by Lib Starling
Alexander considered her for a moment with those eyes, as light-blue as morning clouds. He tipped his head toward their couch. “May I?”
Darien tensed, but Roxy squeezed his hand. “Sure.”
She realized as she watched Alexander make his way carefully across the room that she didn’t fear him. His attack still offended her – it always would – and she didn’t trust the man. But neither did she fear him. She knew she could defend herself against him, and in any case, there was something so deeply contrite in his bearing now, something so thoroughly beaten, that Roxy sensed that any danger Alexander once posed was gone.
Probably. I won’t get too comfortable around him.
Alexander sat in one of the arm chairs and leaned toward them, resting his elbows on his knees, his hands dangling in a casual manner that was at odds with the intensity of his gaze.
“I was just asking Darien,” Roxy began, but Alexander opened his mouth in the same moment.
They both hesitated, Alexander giving an apologetic little laugh, and Roxy motioned for him to speak first.
“I need to apologize to you, Roxy.” His voice was as smooth and low as ever, but there was no trickery in it, no hum of seduction or cocky over-confidence. He sounded genuinely regretful. She sat back and waited for him to go on. “The way I treated you on our date was… unacceptable.”
Darien tilted his head sarcastically, but maintained his silence.
Alexander cleared his throat. His hands clenched where they hung. “It was more than unacceptable. It was despicable, and I’m ashamed of my behavior.”
“Well…” Roxy floundered for words. She had never expected a man like Alexander, so sure of his place in the world, unshakable in his self-worth, to say anything like this. The only response she could think to give was, “Good.”
Alexander ducked his head with a small, embarrassed smile. “I want to try to make it up to you. If you’ll let me.”
“Make it up? How?”
Another date was out of the question. There was no way Roxy would put herself into another situation where they’d be alone with any possibility for “romantic” thoughts. She didn’t fear Alexander, but her mistrust of him would probably never dissipate.
“I’d like to teach you about shifting, if it’s all right with you.”
Roxy and Darien shared an uneasy glance. Had Alexander overheard their conversation? Or was he simply making the logical conclusion that Roxy, new to shifting as she was, had come seeking help? Surely Alexander could tell that Roxy trusted Darien. Did he understand that she would never trust him in the same way?
Darien spoke up. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Alexander, given what you did.”
Roxy expected a flare of Alexander’s anger, his usual response to being denied. Instead, he only nodded in acceptance of Darien’s quiet rebuke.
“I understand completely, if you feel you don’t want to learn from me. I only wanted to offer my help in case you’ll find me a useful teacher. It’s a sincere offer – and a sincere apology. There’s a lot I can teach you, and it would be my honor to help you in any way I can.”
Darien sighed, a small sound. “There is a lot you could learn from him,” he admitted, mumbling almost under his breath.
“Such as?”
“That control I told you about earlier. There’s almost nobody I know of who’s better at self-control than Alexander.”
Roxy couldn’t restrain a snort of disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”
She glanced uneasily at the leader of the fraternity. It felt strange to speak this way in front of him – to discuss his past sins and his relative merits right in front of his face. Not only was it rude by any human standard, but it felt deeply, distressingly wrong on a primal level. Roxy’s chest heated, and she got the momentary impression that her totem was blushing in shame. Was this some instinctive response she had to Alexander’s natural potency as a leader – to his pure, animal alpha-ness?
In spite of her discomfort, Roxy forced herself to speak on. “He attacked me. That’s not self-control.”
“You’re right,” Alexander broke in. “I was out of control that night. I won’t deny it. It’s a shame I’ll always bear. I’ve tried to learn from it, though. I’ve tried to discern what drove me to that point, so that I can be sure I never go that far again.”
An uneasy stillness settled between the three of them, stifling and thick. They glanced at one another, each one pleading with somebody else to speak first.
