Thunder (Alpha Love - a Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance Book 3)

by Olivia Stephens

  His eyes flash gold; all trace of blue is gone. He pulls the dazed Collector up from the ground, ramming him against the wall. The Collector barely has time to put his hands up before Ashton starts punching him. He doesn’t stand a chance. Ashton’s fist is like a jackhammer, pulling pack and punching the man in the head again and again, over and over again.

  The Collector has stopped even trying to defend himself. The only movement that he makes is a twitching of his fingers as Ashton’s fist connects with his face, hitting him without pausing for breath. There’s a sickening sound of bone crunching and the noise wakes Sofie out of the daze that she has been in, watching Ashton decimate this man as if hypnotized.

  “Ashton, stop it! Stop! You’re killing him!” She shouts but her voice is hoarse. The squishing sound of Ashton’s fist connecting to the Collector’s head makes Sofie’s stomach roll. She feels the urgent need to be sick.

  Ashton ignores her, not even reacting to the sound of her voice, as if he can’t hear her. She charges up behind him. Holding onto his arm so he can’t move in for another blow. “Ashton, stop! It’s enough!” She puts the little energy she has left into pulling his arm as hard as she can.

  It has the desired effect. He stops pummeling the Collector’s bloody head, but he rounds on her, fist raised, angry that she’s stopped him, angry that she’s interrupted what he needs to do. As he looks at her, breathing heavily, his face is twisted into a snarl, looking more animal than man. His eyes glow bright gold, and Sofie gets that feeling again, that feeling that he could really hurt her.

  Seeing him like this, so out of control, brings to mind the dreams that she’s been having, the ones that have been coming night after night. She remembers him chasing her through the woods in wolf form, the way that the atmosphere changes from play to life-or-death. She feels like they’re on a knife edge, as if he might turn at any moment, as if he’s just a step away from being more wolf than man. She looks at Ashton, willing him to go back to being himself, willing him to keep the wolf at bay.

  “Ash, it’s me. It’s alright. I’m alright.” She steps towards him, despite all the warnings in her head for her to stay away from him. She knows that if he transforms right now then all bets are off. She reaches out and touches his cheek, tracing the line of stubble on his jawline, like she always does, staring into his eyes. “Come back to me, Ashton. Come back.”

  Sofie doesn’t know how long they stand like that. It could be seconds, minutes, hours. But slowly, gradually, Ashton’s golden eyes start to dim. The fists that his hands have made start to open, and his shoulders start to sag. As she looks at him, his eyes slowly return to their cornflower blue. He’s come back to her.

  Ashton looks around, as if he’s not completely sure where he is or how he came to be here. Once Sofie is satisfied that he’s himself again, or at least close enough, she walks towards the slumped form of the Collector on the floor, propped up against the wall. His switchblade is still within reach, and she kicks it over to one side. If bad horror movies have taught her one thing, it’s that you should never assume the bad guy has been neutralized. That’s precisely the moment when he usually comes to for his last attack.

  But this isn’t a movie. It’s real life, and the body in front of her doesn’t look like it’s in any danger of moving. She kneels down reaching her hand out to his neck, checking his pulse. She tries to focus on what she’s doing rather than on the metallic smell of blood that’s coming off of him or the fact that his face is unrecognizable and just a mess of flesh and bone.

  The beat that she’s hoping to find isn’t there. She tries again, sure that she must be wrong. She lifts the cuffs up off his suit jacket and tries to feel a pulse there. But there’s nothing, nothing at all. He’s dead.

  Sofie covers her mouth with her hands, tears springing to her eyes. She can’t believe what has just happened. She’s just witnessed a man being beaten to death. He was someone that was trying to hurt her, a bad man. But that didn’t make it okay. Her hands shake as she drops the Collector’s wrist. It lands on the floor and doesn’t move, completely lifeless.

