Third Person
“By the time you get to Chasity, it’ll be too late anyway!” Snarled Dante.
Felix growled impatiently. Calix regarded Dante with black eyes. Alex bared his canines. At that moment, Danny the P. I. And Chance descended to the cellar.
“Do we know anything?” Asked Chance anxiously.
“We will soon,” said Felix, taking a pair of pliers out of his tool bag.
“You don’t scare me!” Growled Dante.
“We’ll see about that,” said Felix, shrugging.
“I have nothing to live for anyway!” Retorted Dante.
“Are you seriously trying to make me feel sorry for you? You have something to do with my mate being missing?” Hissed Felix, his eyes black and his face contorted with rage. “There’s no worse pain than that for a wolf!”
Dante chuckled humourlessly. “Think I don’t know that? My mate is dead!”
“Then you should know better than anyone how painful that is! Why would you ever want anyone else to suffer like that? When you already know it’s the greatest suffering?” Snarled Felix.
Dante took a deep breath. There was a bruise on his forehead where Felix had knocked him out. He slumped against the side of the cell.
“I just want my mate back,” muttered Dante.
“What does that have to do with Chasity?” Asked Calix, exasperated with this whole exchange.
“She looks just like her!” Insisted Dante.
In a flash, Alex had entered the cell and was holding Dante by the throat so that his feet dangled in midair.
“You took Chasity to replace your dead mate because they look alike?” Roared Alex, tightening his grip on Dante’s throat.
“DON’T KILL HIM!” Bellowed Calix. “We’ll never find Chasity in time if you do!”
Alex listened to the youngest alpha, dropping the kidnapper onto the floor where he spluttered and gasped.
“They’re not gonna kill her! You heard him! She’s replacing his mate,” snarled Alex.
Dante caught his breath and began to chuckle to himself.
“If you’ve touched Chasity, I will carve you like a roast!” Said Felix slowly.
“I haven’t,” insisted Dante. “I want her willing.”
“SHE’LL NEVER BE WILLING!” Roared Felix.
“She won’t but Deidre will,” said Dante.
“What do you mean?” Asked Calix quickly.
Dante said nothing. He just lay on the floor as if asleep.
“You…you just want her body, don’t you?” Whispered Calix.
His two elder brothers were making expressions that showed they did not believe in the bodysnatchers. Dante was fidgeting a little.
“We’re not gonna kill her! She’ll be fine. Her consciousness will be transferred to something else in the meanwhile!” Said Dante defensively.
Felix gasped. Alex was incredulous. “So it’s true?!” Asked the eldest alpha. “You’re stealing people’s bodies? Bodysnatching?”
Dante sighed.
“Are Chasity’s parents dead? Is Deidre dead?” Demand Calix.
Dante shook his head slowly.
“Where are they?” Asked Chance eagerly.
“In the bodies of three moon snakes that Deidre keeps in a tank in her room,” whispered Dante, cackling madly.
“You’ve kept them sentient and locked up as snakes for nine years?” Asked Calix, horrified.
The volume of Dante’s laughter increased. “Snakes only live about nine years. That’s their natural lifespan so I don’t know if they’re still there. Maybe. They might live a little longer with werewolf consciousness in them,” muttered Dante.
A chill crept through Calix. They needed to hurry not just for Chasity but for her parents and the real Deidre Binx.
Chance was shaking and black eyed. “I’ll kill you!” He bellowed at Dante and rushed forwards. Alex grabbed him and Calix closed and secured the cell.
“There’s no time, Grandpa!” Yelled Calix pulling Chance away from the cell.
“And where are there?! In LA?” Asked Felix, panicked.
“Deidre has a branch of her spiritual model retreat nonsense in LA but she’s housing everyone at the branch closer to home,” said Dante tauntingly.
Felix lit a blowtorch. Dante actually recoiled looking nervous. He walked towards Dante.
