by Lib Starling
Scarlett’s voice was rich with desire. The sound of her electrified Chase, wakening his blunt senses and speeding his heart. “Everybody’s gone,” she purred. “Come over. I need you – now.”
Chase promised he would, promised he’d come to her as quickly as he could, and as he ended the call his nerves seemed to sting with delicious anticipation. Without Scarlett the world was dim, uninteresting. But in her presence Chase truly lived. He wanted to do more than merely live. He wanted to feel the singular ecstasy he knew waited for him in Scarlett’s arms – he craved the incomparable bliss of her body.
Or… he assumed her body was an incomparable bliss. He hadn’t found out yet. Scarlett had been teasing him for days, drawing him close, tantalizing him with her pouting lips and the electrifying brush of her fingers against his skin – and then pushing him away again. Taunting him. It was enough to make his inner wolf howl with frustration, with the rock-hard intensity of his need.
Scarlett had even taunted him with Alexander. On one particularly steamy phone call, she had told Chase all about her night with the Alpha House leader – how Alexander, furious over some thwarted passion, had thrown Scarlett against the wall of his bedroom and fucked her with a fury as white-hot as his smoldering, pale eyes, until Scarlett had screamed with the pleasure of each searing thrust.
The story should have infuriated Chase, as badly as he wanted Scarlett – needed her. But it had only turned him on all the more, and whatever small spark of anger might have kindled to life was smothered under the thick, pressing desire that overwhelmed him. He had reached for his hard cock, aching for some release, but Scarlett broke off in the middle of her story and said, “No.” Sternly, almost as if she could see him, or could read his feverish thoughts.
Chase was ready to tear himself apart with longing; his wolf was beyond the point of mere restlessness. It paced within him, thrashing at the bars that held it, and Chase could scarcely keep his totem in check anymore.
If he didn’t get to take Scarlett soon – taste her, feel her, lose himself in the fire of her passion – Chase would lose all control. He had never needed anything more desperately than he needed to fuck that girl.
Her voice replayed again and again inside his fogged head. Come over. I need you – now.
As he exited the library, barely restraining himself from running, Chase was forced to stuff his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans to hide the evidence of his arousal.
Today was the day. He’d heard it plainly in her voice.
He would take Scarlett, at last – the only woman he’d ever truly wanted. He’d fuck her harder and better than Alexander could. He’d make her scream louder; he’d make her want him as ferociously as he wanted her.
The Mustang left a banner of dust trailing in the sky as Chase sped away from Blackmeade Village toward Jackson, where passion’s prize awaited him.
Chase slammed on his brakes outside the little blue house. He’d made the trip from Blackmeade to Scarlett’s house in record time. It’s was a wonder I wasn’t pulled over, he thought with muffled surprise, but the distant sense of startled good luck (and creeping guilt) passed quickly. The wolf reared up within his chest, gnashing its teeth, panting for its sweet, long-sought prey, and Chase could think of nothing but Scarlett.
He didn’t bother knocking. He thrust the door open – if it had been locked, he may well have kicked it in – and drew a deep breath, searching out Scarlett’s scent. He found her, the languid, spicy perfume of her body beckoning to him, and he made his way through the silent house, his cock aching as it strained against his jeans.
He hunted her by smell, the wolf reveling inside him, thrashing against the trembling, tenuous cage of Chase’s control. Nearly blinded by the heat within his body, Chase shoved open the door to her bedroom and stood panting on the threshold, wrestling with half of his being for mastery, for the right to remain lucid, to remain human.
It had never been like this for him. Even when he didn’t wear the silver medallion of his stay, Chase had always had near-perfect command of his totem, only feeling the slight tremor of animal rebellion when the moon was at its brightest. But something about Scarlett filled him with fire, drove all thought from his mind save for the image of her body, her mouth, the secret heat and wetness he longed to feel sliding over him, driving him to greater heights of ecstasy…
A flash of color flickered before his eyes, and the wolf totem recoiled in confusion. Coppery red, and the hint of green – moss-green eyes gazing up at him with complete trust, with love, from a bed of bent grass.
