by Lib Starling
“It’s your heart that wants me,” she said quietly, “just as my heart wants you.”
He gave one stiff, jerking nod, then, without another word, he spun on his heel and exited the camper, his pale form fading rapidly into the dark Wyoming night.
.7.
C hase’s mind was made up—or so he told himself, over and over, as he stared unseeing through the windshield of his Mustang. He had parked on the street outside Roxy’s little blue house, and the lights of the house were burning against the night, a warm, comforting glow. The cheery light seemed to mock the cold desolation Chase felt within. He couldn’t release his grip on the steering wheel—his hands were clenched so hard around it that the skin of his knuckles burned with the strain—and he couldn’t make himself get out of the car and walk up to the door.
This is it. Once you tell her you’ve made your decision, it’s all over.
His throat went dry at the mere thought of speaking those words. How could he do it? How could he look into Roxy’s eyes—those beautiful, soft eyes the color of summer grasses—and break her heart? He’d break his own heart, too.
But he had no choice. He had spent hours walking alone in the snowy sage lands, then running in the form of his wolf, searching for an easy solution to his dilemma. But there was no easy solution. Every way he turned, Chase came up against a towering, hard wall of loss and shame. And any choice he made would result in pain—for himself, for the people he cared about. If no one agreed to become Katrina’s familiar, then Scarlett would surely win, and all would be lost. If Alexander made the bond, he’d be giving up his future. If Chase agreed, then he would lose Roxy—but at least he would have some assurance that Roxy might be safe—that she stood a chance for future happiness. Chase might never get over the loss, but he felt certain that Roxy would, with time. She would find someone else who loved her—never as much as Chase, but there would be peace for her on the road ahead. Perhaps she’d even take up with Alexander. He hoped Alexander—or whoever else she chose—would treat her well. He hoped that Roxy would understand the sacrifice Chase was making—that he did this, ultimately, because he loved her.
A slight motion in one of the windows snared the corner of Chase’s eye. He tore his unfocused eyes from the windshield and peered at the house. Brooke and Darien were there, looking out the window at him, curiosity and caution written on their faces. Chase watched as they spoke to one another, a brief consultation. Then Brooke vanished into the depths of the house. Darien held Chase’s gaze, and his dark brown eyes were more somber than ever.
After a few moments, the front door opened. Roxy stepped out onto the porch, bundled up in her winter coat, her breath a fine, white mist in the air. She smiled and waved, and Chase’s heart gave a sharp, guilty lurch.
Do it now and get it over with, he told himself. He knew the sooner he crushed her heart, the sooner she could heal, and move on—though he felt certain that the wound in his own heart would never heal.
He stepped out of the Mustang.
“Hi!” Roxy’s voice was cheery enough to light the darkest night. Wisps of her red hair peeked out from her parka’s hood, framing her face with a wreath of little flames that danced in the breeze. She was beautiful enough to stop the world turning, to freeze time in its tracks. And Chase wished he could stop time now, that he could live forever in this last, frail, perfect moment, when Roxy was still his, and he still belonged to her.
As he approached, she must have recognized the pain on his face. The smile slid from her lips. “What’s wrong?”
He hesitated only a moment longer, drinking in the sight of her, remembering the last time he’d held her in his arms—how perfect he had felt then, how complete and happy, even in the midst of the terrors that threatened every shifter he knew.
But the time had come to move forward—to face their enemy. And Chase knew the part he must play in the battle ahead.
“I’ve come to a decision,” he said gruffly.
“About what?”
“Katrina needs me.”
Roxy shook her head lightly, smiling in nervous confusion. “She needs you to…do what?”
“She needs me as her familiar.”
He explained what little he knew about the role of a familiar—what Katrina had told him. He described the hope Katrina held that a familiar might give her just enough control over the Powers to defeat Scarlett and put this conflict behind them all, forever.
“That’s great,” Roxy said. “It’s such a relief to hear that Katrina has found a way to fight Scarlett off.”
The agony remained in Chase’s expression. No matter how much he told himself to keep his features neutral, to do his duty without bringing his own feelings into it, he couldn’t rid himself of this searing, all-encompassing pain.
