“What were you making notes or something last night?” Lindsey shakes her head, her expression rueful. “Dammit, sometimes I wish I would just learn to keep my big mouth shut.” She smacks the palm of her hand against her head, cursing herself and her second sight while she’s at it.
“Can I take that as a yes that you’ll help me?” Sofie smiles encouragingly at her friend, needing to hear the confirmation from her own lips.
Lindsey thinks for a moment, looking up to the ceiling, as if she hopes to find some answer there and then throws her hands up in surrender. “Why the hell not? It’s not like I have anything else to do tonight.”
Sofie lets out a breath she didn’t even realize that she was holding. “Good. Thank you.” She nods at Lindsey, hoping to transmit her gratitude. “I know I don’t need to say it but -,”
“I know, I know, don’t tell anyone what we’re doing, not even Hector.” She looks at Sofie plaintively, her big eyes round like Bambi.
“Not even Hector, Linds,” Sofie warns, knowing how hard it will be for Sofie to keep a secret from her mate.
“Fine, fine! My lips are sealed! Our boys are going to have some serious trust issues though once this is all over, mark my words!” Her tone is wry but there’s a certain amount of truth in her words and they both know it.
“Let’s hope that’s the only thing we have to worry about when this is all over.” Sofie doesn’t elaborate, but they both know how bad things could get, how much is at stake.
She walks out of the barn, leaving Lindsey alone with her thoughts and as she rounds the corner, the stabbing pain in her head forces her to stop and take a breath. The headache is bad, the worst one yet. She feels like she needs to vomit or cry or scream or all three at once. She leans against the barn door, getting her breath back, trying to focus on something outside of the pounding in her head. The warm breeze sends a shiver down her as it cools the sheen of sweat that has suddenly leaped out onto her forehead. But the pounding continues, until she realizes that it’s not just coming from inside her head, she’s hearing the pounding of feet, running.
Sofie looks up to see two people in the distance approaching the clearing and the weres are rushing out to greet them. The barn door smacks open, virtually flying off of its hinges as Lindsey leaps out. She turns instantly to Sofie, shooting her a look of concern as she sees the pain on her friends face.
“The headaches?” Lindsey’s eyes narrow, not willing to brook any lies.
“I’m fine.” Sofie waves away her concern, struggling to stand up straight and hoping that she doesn’t look even half as bad as she feels. “What’s going on?” She points towards the two figures in the distance and the surge of werewolves rushing towards them.
“Teresa and Rudy are back, I could smell them from inside.” Lindsey makes a face not dissimilar to the way someone looks when they suck on a lemon.
“What? What is it? What can you smell that I can’t?” Sofie fixes her gaze on the door of Ashton’s house, which has just burst open. Ash leans over the porch, head in the air, scenting the wind and Sofie can see from the grim expression on his face it’s nothing good.
“Fire, smoke and blood. They stink of it.” Lindsey grips Sofie's hand, leading her towards Ashton and towards the gathering weres. “I’m guessing they’re not about to bring us a whole heap of good news.”
CHAPTER SIX
Lindsey’s guess was probably well on the way to winning the prize for the understatement of the year. As Sofie stands next to Ashton, she can feel the anger vibrating off of him while the scouts recount what they’ve seen. She slips her hand into his bigger one and gives it a squeeze, hoping that it’ll help to keep him grounded. But he barely even seems to register that she’s there, his focus is totally on Teresa as she sets the scene for them in a low voice.
“Beaumont is full of werewolf talk. We couldn’t walk down the street without overhearing a dozen conversations about what happened yesterday. People are scared and the fear of what they don’t understand is spilling over into something else -,” Teresa’s mellow voice is interrupted by Rudy who has clearly had enough of whatever sugar coating the older were is trying to pull.
“They hate us,” the younger man says simply. “Beaumont stinks of anger and hate, you can taste it.” He frowns with distaste, like he can’t get the flavor of it out of his mouth. The assembled weres remain silent, probably too shocked at what they’re hearing to even react.
