“It’s nothing. I’ll be there in 5...I’ll be there I said.” Ashton almost snarls the last words. He hangs up abruptly, his back still to her. He probably hasn’t even realized that she’s woken up.
Sofie tries to lie still and keep her breathing as regular as she can. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t just tell him that she’s awake and see what his reaction is. Perhaps everything that happened with her dad has made her even more suspicious than she thought she was. Perhaps she’s too scared that whatever is between them can’t be real, and she’s looking for reasons to puncture the dream. Whatever the rationale is, she keeps quiet and as still as she can.
She hears Ashton pull his jeans on and senses him hesitating before he walks away from the nest they’ve made on the floor. The door closes quietly behind him, and Sofie scrambles up, only a few paces behind him. But when she gets to the door, Ashton is already at the edge of the clearing, running at speed before disappearing into the trees altogether. Damn, he’s fast, she thinks.
She heads out onto the decking at the back of the house and looks out. The moon is high and although it’s not quite full yet, it’s close. In the silver light, she can see that the house is placed in the middle of a clearing, and it seems to be surrounded by woods on all sides. The house is beautiful and peaceful, but there’s something about being out in the middle of nowhere, especially when no one has any idea where she is that makes her uneasy. A noise makes her ears prick up, it sounds like a wolf’s howl. She hurries back inside, closing the door firmly behind her, as she wonders what she’s got herself into.
Regardless of what they’d shared that night, Sofie knew that there’s something he’s holding back, something that he isn’t telling her. She’d had enough of secrets and lies as a kid. What do I really know about him? she asks herself. Apart from the few facts that she has at her disposal, where he works and what she witnessed in the woods, there’s not a huge amount else. She wasn’t lying when she said that she wants to know everything about him. But am I willing to do the same and tell him everything about me? She had made a point of not sharing her sad little story with many people. She felt like it made her seem weaker, like she needed looking after, and that’s not the kind of girl she wanted to be.
Sofie wanders back to the couch and sits down heavily, trying to push her past out of her mind. It was something that Finn had always said to her, that she can’t hide from her past. No, she would reply, but she can sure run away from it pretty fast.
She rubs her eyes knowing that there’s no way she’s going to be able to get back to sleep, at least not until Ashton reappears from wherever he ran off to in such a hurry. The opposite wall is lined with books, rows and rows of them. If she’d had to guess, she wouldn’t have thought that Ashton was a big reader, turns out that was something else she was wrong about. Not that he comes across as slow or anything like that, quite the opposite, he seems wise beyond his years. But there’s something about the way he moves, like a coiled spring that she can’t imagine him sitting still for long enough to read a book.
Sofie traces her fingers over the spines. A lot of them look to be pretty valuable, not just the run-of-the-mill airport paperbacks. One in particular catches her attention; it looks older than the others, much older. The title has rubbed off of the spine, so she pulls it off of the shelf, but the front cover is blank too. The binding is old leather, cracked in some places, but still strong.
She opens it with interest. On the inside there’s no publisher listed, no details of the year of publication, nothing, like it had just appeared out of thin air. She knew that was impossible, even as a little girl she had always looked for—and usually discovered—how magicians did their tricks. She was the kid at parties that pointed out how obvious it was that there was no such thing as magic. She shakes her head when she thinks about what a pain-in-the-ass the other kids must have thought she was.
She turns the page and almost drops the book in shock when she comes face to face with an illustration. It’s a hand drawn picture of a wolf, but not just any wolf. It was huge, similar in size to the one that she could have sworn she’d seen in the darkness, ripping that man to shreds. But this book wasn’t a scientific journal, it was a fairy tale, a children’s story. She settles herself on the couch, reading quickly, stumbling over some of the more archaic uses of language; but, she is pulled into the story almost instantly nonetheless.
She reads about a young hunter named Lupo, living in the shadow of a mountain.
One night Lupo had a dream. It was a dream in which all of his village, his family, his friends, everyone died hungry and alone in the cold.
He told people of his dream and tried to persuade the Elders to gather more food during the summer to take them through the winter. But he was just a young man, and his advice was dismissed. But sure enough, when winter came, he and his village were starving. There wasn’t enough food to go around, and people were beginning to get sick. Even now that what he had foreseen had come to pass, the other villagers were too afraid of him to listen to what he had to say. Some said that he had brought this misfortune onto them, that he had dreamed this terrible fate for them all.
It was decided that he was the reason for their suffering and so, they believed, if he was no longer with them then all of their problems would be solved. So, they exiled him. They sent him out into the cold night with nothing but a thin fur and his bow and arrow. His mother had cried when he left, but he had not shed one tear. He knew that the Elders were condemning his people to die. He at least was getting the chance to survive.
Lupo walked through the snow for days. Days turned to weeks. He survived on the small animals, rabbits, and birds that he managed to catch. He was a skilled hunter, the best that his village had ever seen, but he hadn’t been able to find what he was looking for, the herd of bison that would be enough to save his people from certain death.
