by Lib Starling
Long after the moon had set, Chase’s wandering thoughts became dreams—confused, confounding, almost nightmares. He dreamed that Roxy and Katrina merged into one form, and he wanted them both, yet could have neither. And always, no matter how he reached for the specter of the woman he loved, she dodged out of his grasp, and Scarlett’s moans and cries of passion filled his ears.
Morning light woke him. Katrina was still asleep, one arm splayed over the edge of her bunk, breathing easily on her pillow with her tumble of braids and dreadlocks half-obscuring her face.
Chase’s cock was hard and aching from his strange, taunting dreams, and his heartbeat was loud in his ears.
.8.
R oxy raised herself to her black-tipped paws. The covers of Alexander’s bed gave beneath the fox’s slight weight, and she wobbled.
“Now back again,” Alexander said. He sat in his rolling leather office-style chair, watching Roxy’s shifts with a critical eye. “Quickly!”
Roxy blinked, staring past Alexander into a misty distance that went beyond the walls of his bedroom, beyond Alpha House.
“Roxy?” Alexander said. “Shift back. You’ve got to be faster than that.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was tight with worry. “Roxy? Are you okay?”
She saw only Chase, his tall, strong body, his dark hair moving in the night-time breeze, his sharp eyes softening when he saw her face—when he said, I love you. She heard only his voice from the night before, when she had met him at the town square. She felt nothing but his hand in her own, the warmth of his skin, the touch she had craved and missed so much.
That is, she felt nothing else until the thump of Alexander’s shift sounded in her chest like a clap of thunder. Roxy blinked and looked at him, licking her muzzle in sudden embarrassment.
The white wolf moved anxiously to the bed. Roxy! Are you all right? What’s happened?
Um…nothing. I’m fine. I’m not stuck in my totem, if that’s what you mean.
Alexander’s ruff heaved in a sigh of relief. You scared me. What’s going on?
Just distracted.
You can’t afford to get distracted now, he scolded. We’ve had brothers searching for miles around, all night and this morning. We might find Scarlett’s hiding place at any time, and we have to be ready to act.
I know, Alexander. I’m sorry.
You still need a lot of work on your rapid shifts, he told her. With a potential confrontation with a witch around the corner, this skill could save your life.
The fox growled. Okay, I get it. I’ll stay focused. Can we get back to the lesson now?
Alexander paused, watching her with those piercing blue eyes. Roxy found herself unable to look away, and her heart began to race.
I thought I’d lost your for a minute, he told her. I thought…maybe the same thing had happened to you as had happened to—
Roxy cut him off, unwilling to hear the wolf speak Chase’s name. She couldn’t think about Chase now, couldn’t deal with his re-appearance in her life or last night’s confession. The coming fight with Scarlett weighed heavy on her mind. She knew that she was woefully unprepared to meet the witch face-to-face, and knew that it might very well come to such a confrontation. Chase was a distraction she couldn’t afford.
Besides, the new feelings she’d developed for Alexander hadn’t vanished just because Chase had surfaced in her life again. Alexander had earned her trust—a fact that still surprised her—and she liked him more and more, with each hour she spent in his company.
Maybe what I need in order to be a little less distracted is to decide once and for all… Roxy trailed off. If she’d been in her human form, she would have blushed to the shade of a ripe beet. How stupid, to forget that Alexander could read her thoughts when they were both in their totemic forms.
But he had read the thought, loud and clear. The white wolf’s eyes widened.
Roxy…are you sure?
She took a deep breath, and then reached inside herself, took hold of her wondering, frightened but eager human side, and pulled it to the surface.
She lay naked across Alexander’s bed, staring at the wolf with a face free from the turmoil she felt inside. Alexander took a few steps back, seemingly in disbelief—then he shifted to his human form, too.
