“Mr. Calambor, can we get a comment on the accusations of sexual harassment and bribery that have come to light?”
“Mr. Calambor what’s your reaction to the environmental disaster that Shale has allegedly caused in the Spring Canyon ecosystem?”
Luke looks around him as if he doesn’t even know where to begin. Sofie finally turns, taking in his confusion and it’s almost enough to make her feel sorry for him. The feeling doesn’t last.
“No comment! No comment! I have no idea what you’re talking about! No comment!” He tries to fight his way out of the press, but they’re like vultures and they’ve smelled blood, they’re not going to make it easy for him to get away without answering any of their questions.
Finn appears at Sofie’s side, giving her a gentle nudge in her ribs, watching Luke’s breakdown with a smile.
“Guessing you got the word out, then?” Sofie nods towards the crowd of reporters around Luke.
“Have I ever let you down?” Finn shrugs as if it were no big deal.
“No, I don’t think you ever have.” She drapes her arm around his shoulder, surveying the effects of his work. “With everything you’ve gotten together on Luke, he shouldn’t be able to bother anyone again for a very long time.”
“Yeah, nice job, Finn.” Ashton’s voice comes from beside her as he pads towards them, silently. “I don’t know what you did or how you did it. All I know is that it worked. You helped to protect the pack. I’ll always owe you for that, whatever you need.” Ashton reaches out to shake his hand and Finn flushes with pride. Despite having an ego the size of Canada, Finn wasn’t immune to genuine praise. Deep down, he was really just the geeky kid, wanting someone to see the good in him.
Ashton snakes his arm around Sofie’s waist, pulling her tightly to him. He doesn’t need to say anything, he communicates his message to her, just with his eyes; how scared he was he would lose her, how proud he is of her, how much he loves her. She relaxes against him, thankful for his strong arms, his solid presence. His eyes go to the necklace that she wears around her neck.
“I guess miracles do happen.” Ashton says the words to himself.
Sofie squints at him, the pieces falling into place. “You, you put the necklace back onto me. You’re the reason I woke up. You saved my life.” Sofie looks in wonder at Ashton, at the man that refused to give up on her, even when it had seemed as if all was lost.
“Is it about to get all R-rated up in here? Because if so then I’m going to bounce.” Finn looks at the two lovebirds like they might be lepers.
Luke catches sight of Sofie in Ashton’s arms and he and Finn joking and smiling together and his face turns an alarming shade of purple.
“You! You! This is all your fault! You filthy slut! I will ruin you! You’ll never work again, I’ll make sure everyone knows what a little two-faced bitch you are.” Luke points his finger at her accusatorily and the cameras swing towards her, looking for the object of his rage.
“I’ll be right back.” Ashton moves off, heading straight through the circle of reporters who automatically take a step back to accommodate him. His presence demands that kind of attention. He stands in front of Luke, blocking Sofie from his view. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you how to speak to a lady?” He shakes his head, chiding Luke like a naughty school-boy. “You don’t talk to her, you don’t look at her, you don’t even talk about her. You don’t deserve to even breathe the same air as her.” Ashton’s face is close to Luke’s the anger vibrating off of him.
“Don’t try to threaten me, Knuckle-dragger!” He shouts the insult so that everyone nearby hears him and then lowers his voice to Ashton. “You can’t hurt me, not with all these people around.” Luke smiles, looking like the cat that got the cream.
“I don’t plan on even touching you, you worthless sack of shit. But if you so much as think about trying to get to Sofie, you will regret it, I promise you that.” Ashton turns on his heel, walking away from Luke, managing to control his rage enough to keep himself in check.
“That’s it, run away, wolf scum! Run back to your little wolf cunt whore!” Luke jeers at Ashton, baiting him.
Sofie holds her breath as Ashton stops, his fists clenching, his eyes burning golden and she shakes her head at him. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. He’s not worth it. It won’t solve anything.