Rudy carries on, ignoring the angry look that Teresa has thrown him. “People that I thought I knew are talking about how dangerous we are, how sneaky, how we’ve been lying to them this whole time over who we are, how we can’t be trusted. Everything’s twisted, no one is on our side. They’re all just taking their cue from the news and from the self-righteous speeches that shitheel Calambor is giving, that we’re dangerous and we should be put down!” Rudy kicks at the dust at his feet, anger bubbling up inside of him.
Sofie feels Ashton tense next to her, but his voice is calm as he looks back to Teresa, nodding for the older woman to continue. “Tell it like it is, T. We all need to hear this.” Sofie steals a look at Ash, wondering why he’s so adamant for the pack to hear just how bad things have gotten outside. It’s not any good for morale, which is already depressingly low. If anything, it’ll just make them all angrier, more likely to act out and do something rash.
The same thoughts seem to have crossed Teresa’s mind as she furrows her brow, before continuing, knowing the damage that her words are going to do to the weres around her. “Rudy’s right. People are talking about the ‘Lycan abomination’, how we’re a threat to decent people, how we’re sub-human.” Teresa shakes her head, like she doesn’t even want to give their accusers the satisfaction of her repeating their words. “Some buildings have been spray-painted. Some have been covered in pigs’ blood…” She trails off, looking down at her feet, sighing deeply as Ashton’s eyes bore into her, forcing her not to hold anything back. “Ash’s store...”
As Teresa falters, Rudy picks up the mantel, full of indignation and bitterness. “They’ve raided it, Ash. Your place – they’ve broken all the windows, stolen whatever they could carry. There were still people wandering around inside with baseball bats when we got there. I wanted to show them how good a bat was against us, but T wouldn’t let me.” Rudy shoots an angry look at the older were, clearly not ready to let that go yet.
“And she was right, Ru.” Ashton’s voice is deep and his words come out slowly, like he’s trying to use just the power of his voice to calm the young were down. “It wouldn’t have solved anything and would just have made things a whole lot worse.”
But Rudy doesn’t want to hear it, he’s too full of anger. “They graffitied all over your walls, Ash! ‘Wolf Scum’, ‘Mongrel’, ‘Half Breed’!” Sofie wants to reach out to touch the kid when she sees the angry tears in his eyes.
She waits for Ashton to react, but he holds himself together, he just nods. “Not all that imaginative.” He is eerily calm.
Rudy looks at him in shock. “Those bastards have done that to your store and all you care about is how creative they’re being with their insults?”
“Rudy!” Gus’s warning is a growl, reminding Rudy of who he’s talking to.
Ashton raises his hand, calming down his second in command. “What do you want me to do, Ru? Do you want me to get angry, maybe go and beat some of those ignorant, racist shit-heads up? Then what happens? We’ve proved their point, that we’re violent, that we’re stronger than they are, that we’re a threat. Then what happens?” Ashton’s voice is reasonable but Sofie can hear the edge to it. “It didn’t take a genius to figure out that once they’d identified us from the news report that we’d be up against this kind of stuff. People try to destroy what they don’t understand; it gives them a sense of power. But it’s not real.” His voice calms as he sees how affected the young Lycan is by what he’s seen in Beaumont. “It’s just a store, Ru. It’s just stuff. I couldn’t give a shit what t
hey do to it as long as it keeps them away from the pack.”
“What about my bar?” Lindsey’s voice rings out, breathless. It sits in sharp contrast to Ashton’s calm demeanour. Hector stands behind her, looking like he already knows what the answer is going to be. Both Teresa and Ru remain uncharacteristically silent, looking down at their dusty boots.
“What? You’re both mute now?” Lindsey’s fists are balled and planted firmly on her hips. Her eyes are blazing as she looks between the two scouts.
Sofie isn’t surprised that neither of them want to give Lindsey the bad news that is inevitably coming. If she were them she’d be more scared of Lindsey’s reaction than a whole gang of Lycan-haters. Sofie feels sorry for them; clearly neither relish what they have to tell Lindsey about her beloved bar.