It was Alexander who broke the silence. “None of us is ever done learning in life, right? I’ve tried to turn my shame into a lesson, so I can become a better man. You don’t owe me anything, Roxy. Please believe me: I know that. I owe you. I want to try to make it right, what I did… as much as a man can right that sort of wrong. Darien’s correct: there is a lot I can teach you. And the more shifters you learn from, the faster you’ll learn – the better your education will be. It’s your choice – it’s entirely your choice. I’m offering myself if you choose to accept my teaching. But I understand if you don’t want me near you.”
Roxy watched Alexander for a long moment, reading the sincerity on his calm face. She even inhaled subtly, drawing on his scent. This heightened ability to detect odors was still new to her, but novice that she was, she could still sense a certain bruised softness in his smell. He was deeply ashamed of the attack; Roxy was sure of that.
Another note of shame – a different tone, a different flavor – swam amidst the other complex scents that made up Alexander. She tasted it carefully, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand to disguise the way her nostrils twitched on the unfamiliar odor. It was sour and intense like citrus, yet more bitter and blunt than the brimstone heat of the geysers that riddled Yellowstone to the north.
Defeat, Roxy realized suddenly. Her eyes widened. Alexander had been defeated, and he knew it. Defeated by whom? She wondered. By me?
But the answer came with her next heartbeat. No, of course it wasn’t Roxy. It was Chase.
Darien had explained days ago what had happened the night of the party. When Roxy had shifted into her fox form, the brothers of Alpha House had gone mad, all of them pressing in on her, ready to disobey their bonds of loyalty to Alexander for the right to possess her. The sight of a woman shifted was more than any of them could resist. Chase had fought Alexander in order to distract them – to draw their attention toward their alpha’s peril, so that Darien could talk Roxy back through her shift unimpeded by the dozens of men who would do almost anything to get to her.
Chase beat him so thoroughly, Roxy saw now, that even Alexander isn’t sure whether he’s still the leader of Alpha House.
The realization that Alexander could be uncertain – that he could be brought low – bolstered Roxy’s confidence.
“I think it would be good,” she said, “to learn from as many shifters as I can. After all, I have a lot to learn. And with Scarlett being God-knows-where, I probably need to learn fast. I’d be glad to accept your help, Alexander.”
He smiled in relief and gratitude, and for the first time since she’d met him, Roxy saw a touching warmth and vulnerability shine out from his blue eyes. It made Roxy feel even stronger than before.
She slapped her knees with her hands. “All right, I’ve got my tutors. So tell me: when do we start lessons?”
.3.
C hase dropped his tool belt on the table and kicked shut the door of his tiny studio. The table rocked under the tool belt’s weight, wobbling on its uneven legs. His single chair creaked as he sat to pry off his heavy work boots, but once his feet were free, he stretched his legs comfortably and leaned back in the chair, hands behind his head. He sighed as if he reclined in a beach chair with a sapphire-blue view of Caribbean waters spreading before him, instead of a small patch of dingy gray city street, which was all the view he had from the high, narrow window of his basement apartment.
It didn’t matter that he’d traded in the spacious halls of Alpha Ho
use for this decidedly modest bachelor pad. It didn’t matter that his world was now the aged, depressed streets clinging to the west end of Salt Lake City’s Sugar House district, rather than the austere, beautiful buildings of Blackmeade University and the mountains and foothills of Wyoming. Chase was living his own life, calling his own shots, and for the first time in far too long, he was happy.
When he’d left Blackmeade three months ago, Chase had drifted south, following the lonely Wyoming highways that led like tributary streams to the wide, rushing river of the Interstate. He’d found himself in Salt Lake City, shocked and intrigued by the glow of city lights against night-black, snow-dampened pavement. He hadn’t seen a city in the three years since he’d lived at Blackmeade. Jackson Hole hardly counted; it was a ski village, a tourist trap, and nothing more. Salt Lake was as big as any city he remembered from his Connecticut days, except for New York, of course. There was something comforting and familiar about Salt Lake’s bigness, about the artificiality of street lights and neon and the precise grid of its well-planned streets.