Ashton locks eyes with her and smiles dangerously and that’s when she knows that he’s going to do exactly what he wants. No, it won’t. But it’ll make me feel a whole lot better. He turns around and closes the distance between him and Luke in a couple of bounds. He pulls his arm back and punches Luke squarely in the jaw. There’s a sickening crunch and Luke hits the floor gasping and nursing his face.
“Wow, that really did feel as good as I thought it would, much obliged.” Ashton nods mockingly at Luke, sprawled on the dirt before he walks back towards Sofie and the rest of the pack, smiling wolfishly.
“He broke my jaw! He broke my jaw! You’re all my witnesses, you all saw him!” Luke looks around at the reporters for corroboration, for support.
But the reporters aren’t listening to him anymore, instead they’re surging around Ashton who has been forced to stop dead in his tracks as they encircle him, pointing microphones and cameras into his face.
“What’s your connection to Mr. Calambor?”
“Do you see yourself as the Everyman standing up to the facelessness of corporate America?”
“Would you call yourself a defender of the people?”
The look of shock on Ashton’s face is enough to make Sofie burst out laughing. But it’s not hard to figure out why the press have gravitated towards him, he’s the handsome knight standing up to the villain of the piece. By the time they’re done with Ashton, the tide of public opinion will have completely shifted in favor of the Lycans. The press will emphasize the nobility of these mythical creatures and their bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. Everyone loves an underdog after all.
Sofie leaves Ashton to charm the socks off the reporters without even trying. She rejoins the rest of the pack who still look at her as if she had just been deposited by a spaceship.
Gus appears by her side, his expression carefully bland. “Well, that was one way to spend a Thursday.”
Sofie looks at him in shock, her eyes wide. “Gus, did you just make a joke?”
He shrugs, his expression still neutral. “What can I say? I’m a funny guy.” The combination of the look on his face and his monotonous tone is hilarious.
Sofie laughs out loud, doubling over in hysterics as Gus watches her, an amused light creeping into his eyes. It takes her a few minutes to regain her composure, wiping laughter tears from her cheeks. “Gus, I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship. You got anymore jokes up your sleeve?”
He doesn’t say anything, his focus back on Ashton and the reporters, but she knows that she doesn’t imagine the slight upward tilt of his mouth as he fights to keep his smile purely internal.
“Have you ever heard the one about the pack of hungry werewolves?” Gus nods to one of the members of the other packs. The Lycans that Lindsey had gathered together are mingling with Ashton’s pack, warily at first, but slowly there are laughs and congratulations being exchanged.
“No, how does it go?” Sofie crosses her arms, waiting for the rest.
“It doesn’t.” Gus shakes his head. “There’s nothing funny about hungry werewolves. So I suggest we get all our brothers and sisters back to Ashton’s and get them fed before we have another fight on our hands.”
Sofie nods in agreement, looking out over the assembled Lycans. “Let’s get to it.”
Gus holds out his hand to stop her before she goes. “You did good today, kid.” He doesn’t look at her as he says the words, but the gruff emotion in his voice tells her everything she needs to know.
“Likewise, Gus.” She claps him on the shoulder before heading down towards the packs to lead the way home.
She does
n’t see the way that Gus looks after her as she leaves or the way his blank expression turns warm. “A white wolf,” Gus says to himself, shaking his head in amazement, “who would’ve thought it?”
She is truly exceptional, something that Gus had already suspected even before she had become Lycan, something that Ashton seemed to have known right from the start. Gus knows that she’ll have questions, more questions than he could probably answer about her power. But he wants to be there to help her.
He locks eyes with Ashton who he realizes is watching him with a question in his eyes. Gus nods in acknowledgement and starts to make his way down the path towards the gathering pack. As Ashton’s mate, Sofie will need protection, more so than any other member of the pack. He had planned to ask Ashton for the responsibility before the Pack Master had even asked the question with his eyes. Sofie had proved herself over and over again, he would be honored to serve her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As the sun sets the party at Ashton’s place shows no signs of letting up any time soon. There’s a celebratory mood that night. They all have a lot of steam to blow off after the events of the past weeks. The beer flows and the flames of the bonfire flick up to the sky like dragon tongues. The packs have come together, for the first time in centuries, it’s a seminal moment in time and Sofie wants to take it all in.
