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

by Lib Starling

  Chase knew her—and his inner wolf growled in grim recognition. Graceful and lithe, with a certain casual arrogance to her movements, Scarlett was unmistakable, even with her features obscured by the dancing backlight of candle-glow. She moved easily toward the huge white wolf, unafraid, and reached out to stroke his muzzle. Her hands sank into his ruff caressing the frost-white fur. Chase could make out Scarlett’s expression now—pleased, smug, and vindicated, as if she had finally received a treasure she’d always known was her natural due. She twined her arms around Alexander’s neck, and her lips moved as she murmured something in his ear.

  Chase glanced at Katrina, and though her face was pale, it was set in a mask of stoic determination.

  Scarlett turned away from Alexander, drifting back to the door of her small cabin as if it were all in a day’s work, to embrace a wild creature, a predator powerful enough to snap her neck with one click of its jaws. Alexander hesitated only a moment, then followed her inside.

  The interior of the cabin was lit by dozens of candles, placed on every available surface—the small table hewn from pine, the two night-stands on either side of the bed, the top of a rustic book shelf, the butcher-block counter in the tiny kitchen. The dancing flames played their shifting, ragged patches of light across every surface. The sight reminded Chase, with an uncomfortable pang of regret, of the days he had spent in Scarlett’s thrall, a virtual slave to her whims and her body. The cabin was decorated in much the same way as her room at the little blue house had been, all draperies and dark hangings, and he recognized the plush, burgundy-red coverlet spread across the bed. He had spent far too many hours tangled in that blanket, with Scarlett writhing and squealing in his arms.

  Katrina sat back, bracing herself for something unpleasant, though she never took her eyes from the vision in the bowl. In a blink and a flash of light that seemed to illuminate the living room of Alpha House, the white wolf disappeared, and Alexander the man stood in its place, bare-skinned and ready. To Chase’s surprise, it was he who moved first, reaching for Scarlett with demanding roughness, giving her a little shake as he gripped her against his body.

  Chase covered his mouth with one hand. “Uh…”

  “Quiet,” Katrina said, distracted.

  The scene in the water progressed rapidly. Alexander lifted Scarlett and tossed her lightly onto her bed, then began removing her clothing with impatient jerks. Chase could practically hear fabric ripping and the thud of Scarlett’s boots as Alexander flung them across the floor.

  “Oh my God,” Brooke hissed under her breath. Her face flamed red, and she suddenly remembered that Roxy was waiting outside, alone. She scuttled out the front door, followed by a good half of the shifters, who clearly had no desire to witness their alpha’s dirty deed. Chase wondered whether the half that remained did so out of lewd curiosity, or whether some other emotion held them rooted to their places. For his part, he felt he couldn’t leave Katrina’s side. It was for her sake that he stayed and watched; surely the vision in the water was more difficult for her to watch than for any of them, and he didn’t want her to be alone. He could feel her body growing tenser by the moment. Her trembling came to him through the couch-cushion they shared. Chase knew he couldn’t abandon Katrina when she most needed the support of a friend.

  When Alexander thrust into Scarlett, the dark-haired witch arched her back, her mouth opening in a sigh or a moan that no one could hear—no one except Katrina. She swallowed once, and her shaking increased for a moment before she stilled it with obvious will. But her face remained calm, and she did not look away from the water.

  “Why, Katrina?” Chase asked quietly.

  “I discovered something last night, when I was with Alexander—when we bonded. Close physical contact allows me to see inside a person—into their spirit, their essence. I can see the place where they keep their magic. It’s in a slightly different place for everybody, but once I know the place…” She trailed off, squinting in concentration, and as Chase’s gaze darted from the bowl to Katrina’s face and back again, beads of perspiration leapt up on her brow.

  “The closer the contact,” she went on, “the more clearly I can see.”

  “And you’re seeing through—” Chase’s mouth went dry— “through Alexander?”

  She nodded and leaned forward, muttering, “Almost… almost…”

  All at once, Katrina gasped and lurched backward. The movement was so abrupt that all the assembled brothers jumped, clutching at their stays. A few of them mumbled curses in their shock.