“But what’s wrong?” Roxy said again. “Why do you seem so upset? Chase, what does this mean for us?”
There will be no more ‘us.’ He couldn’t force the words out. His dual spirits, wolf and human, rebelled with equal force, and his throat closed when he tried to speak the words.
Suddenly, he was gripped with the desire to hold her one last time—to feel her pressed against his own flesh, to inhale the scent of her skin, her hair—to run his hands over the soft curves of her body. One last good-bye…and then he could speak those terrible words.
Chase stepped toward Roxy, reaching for her—and heard a scream rip from his own chest, harsh and agonized, a split second before he truly felt the pain. It was everywhere—lancing, piercing, stabbing deep into him, body and soul, as if he’d been thrown into a searing furnace.
“Oh my God!” Roxy reached for him, too, and when she seized his shoulders, trying to hold him up, the terrible pain redoubled. Chase screamed again, and staggered away from her, down the house’s front path.
“Darien!” Roxy shouted. “Brooke! Help me!”
Panting, Chase felt the red fog of pain abate. He no longer hurt—anywhere. He patted his chest and stomach with trembling hands, then felt his arms, his face, the back of his head. What was that?
But he had no time to puzzle it out. Roxy, her face pale with fear, came toward him again, almost running—and as she approached, Chase felt the agony gather again, pressing in all around from its unseen, diabolical source.
No, he thought frantically. Not diabolical. It was no devil that caused this torment. It was a witch.
“Stay back!” he gasped, backing away from Roxy. As he put distance between them, the pain receded.
Tears stood out clearly in Roxy’s eyes. “Chase…what’s happening?”
Brooke and Darien had joined her now, both of them tense with worry.
“We heard you yell,” Brooke said. “Are you hurt?”
“I…I don’t know.” Chase straightened, concentrating, trying to sense the state of his body, to differentiate the memory of pain from actual pain. After a moment, he felt sure that he was fine—the stabbing and burning sensations had truly vanished. “Let me try something,” he said. “Everybody hold still, right where you are.”
Steeling his nerves, he took one step toward Roxy. His heart rate accelerated; sweat beaded his brow as a faint squeezing sensation surrounded him, then turned to a prickle, then a burn as he edged carefully closer.
“You look terrible,” Darien said. “You’re getting paler and more sick-looking the closer you get.”
“It’s Roxy,” Chase said. He backed off, and again the sensations fled. “As long as I don’t get near her, I’m fine. But if I come close…”
The three roommates exchanged knowing looks.
“Scarlett,” Roxy said. The name was a grate of disgust deep in her throat, and Chase could have sworn he heard the feral, high-pitched growling of her inner fox.
“She’s never done anything like this before.” Darien moved toward Chase, stepping slowly—but after a moment, Chase nodded for him to approach. It was only Roxy from whom Chase was to be isolated, it seemed. Darien threw an arm around Chase’s shoulder
s. “We can’t let this stand. Not only is this sort of attack unconscionable, but she’s assaulting us in ways she’s never used before.”
“Her power is growing all the time,” Chase agreed. “Katrina noticed it. She says Scarlett has some sort of…accomplice. A shifter.”
Darien exclaimed wordlessly in shock.
“No one knows who she’s working with,” Chase continued, “but somehow this shifter is allowing her to use magic in ways she has never used it before.”
“Seems like she’s found some real inventive applications for her little talent,” Brooke said. She hugged Roxy protectively, whose cheeks were now wet with hopeless tears.
“Chase,” Roxy sobbed, “we have to do something. I can’t…not touch you!”
“It’s okay.” God, how Chase wished he could go to her, wrap her in his arms and kiss away her fears. “We’re going to fix this, Roxy. You’ll see. Everything is going to be okay.”
But it wouldn’t be okay. Chase knew that. Even if they could break this new, violent spell, he knew there was only one way to stop Scarlett. And even if they succeeded in putting a halt to the dark witch’s schemes, still Chase would never hold Roxy again.
.8.
