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

by Olivia Stephens

  “Tell me what happens, explain it to me. I need to understand.” Sofie reaches out, letting her fingers trail over his stubbly cheek.

  Ashton remains silent, but he’s not being evasive, not this time. He looks like he doesn’t even know how to begin. “It’s about strong emotion,” he starts eventually. “I learned to control the wolf when I was young, younger than most. My dad was strict about that kind of thing. The pack master’s son had to be stronger, better, more in control than anyone else. The only time it happened when I was old enough to know better was when my mother died.” His eyes are full of pain, and Sofie leans in to kiss him softly. “It was my fault,” he says so quietly she almost misses the words.

  “What? No! I don’t believe that.” Sofie registers the look of pain that moves across Ashton’s face at the mention of his mother. It isn’t hard for Sofie to conclude that it’s not a happy story. “Tell me.” She feels like this is another piece to the Ashton puzzle, one of the keys that she needs to understand him.

  “It’s easier if I show you.” Sofie nods quickly. He reaches out to bring her forehead close to his and closes his eyes. It’s faster this time, and she lets him lead her through his memories, finding what he wants to share with her.

  Sofie is lost in Ashton’s memories. As she’s falling, she feels like she’s going deeper into his mind, as if this is something that he keeps in the recesses of his brain, something that he tries to keep hidden, as much as he can.

  When her eyes open, she’s sitting in the back of a car, an old Buick. In the front is Ashton, she guesses at about twelve or thirteen years old, and it’s clear already that he’s going to grow into a heartbreakingly handsome man. He’s talking to his mother, asking how much longer until they get home. They’re parked outside a gas station, looking like it’s in the middle of nowhere. Sofie can see the road stretching out for what looks like miles in either direction. Suddenly, she’s inside the gas station with them, watching as they pick up some supplies for the road.

  “Does it feel different when you’re wearing it?” Ashton is looking at the necklace resting over his mother’s neck. “Is it heavy?”

  His mother smiles at him. “You want to try it, Ash? See how it feels?”

  Ashton smiles shyly at her, signaling that’s exactly what he was driving at. His father would never allow him to even touch the necklace. He didn’t understand what the big deal was. It wasn’t like he was going to break it.

  She doesn’t know why but Sofie gets a bad feeling as soon as his mother lifts the necklace over her head and puts it over her son’s. Even the sky outside looks darker than it had only a few moments ago, like it knows that something very wrong is about to happen. She takes a step towards the two of them, wanting to warn them of what’s coming; but, they can’t hear her. They can’t hear her telling them to look out as a man walks in, a ski mask over his face, holding a rifle.

  “Down on the ground! Down on the ground!” His voice is harsh as he shouts at Ashton and his mother, pointing the gun at them before turning it on the store clerk. “Empty the register. Now!”

  The store clerk doesn’t waste any time, but it takes him a little while to open the register, his hands are shaking so much. He’s old and looks frightened, so frightened. Ashton’s mother communicates with her son through her mind. Their mother-son connection means that she doesn’t have to transform into a wolf to make her thoughts audible to him. Stay back, Ash.

  What are you going to do? Ash tries to catch hold of her hand, but she slips through his fingers, standing up slowly so as not to attract the gunman’s attention.

  She plants her feet on the ground, prepared to transform if she has to. But she’s strong, even in her human form. She knows that she can take him, especially as he hasn’t even realized that she’s behind him.

  She pads up silently behind the man, her hands either side of his head. Ashton recognizes the move, it’s one that his father had taught him. It will only requires the smallest movement for her to break his neck.

  “Put the gun down and get out of here. This is your one and only warning.” His mother’s voice is cool and calm, looking like she isn’t the least bit scared. The gunman almost jumps out of his skin. Although he tries to turn around, she has him in a strong hold. “If you move another inch your head and your body will no longer be attached. So, I suggest that you put the gun down and leave.”