She stands with Lindsey and Hector as they talk and laugh, swapping war stories with some of the members of the other packs. She feels part of everything, more so than she had even imagined she could. She finds her gaze drifting over to Ashton again and again. She can’t help it, it’s like there’s a magnet that draws her to him. It’s impossible for him not to be the center of her attention.
The Alphas sit slightly separate from the rest of the weres. They’ve been in discussion for most of the evening, they have a lot to talk about. So much has changed in so little time and they’re racing behind, trying to catch up.
“So what happens next? Now that our existence is common knowledge, it’s going to get harder and harder to hide what we are.” Brady is an older Alpha, from a remote town high up in the mountains. He was used to the old way of life, these changes would be hardest on him.
They all look to Ashton. Despite them all being Pack Masters, they considered him as the natural leader of the group. It wasn’t a position he had sought out, nor one that he wanted, but he wouldn’t shirk off the responsibility they had given him just because he hadn’t asked for it.
He takes a breath before voicing his opinion, he knows that it’s going to cause controversy but that doesn’t stop him. “Perhaps it’s time that we all stop hiding, then. We may not have asked to be dragged out of the closet, but it’s happened and if we rush back in it’ll just make people more wary of us. We want to show them that there’s nothing to be afraid of, that we’ve been protecting them all these years.”
Falcon shakes his head. “But what about the people that feel the same way as the Humans First? I don’t plan on leading my pack out into the world just for them to be hunted down like animals.”
Ashton stands up, ready to call an end to the meeting. The issue is too large for them to solve in one sit-down, especially when there are so many personalities to deal with. “There will always be people that thrive on hate and that are afraid of what’s different. But we’ve never run away from a fight and I don’t plan on starting now. We’ll deal with shitheels like Humans First together. If any of you run into problems, you know where to find me. You came today to protect your brothers and sisters, without you I don’t know how many of my pack would still be standing. Whenever you have need of someone to stand with you, we’ll be there.” The other Alphas dip their heads in thanks, knowing how much his offer means. “Now, I think it’s time we joined the celebrations, don’t you?” He clinks his beer bottle with the men before striding off, being pulled towards what he could sense was on the other side of the bonfire without even seeing it.
Sofie hugs Finn tightly to her, still high from the events of the day and the beer that she’s been drinking like water. She ignores his discomfort at her show of emotion. “Don’t pretend that you don’t like it,” she jokes as he gives her his long-suffering look.
“Oh, thank God, you’ve come to save me!” Finn holds his hands out in pleading and Sofie turns around to see Ashton approaching them. Without saying anything Lindsey and Hector start to fade into the background letting Sofie and Ashton have their moment. When Finn remains, Lindsey reaches out to grab him by the neck of his ironic t-shirt. “What the -?” He doesn’t get any further before Lindsey drags him away, manhandling him as he grumbles about the pen being mightier than the sword.
Sofie takes a deep breath as she looks up into Ashton’s clear blue eyes that seem to see right through to her soul. “So is this the part where you tell me how mad you are with me for coming after you?” She bites her bottom lip, waiting for the onslaught.
“No, this is the part where I thank you for…how did you put it? Saving my ass.” Ashton smiles at her widely, reaching out to push a strand of her hair over her ear. “When I thought that I’d lost you, that it was me that had stopped you beautiful heart from beating …”
He doesn’t finish his sentence, but he doesn’t have to, the emotion in his eyes tells Sofie all she needs to know. “I’m here. You didn’t lose me.” She steps into his arms. “You found me. You saved me,” she reminds him.
They stand like that for a little while, marvelling at how perfectly they fit against each other like they really were made for one another.
“You really are the most incredible woman I’ve ever known.” Ashton lifts her chin up to meet his gaze.
“I think everyone here is pretty incredible.” Sofie nods towards the Lycans gathered around the bonfire, high on life.