He’d stayed in a youth hostel until he found a job, and then, on his first pay day, located the studio for rent and paid the modest deposit with cash. He knew it wouldn’t be long until his dad figured out he’d left Blackmeade, and Dad would be pissed when he realized Chase had dropped out. Chase had no desire to speed that particular confrontation. His dad was notorious for monitoring the family’s bank accounts, and so Chase had resolved to be discrete with his transactions. No withdrawals from Salt Lake banks unless it was absolutely necessary.
The result of this caution was that Chase quickly learned what it was like to live like a blue-collar man. His days revolved around work hours, and any sort of extravagance was out of the question if he intended to keep Dad’s anger at bay. He ate the cheapest food he could find, and learned how to cook grilled cheese sandwiches and other assorted delicacies of the working-class bachelor: Ramen noodles, burgers fried in a dented aluminum pan, scrambled eggs, and what he called with a private, amused smirk desperation pizza: toasted bagels smothered in old spaghetti sauce, shredded cheese, and greasy slices of pepperoni. He furnished his little basement room with a few treasures he’d scavenged from the local thrift store, and for entertainment there were plenty of books at the library, though Chase preferred his solo runs even to reading.
It was a quiet life, lonely at times – the opposite in every way to what he’d had at Alpha Delta Phi. He worked hard until he was bone-weary, and each night he dropped into bed with his muscles and nerves thrumming with exhaustion.
He loved every minute of it.
Chase had signed on with a construction company, even though he had no prior experience. The foreman of the ragtag little crew was happy to give Chase a job when he noticed his finely-toned arms and shoulders, the square strength of his pecs showing through his thin t-shirt. Chase started out as the workhorse, hauling heavy equipment and supplies until he learned the tricks of the trade. Meanwhile the younger guys on the crew, most of them teenage castoffs from the polygamist communities in the southern deserts of Utah, scrambled over their worksites as agile as monkeys, driving nails and framing doors and raising walls with an expertise and efficiency that always left Chase in awe.
Most of the boys had been working construction their whole lives, swinging hammers nearly from the time they could walk. That was the way things were done in the polygamist compounds, they told him: boys worked hard as soon as they were able. Chase didn’t mind the unusual backgrounds of his co-workers. His own family’s secrets were far stranger than theirs, and they were welcoming and friendly. Chase got along well with these hard-working kids, and learned all he could from them, until he too could be trusted to frame and build without supervision.
There was no doubt that Chase had fallen in love with the work – with the satisfaction of a job well done, with the enjoyable tiredness of his body after a long day on-site, with the knowledge of his own strength and growing skills. Now, in the dead of winter, no new construction was taking place, but the crew still found work here and there doing indoor remodels and office-building renovations.
Business had slowed over the Holidays, though, and by mid-January it still hadn’t come out of its slump. Chase had a couple extra days off – something that worried him a little. The time to relax was welcome, but the envelope of cash he relied on was feeling rather thin. Even as frugally as he lived, Chase feared he might have to dip into his trust-fund money soon, and then the jig would be up.
The thought depressed him. He knew he couldn’t keep the news from his dad forever, but he wanted a little more time – a few more weeks of unadulterated happiness before he faced the music and told his father that he wouldn’t be entering the family business, wouldn’t accept the easy but predictable path of a Blackmeade graduate. His father was prideful and touchy – not surprising in a man with a cougar for a totem – and he’d take Chase’s preference as a judgment of his own life and choices. It would cause a rift between them that would take years to heal.
Chase sighed. Nervous tension filled him like water pouring into a canteen, stretching him tight until he felt like bursting. He needed to run – needed to let his wolf be free. Those were the times when Chase felt safest, most confident in his new life – when he went running.