  “What?” Chase said frantically, reaching for Katrina’s hand again, but hardly daring to take it, for fear that he would break her concentration and shatter some crucial spell. “Katrina, what is it?”

  “I can see it,” she whispered. Her eyes were wide, and fixed on the image of Scarlett as she writhed in Alexander’s arms, as she clawed at his pale back with her sharp, wicked nails. “I can see the place, the source of her magic. And it’s dark, Chase. So dark.”

  Chase stared at Katrina. She sounded truly frightened—terrified. In all the time he’d known her, he had never seen her so consumed by fear.

  “What do you mean, dark?” His throat constricted as he asked the question, and something told him that he really didn’t want to know the answer.

  “She has tapped into something terrible to enhance her magic. The black side of the Powers, their reverse—their underbelly—where everything this twisted all around. Where chaos reigns. No witch worth her own magic would dare to touch that darkness.”

  Chase pressed his lips together, reluctant to ask the question that tugged at his heart, but the words forced their way out. “Can you stop her? Can you undo what she’s done?”

  Katrina’s eyes narrowed in a fierce glare as she watched the scene go on and on—Scarlett crying out silently, her body twisting and thrashing so hard that the water seemed almost to boil.

  “If the Goddess is willing, I’ll do it,” Katrina said. “I’ll stop her entirely. She’ll never wield the Powers again. If we accomplish that very thing, Chase—end her connection to the Powers altogether—it’s not only you who will suffer. The black side will grow through her, and burst out with a force that’s beyond her control, like a river breaking a dam. She’ll become a conduit for chaos. She’ll allow it flow freely into the world, and do more damage than she’s already done to you, and to Alpha House. And I can feel the Power surging in her. We don’t have much time before the dam breaks and the black tide comes pouring down. We must stop her now—tonight—or all hope is lost.”

  An hour had passed since the final, strange moments of the vision in the water. Most of the brothers had drifted outside, where they stood drinking coffee to ward off the night’s cold. Chase, peering out the window, could sense their restless tension; they moved stiff-necked and with hunched shoulders, scuffing their feet in the snow, warily eyeing the ridgelines and peaks that surrounded Blackmeade Village. Roxy moved among them like a ministering angel, offering here a gentle touch on arm or back, and there a calm word to encourage and soothe. Chase envied his brothers for their closeness to Roxy—for their ability to stand at her side, to look into her sweet, trusting face and feel the warmth of her hand.

  When the brothers stirred to greater alertness, when their voices began to murmur together, Chase knew that Alexander had returned. Katrina sat silent and far-eyed on the couch beside him; Chase tapped her on the knee.

  “He’s back, I think,” Chase said.

  Katrina stood without a word and drifted toward the door. Chase ached for her, knowing what this odd maneuver of the Powers had cost her. He wished he could take away her pain as easily as Roxy relieved the fears and restlessness of the brothers outside. But he could at least stand at Katrina’s side. Together, they went out onto the porch, and when Roxy saw Chase she backed away, removing herself to the farthest edge of the group.

  The shifters parted ranks as Alexander’s white wolf loped into the yard. Crystals of ice clung to hi
s ruff and the feathery hair on the backs of his forelegs. The ice sparkled in the light from Alpha House’s windows, rippling with a sly, cold fire.

  Katrina stepped down into the yard, reaching for Alexander. The wolf came to her, as obediently as if she’d held him leashed by the neck. Katrina bent to stroke him, whispering praises in his ears—praises, Chase thought, or perhaps forgiveness. Alexander’s head dipped as if in shame, and the hint of a whine emanated from his throat. Chase looked away, and was not the only shifter to do so. Alexander’s obvious subservience to a witch—even if it was Katrina, their closest ally—filled Chase with a heavy dread.

  Katrina’s fingers went to the wolf’s mouth and fumbled there for a moment. Then she straightened, and lifted her hand up the light of the house’s windows. Chase squinted at what she held: a single long, dark hair, glistening in the light, swaying a little in the breeze. Katrina studied it while Alexander licked his lips, again and again, as if relieved to be rid of the hair he’d carried all the way back from the cabin—as if its taste left an oily slick on his tongue. Katrina nodded in satisfaction, then wound the hair around one of her fingers.