Roxy…?
But in the same moment he remembered her, Scarlett spoke, and all conscious thought was driven from Chase’s mind, save for that fine, delicate thread with which he still bound his wolf totem in its place.
“Come to me, Chase. I want you.”
She lay across her bed, dark hair spilling around her shoulders like a cascade of cool, night-black water. Save for a red bra and a wisp of lacy panties, she was naked – soft and slender, laid before him like a private feast. The silver disc of her stay nestled at her throat, gleaming in the warm, seductive light of the candles that glowed on every surface.
“No more teasing,” Chase said thickly. “I’ll have you now, or… ”
Scarlett lifted one white leg, bending her knee, a gesture of careless flirtation. “No more teasing,” she promised.
“And no more…” he gritted his teeth. “No more Alexander.” He could scarcely recall why he hated Alexander so. Although surely the fact that he had been allowed access to Scarlett’s perfect body while Chase had been denied played some part in his loathing. Still, something nagged at Chase – the memory of green eyes, their soft look of trust, Roxy’s pink lips parted as she panted beneath him…
Roxy.
“No more Alexander?” Scarlett asked, her smoky-dark eyes widening in surprise. “How can you ask me to promise that, when you know he fucked me so good?” Her voice was a taunting whisper. “Will you fuck me that way, Chase? Will you?”
With a roar of heat and fury, Chase threw himself onto her bed. Scarlett twisted beneath him, moaning, pulling him close for a hard kiss and then pushing him away again. She laughed at his desperation, and Chase took her in hard hands, pulled her tight against his chest, ground his cock against her body.
He couldn’t get close enough to her – every inch of skin that touched hers only seemed to push him a mile further away. He was on the point of debasing himself and begging, begging to fuck her, to thrust himself deep inside her – when, in the pain of his longing, his hand lashed out and gripped a thin lock of her hair that clung to her neck.
She wants me to make her scream like Alexander did, he thought, a devious grin breaking across his face. Do you like it rough, Scarlett?
He pulled hard on her hair. But the whimper of half-pleasure, half-pain he expected never came. Instead he heard a metallic snap, and Chase thrust himself away from Scarlett in surprise. He stared dumbly for a moment at his closed fist, and the thing that dangled from it – a fine silver chain, and at its end, rotating in the candlelight and the sudden silence, the disc of Scarlett’s stay.
Horror flooded Chase. He sobered at once from his passionate frenzy. What have I done?
Scarlett lifted a hand to her throat, and Chase braced himself for her wail of pain, her furious assault, for a storm of frantic weeping – for anything but her unaffected silence.
Chase looked from the broken stay to Scarlett’s face, and the haze that had clouded his thoughts for days evaporated. He sucked in a sharp breath, narrowing his eyes at her, his fist tightening around the broken chain.
Roxy. The sudden knowledge of what he had done to her lanced through him, an ache so severe that it stole Chase’s breath away. He remembered with a wrench of his heart the desire he’d felt for her, the joy he’d found in her arms – and he had thrown it all away.
For Scarlett? Why?
Chase brought the stay closer to his face, stared at i
ts spinning medallion in the dim candlelight. She didn’t react at all when I broke it. No shifter could remain so calm if another person snapped the chain of their stay.
Chase summoned his wolf, and together they surged forward, pinning Scarlett to the mattress. He pressed his nose to her neck, drawing deeply on her scent. He could hear Scarlett’s rapid pulse, could smell her new wariness, her fear – but no matter how he searched, he could not smell wildness within, the indicator of her totem.
She has no totem.
He shoved himself off her bed, off her body, reeling with disgust and loathing. Chase shook the broken medallion at her, a mute accusation.
Scarlett, regaining her steely composure, laughed. She still lay on the bed, and one hand played idly with a lock of her hair.
“What is this?” he grated. “What have you done?”
“I fooled you, didn’t I?”