Lupo was becoming weak. The cold and the lack of shelter were starting to take their toll on him, but he kept on moving, sure that he would be able to withstand whatever Mother Nature threw at him. Eventually, he came to a natural spring, water flowed out of the ground there, the only fresh water that still flowed amongst all the ice. Lupo drank from the spring, and it was the sweetest water he had ever tasted. He fell asleep, and when he awoke in the middle of the night, he was no longer alone. From the light of the moon, he saw a white wolf staring at him. Out of habit, Lupo lifted his bow and arrow, but one look at the animal told him that he wouldn’t kill it.
He opened his hand and the wolf padded over to him without hesitation. The wolf stared into Lupo’s eyes, man met beast and, as if the wolf was telling him what to do, Lupo extended his arm to the animal. Without pause, the wolf sank his teeth into Lupo’s forearm, crunching the bone underneath. Lupo cried out in pain and blacked out in shock. The wolf stayed by his side for hours, until the fingers of dawn spread through the sky and Lupo awoke.
When the young hunter opened his eyes, he remembered the pain in his arm. He looked down, but the skin was unbroken. He held his arm out in front of him, there was no wound, no blood, nothing. It was as if he had never been bitten. Had it all been a dream? Before Lupo had time to come to his senses the white wolf had already turned around and disappeared. Lupo stayed by the spring all day, but the wolf did not return. It was only when night started to fall that the wolf returned, and this time he wasn’t alone. There was a pack with him, their fur ranging from light gray to blackest night.
Lupo sprang to his feet, getting ready to fight, although he knew in his heart that he was never going to be able to fight off all of them. But instead of launching at him as he had expected them to, they surrounded him in a circle and waited. When the full moon reached its height in the sky, the white wolf raised its head to the sky and started to howl. He was joined by each wolf in turn around the circle until the noise was almost deafening.
That’s when the change occurred. As the rays of the moon reached Lupo, he fell to the floor, writhing in pa
in. He felt his body change, as if it were being pulled in many different directions. He screamed and screamed, as his nails grew and his hands and feet became paws. He screamed as the bones in his face crunched, morphing his nose into a snout. He screamed as his joints cracked, throwing him down onto all fours. He screamed until his voice was lost and his scream turned into a howl.
When the transformation was complete, the other wolves bowed down before him. He was the first—half man, half wolf. Lupo could hear their thoughts as clearly as his own. He could feel the emotions of the pack around him. They asked him to run with them, told him it was time to hunt. He ran with them and hunted with them for days, days that turned into weeks, weeks that turned into months. Lupo learned how to shift between man and wolf and back again. He was no longer ruled by the moon.
It was only when the winter had given way to spring and spring to summer and the snow was again on the ground that Lupo had another dream, a dream showing him what was to come. It took him weeks to cover the ground to find the place of his dream, but he was too late. There was no one left. The massacre that he had foreseen had already occurred. The villagers had been attacked by another tribe. They had all perished. Lupo howled at the moon, and his voice was joined by the others of the pack. They mourned for the people that they could not save.
That night, the white wolf came to him again. He told Lupo that he was the one that had sent him the dream. Lupo was the one that they had been searching for. He was the only one that could survive the change. He and his offspring would have a heavy duty to bear. They would live in the world of men, to protect them, but they would also live in the world of the wolf, to protect all that he saw around them.
The white wolf was older than anything else in the land, and he had witnessed how the ways of man had changed. Man no longer lived in harmony with the world around him, but in discord. The white wolf knew that Mother Nature would need a champion, someone to protect her from the greed of man and that man would need protection from himself. Lupo was the first of those champions and he would bring forth many more. He had been given all the powers of the wolf—heightened senses, incomparable strength, speed, and agility to fulfill his fate. He and his children and his children’s children would be the bridge between man and nature. They would return the Earth to the Eden that it had been.
Sofie closes the book and lets her exhaustion overtake her. She dreams of men and wolves and of rivers of oil turning into rivers of blood.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ashton races through the woods. He thinks about shifting, but he knows that Sofie was awake when he left her, and he doesn’t put it past her to follow him again. He didn’t want to take any chances, not when everything had changed so much so quickly. He wanted to tell her, he wanted to tell her everything, but not yet. No one outside of the pack knew, getting her involved could turn their world upside down. But, wasn’t that what she’d done to him?
When he reaches the towering tree, the oldest tree in the woods, he stops, sniffing the air. He knows that his sense of smell is stronger than Gus’s, stronger than all of the others. He can tell just from the air that Gus is about one minute in the other direction. He turns around, scanning the wood to make sure that Sofie hasn’t decided to go all Nancy Drew on him again. He can’t help but smile when he thinks about her. He’s still grinning when Gus arrives and tries to put on a more commanding expression.
“Now I know why you said it wasn’t a good time.” He smiles, sniffing the air around Ashton knowingly. At this distance, it shouldn’t be hard for him to pick up the scent of a woman on him.