He had seen her naked many times before, over the course of her shifting lessons. But Roxy had never seen Alexander unclothed. He was stunning, as pale and strong as his wolf form, like a statue carved of the purest marble. She allowed her eyes to run over him slowly, taking in this new sight, reveling in his masculine beauty. His chest and arms were muscled, but not overly so—just enough to speak of a natural, confident strength. His waist narrowed to his hips, and from the bottom of his chest to below his navel, a line of pale blonde hair shimmered in the light that came through the cracks of his curtains. His body heaved lightly with his breath—he was panting with eagerness as he stared back at her. And Roxy could see that Alexander was ready; his erection vibrated faintly with the fast beat of his pulse.
She felt she ought to say something—make some explanation, perhaps, or some excuse. For what? she wondered in a mystified haze. For the fact that she wanted to do this now, when there was so much more they should be thinking about, so much preparation still to be done? For the fact that she hadn’t done it sooner?
But finally her eyes slid up to Alexander’s, and she was locked in the force of his stare. She couldn’t speak. A strange sensation—cold, but not unwelcome; forceful, but somehow still so right—descended on her entire body at once. She shuddered and gasped, unsure whether she loved or resented this bizarre feeling of being gripped, body and soul. Dimly, she was aware that this must be Alexander’s natural alpha tendencies coming to the fore—dominating her totem, making her ready to do whatever his superior will commanded.
Had Alexander held this force in check before? Or had she been strong enough to ignore it? It hardly mattered now. She had already surrendered to the force—completely, absolutely—and lay shivering and burning, waiting for him to do whatever he pleased with her body—and her heart.
Alexander advanced on the bed, silent as a stalking wolf. He climbed up beside her, his body moving over hers, his broad, pale shoulders blocking the sunlight from the window.
He bent his neck to kiss her. The moment his lips touched hers, a fire ignited in Roxy’s stomach, spreading down between her legs and upward to her throbbing heart. She welcomed his tongue into her mouth, rendered breathless by the slow circles he traced with his, as if he was savoring this slow exploration of her mouth before he moved on to other, more heat-inducing explorations.
Roxy moaned helplessly as he continued to kiss her, drawing out her passionate desperation. Her hands flew up to his strong arms, tracing the shapes of his muscles, pulling hard at his shoulders, trying to force his hard body down against hers, so she could feel his pale skin pressing against her own. But he wouldn’t oblige—he remained poised above her, impossibly far away, until she began to write and pant, until she would have begged him for more if he hadn’t been in complete control of her mouth.
When she seemed sufficiently hot for his tastes, Alexander slowly lowered himself to the bed, lying half on top of her. The heat of his skin made Roxy gasp. When his hand found her breast, his fingers tracing its shape in lazy circles that grew smaller, bringing him closer to her nipple with agonizing slowness, her gasps turned into wordless cries.
Just as Alexander reached her nipple at last and the fire inside her roared, the vision of Chase returned, his angular face so hurt and earnest in the starlight and jagged shadows of town square.
I love you, she heard him say, again and again. I love you.
Through Alexander’s alpha spell, Roxy struggled to remember her first time with Chase, when they’d lain together in the tall, waving grasses of the elk preserve. She wanted Alexander to keep doing what he was doing—and more. But her heart seemed to want to dwell on Chase.
Maybe, she thought, fighti
ng for clarity against her totem’s submission to the alpha, the power Chase has over my heart is greater than the power Alexander has over my soul.
With that thought, the memory of every moment she’d ever shared with Chase surged all at once into her head. She felt every kiss, every touch, heard every sweet, whispered word. She smelled Chase all around her, his wild, dusty odor of the sage lands, and felt his breath against her neck.
It took every shred of will Roxy had ever possessed to raise her voice against Alexander.
“Stop.”
She sounded weak and panting, and as she spoke the horrors of her first date with Alexander rushed in upon her—the time he’d tried to force Roxy, and only her chance attack on his stay medallion had brought him to his senses. For one terrible moment, Roxy was afraid that Alexander would keep going, that she wouldn’t be able to stop him, or even to scream for help. But he immediately froze and rolled away, blinking at her in surprise.