  She looks between the Collector’s hand, lying inanimate on the floor and Ashton’s knuckles which are dripping with blood. He stands where she left him, staring at the dead man on the floor. He seems to be in some kind of a daze, as if he can’t believe what he’s just done, as if it were someone else that that killed that man and he was powerless to stop it. Ashton had lost control in a big way, in a way that he hasn’t in a very long time.

  When Sofie sees the state that Ashton is still in, she knows that she has to start making a plan. She forces herself to think clearly. She gets up and goes to the door that Ashton had banged open. She takes a deep breath and pokes her head out of the room, looking down the corridor. After all the noise, the screaming, the pounding she’s expecting someone to come running. But there’s no one. The corridor is dark, and there’s no sign of movement. The whole place has slept through everything that just went down in her motel room. She closes the door softly, taking a deep breath to try to collect herself before she turns around to face Ashton.

  “We have to call the cops.” Sofie’s voice doesn’t sound like her own, she doesn’t recognize it. It sounds too calm, too measured to belong to her, especially considering the way she feels like she’s about to collapse.

  Her words manage to find their way through to Ashton. The haze that has settled over his vision slowly fades away, like he’s forced the shock out of his system. He doesn’t have the luxury of coming apart at the seams.

  He shakes his head. “We can’t. No cops.” He doesn’t look at her as he says the words. Instead, he takes a look around the room, looking like he’s cataloguing everything, making a mental note of what it is that has to happen. Without saying anything else, he goes into the bathroom and she hears the sound of water running. She doesn’t follow him, too tired to move. She turns around so she’s not facing the body in the corner of the room. Her legs give way underneath her, and she sinks down onto the bed, her head in her hands as the tears from the fear and the shock and the horror of it all come pouring out of her. She feels a hand on her shoulder, and she flinches away from it. She knows that it’s Ashton, but she can’t bear to be touched right now, not by anyone, even him.

  “It’s okay. It’ll be alright, Sofe.” His voice is low, calm and completely certain. He’s gathered himself together. He moves his hand away from her and turns around, shielding her from the hurt in his eyes at the way she shrank from his touch.

  “Alright?” She looks up at him, as if he’s gone mad. “How is it going to be alright? You’ve just killed a man! How can you think that anything will be okay?” She wipes the tears away from her face, reaching for her cell. “I’m calling the cops.”

  Ashton’s big hand closes over her smaller one. His knuckles still have traces of blood on them, despite having washed them. It makes her think of one of Shakespeare’s plays that she’d studied in high school. Lady Macbeth kept washing her hands because she could still see the blood of her King on them, the King that she had killed.

  Ashton takes the cell out of her hand. She doesn’t even try to hang onto it. “We can’t call the cops.” His voice is reasonable, responsible. “If we call them then you’ll have to explain your relationship with our recently deceased friend and that will open up a whole can of worms for you. Besides, I don’t think an orange jumpsuit is quite my style.”

  “You’re making jokes? You’re making jokes at a time like this?” She shakes her head, she can’t believe how he seems to be taking killing a man in his stride.

  As if he knows exactly what she’s thinking, he crouches down in front of her, lifting her chin up so that she has to look at him. “That man was here to hurt you.” He looks at her for confirmation and she nods. “He was hurting you, threatening you. He was about to cut your face for Chrissakes. Look at your arms. Look at them!”

  Sofie dutifully obeys, taking in the red welts on her shoulders and her w
rists. The bruises there are already forming. She remembers how the Collector squeezed her and shook her so hard, banging her head against the wall. She tentatively reaches up and touches the back of her head. There’s a sticky mess and when she pulls her hand away she sees that her fingertips are dark red with her own blood.

  Ashton takes in her injuries with concern, looking like he wants to go back and start pummeling the man again. “He wasn’t a good man. How many people do you think he’s done this to? How many people do you think he’s hurt, killed even? Do you think he would even have hesitated to do the same to you?” Ashton knows that he’s being harsh, pushing her when she’s already in a fragile state, but he can’t stand the way she’s looking at him, her eyes filled with disappointment. As he’s justifying his actions to her, he’s doing the same to himself.