T he desperate drive to Alpha House felt twice as long as it ever had before, and the night felt ten times darker than it should have been. Darien had insisted on taking the wheel, so Roxy huddled in the passenger seat of her Jeep, hugging herself in a futile attempt to stop the shivers of fear and adrenaline that wracked her body. Before them, just at the edge of the Jeep’s headlight beams, Chase’s dark-orange Mustang raced through the darkness. Roxy stared hard at his tail lights, willing him to be safe, to stay on the road—not to fall prey to another of Scarlett’s hideous attacks.
She had never seen anything as horrid as the look on Chase’s face as he shook beneath Scarlett’s painful blows, and she was certain the sound of his agonized scream would haunt every quiet moment she hoped to enjoy, for the rest of her life. And even though her rational mind knew that she was not to blame, her heart pounded high and hard in her chest, filled with a desperate guilt, unable to shake the sick sensation that she had been the cause of his pain.
Roxy sniffed loudly, trying in vain to fight back her tears. From the Jeep’s back seat, Brooke reached forward to squeeze Roxy’s shoulder. “Hey. It’s going to be okay.”
Roxy nodded, not wanting to worry her friends further. But she had never been so afraid before—not even when she’d realized that she was trapped inside her totem. Even if she were trapped again, and her human side slipped into oblivion, that would be a kinder fate than what she faced now—a lifetime forever separated from Chase, knowing that her touch—her very presence—was agony to him.
At last, Chase’s Mustang turned onto the dirt road that wended out into the sage lands and up the rise of the foothills, over the ridge to the hidden enclave of Blackmeade Village. Roxy gripped the edges of her parka tight in an effort to maintain what little composure she still had left. It seemed the farther they drove, the more distant and unreachable Alpha House remained.
When they finally topped the last rise, Chase’s Mustang revved. In a spray of gravel, he sped down the long, dark hillside toward Blackmeade Village. Roxy gritted her teeth. Somehow the image of Chase pulling rapidly away from her felt unsettling—ominous. By the time Darien pulled to a stop at the edge of Alpha House’s snow-patched yard, a terrifying hollowness had formed deep in Roxy’s chest. It was alarmingly close to the place where her fox totem dwelt, at the very core of her being, the seat of everything that was her. She had the sickening sensation that the hollowness represented the place where Chase had been—a place he was now vacating, for reasons Roxy couldn’t begin to understand.
We can fix this, she told herself, and the words were half desperate prayer. He’s not gone forever. Whatever Scarlett did, we can undo it. Please, let it be so. Please.
When Roxy climbed from the Jeep, she could see Chase lurking in the shadows that had gathered at the foot of the big Victorian house’s porch. He paced, restless, his lip curled in a fierce, angry snarl—exactly like the wolf inside of him. She watched him for a moment, the breath stricken from her chest by his beauty, his wild, untamable splendor—and by the knowledge that he might never be hers to hold again. She wanted to run to him, to press herself into his strong embrace. But she couldn’t bear the thought of hurting him, so she planted her boots resolutely in the icy mud of the yard and remained with Brooke and Darien, shivering.
“Alexander!” Roxy called.
She had to shout for him a few more times, attracting the attention of every fraternity brother but Alexander, before the alpha’s winter-pale face finally appeared in his upper-story bedroom window. He gazed down at her for a long time, and even from the yard, even in the darkness of the night, Roxy could see how pain and a wary sort of confusion twisted his features. At last, though, he moved away from the window—and a moment later, he appeared on the porch, making his way through the crowd of nervous shifters who had gathered there.
Alexander glanced down at Chase, whose mindless, agitated pacing had not ceased. When his stare shifted back to Roxy, there was something accusatory in his eyes. Roxy fought back a cringe—a shifter’s instinctive need to grovel before the displeased alpha. She stood up straighter and made herself speak calmly, clearly.
“Something terrible had happened. Scarlett has struck again.” The brothers on the porch murmured, jostling one another, and even across the length of the yard, Roxy could feel their rising, masculine-animal energy, their readiness for a fight. She spoke louder, so that Alexander would be sure to hear her words over the noise. “It’s Chase this time. She’s put some kind of new spell on him. She’s moved beyond force-shifting to something that may be even worse.”
