“Well I think I’ve figured out how to get on to the secret level of ‘Call of Duty’!” Finn relays this information in the same vein as someone might confess to having solved world peace.
“Well, at least you’re using your time effectively!” Sofie shakes her head. She can’t help but laugh. Her friend was a constant, in an ever-changing world; she knew that she could always rely on Finn just being Finn. “I was talking more about the little project you were working on of finding ways to discredit Luke? To land his ass in jail, that’s the only place I want to see him.”
Luke is a man with seemingly endless means and a thirst for power that rivals the harshest of dictators that this world has seen. How do you fight someone who has everything and is prepared to throw all of it against you? Sofie and Finn had decided that the only way to get to him was to hit him where it hurts – to take it away his resources, to take away his power.
“Like I said, Braun, this isn’t painting by numbers. I’m working on gathering the evidence together we’ll need to take him down, but I need more time. It’s not a quick fix.” Finn manages to sound apologetic and affronted that Sofie is hurrying him at the same time.
“Finn, I bow to your technical genius, but this isn’t the time for you to be a diva. Luke has been planning this whole thing from the start. Don’t you think it’s the least bit curious that one of the places he’s sent us to just happens to be the one place in he country where werewolves have been living in peace and quiet for hundreds of years? And he just happens to have a weapon that he can use against them that no one has ever seen before? It’s all a little too convenient for it to be a coincidence, isn’t it?” Sofie lets the thoughts pour out of her mouth. She realizes she’s babbling but that doesn’t make her any less certain that she’s right in what she’s saying. “He knew about them before we did, before any of this started and he’s engineered this whole thing. But why? What does it get him?” The question is more rhetorical but the way that Finn clears his throat makes her wonder if she’s the only one that’s missing a piece of the puzzle. “What, Finn? Tell me.”
There’s no avoiding her questions when she gets that tone in her voice and Finn knows it. “I guess this would be a bad time to tell you that according to Luke’s schedule for the day, that any two year old could hack -,”
“Finn!” Sofie’s voice is a warning.
“Okay, okay! Well, it looks like he has a meeting with the Governor who’s flying down to do a joint press conference today.” Sofie can almost hear him wince as he admits the knowledge, expecting an explosive reaction from her and she doesn’t disappoint.
“That slimeball! That miserable excuse for a man!” Sofie feels an urgent need to hit something, her fist clenched hard. “Of course, money was never going to be enough for a man like him, he needs power too. He needs everything. He’s using what he’s doing to the pack and the so-called protection of Beaumont as a political platform. People are going to lose their homes, their friends, their lives so that Luke Calambor can run for office! First stop governor then what’s next, the presidency?” The reality of Sofie’s words settles around her. Is that what this had been about all along? Luke using the ‘Lycan abomination’ to pave his way to becoming the most important man in America? Presidents had been elected for less…
“Yeah, I thought you might connect those dots,” Finn responds uneasily, treading lightly in the wake of her last outburst. “But it won’t get to that point, not anywhere near it. We’ll get him before that. We’ll discredit him in front of the whole world, he’ll lose all his supporters and in a little while people will be asking Luke who?” Finn’s earnestness is contagious and Sofie finds herself nodding along in agreement with him, needing to believe.
“I hope you’re right, Finn. But that won’t undo all the damage he’s done so far, the danger he’s put this pack and every other one like it in the country in. Nothing that we do can turn back the clock.” Sofie sits down heavily on the bed, feeling exhausted all over again.
“Don’t beat yourself up for not having time travel on your list of accomplishments, Braun.” Finn’s tone is jokey but his meaning is clear.
“Why break the habit of a lifetime?” Sofie smiles as she realizes Finn is accusing her of exactly the same thing she’d told Ashton that he couldn’t be angry at himself for. Takes one to know one, she thinks to herself. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that she and Ashton were so right for each other, because they both take the weight of the world on their shoulders as if it were their duty. She feels the tension from her headache sliding down her neck and taking up residence in her shoulders. She rolls her shoulders, trying to work out the kinks in her muscles.
“How’s Darwin doing?” She changes the subject, needing to talk about something outside of werewolves and a slimeball monster that walks in the guise of a man.
“You know, he’s Darwin, he’s not exactly big on expressing his emotions.” Sofie can hear Finn shrug over the phone. “He misses you, although he would never admit to it.”
Sofie smiles as she thinks about her mentor, the man that she had learnt so much from and who she had looked up to far more than she had her own father. Darwin was a good man, he’d just been pushed too far by Luke. Threatening Darwin with fabricating a non-existent affair to give his wife the upper hand in the divorce and to make his daughters hate him was a low blow, even for Luke. But perhaps there wasn’t anything too low for him anymore. Luke had proven that he was prepared to go to any lengths to get what he wants. She doesn’t allow herself to dwell on the fact that he wants her and her association with the pack and relationship with Ashton don’t seem to have cooled his desire for her in the least.
“I miss him too. I miss both of you.” Her voice wavers as she says the words. She’s been battling under the force of her emotions and now it seems they were threatening to seep out of her.