  Sofie tries to process everything that he’s saying to her, but it’s hard to get to grips with it all. She knows that Ashton wants her to be okay with this, that he wants her to be on board. So she does the only thing that she can think of. She nods. Ashton waits a beat, checking that she’s not about to have a breakdown, then he pulls his cellphone out of his pocket, pressing the speed dial button.

  “What are we going to do?” She asks the question because she has to, but she’s under no illusions. She knows that she’s not going to like the answer

  Ashton looks over at her, as he puts the phone to his ear. “What we always do. We’re going to take out the rubbish”. Then, he turns away from her and starts barking orders down the phone.

  Sofie can’t follow what’s being said, his voice is too low. However, from the way he’s speaking, it’s clear to her that he’s talking to Gus. She thinks to herself how Gus is the one that had mauled the child-killer in the woods that night, only a few days ago. Plus, he was the one who hid the body, the body that was later to be found by Shale. Gus is the fixer, the one that does what needs to be done, the one that buries the bodies.

  She starts shaking uncontrollably as she thinks about what they’re doing. Not only have they killed a man, but now they’re going to cover it up. They’re going to get rid of the body. It’ll be like it never happened, like he never existed. No one will know what happened to him. But, they’ll know—her and Ashton. They’ll know what they did here today. It’s their secret, and she can’t help but see the irony in it. She’d been desperate for him to share something with her, to show that he trusted her. She hadn’t planned that their first secret would be something quite so awful.

  Ashton hangs up the cell and looks at it as it sits in his hands, perhaps wondering if he’s doing the right thing. This wasn’t the first time he’d killed a man. He and the pack were charged with performing the justice that the law and the courts couldn’t. Once they had proof that a violent criminal was walking free, they did what had to be done. It was that simple. That’s the way it had always been. And he’d never had to think twice about it. He’d always known that it was the only way things could be.

  Lupo, The First, he had been charged by the white wolf to protect nature from man and man from himself. That’s what the werewolves had been doing since the beginning. It was their birthright; it was their reason for being. This guy was a scumbag, and he was there to hurt her in any way he could. They had to get rid of him.

  Ashton had a fairly good idea of who he was. Sofie had talked about the less than legal guys that her father had owed money to when he died. He wonders, But why hadn’t she told me how much trouble she was in? I could have helped her, could have protected her.

  As soon as Lindsey had told him that Sofie was in danger, he had known what he was going to do, what he was prepared to do. He hadn’t expected the wolf to take over so completely. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, but it was the first in a long time, in a lifetime almost.

  The sound of teeth chattering brings him out of his reveries and back into the motel room. He races over to the bed where Sofie has started to shake like she’s been dropped in a vat of ice. Her skin is cold to the touch, and there are beads of sweat forming on her forehead.

  “Sofie, you’re alright. You’re just in shock. Breathe with me, baby. Breathe.” He coos to her gently like you would to a frightened bird, stroking her hair back from her face, gathering her up to him, trying to warm her.

  Sofie looks up at him, trying to control her panicked breathing, trying to stop the quaking that seems to have taken over her whole body. She locks eyes with him and sees the concern and the warmth in his eyes, and it’s enough to keep the shakes at bay, at least for a little while.

  “We have to go now, running girl. Gus and the others will be here soon to clean things up. But we need to go and get you somewhere safe.” He lifts her up off the bed, her arm around his neck. Then, she turns into him, her head against his chest.

  “Why did you come here? How did you know?” Her voice is drowsy, the shock giving way to exhaustion.

  “I would have been here earlier if I’d known what was going on. Why didn’t you tell me?” There’s no anger in his voice, just pain, a wish that she had let him help her sooner.

  Sofie doesn’t reply, she can’t. She’s curled into him, letting his strong arms hold her, protect her, and keep her safe. Soon, she’s fallen asleep. Ashton looks down at her beautiful face. Sleep has chased away the fear and pain that had been written on her features, and she looks like she’s at peace. He holds her tighter to him, ducking his head to nuzzle her cheek, catching her scent.