“Where are they?” Asked Felix slowly, taking a step with each word.
“You’ve been there already!” Yelped Dante accusingly.
“WHAT?!” Exclaimed Alex.
Calix gasped.
“The abandoned castle we smelled Chasity in with all the fox paintings isn’t abandoned,” said Calix.
Dante laughed. He pointed his index finger downwards.
Third Person (Dexter)
At the risk of upsetting or potentially even enraging the alphas, Dexter was driving his somewhat unreliable car over to the pack house. He was almost there. None but the youngest had taken him seriously. He sighed as he raced forwards pushing the old car as fast as it could go. The engine began to splutter. He looked at the meter. He was on empty. He roared at himself internally as the car came to a halt in the snow.
He grabbed his coat and hastily donned it, abandoning the vehicle for now. He ran through the snow. This would take forever. He hadn’t shifted in years. He sighed. This was for Chasity, Chase’s only child. He ripped his coat off and threw it back onto the hood of the car. He couldn’t afford to rip that one. Hopefully no one came by and “sprang” it. He chuckled remembering the old slang words Chase and him would make up. He pictured his wolf form and he felt the old familiar white hot pain of his bones rearranging.
Chasity’s POV
Chasity shifted a lot more quickly than she ever had before almost as fast as her alpha triplets. Perhaps, it was the adrenaline or the pup. She was on all fours, covered in sandy fur. She was a little bigger than she remembered. She had not been a marked Luna the last times she’d shifted. Maybe she was faster and stronger too. She didn’t have much time to ponder it as Deidre was twisting and turning into a form before her eyes. Chasity gasped inwardly.
The Deidre imposter became a fox, a snow white fox with two tails. She was beautiful, truly breathtaking, with coal black eyes that contrasted perfectly with her blindingly white fur.
You would’ve been my third tail! Lamented the Fox.
Chasity knew what she was. She did have many names. In their world, some called this a were-fox, others a fox demon. In Asia, their goodnatured cousins were sometimes called Kitsune. The Deidre doppelgänger was not goodnatured. She was a dark-magic practicing fox demon, stealing life after life, growing a new tail every hundred years or so or in her specific case with each newly stolen body. So she had stolen two bodies before! Deidre and someone before that. She would have approached Dante in her old body, probably as an older woman. Then she became the young Deidre. Now, the retired supermodel needed Chasity’s young body but the pesky inhabitant in Chasity’s womb wouldn’t do. The transfer wouldn’t work.
Chasity dove as the Fox lunged at her. The Fox was twice her size, almost as big as an alpha.
This is nothing! Hissed the Fox. If I had gotten my third body, I’d be three times my original size! You should’ve seen my mother and my grandmother before her. Colossal. Mother made it to seven! Grandmother went all the way to nine!
As she hissed the last word, she pounced on Chasity.
Third Person
Deidre’s centre for spirituality and modelling was underneath the castle. The triplets ran out the pack house followed by Detective Danny and Chance just as the wolf version of Dexter came galloping up to them across the snow. Felix growled at the unfamiliar wolf but Calix put a hand to Felix’s chest. The youngest alpha recognised Dexter’s smell. Alex gave Dexter a coat and he shifted back, covering himself.
“I can help! I know you think I’m crazy but…” began Dexter, his tone desperate.
“We don’t! Get in the jeep!” Ordered Felix. They all piled in and Felix sped off, flooring the accelerator. The castle was a half an hour drive away but Felix was about to make it in ten minutes.
Chasity’s POV
The Fox pinned Chasity’s wolf to the ground with a large paw. Chasity whimpered.
Maybe a well placed injury will get rid of the pup but salvage my new body after all! Said Deidre.
Chasity roared with rage. She snapped at the paw and the ankle of the Fox. The Fox yelped and then growled. Chasity darted away. All the doors were locked. Suddenly, one of them opened. April! Of all people! And June standing behind her.