A noise in the doorway makes her spin around, still on edge. But it’s not Luke or one of his cronies standing there, it’s Ashton, arms folded, looking every inch the Pack Master. His expression starts off as serious, becoming furious as his gaze lands on the cell in her hand.
“Well I wish I could say I miss you bossing me around…” Finn’s voice sounds distant on the other end of the line.
“I can do that from here, Finn. You don’t need to worry.” The banter comes out almost automatically, but Sofie’s attention is now on Ashton.
“Sofe? You still there?” Finn talks into the silence that Sofie hadn’t even realized was stretching out between them.
“Yeah, um, sorry. I have to go. If anyone asks you anything about me…” She knows she doesn’t have to say it, but it’s more for Ashton’s benefit than it is for Finn’s.
“I know, I know, I don’t know anything.” Finn sighs theatrically. “Which is an act that’s far more difficult to pull off when you have an IQ the size of North Dakota -,”
“Bye Finn.” Sofie ends the call before he has a chance to wax lyrical on his mental capacity. She knows that whatever Ashton has come in here to say to her, it isn’t anything she wants to hear, so she’d rather just get it over and done with.
“There’s a reason I told you not to use your phone. When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it.” Ashton’s arms are folded across his chest and although his expression is nonplussed she can hear the anger in his voice.
“And I did remove my SIM card from my cell, as you requested – not told – me to last night. But you said you wanted information, so that’s what I was getting.” Sofie has no intention of letting him assume that he can order her around. As he has already made clear to her, she’s not pack; he won’t allow her to be, not really.
“Calls can be traced, Sofie. Come on, you’re smarter than that!” Ashton shakes his head and starts up his pacing – the man really can’t stand still for two minutes at a time!
“Not on Finn’s cell! He’s worked his magic on it. Have a little faith in me, would you? You’re right, I’m not an idiot or a
little girl, despite the way that you insist on treating me!” Sofie plants her hands on her hips, well aware that her eyes are flaming with anger.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Ashton’s voice is a growl.
“It means that you’re acting like I’m going to break or fall apart if you let me do anything that’s actually helpful. You won’t share your plans with me, you won’t let me out of your sight to do reconnaissance in the town and now you won’t even let me speak to my best friend on the telephone! I’m not someone that likes being controlled, Ashton.” Her tone is icy but she’s matching him volume for volume.
It occurs to Sofie that Lola is probably hearing every word that they’re exchanging from the other room, but she can’t bring herself to care. For someone that has always been private to a fault she was really letting go. Just another one of the ways that being with Ashton was changing her, she thinks to herself, and not for the worst. But no, she’s supposed to be angry with him, she reminds herself.
“I’m just trying to protect you! Why is that so difficult for you to get into your thick head?” Ashton pads towards her menacingly, but her body can’t help respond to the heat of his proximity.
The desire that she feels is automatic, second nature, but in this moment her anger is overpowering her need for him. “My thick head?” She’s vaguely aware that she’s shrieking like a fishwife but she doesn’t stop.
“Of course, that’s the part that you zero in on!” He throws his hands up in despair of her. “You don’t care about the part where I say that I want to keep you safe, that it would kill me if anything ever happened to you!”
The concern and softness in his eyes is enough to quench some of the fire burning in her belly, but not all of it. “I know, Ash. I know. I feel the same, if anything were to happen to you, I don’t know what I’d do.” She closes the distance between them, resting her hand on his chest, feeling the way it seems to be beating double time.
Ashton pulls her towards him, brushing a stray strand of hair out of her eyes and behind her ear. It’s a tender gesture and the love that fills his eyes is enough to make her forget all the anger and hurt that she has built up inside of her since last night when he’d practically vetoed her petition to be turned. That’s until he opens his beautiful mouth again.
“I just don’t want to get you involved in all of this.” He leans his head towards hers, intensity burning in his blue eyes.
Before their foreheads can meet, before he can get any closer she takes a step back. “You don’t want me to get involved? I thought I was already involved?” She doesn’t repeat what she’d said the night before, about having allied herself with him and with the pack. There was nothing outside for her anymore. By taking their side she had lost her job, her credibility and it wasn’t much of a stretch to realize that she was probably a wanted woman. She couldn’t believe that he would throw that sacrifice back in her face just because… “It’s because I’m not like you, because I’m not were. Is that how it works? If you’re not really part of the gang then whatever you’ve given up doesn’t count?” She can barely contain her anger.
“That’s not what I meant!” Ashton releases her, stepping back to give him the space he needs to stop himself from desperately wanting to touch her. Having her so close and distancing himself was like a hungry man walking away from a feast. It was harder than she would ever know, harder than he would ever allow her to know.
“Then what did you mean?” Sofie’s brown eyes flash with rage. “Because as far as I’m concerned, I’m more than involved, I’m a part of this now. Why are you the only person in this whole place that can’t seem to see that?” The hurt creeps into her voice, hinting at the vulnerability that Ashton knows lies underneath her sometimes-flinty exterior.