Rudy keeps his eyes trained on the dirt he’s mindlessly kicking at, making it obvious that he’s not going to be the one to speak up. Teresa draws herself up, as if she’s persuaded herself to man up and just get on with it. “They torched it, Linds, right down to the ground.” Lindsey keeps her back straight as Teresa delivers the heart-breaking news in the kindest voice that Sofie has ever heard. “It’s like the whole place has gone mad.” Teresa shakes her head at the shame of it. Of course, the smell on them that Lindsey had scented, that had been what it was, the smoky remnants of the bar that she had inherited from her dad. Now all that was left of it was probably a pile of blackened rubble.
Sofie takes a step towards Lindsey, to comfort her, but Hector is already there, drawing her closer to him and looping a protective arm around her. He towers over her, cradling her minute body in his lanky one. He’s whispering in her ear, words of comfort that Sofie can only guess at and she sees her friend’s body relax slowly, letting out some of the pain.
Once the significance of what Rudy and Teresa are saying has sunk in, the chatter between the weres slowly builds to a low hum.
“How have things gone so far so quickly?”
“It’s only been 24 hours!”
“How bad are things going to be in another day or two?”
The level of panic in their voices rises as their fear starts to take over from their indignation. Ashton lets them worry and complain and curse, but he doesn’t say anything. Once they’re spent, once everyone has had their say and has said what they needed to, one by one they all turn towards the Alpha, their pack leader. They look to him for answers, for guidance, for leadership, just as Ashton had told Sofie they would.
He squeezes Sofie’s hand and then releases it, stepping out in front of the pack. “We knew that things were going to get worse before they got better. It’s just the way it is.” Ashton’s voice booms out over the assembled pack, and Sofie thinks yet again, just how impressive, almost regal, he is and she feels a surge of pride in the man that she loves.
“That is why we decided to stay here, why we didn’t return to our homes last night, and why we won’t be returning tonight. Or anytime soon for that matter.” This last comment causes a few of the pack members to whip their heads up to look at him with curiosity but they remain silent. “We’re safe here, in this clearing, for now. But not for long. From what T and Rudy have told us and from what I know you’ve seen on the news, this isn’t going to blow over anytime soon. Calambor is in it for the long haul and he has said himself that he won’t stop until he’s brought every Lycan to justice. That means that it’s only going to be a matter of time before his goons and the people that follow him come looking for us.” Ashton looks out over the assembled faces of his pack and takes a deep breath, preparing himself for what he’s about to say, for the fate that he’s about to seal.
“But they can’t find us here! That’s how it works, right?” Myra, one of the younger weres asks the question as she looks around somewhat wildly, as if she’s expecting a group of townsfolk brandishing rifles and pitchforks to appear out of the trees.
“We are protected here.” Ashton makes a calming gesture with his hands to cool the temper of the pack. Even without werewolf senses, Sofie can tell that the panic levels are starting to increase. “But not forever. The canyon will keep us safe for as long as it is able, but between the oil drilling damaging the earth and the hate that Calambor is whipping up, there’s only so long that the canyon can hold on for.”
Sofie ducks her head, feeling ashamed that she’s one of the reasons that the drilling started in Spring Canyon in the first place. She’s part of the reason that everything is so out of balance.
“We can’t hide forever!” Rudy’s outburst shakes Sofie out of her wallowing; reminding her that she can’t go back in time, as Finn had reminded her. She can’t undo what has already been done. But she could damn well do something now.
“I have no intention of us hiding forever, Rudy. And if you speak out of turn again, believe me you will live to regret it.” The threat in Ashton’s voice is unambiguous and he has made full use of his strength and his height. He looks like he’s filled out, made himself even bigger to intimidate Rudy, to remind the young were exactly why Ashton is the Alpha. Rudy takes a step back, bowing his head submissively, suitably cowed. “I have no intention of us hiding forever,” Ashton repeats, looking around to make sure that everyone has heard him. “And that’s why I’ve decided that we have to leave.”