  “This is it.” She spoke quietly, but in the expectant silence, her voice carried to everyone gathered in the yard. “This is all I need—this, and the knowledge Alexander brought me.”

  Knowledge of the place where Scarlett’s magic lives, Chase thought, his heart pounding in his throat. Of the darkness inside her.

  Katrina stuffed her hand, adorned with its ring of coffee-brown hair, into the pocket of her coat. She strode through the crowd of shifters, making her way through the yard, eyes fixed on the snowy hills beyond.

  “It’s time,” she called over her shoulder, brisk and resolute. “I can use the hair to summon her now—bring her right to us, with a spell no witch can resist. Not even one as far-gone to the darkness as Scarlett.”

  Chase swallowed hard, scanning the crowd of shifters, watching as a ripple of excitement and fear passed through them. He felt it, too. It raced up his spine and set the hair on the back of his neck to tingling, and he knew the wolf inside was hackling and growling, eager for the fight. But Chase wasn’t sure he—or any of his brothers—were ready.

  He locked eyes with Roxy. She looked as pale as he felt, and from across the yard, Chase saw her tremble.

  “Meet me at the top of the ridge,” Katrina said. Alexander trotted along behind her, as white as a ghost among the night-darkened sage.

  .5.

  C hase watched from the cover of a cluster of boulders near the top of the ridge. Katrina and Alexander stood alone at the hill’s sharp, high crest, some fifteen feet above the place where Chase crouched. Jack, Logan, and Matthew waited beside him. Katrina had just finished the intricate gestures of her summoning spell, in which she’d burned up Scarlett’s single long hair in the flame of a candle. The candle’s stub now lay discarded on the ground. Chase could still detect the faint whiff of smoke and hot wax from its snuffed flame, and the acrid scorch of burnt hair. Now witch and familiar stood in attitudes of waiting, both of them limned in starlight, outlined in silver against the dark night sky. They gazed southward, unmoving, save for Katrina’s braids and Alexander’s fur, which stirred softly in the light wind.

  Chase resisted the urge to huddle closer to his pledge brothers. All the shifters of Alpha House had dispersed across the ridge, sinking into hiding, using the cover of rocky outcroppings or thick stands of sage to hide their human forms—or using nothing but darkness and shadow if they’d elected to shift to their totems. Chase’s wolf stirred restlessly inside him, and he had the clear sensation that it paced nervously back and forth in that space below his heart. He wasn’t certain just why he’d chosen to remain a man, and to keep his wolf in check. Maybe it was because Roxy had still been a woman—not the little red fox—the last time he’d seen her, slipping stealthily beyond the crest of the ridge with Darien and Brooke at her side. Or maybe the thought of facing Scarlett in his shifted form still unsettled him. After all, it had only been a short time ago that he’d suffered through her cruel force-shifting. Maybe now he wanted to face the witch as a man—a man whom Scarlett could never control again.

  Although he knew that more of his brothers were out there in the night, Chase still felt distressingly exposed, and the slope of the foothills that fell away behind him seemed to go on and on into an infinity of darkness. As they all waited, every eye on the silent figures of Katrina and Alexander, his body shook with a strange energy that hovered somewhere between excitement and terror.

  Logan whispered, “Do you think Scarlett will bring her shifter with her? The one who’s been helping her, I mean.”

  “Her familiar,” Jack added, squinting at Alexander’s white wolf.

  “I don’t know,” Chase replied. “But I guess she has to. Katrina said it’s the familiar who’s allowed Scarlett to tap into the Power so… differently. But I didn’t see any shifter with her in the… in the vision in the water.” No shifter had been anywhere near Scarlett, except for Alexander, and he had been disturbingly close.

  “Who is it, do you think?” Jack said. He squinted up at Alexander again. Suspicion was evident on his narrow face, even in the dimness of their shelter. “Who sold us out, and teamed up with a witch?”

  Chase shrugged. “No way to tell. It could be anybody.”

  “Nobody from Alpha House.”

  “No—not one of us, that’s for sure.”

  “One of the other frats, then,” Logan said.