  The man doesn’t need to be told twice. He crouches down, laying the gun at his feet, arms up. Sofie can see from the wet patches under his armpits that he’s sweating profusely. He definitely got more than he bargained for when he decided to hold up this gas station.

  Ashton looks at his mother, his eyes filled with pride. It’s not hard to figure out why he’s so impressed with her. She’s seriously badass. But that’s when everything shifts.

  The bell over the door dings, and a second man walks into the gas station. He must have been the getaway driver, wondering what was taking his partner in crime so long. He hasn’t even bothered to cover his face. He has a dragon tattoo that rises up his neck, the tongue flicking into his mouth. However, that’s not what draws Sofie’s attention. It’s the sawn-off shotgun in hands.

  “Wyatt, what the hell are you doing?” He takes in the scene, his partner being overpowered by a skinny little woman.

  “He’s being smart.” Ashton’s mother responds on his behalf. She must see something in the second man’s eyes, something that makes her realize that he’s not going to give up as easily as his friend.

  Sofie watches as her eyes start to glow a golden color, something she’s seen Ashton’s do just before he turns. However, the gunman has other ideas. He looks at her the way a spider looks at a fly, as if she were nothing. Sofie recognizes it; it’s the way that Luke looks at her. Before Ashton’s mother can transform, the man points the gun at her chest and, without hesitating, he pulls the trigger.

  It seems as if his mother drops to the floor in slow motion, her eyes still open as the life ebbs out of her. The whole in her chest is a crater. Sofie reaches out for Ashton, who is already running towards her, his pants becoming stained by her blood as he kneels beside her. Sofie feels the tears falling over her cheeks as she sees the pain that he’s in.

  The gunman is unmoved, he motions towards the clerk. “Did I tell you to stop?”

  The clerk works his mouth, but no sound comes out. He can’t take his eyes off Ashton’s mother’s prone body on the floor.

  That’s when Sofie hears a sound filled with more pain than anything she has ever heard before. Ashton lifts his head up to the sky, screaming, crying for his mother, laying the necklace next to her, like an offering. He turns to the two men who are looking at him as if he were something they’d never seen before.

  The second man raises his gun again, threatening Ashton. And that’s when he loses control. Sofie can see the moment that it happens. His eyes glow bright gold, and his screams of pain turn into a howl as he shifts. The transformation is so fast the men don’t even have time to react. It’s less of a shift than Ashton opening himself for the wolf to take him.

  The store is filled with screams of shock and horror and pleas for mercy as Ashton launches himself at the men. Sofie watches as the golden wolf, smaller than the one she is familiar with, attacks, biting and ripping flesh. He tears the men apart, sending dismembered limbs flying and filling the floor with blood and broken bodies.

  Ashton, still in wolf form, lies by his mother’s body. His snout is covered in the blood of their enemies, and he howls. He howls as if the end of the world had come, because that’s exactly how it felt. He knows that nothing would never be the same again without her, and he knows that it is his fault.

  The gas station clerk has disappeared, and Ashton’s ears prick up as the sounds of sirens fill the air. His body seems to relax, the wolf letting go of him. Then, he becomes human again. He’s covered in the men’s blood, but he barely even seems to notice. He takes his mother’s hand in his, holding onto her althou
gh the warmth is already leaving her body. He picks up the necklace, closing the rock in his fist so hard that it bites into his skin, drawing blood, his blood, which mingles with the life essence of his mother, and he bows his head and cries.

  Sofie wants to comfort the little boy, to hold onto him and to tell him that there was nothing he could have done. But she’s being pulled out of the memory and, this time, she doesn’t have the energy to resist the movement.

  When Ashton drops his hands from her head, Sofie gasps like she’s been holding her breath underwater. This was more than just a sharing of memories; it was a merging of minds. Sofie was feeling everything that Ashton had felt that day: the overwhelming sadness and the pain.