“What’s the matter?”
“I…I…” Roxy didn’t know what to say. I think I’m maybe probably kind of definitely possibly in love with Chase? Anything she could think to say would make her sound like a babbling idiot.
She sat up. “I have to go.”
Alexander stood up, backed away from the bed. “Is everything all right? I’m worried about you, Roxy. Please tell me what’s going on—talk to me.”
Roxy’s clothes were still folded where she’d left them, on top of Alexander’s dresser. She hurriedly dressed, tears blurring her vision. “I really don’t know what to tell you, and that’s the truth,” she said, sniffing. “I just…I need to…”
Alexander sighed and sat on his bed. He pulled a pillow onto his lap, as if to cover his nakedness, but his soul was bared in his eyes. “Chase,” he muttered thickly.
Shoving her feet into her shoes, Roxy nodded miserably. “I need to find out where I stand with him—where my heart really is. Otherwise it wouldn’t be fair to you, Alexander. You’ve been so good to me, and I respect you so much for the man you’ve become. I don’t want to hurt you. You don’t deserve that.”
Alexander fell back on his bed, pressing his hands over his eyes. He made a frustrated noise, half growl, half moan. “Okay. Go, then. I won’t hold you back.”
Roxy turned for the door, but Alexander’s next words froze her before she could open it.
“But Roxy, I won’t let you go, either.”
His alpha side seemed to reach for her again, to take hold of her and squeeze possessively. It took all Roxy’s concentration—straining her heart and mind toward Chase—to walk through that door.
.9.
B ack at the little blue house, Roxy was relieved to find the place empty. Darien and Brooke had both left notes on her door—it was Darien’s turn to patrol the outskirts of Jackson Hole, searching for Scarlett’s lair, and Brooke was checking inside the city itself, thinking she might have found a lead that would point her toward the witch’s whereabouts.
Scarlett, Roxy thought with disgust. Roxy should be focusing on the witch now, but how could she do anything until she sorted out this tangle around her heart?
She threw open her bedroom door and sprawled across her bed, head pounding with the aftermath of the encounter with Alexander. God—the fire he had lit inside of her. She’d never felt like that before, molten and rippling, bending to the commands of his mouth and hands as if he were a glassblower, and she an orb of liquid flame. She had never even experienced such heights of passion with Chase—and she didn’t know if she could.
“Well, I’ll find out soon enough,” she told herself, pulling her phone from her purse. She dialed Chase’s number.
He answered on the first ring.
“What are you doing right now?” Roxy asked abruptly.
“Nothing; later tonight I’m supposed to…”
“Come over,” she said.
There was a long silence, until finally Roxy said again, more forcefully, “Come over. I need you, Chase.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Roxy dropped her phone back into her bag. As she moved, Alexander’s wild, frosted-forest scent lifted off her skin and struck her like a slap across the face.
Oh my God. I have to take a shower, or Chase will smell him all over me.
She scrambled up, and was about to take off her clothes and run for the bathroom—No idea how long it will take Chase to get here—but then a stray thought gave her pause.
Maybe she should let Chase smell Alexander. Maybe it would help explain everything she was going through—the mess her emotions were in. This was her greatest vulnerability, her attraction to Alexander—and if Chase could still love her even knowing that she’d been in Alexander’s bed, then…well…she just might have her answer.
Or maybe it would crush him, and drive Chase even further away than Roxy had already pushed him.
She hesitated with her sweater off, standing in her bra and jeans, torn between a shower and full, potentially ruinous honesty. Then fate decided the matter for her. She heard a brisk knock at the door.
Roxy spun for her phone again and texted Chase: That you?
Yep, came the reply.
Roxy bit her lip. When he said he’d be right there, he’d meant it. He must have had some business in town. Roxy’s fingers flashed across the screen. Spare key in the hanging planter under the fake pink flower. Come in.