Roxy heard the door of the Airstream slam, and a moment later, the crunch of brisk footsteps crossing the yard’s patchy snow. Katrina stopped in the middle of the yard. The night’s dense clouds parted, and a stream of moonlight shone down on her, picking out each braid and lock of her hair with a dazzle of silvery gold. The witch looked coolly at Chase, then up at Alexander—but she said nothing.
“I can’t go near Chase,” Roxy said. “It causes him intense pain.”
Alexander’s brow furrowed in a frown. He said, “How do we know it’s Scarlett and not…someone else?”
“Don’t be a fool!” Roxy shouted. Her fox winced and whined, as if it expected some punishing blow from the alpha. But still she stood her ground. “You know this is all Scarlett’s doing.”
Katrina nodded. “The time has come to make the decision,” she said. “We can’t delay any longer. I can feel the Powers changing, hour by hour. We must join the battle, Alexander, now…or we will certainly lose.”
As the blonde-haired witch spoke, Chase’s pacing slowed, and then stopped. He watched her levelly, his eyes shadowed by a particular sorrow—a regret so clear that Roxy could feel it from where she stood. She reached instinctively toward him, as if she might comfort him from afar. But he stepped to Katrina’s side.
“I’m ready,” Chase said. “I’m willing. For Roxy’s sake…I am willing.”
When Katrina turned her eyes on Chase, Roxy could see all the same emotions in the witch’s face—the same hurt, the deep loss and unquenchable longing that were evident in Chase’s eyes reflected perfectly in Katrina’s stark, wounded stare.
“If it must be this way…” Katrina faltered, unable to finish her thought.
Whatever is happening, Katrina doesn’t want it, any more than Chase does. Roxy shook her head, muddled by their mysterious conversation and the strange, inexplicable agony they both wore like shrouds of death.
“What is going on?” Roxy demanded. “Will one of you please tell me what the hell this is all about?”
“I’m going to bond with Katrina,” Chase said, his voice dull and flat—resigned. “For your good, Roxy—for everyone’s good. I’m going to become her familiar. I’ll belong to her
forever. I’ll never be with anyone else.”
An unseen, icy mallet struck Roxy’s mind with a loud, clanging blow. It stunned her to numb silence. She gaped at him, and she seemed to see him through a long, back tunnel, its dark walls closing in all around her sight. Chase was receding farther away all the time, going faster and faster away from her…and she knew she would never have his love again.
Mindless in her terrified sorrow, Roxy threw herself toward him. Her wordless wail of loss rang in her own ears—but before she could reach Chase, his own scream of pain mingled with her cry. He fell in upon himself, hunching over his stomach as if Roxy had delivered a tremendous blow to his very soul.
Roxy stumbled to a halt, clutching at her heart, tears of regret flooding her eyes. They spilled over her cheeks, burning hot in the cold winter night.
“Chase,” she cried. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry!”
Darien was there quickly, pulling Roxy back, shielding Chase from her presence. Roxy fell against her friend’s chest, weeping piteously. She could hear Chase gasping as he struggled with the agony.
When Roxy was safely sequestered, Chase straightened with effort. His face was pale, and the sweat of his brow caught the moonlight, sparkling.
Alexander was down the porch steps in two quick bounds. He supported Chase with an arm around his shoulders. “Chase—are you all right?”
“I’ll be…okay…” Chase panted.
Katrina tilted her head. “But he’ll only be okay, it seems, if he never goes near Roxy again.”
Roxy stifled another cry of loss and pressed her face once more against Darien’s chest. The elk-shifter’s hands moved slowly in her hair, trying to comfort her—but there was no soothing away this pain.
Katrina is our only hope, Roxy thought desperately. She’ll know what to do. She must know what to do.
She glanced up, watching the witch with a hungry, desperate stare, waiting for whatever Katrina would say next.
“Imagine,” Katrina said to Alexander, “how terrible this must be for Chase. What would it be like for you, if you could never again touch the woman you love, or even stand at her side?” She locked eyes with the alpha, and for a long, tense moment, no one said a word.