Bitch, he almost called her, but the word strangled in his throat. He was dumbfounded by the mystery, by how she’d managed to deceive even the sharpened senses of his totem.
And then he realized how she must have done it. The icy calm of acceptance came over him, and he looked at her with flat disdain.
No, not bitch. “Witch.”
Those black eyes narrowed, and her lush lips curved in a self-satisfied smile.
“Roxy,” Chase cried, giving vent to his wolf’s grieving howl.
He turned and fled from Scarlett’s room, fled from the house, and the witch’s laughter followed him as he ran.
.4.
D arien was the first man Chase saw when he skidded the Mustang to a stop on the edge of Alpha House’s lawn. He threw himself from the car, neglecting even to pull his keys from the ignition or to shut the door, and ran to where the tall, sandy blonde sat on the porch step, resting his chin on his fist and staring pensively into space.
“Hey!” Chase shouted. “Where’s Roxy?”
Darien shook his head, striving to pull himself out of whatever mental fog had engulfed him. “Roxy… why?”
“Where is she, Darien? I think she’s in trouble.”
“I don’t know. She’s not here. What’s wrong?” He seemed more alert now, and his focus helped calm Chase a little.
But Chase’s heart still raced, and he burned with the humiliation of knowing that he could be so easily controlled. He pulled the broken necklace from his pocket and held it up for Darien to see.
Darien’s eyes widened. “Whose stay is that?”
“It’s not a stay. It’s a fake – enchanted to feel like a stay, to make the wearer seem to be what she’s not.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Hanging around Scarlett’s neck.”
“Wait.” Darien held up his hands in a desperate gesture, pleading for Chase to slow down. “Scarlett is a witch?”
“I can hardly believe it, either. But it’s true – it has to be true.”
Chase relayed the entire story to his friend. Darien’s mouth tightened and his eyes went dangerous and grim as Chase told how he fell for Scarlett’s witchery. Surely he can see that it’s not my fault, Chase thought. Everyone knows that witches can overpower shifters if they know the correct spells, the right way to confuse the totem…
But Chase couldn’t blame Darien for his anger. He was Roxy’s friend, and so he was bound to hate anybody who broke her heart. Chase hated himself at that moment, as he confessed how he’d nearly fucked Scarlett, bound to her as he was by his bewitched and deceived totem. He almost wished for Darien to hit him, for the absolution of a fist cracking into his jaw. The pain of an ass-kicking was the least of what he deserved.
When he’d finished the distasteful story, Chase flung the snapped chain and its false medallion onto the porch step between them. They both stared at it in silence, Chase breathing hard and Darien as tense as if the coils of a deadly snake lay before him, not the loops of a thin silver chain.
Finally Darien said, “Did you know somebody has been messing with our stays?”
“What do you mean, messing with them?”
“Something is making us lose control one by one. Whatever this… thing is, it’s moving through us one at a time, testing us. Playing with us. We’ve been shifting out of control, one guy each day, as if somebody has us on a roster and is rotating through us, right on schedule.”
“Scarlett,” Chase growled.
“Maybe.”
“Definitely. I know it seems unlikely, but that party girl has got some powerful magic. I can vouch for it personally. And it makes sense, in a strange way. Maybe she’s using us to test the limits of her magic. Or maybe…”
“Maybe she’s searching for one stay in particular. One totem – one man.”
Chase’s heart thudded painfully in his chest. He held Darien’s dark, serious stare for a long moment, then whispered through a tight throat, “Or one woman.”
“Roxy.”
“So you figured out her secret, too.”
“I’ve had enough distance to observe her without losing my mind trying to fuck her,” Darien said wryly. “It’s amazing how clearly you can think when you aren’t trying to bang everything that moves. You straight boys ought to try it sometime.”
In spite of his nervous tension, Chase gave a short, sharp laugh. “I guess you’ve had long enough to get used to the idea of everybody you want to fuck being a shifter. For the rest of us, it’s a new experience.”