“Why the urgency? I thought you and Bear were dealing with it. Expected you guys to be half way to Colorado by now.” Ashton folds his arms, looking askance at his second-in-command.
“We’ve dealt with it. No one is going to find it, and we didn’t need to cross the state line.” Gus looks pleased with himself.
“Alright. But are you sure that there’s no chance of Bobby’s body turning up anywhere? We can’t afford that kind of risk, especially not now with Shale hanging around the canyon.” Ashton finds his mouth twisting around the word of the corporation that seems hell bent on destroying whatever lies between it and its pot of gold.
“It’s done, chief. No one’s going to find Bobby, not ever. He’s gone.” Gus sounds confident, and he’s never let Ashton down. He has no reason to think that he will now.
“Good work, G. Let’s talk in the morning.” Ashton turns to go, but Gus moves quickly, taking hold of his arm to stop him. Ashton’s eyes flash bright. “Do we have a problem?” He looks pointedly at the hand that is holding onto his arm.
“You know that she’s one of them. Or have you forgotten?” Gus has a wild look in his eyes, and Ashton wonders if Bear has been a little too free and easy with his stash of moonshine. Alcohol has a more rapid effect on them because their metabolism is so fast, meaning they get drunk a whole lot quicker, but it also doesn’t take long for them to sober up.
“I haven’t forgotten.” Ashton’s voice is cold, and his blue eyes look like they could freeze fire.
“You have her scent all over you.” Gus sniffs at the air in disgust.
Ashton could easily break free of Gus’s grasp but that isn’t the point. He’s the alpha and the pack should respect him at all times. It looks like whatever Gus has had to drink has turned that part of the pack law a little fuzzy.
“Are you questioning me?” Ashton uses his alpha voice, the one that means he doesn’t even need to open his mouth. His words resonate in Gus’s mind like an echo. “Have you forgotten your place?”
“No, Pack Master.” Gus hurriedly releases his leader and steps away, looking down at the ground and then kneeling. “I worry for the pack. That is all.”
Ashton can feel the anger inside of him start to fizzle away, like the dying embers of a fire. “Gus, get up.” He walks over to his friend and pulls him up. “The pack is my number one concern. I will always protect our people. It is what I have sworn to do. Nothing has changed.” He lays a hand on Gus’s shoulder. As he does, he sees his pupils go back to their normal size, signaling that the alcohol has left his system. That combined with the shock on Gus’s face at what he’s just done tells him that their argument is done.
“Forgive me, Ash. I should never have questioned your leadership.” Gus looks like he’s about to get down on his knees again, but Ashton keeps him standing.
“Gus, you are a good man and a good friend. I know that you meant no disrespect.” He pats his second-in-command lightly on the back. “Change is coming. I can feel it in the wind. I’ve sensed it.” Ashton says the words out loud that he has been keeping to himself for months.
“The dreams?” Gus knows how Ash’s abilities work.
“They started a few weeks ago.” Ash admits, rubbing his hands through his hair. He suddenly feels exhausted, as if all the sleepless nights have caught up with him.
“How bad?” Gus has never been a man of many words, but he knows the right ones to use.
“Bad,” Ash’s reply is bland. “There’s an image that keeps recurring. As soon as Shale rolled into town, I knew that whatever the dream is trying to tell me, it’s about them.”
“What did you see?” Gus leans against a tree, stretching out his tired muscles.
“Rivers of oil. Rivers of oil and blood.” Ashton looks grimly at his friend.
“What about the girl? Does she remember anything?” Gus asks the question he’s been wanting to ask since he arrived.
“She saw Bobby. I had to tell her something. But she doesn’t know about us. She’s smart though. It’s not going to be long before she starts asking more questions.” He rubs his temples, trying not to focus on how he’s going to answer them.
“And when she does, what are you going to tell her?” Gus looks at him with concern, but this time not for the pack, for his friend. “You like her...a lot.” It’s not a question but a statement of fact.
Ashton doesn’t try to deny it.
“She’s...I don’t know. There’s something about her that just...” Ash sighs deeply, frustrated at how he can’t articulate anything about how he’s feeling. “Yeah, I like her...a lot.” He smiles ruefully at Gus.
“Do you trust her?” Gus doesn’t beat around the bush; he goes straight for the jugular.
“I don’t know yet,” Ashton replies truthfully, wishing that he had another response because he knows what comes next. “Which means that I can’t tell her anything. I won’t risk the safety of the pack.” Ashton looks up at the stars and wonders, not for the first time, why he had been born an alpha.
There was an alpha born to every generation. It had been that way since the beginning. From the moment he took his first breath, his fate was sealed. He was trained by his father, the Pack Master, and taught that his foremost concern, above everything else, was the pack and its safety. They were his responsibility. Everything else came second, even his personal wants and desires. That’s what it meant to be an alpha.
Gus looks at him with a compassion that doesn’t quite seem to fit his hard features. They don’t have to share a mental link for him to tell that his friend is in deep. “You care about her, don’t you?”
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