by Lib Starling
Roxy’s heart beat harshly in her own ears, loud and insistent.
Alexander nodded vaguely, watching Chase’s face as it contorted—as he fought off the last dregs of the pain.
“You can put a stop to this, Alexander,” Katrina said. “If I have the familiar I need, I can magnify the Powers, the same way Scarlett is doing it. I can undo what she did to Chase. And then, we can go after her. We can start right now. We can end her reign of terror, once and for all.”
The brothers on the porch raised their voices in a chorus of approval, and as a crowd they rippled, tensing for the fight.
For a moment, Alexander drew himself up, meeting Katrina’s gaze squarely. A peaceful stillness came over him, smoothing the frown from his face, relieving the tension of his body—and Roxy felt sure he was about to say yes—to consent to whatever it was Katrina urged. To bond with her, Roxy realized. To become her familiar, and tie himself to her forever.
But the momentary hope snapped like a brittle thread. Alexander shrugged away from Chase, turning his back on Katrina.
“I have my future to think about,” he said, his voice as cold as it was loud. “I won’t do it. There must be another way—find some other way to stop Scarlett.”
He shoved his way back up the porch steps and into the depths of Alpha House.
“No,” Roxy whispered.
She watched, distant and numb, as Katrina turned to Chase. They held one another’s eyes for a long moment, and Roxy could read their reluctance like a sign on the wall. But finally Chase nodded—once, curtly, his mouth set in a determined line—and Katrina took his hand.
Roxy knew she had lost Chase forever, and would never feel his touch again.
Part 7
.1.
T he stillness was absolute. Every brother of Alpha Delta Phi stood as if frozen by the moonlight, staring at Katrina or at the door of the house, behind which Alexander had just disappeared. Katrina could still feel its resolute slam reverberating along her spine. She could feel, too, the tense, aggressive excitement of the brothers—the ripple of animal keenness moving through their ranks, their senses sharpening as they readied for a fight.
A fight with Scarlett, Katrina wondered, or with me? It was clear she had angered the fraternity’s alpha, and doubtless all the men were wary and defensive, now that they had heard Katrina’s words for themselves—now that they understood exactly what she intended to do.
The silence—the icy, towering silence as the men stared and sniffed and squeezed their hands into hard fists—would have been more than Katrina could bear. But Roxy’s quiet, pitiful sobs filled the yard, and took some of the edge off the shifters’ rage. Roxy’s face was still pressed against Darien’s chest, and the elk-shifter held her awkwardly, gazing at Katrina and Chase with wide-eyed desperation and a sorrowful frown.
One of the brothers took a step toward Katrina. The man was shrouded in the deep shadows that pooled around Alpha House, and she couldn’t make out just who it was, but the movement was rapid and eager, like the twitching of a great, sharp-toothed cat ready to spring. Katrina swallowed hard.
She glanced at Chase. The blue of night painted his face with dull shadows, and she could scarcely make out the deep-brown eyes beneath his lowered brows, but she could tell that his gaze was fixed on Roxy. The slump of Chase’s shoulders told Katrina all she needed to know about his feelings.
“Come on,” she said quietly, and grabbed his hand. He made no objection as she dragged him through the yard and up the steps of the porch—and she was glad to keep him close. The riled shifters seemed to lean angrily toward Katrina as she marched through their ranks. She refused to look any of them in the eye, afraid she might catch sight of a glint that was too predatory, too fierce and wild to bear.
Katrina threw open the door of the frat house and pulled Chase inside. With Roxy’s stifled sobs fading behind them, Chase seemed to come out of his miserable reverie—somewhat, at least. He stumbled over the threshold, then his hand tightened in Katrina’s grip, giving her a reassuring squeeze.
“I’m ready,” he said, repeating the words he’d so bravely spoken moments before as Alexander had looked on. “I’m willing, Katrina. I’ll do what needs to be done. For—”
“For Roxy’s sake,” she muttered. “I know.”