“I’m honestly impressed you figured it out, Chase. Roxy doesn’t even know herself. I tried to get her used to the idea, but she’s in denial. She told me once before all about Scarlett’s jealousy, though. I brushed it off…”
“I did, too, damn me.” Chase pounded both fists helplessly against his knees.
“…but I didn’t think – I never imagined Scarlett could be a witch.”
“She doesn’t exactly fit the stereotype. No warts, no green skin.” Just that silky-smooth, creamy-pale body, and her face with its perfect, almost unearthly beauty. The thought of her sickened Chase now; he could still feel the memory of her skin tingling on his palms, and he scrubbed his hands against his jeans to drive the sensation away. “But it all fits together. Alpha House has been going mad over Roxy because she’s a shifter. Scarlett’s been trying to catch the eye of any brother she can for as long as I’ve known her. Apparently she’s found a way to create the disguise of a female shifter…” Chase gestured at the broken chain “…and now she’s figured out how to disrupt a stay’s power.”
The sharp core of Darien’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “So now you think she’s going after Roxy?”
“Scarlett obviously figured out exactly what it was that she lacked, but Roxy had – that special something that was making Alpha House crazy for her. If Scarlett knows that much, there’s no telling what else she knows.” Chase sprang from the porch step and paced restlessly in the dry lawn. He kicked a beer can out of his path. “She might even know how dangerous it can be to force a transformation on an inexperienced person.”
“Oh my God, you’re right. That’s exactly what she’s been doing – forcing us to shift, even when we have our stays on.”
“The brothers have all been shifting for years. An accident here and there won’t do any harm to one of us. But Roxy is totally new to this. She isn’t even aware of what she is. If we’re right, and Scarlett is planning to target her totem, then Roxy could be in serious danger. She could lose her mind, or be trapped in her totem form forever.”
Darien stood, his face pale and his fists clenched. “I know. So now the question is, what do we do about it?”
Chase stopped his pacing and scratched the stubble that ran in a dark line along his jaw. He wanted to break away from Alpha House, strike out on his own and become the man he wanted to be – not lose his identity in the morass of college politics, and later, after graduation, lose himself further in the soulless world of business. He craved his independence badly enough that he felt himself on the verge of leaving, dropping Blackme
ade altogether to forge his own life. He wanted desperately to be his own man, and his resentment for Alpha House and Blackmeade grew day by day.
But the only thing he wanted more than independence was Roxy. Even if he’d been a hateful bastard and broken her heart. Even if she could never forgive him. Chase would do whatever it took to make Roxy safe – even cooperate with Alexander.
“We’re going to have to talk to Alexander,” Chase said at last. “Tell him everything. He might have some good ideas.”
Darien frowned. “I don’t think Roxy would be thrilled if we dragged Alexander into this drama. I think he’s the last person she’ll want involved.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, Chase.” Darien’s voice dropped to a near-whisper. “So much has happened while you’ve had your nose up Scarlett’s skirt. Sit down, man. You’re not going to like what I have to say.”
Chase’s jaw clenched painfully and his chest constricted as Darien told of Roxy’s sudden interest in Alexander. It’s because I was such an ass at that party – falling all over Scarlett. It’s what I deserve.
But when Darien related how Roxy came home in tears, and how Alexander had brutalized her, Chase’s rage flashed so white-hot that for a moment he couldn’t see. His breath rasped in his throat.
“I’ll kill him.”
“No,” Darien said firmly. “And you won’t fight him, either. We don’t need more chaos right now – we have to work together to stop Scarlett.”
“I won’t work with Alexander. Not in this – not in anything. I thought I could, for a second. I thought I’d be willing… but no. He’s scum. I won’t waste my time on him anymore.”
“If you won’t work with Alexander,” Darien said slowly, “then what can we do? We have to get to the bottom of this, Chase. We have to stop Scarlett from tampering with our stays, and we have to protect Roxy.”
“If we can draw Scarlett out… make her show her hand in front of everybody… maybe it will be enough. Maybe once all the guys know she’s a witch, and that she’s the one behind all these petty attacks, we can shame her into stopping – or intimidate her into leaving us alone.”