  She feels a pricking in her hand and looks down to her fist, clenched tight. When she opens it, she sees an imprint on it and drops of blood. The imprint is the same shape as the necklace. It’s as if she were Ashton, as if it had happened to her. His pain was imprinted on her. Ashton looks at her hand in wonder and opens his own hand. She sees three scarred dots, something she hadn’t even noticed before.

  “I thought werewolves healed?” She traces the triangle between the scars.

  “There are some things that even we never heal from.” He meets her eyes, and Sofie knows that he’s not talking about the necklace. She knows that he feels broken inside. It’s a part of him that he’s worked hard to push away, to pretend doesn’t exist. “If I hadn’t asked her for the necklace, she would still be alive. It was supposed to protect her, that’s why she never took it off, why should never have taken it off.” He shakes his head, closing his eyes against the pain.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Ash. You were just a kid. There was no way that you could have known.” Sofie moves as close to him as she can, holding him like she know he needs her to. “You didn’t kill her, Ashton. They did, not you.”

  Ashton doesn’t accept what she’s saying. He can’t accept it. It’s been too many years of him replaying that day over and over again in his mind. A simple few words from Sofie can’t take away the guilt that he feels, no matter how much he wants them to. “I made the mistake once of not looking after the person that I care about most in the world. I’m not going to do make the same mistake twice. I can’t.” He brushes his fingers against her cheeks, so tenderly. “That’s what I was thinking about when I came to your room tonight, that I couldn’t let anything happen to you. I couldn’t lose you.”

  Sofie takes his hand and puts it against her chest so he can feel the warmth of her body, the beat of her heart. “You’re not going to lose me. I’m here; I’m not going anywhere.” She watches as Ashton fights his way back to the moment, back to her. “What happened afterwards?”

  Ashton nods, understanding why she’s asking. The pack is supposed to be a secret, and his anger had threatened to expose them all. He’d morphed in front of three people, and now two of them were dead. “The clerk must have called the ambulance. When it arrived, I was still kind of a mess. I guess all they saw was a kid crying over the body of his dead mother. I remember sitting in the middle of the store, and there was a whole muddle of limbs and blood from the shooters around me.” He shakes his head like it’s an image he’ll never be able to get out of his head.

  “What did they do?” Sofie peers at him, her hand still holding his over her heart.

  “Not much. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was in a dangerous position. I just kept on asking for my dad. They probably figured I was too distraught to say anything else. The truth was that I knew my dad would be able to fix all of this. It came with the territory of being Pack Master. He’d told me once that I would have to be prepared to do whatever was necessary to keep the secret of the pack.” Ashton’s eyes get that far away look in them, but his voice is bitter. It’s clear from the few memories that Sofie has seen that Ashton and his father weren’t exactly close.

  “What about the clerk? Hadn’t he seen it all?” Sofie tries to keep the panic from her voice, really hoping that he’s not about to tell her that they had to get rid of the old man to make sure he didn’t talk.

  “My father had known what had happened to my mom as soon as she’d died. He’d felt her go, and he came for us. He held it together; I didn’t even see him cry. I don’t know if he ever did.” Ashton looks like he can’t believe how heartless his father had been, but Sofie knows better. If Ashton’s father was anything like his son, he was just trying to put a brave face on in public, to make a show of strength. He would mourn in private.

  Ashton continues telling his story. “I don’t know what he said to the cops, but whatever it was it worked. I guess it wasn’t really a stretch. Who was going to believe that a kid had changed into a wolf and killed those two men? Everyone figured that whatever the men had been running from had finally caught up with them. No one was going to cry over two murderous bastards.” Ashton spits out the words. “The clerk was a kind man. He didn’t have any family; he was all alone. People avoided him—thought he was a little weird. He didn’t have anyone to tell about me. But he still took me aside before my father took me away from that place for good. He told me that my secret was safe with him. And I knew that I could trust him.” Ashton shrugs, as if it were that simple.

  “I’m so sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry that’s how you lost your mother. I know how much you loved her, how much she loved you.” Sofie’s voice is quiet, and she’s not just thinking about Ashton’s mother, she’s thinking about her own who couldn’t even hold a candle to the lioness that was Ashton’s mom.

