be a lot more than I know now. When can we start?”
Darien chuckled at her readiness. “One of the first things you have to learn is to control the urge. It’s difficult to do. Once it’s awakened, your totem will call to you. It can be difficult to resist, but you have to keep your human side in control.”
“Or what?”
“Too much time spent in your animal form can erode your humanity. Shifting is a great power, but it comes at a cost if it’s done too freely. Walking in your animal spirit can feel so liberating, it’s easy to forget that you’re not an animal. Not entirely. You’re mostly human – all human, really – just with a few enhancements. Spend too much time as a fox, and you’ll become more fox than woman. You’ll give up everything that’s good about being human, and believe me, it’s good to be a person.” He pulled his stay out of the collar of his t-shirt. “That’s why we have these things. Stays provide a reinforcement of our humanity. They keep us in check. They remind us to be human.”
Roxy touched her own stay. It was warm beneath her fingers, as if her fox panted with the need to run free. “I understand.”
They both turned at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, measured and light. Alexander descended halfway down the staircase, then paused when she saw Roxy sitting on the couch. His face was paler than usual, his eyes less cold and calculating. Something in his look was tempered, softer and more thoughtful, though the familiar, natural charisma still emanated from him in near-palpable waves.
Roxy nodded a neutral greeting. Alexander’s feet moved again; he stopped in the living room, hands in the pockets of his khaki pants, watching the two of them in silence. There was a half-healed cut on the side of his jaw. It stood out against his light complexion in a streak of livid pink. Roxy’s mouth tightened, and she recalled the brutality of Alexander’s fight with Chase. Chase must have beaten him soundly. That cut was surely from the fight – a laceration from the snapping fangs of Chase’s wolf form – and this new thoughtful wariness she sensed in Alexander… That must be from the fight, too, she decided.