And what about my sake? she thought peevishly. She loved Chase—like a friend, or a brother. There had been a time, more than a year ago, when she had thought the love she felt for Chase was something different. But now she knew she could give her heart in that way to no one but Alexander. The aristocratic, winter-cool wolf had captured her whole being—the Goddess alone knew why, but Katrina couldn’t deny what she knew to be true. Her spirit belonged with Alexander’s. They were opposites in every way—the clash of shifter and witch was the smallest of their differences—but like two faces of a coin, they were made of the same stuff, fused together, two halves of an intrinsic whole. And as dear as Chase was to Katrina, as much as she respected and adored him, she wouldn’t let go of Alexander, her destined other half, without a real and ferocious fight.
She was ready to do whatever it took, too—for Alexander, and for herself.
The living room of Alpha House was emptied of people, though it was still scattered with its usual clutter of beer cans, shoes, food wrappers, and carelessly abandoned phones and tablets. Katrina glared up the stairwell, toward the upper story, where Alexander must be sulking.
“Alexander!” she shouted. Her voice was angry and harsh, and it tore at her throat.
Katrina didn’t wait for an answer. She turned to Chase and took his face between her hands, the rough stubble of his cheeks scratching her palms. She kissed him, hard, pressing her body insistently against his until, with a whimper of confusion, his hands drifted up to her waist. Katrina intensified her kiss, teasing Chase’s tongue with her own, clawing at his broad, strong shoulders. Chase kissed her back just as forcefully, stepping gamely into the role—believing, Katrina had no doubt, that this was some part of the familiar-bonding process, and that he was only doing what he must do, for the sake of the woman he loved.
Let him think whatever he needs to, Katrina told herself bitterly as she pulled up the edge of Chase’s shirt and found his bare skin. She ran her palms up his back. A faint dampness of sweat remained on his skin, the echo of the sheen that had sprung up from his body when Roxy had approached—when the pain had assaulted him. Katrina raked her nails down his spine, and Chase broke from the kiss to gasp softly, a light shudder wracking his body. His eyes were tightly closed, as if he didn’t want to see what he was doing, who he was kissing—but he didn’t hesitate to do what must be done. Katrina could’nt fault him on that count.
The next moment, the house’s front door creaked on its hinges, and Chase gave a hard jolt within Katrina’s embrace. His sudden shock of pain had nothing to do with Katrina’s seductive scratching. She peered over Chase’s shoulder to see Roxy standing on the threshold, clinging to the door frame with trembling, white-knuckled hands, as if the wooden jamb was all that held her up. Her ruddy hair stuck out in frazzled wisps around her face, which was nearly as red from her piteous crying. Roxy’s green eyes were brighter than usual, their sparking emerald color magnified by tears, and they seemed to shine with frantic entreaty.
“What are you doing?” she said to Katrina, choking on a sob. “Get away from him!”
She took a step into the room, and Chase’s jaw clenched. He took Katrina hard by the shoulders, as if he might fling her away and run from the pain.
“You get away,” Katrina shouted. “Stay back!” She wrapped her arms tighter around Chase’s body, and Chase, responding mindlessly through the mounting agony, clung to Katrina just as fiercely, groaning and hiding his face in her braids. “Darien!” Katrina yelled. “Take Roxy—hold her back!”
In moments, Darien and Brooke were there, restraining the redhead gently by her elbows as she wept and wailed, frenzied with the need to rush to Chase’s side, and t
he terrible impossibility of never touching her lover again.
But in that same instant, Alexander arrived, too, coming downstairs with an angry stride, his cold, hard stare cutting into the midst of Katrina’s shouts and Roxy’s cries. When his piercing eyes fell on Katrina and Chase, locked tight in each other’s arms, he paused mid-step. Alexander froze on the stairs, one hand gripping the slick wood of the ornate bannister like a vise.
Darien and Brooke tugged Roxy away, pulling her back into the depths of the kitchen. As she receded from Chase’s proximity, he relaxed and sighed, quaking with relief. Then he glanced up from Katrina’s hair, and tensed again at the sight of Alexander, who watched him from the stairway with an iron-hard glower.