Within moments, she heard the door open and shut again. Then Chase’s footsteps coming down the hall. Roxy had time for one deep breath to steady her nerves, one silent prayer to plead with fate to be kind to her—then Chase was there in her doorway, dark against the white of her bedroom, like a cool shadow in the forest.
His eyes took her in, sweeping her from head to foot, then returning to linger over her breasts in their lacy pink bra; the broad curve from her body, from waist to hip to her upper thigh; the freckles on her bared shoulders and the red waves of her hair that brushed against her sensitive skin.
His mouth fell open as if he wanted to speak, but he said nothing. Roxy reached out a hand to him.
Chase was on her in one quick stride, gathering her into his thick-muscled arms, pressing his face into her hair as he groaned in relief like a man spared execution. Then he stiffened and jerked away.
“What is this?” he said hoarsely, sniffing the air.
Roxy swallowed hard. “Alexander.”
He squinted at her angrily. “Yeah, I know. I mean—did you really have to call me over for sloppy seconds after you fucked him?”
He seemed about to rant on, but Roxy stilled him with quiet words. “I didn’t, Chase. We kissed, and…and that was pretty much it. I did want to fuck him—I won’t deny that. But I couldn’t tell whether I really wanted it, or whether it was just his…I don’t know, his alpha-ness…calling to my totem. So I stopped. Because all I could think of, even while I was with Alexander, was you.”
Chase had turned his face away at her admission, and it was pinched with pain. But at her final words, he looked at her slowly, and held her gaze.
Roxy said, “I can’t do any of this—fight off Scarlett, whatever that will entail, and handle Alexander—until I know for sure about you.”
“Know what about me?”
“Whether I love you, too, as much as you love me.”
They were both silent for a moment, staring into one another’s eyes. Chase looked half-panicked, which was fair enough, Roxy thought, since she felt like it would be wiser to scream and jump out the window, and run from Jackson Hole and never look back, than to go through with this mad test. She could see Chase’s pulse pounding in his throat, and her own heart beat in time to his frantic rhythm. So she willed herself to stay put, to look into his face, to wait for his answer.
“I don’t think you can ever love me as much as I love you,” Chase said at last. “Even knowing that you’ve been with Alexander, I still can’t help but adore you. I’d do anything for you, Roxy.”
She reached out for him again,
taking both his hands in her own. “Then do this for me. Please. I have to know.”
Chase’s arms wrapped around her, and his lips found Roxy’s mouth. The taste of his kiss brought fresh tears to her eyes—its subtle sweetness, its wildness like the sage lands beyond the borders of the town. As their kiss went on and on, Roxy’s totem stirred, and she felt a fluttering inside her chest, as if the fox were skipping through a sunlit field.
Chase moved to her neck, kissing and tasting, bringing a tingle to her skin that stirred Roxy’s senses. She arched her back, trying to press more and more of herself against Chase’s body, trying to draw the feel of him right in through her flesh, into her bones—into her soul.
Together, they pawed and scrabbled at his clothing. When he pulled his shirt away, Roxy ran her hands over his chest and stomach, feeling the firm outline of his muscles and the way his body tensed with desire. His shape—his warmth—his presence overwhelmed her, and she closed her eyes, shutting out everything but his body beneath her hands and the sound of his hoarse, rapid breathing. Her palms slid over his flesh, slowly, re-exploring once-familiar territory, learning every flowing plane of his form anew.
When she heard the soft tink of his belt buckle, Roxy opened her eyes and looked up at him. He watched her with desperate intensity, his dark eyes shining with the pain of loss and a furious, passionate hope.
“Kiss me,” she said, and he did, pulling her roughly toward him with one hand while the other loosed his jeans and boxers. The last of his clothes fell away, and Roxy took his cock in her hand, stroking it as they kissed, wanting him inside her with a desperation that mirrored the look in Chase’s eyes.
She broke away only to shed what clothing she still wore, and when she was bared before him, shivering a little with anticipation and with the chill of standing apart from his warmth, Chase paused, taking her in with a deliberately slow appraisal.