  “I came here because wherever you are, that’s where I’ll be, running girl. I couldn’t stay away even if I wanted to.” He whispers in her ear, wishing that he had the courage to say the words to her that he so desperately wants to. It’s not lost on him that he can fight, lead a pack, live a life that he hopes his forefathers would be proud of, but he can’t tell a woman that she is his world.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sofie wakes up with the mother of all headaches. It’s so piercing that for a few moments it’s impossible to think of anything else. Then, it all comes rushing back to her. She bolts upright and looks around, recognizing Ashton’s bedroom instantly.

  Her brain tries to think how she got here but the last thing she can remember is Ashton telling her that they had to leave. Images of the Collector, his face close to hers, his knife on her cheek bombard her. And then there’s the memory of checking his pulse, the mass of blood and bone that was once a person crumpled on her motel room floor.

  Now, she really does need to be sick. She stumbles out of the bed and runs as fast as she can into the bathroom, kneeling down and spewing her guts. She stays there, emptying her stomach until there’s nothing left. She dry heaves like she hasn’t expelled everything she needs to. But, of course, she hasn’t. It’s not food that she’s trying to get rid of; it’s the memory of what happened. However, that won’t disappear down the toilet bowl with everything else.

  She gets up from the floor and takes a look at herself in the mirror. Her eyes are bloodshot, her face tear-stained. Her hair is matted, and she can feel the dried blood on the back of her head as she gingerly touches it. She washes her mouth out and freezes at the sound of footsteps outside.

  “I picked up some sweats from your room. They’re just on the side in there.” Ashton’s voice is earnest, like he’s trying to tell her more than the banal.

  She doesn’t answer, unable to separate the man on the other side of the door from the one who she witnessed beating a man to death with his bare hands. She looks over at the rail, and there are her clothes, neatly folded. She catches sight of herself in the mirror again. She looks out of place, like she doesn’t belong there. She feels dirty, like she needs to wash everything that has happened off of her.

  Her brain moves into automatic pilot as she turns the shower on as hot as she can stand it. She steps out of her dress and her underwear, stuffing them into the trash can. She knows that she has no intention of ever wearing them again. She’s about to take the necklace that Ashton had given her off, but som
ething stops her.

  Under the water, she imagines everything is coming off of her; the argument with Ashton that morning, nearly losing Darwin, her dinner with Luke, her conversation with Lindsey, the appearance of the Collector, and his death. It’s hard to believe that all of these things had happened in just one day. In less than 24 hours, her world had imploded.

  The water is pink around her feet as she washes the blood out of her hair. She feels the sting of the shampoo against the cut on her head, but it’s not deep, she doesn’t even think it’ll need stitches. She rinses Luke’s touch off of her—and that of the Collector. She wants to believe that when she walks out of the shower she’ll be done, as if it can clean away all of the shit. However, she knows that it can’t. There are some things that stick.

  Sofie wraps herself in one of Ashton’s over-sized towels and hugs it to her. She can smell him on it, and it creates a physical ache in her chest. No matter how hard it is for her to admit, she knows that what he did, he did for her, to protect her. She thinks back to how different he had seemed in the motel room. She had been afraid of him then, but she’d still trusted him, trusted that he wouldn’t hurt her, that he was a good man. She still trusted that now.

  She pulls her sweats on, and the person that looks back in the mirror looks more like her. She pads softly into the family room, following the sound of Ashton’s low voice as he’s on his cell. “Yes, she’s fine. She’s up and around already, Linds. Not tonight, she’s had a rough day. Come over tomorrow.” Ashton catches Sofie’s eye and smiles when he sees her. It’s a smile that’s full of warmth and feeling and relief.

  Sofie doesn’t smile back. She’s not quite there yet. “That’s how you knew what was happening? Lindsey saw something?” She takes a seat on the couch, not feeling strong enough to stand and having no intention of playing the damsel in distress again.