Chase glanced into the kitchen, where Darien’s voice could be heard, low and soft, trying to comfort the unsoothable Roxy. Then Chase turned back to Katrina. She watched as understanding broke over him, lighting his features like a welcome dawn. His eyes narrowed with new determination. He threw a challenging smirk up at Alexander, then took Katrina roughly by the hips and pulled her hard against his body. His kiss was furious, demanding and intense; he growled as his tongue circled her mouth, and he gripped her ass hard with both hands, digging his fingers into tender flesh with a possessive confidence.
Yes, Katrina thought, moaning as she leaned into him. He gets it! No matter how it pained Roxy, Chase truly was willing to do whatever he must. She respected him all the more for the sacrifice he was making—but the show she put on for Alexander’s benefit had little to do with anything as mundane as respect. She clung to Chase’s muscular arms and bent her back, panting in apparent ecstasy as Chase raked the stubble of his chin down the soft skin of her throat.
A thud jarred Katrina away from Chase; Chase staggered back, catching himself against a recliner just before he fell to the floor. Alexander stepped between Chase and Katrina, and she didn’t need to see his wolf form to know that the pale blonde was hackling with barely suppressed rage.
Good.
Chase righted himself from the blow. He gave Alexander a slow, cocky grin.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Alexander said. His voice was dangerously quiet.
“What?” Chase threw up his hands in a gesture of casual unconcern. “Can’t a guy make out with a girl anymore? What’s Alpha House coming to?”
Alexander jerked his head toward the kitchen, where Roxy and her friends had fallen silent. “You’ve already got your girl. What more do you want? Going to take everything for yourself, is that it?”
Chase drew himself up and opened his mouth, ready to goad Alexander further—but Katrina caught his eye and shook her head. She didn’t want Alexander pushed too far. Just far enough. Gently, she laid a hand on the pale shifter’s arm.
At the feel of her touch, Alexander turned to her, his expression ravaged by conflict and grief.
“Alexander,” Katrina said, “why are you resisting this? Why are you avoiding the bond? It’s obvious what you want—me. And you can have me.”
“But only if I become your pet.” He spat that last word at her, a bitter challenge, a stark rejection.
“You wouldn’t be my pet,” she said. “You’d be my partner. We’ll work together. Both of us—together.” She nodded toward Chase. “When you saw me with him, you knew what you wanted. Your own senses tell you we belong together—that I shouldn’t be with any other man, shouldn’t bond with any other man. Give your heart and your totem what they truly want.”
“Bonding to a witch isn’t what I truly want. You know how I feel about my prospects, my future. But it’s not only that, Katrina.” He cast an uneasy glance at Chase, reluctant to bare his soul in front of the very brother who had once defeated him in a fight, and who could take the role of the fraternity’s alpha the moment he chose to claim it. Alexander swallowed hard, then continued, “I’ve been alpha of this frat for so long. A leader. In control. And everything I’ve been preparing for, these four years at Blackmeade—my destiny has always been to lead, not to follow. If I bond with you, I’ll be in service to you. You’ll be the one in control.”
One corner of her mouth quirked up in a sly, tempting grin. “Maybe you’ll like that, Alex—letting a woman call the shots. Surrendering control. You ought to give it a try.”
A fog of distant consideration obscured his eyes for a moment, plunging him into a haze of strange, new possibilities. But just when Katrina felt sure her ploy to appeal to his jealousy had worked, and Alexander had come around at last—just as her heart took one tentative leap of triumph and joy—he shook his head.
“No,” Alexander said. “It’s just not something I can do.” He turned away from Katrina and Chase alike, and stalked out the front door of Alpha House into the cold winter night.
Katrina watched him go while her stomach sank into a dark pit. It felt bottomless—never-ending—and she was sure she’d never claw her way back out again.
“Shit,” Chase muttered. “I’m sorry, Katrina. I tried.”
Then he flinched. The kitchen’s saloon-style doors swung on their hinges. Chase fled backward, pressing himself against the living room’s far wall with a tragic scowl of self-loathing as Roxy stumbled alone from the kitchen.