Sofie bites her lip as she watches the reactions of the assembled pack. Some of the weres look shocked, their eyes round as saucers, looking for all the world like little kids rather than the dangerous beasts that Luke is trying to make them out to be.
“We thought that wasn’t decided yet!”
“We never thought it would come to this.”
“Leave our homes?”
“Leave our friends?”
“They’re not our friends anymore!”
“Didn’t you hear what they’re saying about us? What they wrote on Ash’s wall?”
This time Ashton doesn’t let the comments die down naturally. He lets out a low growl and his eyes start to glow golden, bringing the attention of the pack onto him and him alone. Must be another Alpha thing, Sofie thinks to herself, wondering how many more tricks he has up his sleeve that she has no idea about.
Ashton stands firm, looking every inch the Pack Master that he is, as if he’s trying to share his confidence with them. “It’s the only chance that we have. If we leave then we can find somewhere else, somewhere new to start again. There’s nothing for us here anymore.” Sofie wonders if she’s the only one that can hear the sadness in his voice as he says the words.
“We could fight! We don’t need to run or hide.” Lola’s voice comes from behind them where she’s sitting on the steps, still too weak to be able to stand for any length of time.
Ashton levels her with a look that would cut glass. “You of all people should know where fighting will get us, Lo. If it weren’t for Sofie you would have died in that quarry.” His harsh tone softens as he sees just how miserable his pack is looking, how confused and defeated. “I know how hard this is for you all. Believe me, this isn’t a decision that I have taken lightly. But we’re wildly outnumbered and we don’t know how many more Anti-Lycan supporters will be pouring into Beaumont over the next few days. Like it or not, we’ve become a focal point and that means that we’ve all got targets painted on our backs.”
Sofie opens her mouth and the words are out before she can stop them. “What about the other packs?” All attention is firmly focused on her now and Ashton does not look at all happy at her outburst. Sofie chooses to ignore him for the moment; she knows that she’ll get his full opinion of her behaviour later. “Why couldn’t we call in some of the other werewolf packs? Tell them we need help, ask them to come.” Sofie ignores Ashton’s stare, keeping her voice even and clear. She looks from person to person and she sees the dawn of something like hope on their faces, a hope that Gus is about to shoot down in flames.
“Much as it would be nice for all the packs of the country to come over and sit around a campfire so we could all sing Kum-Bay
a together, that shit just ain’t gonna happen!” Gus motions to her, pointing out with a wave of dismissal that she has no idea what she’s talking about. “Even if we were on buddy-buddy terms with more than one or two packs, they still wouldn’t want anything to do with us!” Gus throws his head back and laughs, but there’s no humor in the sound. “We’re the ones that have outed them. We’re the ones that have made the weres public knowledge. We’re responsible for making it harder for those like us to hide in plain sight. They’re in more danger than they’ve ever been before, because of us!”
“Because of us or because of you, Gus?” Sofie throws his words right back at him, unafraid of the consequences. “As far as I can tell it was you that sent Lola out to scout yesterday, you’re the one that set this whole thing in motion, aren’t you?” She knows that she’s being unfair but she can’t seem to stop herself. Why is he being so difficult?
“I take my part of the blame, gladly. It was my mistake, but don’t get up on your high horse with me!” Gus advances slowly on her, looking menacing, but Sofie stands her ground. “You’re the reason Calambor and his band of merry fucking men are here in the first place. You’re the reason that the canyon is being bled dry. Don’t forget that when you start pointing the finger at the rest of us.” Gus’s voice is low and full of menace, but it’s not that which forces Sofie to take a gulp of air, to stem the tears that she can feel already filling her eyes. It’s the fact that she knows he’s right. What was that saying? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, something about glass houses? Whatever it was, Gus was right on the money. She had no right to rub his nose in his guilt when hers was all too evident for everyone to see.
Torrent (Alpha Love - a Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance Book 4) Page 6