He reached for the place where his stay should hang, and his fingers closed on nothing. Chase was certain that Scarlett had stolen his stay from that last fateful party at Alpha House, but nobody had found her, as far as he knew, and the location of his stay remained a mystery. After three months without it, he was nearly used to the constant psychological itch its absence caused. The thought that it might be in a witch’s hands galled him, but his shifts had remained under his control, and he supposed he was far enough away from Scarlett, and practiced enough in the art of shifting, that he was as safe as any unstayed shifter could be.
He should have a new medallion made, he knew, but that would require returning to Blackmeade, or to some other community of shifters where an experienced Staymaker could be found. If he returned to Blackmeade, both the staff and the students would do everything they could to suck him back in – to keep him firmly ensconced in the shifters’ world, where his destiny was already decided and life held no surprises, no adventure, no freedom.
Chase shook his head as he stared out at the gray icy slush lining the Salt Lake streets. He wasn’t ready for that yet – to expose his vulnerabilities to the world he knew. There was still too much to enjoy in the world outside the shifter’s narrow purview. And Chase wanted to live it up while he could.
He rose from his chair; it gave a loud squeak.
A run – that’s what I need. His totem responded with an approving stretch and curl. And I know just where to go running.
Smiling with anticipation, Chase slipped out of his work clothes and dressed in his most comfortable jeans and an old Fairisle sweater he’d found at a church rummage sale. It was cold out there, and it’d be colder still where he was going – but that would hardly matter once he was clothed in the warm, deep-gray fur of his wolf form. He grabbed his keys and headed for the door.
.4.
C hase parked his Mustang on the edge of the camp site’s lot and slid out onto the hard-packed, pebbled earth. A crust of frozen frost crunched beneath his feet. Here, far from the city’s pollution, the snow that heaped the sides of the road was still white and pure. Beyond the hilly roadside, the vast expanse of the Bonneville Salt Flats spread in the thin winter moonlight like a quilt stitched by a drunken old woman. A season of harsh winds, unblocked by any mountain or by the city’s bulk, had scoured the flats until only a bare skiff of icy powder covered the ground, picking out the irregular seams of countless cracks in the Earth. The ground shimmered, a flat, unmoving sea of blue ice. In the far distance, Salt Lake City’s rosy-orange light was like a campfire at the base of the Wasatch Range.
Chase glanced around quickly. It was well past sunset on a January night; there wer
e no campers here on the edge of the Flats. They would come in the late springtime, when the rainy season had passed, before the summer grew so hot that no one could bear the unforgiving, barren, shadeless landscape. But now the place was deserted – safe. He quickly shed his clothing, stowed the items on the floor of his backseat, and hid his car keys in the small magnetic compartment he kept fixed to the underside of his Mustang.
He reached for his totem and woke it. The familiar flash of white light leapt before his eyes, and Chase felt his body spread, constrict, shift… and he was the gray wolf, stretching his long, powerful legs against the inviting chill of the night. He yawned with satisfaction, giving vent to a high-pitched whine of anticipation, and then, glancing around once more, he trotted over the snowy verge and out onto the open flats.
The ground was sharp and hard beneath his paws. He could feel each minute particle of snow, each crystal pebbly and distinct as his pads skidded and flew over the frozen surface. The road dropped away behind him at a rapid pace; the moonlight was fresh and bright on the ground, and its song was loud in his heart although the moon was only halfway to full.
Chase extended his gait, easing into a lope, wishing there was some small creature fleeing before him. In his imagination he constructed shadows, the long, graceful forms of pronghorn antelopes bounding over the white patchworked ground, the darting bodies of rabbits with their fear so warm and lively in his mouth.
He ran faster, and faster still, until his body was almost too hot for his fur and his breath trailed in a wake of steam behind him. The flat earth with its skin of ice made faint cracking sounds beneath his paws, and the sound raced along ahead of him, its echoes eerie and mystical in his sensitive wolf’s ears.