“Wait,” Darien called out, moving quickly to catch her.
But Roxy didn’t even glance in Chase’s direction, and she certainly made no more attempts to come close to her witch-cursed lover. She ran out the door after Alexander, pursuing him through the frat house’s yard. The shifters gathered there milled in anxious readiness, and turned to watch Roxy as she hurried in Alexander’s wake, out toward the hills that glowed silver in the moonlight.
.2.
R oxy struggled to catch up with Alexander. His furious stride carried him beyond the gathered shifters in Alpha House’s yard, across the gravel road, and out into the open sagelands faster than she would have believed. She had to step briskly to close the distance between them, and occasionally she broke into a staggering run, fearful of tripping over the shallow-set, gnarled roots of sagebrush as she fought her way up the slope. She was already breathless from her crying, and from the sickening shock of seeing Chase locked in a passionate embrace with a woman he claimed he no longer loved. She couldn’t muster the voice to call out to Alexander, to beg him to slow down.
She wasn’t sure he would have waited for her, even if she had been capable of shouting his name. His path through the cold night was so headlong that Roxy suspected he was fleeing. And even though her misery hung over her senses like a dark, dense cloud, Roxy was determined to hang onto Alexander at all costs. Alpha House needed his cool leadership, his thoughtful confidence, more than ever before.
When he paused on the slope of the foothill to consider his path—through a rocky patch of boulders, or up a steeper grade of sage-covered ground—Roxy rallied her flagging energy and surged ahead. She closed on him at last, and Alexander, hearing her stumbling footsteps, wheeled in the moonlight, his eyes wide with uncharacteristic panic. When he saw that it was only Roxy who followed him, he sighed and slouched a little.
“What are you doing here?” he said impatiently.
“What are you doing? You should be back at Alpha House, helping us prepare to fight Scarlett.”
“Scarlett isn’t the only thing in the world, you know,” Alexander said. “Life will go on after her. I can’t just—”
“What kind of life will go on for me, and for Chase, if we can’t stop her? You saw what she’s done to Chase, Alexander! That—that spell she’s put on him. Are Chase and I just supposed to suck it up and deal with this misery for the rest of our days?”
Alexander dropped his face into his hands for a moment, but then he straightened, and ran his fingers through his platinum hair. “I know,” he said calmly. “It’s not fair, what you two are facing, but—”
“But nothing! Scarlett is the only thing in the world, to me—because Chase is my whole world. I can’t accept the way things are now. I can’t face a f
uture where I can’t be near Chase… can’t touch him...” Roxy trailed off, for the tears had welled up again, threatening to spill over her cheeks. She blinked rapidly, too angry to allow herself to cry anymore.
Alexander turned away, staring out at the field of boulders that stretched to his left. The moonlight was stark on his face, making his high cheekbones and sharp nose seem more carved, more angular than ever. Is he truly made of stone—of cold, unfeeling marble? Roxy wondered. No—Alexander had treated her well these past few months, and real warmth had grown between them. There must be some way to appeal to his heart. Roxy was sure there must be a way.
“It pains me,” Alexander said quietly, “to hear you talk that way—to say that Chase is your whole world, as if you could never love anybody else.”
Roxy swallowed hard. “I couldn’t love anybody else—not in the way I love Chase.”
“I still want you,” he said, taking her hands in his own, staring down at her with an intense sincerity that took Roxy aback. “I still want you, even though I know I love Katrina, too. I want so many things, and it seems I can’t have them—any of them. I want a career—I want a future—I want to remain the leader of Alpha House. I shouldn’t be subservient to anybody, especially not a witch.”
“And what about Katrina?” Roxy asked gently. “Do you want her, as well?”
Alexander gave a ragged sigh, a tearing sound that was almost a sob. He let go of Roxy’s hands and hugged himself—and whether that gesture was a defense against the cold, or against the uncertainties that assaulted him, Roxy couldn’t say.
“Of course I want her,” Alexander muttered. “Maybe more than anything else, I want her—need her. But the cost…”