  “So, now you know my sad story. You know what can happen if I lose control, if the wolf is stronger than me. It’s important that you realize how bad things can get, so that you can decide.” His blue eyes are clear, but Sofie can see the vulnerability in them.

  “So I can decide what?” She frowns, not understanding where this is going.

  “Decide if you can live with that. I’ve lost control once around you; I can’t promise that it won’t happen again. It’s so hard to keep a lid on my emotions when I’m with you and that makes me dangerous. I can’t force you to stay, to stay with me.” Ashton hangs his head a little, as he waits for her decision.

  An image of Sofie’s dream flashes across her head, of him chasing her through the woods, of her being afraid of him, but she pushes the thought away. “I’m not going anywhere,” she assures him. “And if you lose control again, then we’ll deal with it, together.” She seals her promise with a kiss, hoping that the next time—if there is a next time—the wolf overtakes him, then she’ll know what to do and will be able to help save him from himself.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The sound of knocking, more like hammering really, filters through Sofie’s dreams, waking her. She bolts upright, as she hears the tone of the person at the door. She’s alone in the bed; Ashton must have moved her when she fell asleep.

  “Gus is gone!” Lindsey barrels into the kitchen, the panic in her voice enough to make Sofie leap out of bed.

  She finds Lindsey, breathing heavily, worry written all over her face and Ashton looking at her in confusion. “What do you mean gone? Take a breath, Lindsey, what’s going on?” he says.

  Lindsey gathers herself together, closing her eyes to get some clarity on what she’s there to say. Sofie looks out of the window. It’s dawn, but the sky is red instead of the yellow and pink of sunrise.

  “Gus is trying to get some of the others to go into the woods, to follow the poachers!” Lindsey bursts out. “He said that the only way to keep them at bay is to track their movements. He wants to make sure they don’t go anywhere near the sacred ground.”

  Ashton’s expression darkens. “He’s disobeyed a direct pack order for the second time.” He’s angry at his second-in-command, but anger won’t help them now. He knows that he needs a plan. “Who has followed him?”

  “I don’t know for sure, not many. All I know is that he’s managed to get Lola on his side. You know she’s always been sweet on him. It wasn
’t much of a stretch to get her to do what he asked.” Lindsey looks at Ashton meaningfully and then peers round to see Sofie. “Sorry for barging in but…” She shrugs. There’s nothing more important than pack business; they all know that.

  “Lola’s our best tracker. If she’s looking for the poachers, she’ll find them.” Ashton’s voice is grim.

  “If they see the wolves, they’ll kill them. They’ve been told to shoot on sight,” says Sofie. The thought of it turns Sofie’s blood cold.

  “Why would he disobey me?” Ashton’s disappointment in his friend is palpable for them all. Lindsey looks down at her feet, an instant admission that she knows more than she’s saying. It’s not lost on Ashton. “Tell me, Linds.”

  She only waits a few seconds, figuring he has to hear it. “He thinks you’ve been…compromised. That you’re not as concerned with the pack as you should be, that you have other…priorities.” Lindsey doesn’t have to look at Sofie for them to know she’s what they’re talking about.

  “It’s not Gus’s business what my priorities are. I live and breathe this pack!” Ashton is shaking with rage at his dedication to his pack being called into question. “We need to get over there. Now.” Ashton disappears out of the kitchen to put some clothes on.

  Lindsey takes Sofie’s hand and says, “I’m glad things between the two of you have worked themselves out.” Then, she smiles reassuringly.

  Sofie’s grateful for the support, but they both know that not everything is worked out. “Gus is accusing Ash of being compromised because of me—because I’m not were. Because he doesn’t trust me.”

  Lindsey shakes her head. “Gus is a fanatic. He’s always been more about Lycan rights than anyone else in the pack. Most of us accept that we’re both human and wolf, that we’re not just one thing. You’re just a good excuse for him to go rogue on Ashton.”