  “Or, hell, one of the professors,” Matthew suggested. “Or somebody else entirely, not affiliated with Blackmeade. We aren’t the only shifters in the world, you know.”

  “Here, though? In Jackson Hole?” Logan shook his head. “We’d know if there were other shifters nearby. It has to be somebody from Blackmeade. There’s no one else.”

  “When I find out who…” Jack growled, but he never finished the thought.

  Katrina and Alexander moved subtly, both shifting their weight, coming to greater alertness as they stared to the south. Chase’s stomach clenched. He knew what their drawing-up must mean, and he could sense, in the sudden stillness of his companions, that they knew, too.

  Scarlett had come.

  She appeared over the crest of the hill with a smooth, confident stride, nearly gliding in the feeble moonlight. She halted several yards from Katrina and Alexander, watching them coolly, unperturbed by the spell that had drawn her to this place. The tendrils of her dark hair swirled around her face and shoulders as the wind moaned over the ridge. The sight put Chase in mind of dark, dreaded hands, reaching and grasping.

  “Well,” Scarlett said clearly, “here I am. Really, a Clamant Summoning spell? That’s a little quaint, don’t you think? Beginner’s stuff.”

  Katrina folded her arms. “It did the job. That’s all that matters to me.”

  Scarlett gazed at Alexander for a moment, and her mouth curled in a satisfied smile. “Is this why you’ve summoned me? Does your pet want some more? Guess you’re not enough for him. Don’t worry; I am.”

  Silent, staring, the white wolf snarled. But Katrina stilled him with a gentle hand on his head.

  “Who are you, anyway?” Scarlett’s dark eyes sharpened as she looked at Katrina again, assessing her with one quick, up-and-down glance. “I don’t know you.”

  “You don’t,” Katrina agreed. “But I know you very well. I’m familiar with your magic. More acquainted with it than you might think.”

  “So you’re the one who’s been unpicking my work. That’s fine by me. It was all just practice, anyway—just learning.”

  “Your little experiments in self-education will end tonight.”

  “Oh?” Scarlett laughed. “I don’t think so. I’ve moved beyond what you can do, you and your adorable little Clamant Summoning. I’ve moved beyond what any witch can do.”

  At that, Katrina barked a sharp, loud laugh. “Pride comes before a fall. Not that I’ll be sorry to watch you fall.”<
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  Chase nudged Logan in the ribs. He could feel, in the dim shadows of the night, his brothers edging closer to the two witches, converging on the place where they quarreled, forming one great ring of human and animal bodies. It was time for Chase and his companions to move forward, too, slinking low in the patches of starlight and pools of indigo-blue that blanketed the hillside. It was time to take their place among the rest.

  They crept slowly, carefully up the face of the slope, placing each step with care, easing their weight down into the crust of ice and snow so that their noise was minimal. Their timing was good: Chase, Logan, Jack, and Matthew reached the top of the ridgeline just as the others did, and an unbroken circle of figures loomed in unison around the hill’s crest, hemming Scarlett, Katrina, and Alexander neatly in.

  Scarlett’s dark stare flicked around the ring. Her lips compressed and her cheeks flushed as she realized the gravity of her situation.

  “Well, all your little pets have come out to play,” she said lightly to Katrina. “Isn’t that cute? I would almost think—”

  With no warning, not even a blink, Scarlett flicked her hand in Chase’s direction. A flare of fire illuminated the hilltop, picking out for one frantic, terrible moment the faces of all the shifters in the ring—the human glares and tense frowns, the bristling and snarling of the creatures that lurked in the darkness. The bolt of fire shot toward Chase; he ducked by instinct, but Jack wasn’t quick enough. The bolt crashed against his wiry shoulder in a shower of sparks, and Jack dropped to the ground, trying to muffle his scream of pain against the snow.

  “Shit!” Chase shouted. He fell to his knees beside his friend.

  In that instant, Alexander’s wolf unleashed a loud, savage growl. He bounded toward Scarlett, white fangs flashing in the starlight. But Katrina said sharply, “No!” and the wolf halted in mid-stride, as if her word were an invisible barrier, or a leash snapped tight against his straining neck.