“Let her go! She’s with child! You shouldn’t take this one! You didn’t tell us that! Mother, you lied!” Yelled April.
June yelled, “Chasity follow me!”
Chasity scampered towards June just as April leapt into the air and shifted midair, revealing her true form. A jet black fox with violet eyes. Chasity almost stopped to marvel again at the fox’s gorgeous forms.
“Chasity!” Shrieked June hysterically, snapping Chasity out of her trance.
Chasity dashed in the direction June indicated.
“Go up the stairs and release your parents!” June called after her.
Goosebumps sprang up under Chasity’s fur. What?! Tears formed in her eyes. She saw a winding staircase. It was only a half-level staircase. No windows anywhere in the halls. Was this all underground? Chasity ascended the short flight of stairs and burst through the double doors into a large lavish boudoir.
Third Person
The jeep hurtled through the snow.
“Faster!” Yelled Calix.
“There literally isn’t any faster!” Bellowed Felix.
The speed meter was at its limit.
“We can run faster than this! Danny drive Chance and Dexter there as fast as possible! We’ll run ahead!” Ordered eldest alpha Alex.
Danny nodded. The car screeched to a halt. The triplets got out and tossed their coats in the backseat.
Danny took the wheel.
“Bring her back, please!” Begged Chance.
Alex nodded solemnly and then he shifted into his massive black wolf. His brothers did the same. They raced at inhuman speed across the snowy landscape, twice as fast as the speed produced by flooring the jeep’s accelerator. They ran until their breathing was ragged. They spotted the castle up ahead. Instead of finding an opening, Calix dove through a glass window shattering it. His brothers dove in after him seeing the youngest skid and roll across the glass-strewn floor.
CALIX! Yelled Alex across mind-link.
Present! Said Calix, tumbling back onto all fours. His small scratches were already healing.
Felix breathed a sigh of relief.
They searched for a way into the underground.
Chasity’s POV
Chasity shifted. It was risky but she wanted to reunite with her parents in a form they might recognise. She quickly grabbed a random loose-fitting silk dress from Deidre’s wardrobe and put it on. She looked around the dimly lit bedroom. Everything was in mauves and dusky pinks. A huge white fox painting hung over the bed. There was painting of Deidre in her youth and one of another young beauty dressed in vintage clothing. Her first body, thought Chasity. She needed to hurry. She spotted a glow emanating from under a mauve sheet on a countertop at the side of the room. She ripped the sheet off to reveal a snake tank. The glow was coming from a heat lamp for the snakes. There was nothing living in this room besides Chasity and these three snakes. Were June and April setting her up? They had seemed completely sincere.
Chasity peered into the tank. One snake remained in the corner. Two of them became very agitated and came up to the glass, staring at her. She had never seen snakes behave quite like this. They were acting like enthusiastic golden retrievers when the family children came hurtling off the school bus. Stranger things have happened.
“Hello!” Said Chasity to the snakes.
They were trying to get out of the tank but there was a lid with holes in it for air but none of these holes were large enough for the snakes. Chasity reached for the lid, feeling strangely drawn to these two friendly snakes.
“NO!” Came Deidre’s feral cry. Chasity whipped around. The imposter was in her human form again, clad in a pink silk robe similar to the dress Chasity had threw on. The imposter certainly had an eye for aesthetics. Everything in her word was so exquisitely luxurious it all felt surreal.
Deidre slinked towards Chasity, snarling even in her human form. She was eyeing the tank behind Chasity. Chasity shrunk into the corner but stretched her hand out towards the lid.
“NO!” Came Deidre’s inhuman sounding snarl as she leapt at Chasity.
Chasity fell backwards and pulled on the large doily under the tank, sliding it and the tank to the edge of the counter. The lid swung open and all three snakes fell out. The one who had seemed disinterested before sprang at the doppelgänger of Deidre!
Chasity gasped at the strange but magnificent site unfolding before her eyes.