“Lindsey told me what you did, how you took charge and sent the messages out to the other pack leaders.” Ashton follows her gaze. “You’re the reason they’re all still alive. You’re the reason that we’re celebrating tonight.”
Sofie blushes, embarrassed that Ashton’s singling her out but undeniably happy that he’s so proud of her. “You have no idea how special you are, do you?” Ashton looks at her, amazed.
Sofie looks at him, confused. “You mean because of what happened out in the canyon? The way the pack reacted when I changed? I sort of thought that always might have happened the first time a were morphs?”
Ashton shakes his head, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Not exactly...This is going to be one of those times that you ask me a million questions, isn’t it?”
Sofie looks at him, smiling wryly. “Well, that depends on what it is you’re going to tell me.”
Ashton sighs in defeat. “I’m going for the short story because we have all the time in the world ahead of us for you to ask anything that you want. And, besides, Gus has asked me if he can personally take care of your training so a lot of the explanations are going to come down to him.”
Sofie pulls back to look at him, frowning. “Gus? Gus as in the big black wolf, Gus? He volunteered to help me?” She thinks back to the past few days and how the way he treated her has changed, but she could never have imagined that he would actually sign up to spend time with her.
Ashton nods, reading her mind. “He’s impressed with you, and he’s not the only one.” Ashton looks pointedly at the other Pack Masters who are doing a really poor job of pretending that they’re not looking at them.
“But why? I don’t get it.” Sofie shakes her head, not understanding what she’s done that’s garnered her so much attention. “Did you apologize for punching him?”
Ashton throws back his head and laughs and Sofie can’t help but think what a great sound it is. “Gus and I are good, you don’t need to worry about that. Right now, I want to talk about you and why you’re the most extraordinary thing to happen to this pack.” Ashton looks at her pointedly, telling her with his eyes that he doesn’t want her to interrupt. Sofie nods contritely, for once doing as she’s
asked. “For starters, you, a new-born Lycan, led the pack into a battle, which we won. Secondly, you’re the first human to be turned in centuries, the first to have survived at least.” Ashton’s expression clouds over, not wanting to remember how she had looked lying on the cold ground without breath, without a pulse. “Thirdly, you’re a white wolf.”
Sofie looks at him searchingly, waiting for more information. “I’m going to need to more than that, I’m a little behind on my Lycan History classes, you know, only being a day old and all.”
Ashton chuckles, leaning down to kiss her softly on the lips, like he couldn’t help himself. “You’re the only white wolf any of us have ever seen. You’re the only one there is any record of since the first, since the wolf that turned Lupo.” Ashton waits as Sofie tries to process what he’s just told her. There are so many questions she wants to ask, but she can’t seem to get them into any order. Ashton makes the most of her silence and delivers one final titbit. “You’re a descendant of that wolf, the one that is responsible for all Lycans that are walking or have ever walked the Earth. Lindsey was right when she said that you were important, but this is more than any of us could ever have imagined.”
Sofie’s brain is still reeling from everything that Ashton has told her, but the scientist in her needs answers. “But, what does that mean? How can I be the only one? How does that make me different from everyone else? I have so many questions.” She looks up at Ashton, waiting for answers.
“I know you do, running girl. And the answers will come in good time.” Ashton lays a finger against her lips as she tries to interrupt him.
Lindsey’s tap on Ashton’s shoulder saves him from Sofie’s tongue-lashing over how it wasn’t fair to tease her.
“Ash, I know you’re a little busy,” Lindsey winks conspiratorially at Sofie, “but it is customary for the Alpha to say a few words after a were first transforms. The packs are waiting.”
As Lindsey steps away from them, Sofie suddenly becomes aware of the silence that has settled over the three packs. From the way that they were all looking at her it was clear that the ones who hadn’t seen her in her wolf form had already heard about it. The expression on their faces was something close to wonder and Sofie shifts uncomfortably under the intensity of their gaze. She tries to take a step back into obscurity but Ashton’s hold on her hand is tight, refusing to let her go.
Torrent (Alpha Love - a Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance Book 4) Page 19