“I can see that, Sofe,” he says sadly, looking at her with longing. “You’re at risk here. If you stay with us then you’re a target and I can’t protect you and the rest of the pack at the same time. I need my head in the game and the way I feel about you throws me off.”
“’If’ I stay with the pack? What do you mean ‘if’? Where else am I going to go? I think it’s clear that my prospects are pretty few and far between after yesterday.” Sofie chuckles dryly, it’s not enough to fool either of them, there’s nothing funny about the situation she’s found herself in. She locks eyes with Ashton and she knows that she’s not going to like what she’s about to hear. With him she didn’t need a crystal ball. At times like this he was an open book to her, at other times more like a secret diary that’s been padlocked and buried.
Ashton takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, steeling himself for what he’s about to say and how little he wants to say it. What he’s about to do is the hardest part about all of this. Pushing away the person he needs most is the last thing his heart is telling him to do, but right now he needs to listen more to his head. That’s part of the deal of being the Alpha, his brain had to rule his heart, at all times. So he gathers himself together and says the words that strip him to the core. “I’m sending you away.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Sorry, I think I just slipped back a few hundred years. It sounded like you said you were sending me away. Like a package in the mail.” Sofie tries to keep her mouth from hanging open at Ashton’s words.
Ashton winces at the direct hit. “You need to get out of here as soon as possible, before things get any worse. The rest of the pack will follow, but it’ll take a little while to talk them round to the idea. In the meantime, I’m not prepared to put you at risk.” Sofie can barely believe what it is that she’s hearing. She feels a little like her world is spinning away from her.
Ashton takes advantage of her silence, plunging on with his plan while she’s still assimilating what he’s just said. “There’s a pack in Alaska that we have ties with – the Frontiers. I got in touch with them last night, after Lola. It could have been you lying on the floor bleeding out instead of her. Losing a member of the pack would have been bad enough, but losing you...I don’t know how I would have come back from that.” Ashton shakes his head like he doesn’t even want to imagine what could have happened.
“Alaska?” She latches onto one word at a time. “Do you know how far away that is? What am I saying? Of course you do! You’re the one that’s had this all neatly planned out.”
“Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be. Do you think that this is easy for me, that I’m enjoying asking you to leave me? It won’t be for long; the pack will follow along soon after. There’s enough uninhabited land there for us to find a new home there.” The way Ashton says the word ‘home’ tells her how little he believes that anywhere other than where he’s standing can fill that remit.
“Do I get any say in this at all? Because the last time I checked I was the one that got to decide what I do and don’t do.” Sofie narrows her eyes at him, infuriated at how calm he seems to be when she feels like she’s about to boil over.
“I’m just trying to do the right thing here. Don’t punish me for it.” Ashton rakes his fingers through his sandy hair in frustration, clearly struggling to keep his voice level.
“I’m not punishing you, I’m pissed. There’s a difference.” Sofie’s voice is clipped as her brain keeps whirring.
“You’re pissed at me, what a surprise!” Ashton mutters under his breath and Sofie gives him a look that have turned lesser men to stone.
“No, the big surprise here is that you thought you could pull this Alpha bullshit on me and that it would work!” Sofie shakes her head at his naiveté. “You can’t send me away, I refuse to go. How about that? I’m not leaving the pack and I’m not leaving you, not when I’m partly responsible for everything that’s happened here and not when I can help.” Her tone of voice softens as she steps closer to him, wishing that she wasn’t so desperate to have his arms around her. “Is it really that much easier for you to send me away than it is to let me help you?”
The silence between them is broken by t
he dull thwacking sounds as the weres outside continuing with the chopping of logs. At this rate they’ll have enough to get them through at the very least a few years of winter.
“There’s nothing easy about any of this, Sofie!” The last trace of Ashton’s patience has officially left the building and he doesn’t do anything to hide his temper.
His eyes blaze gold as the wolf inside of him makes an appearance. A few days ago she might have been wary, taken a step back from him, but not now. She knew that he wouldn’t ever hurt her, not physically anyway. He was far too capable of wrenching her heart just with a misplaced word or phrase and she hated that he had that power over her. She wasn’t used to depending on someone so utterly for her own happiness, a few words from him could completely throw off her equilibrium.
So as his eyes glow she takes a step towards him rather than away. “Then don’t push me away. After last night, after everything you said, everything we talked about...” She lets the memory of what they had shared sink in. She had told him that she was in love with him and now he was telling her to go.
The internal struggle that Ashton is experiencing is plastered across his face. His body seems to make his decision before his mind has a chance to catch up and he gathers her up in his arms, crushing her to his chest. He holds her so hard against him it’s almost hard to breathe. But oxygen is overrated, she decides, being this close to him is all that she needs. She looks up at him and runs her hand across the dark blonde stubble along his jaw, feeling the prickles underneath her skin. She breathes in the scent of him, the clean smell of soap and the manly muskiness underneath it. It’s an intoxicating mix. Ashton leans down and presses his full lips gently against hers. It’s a chaste kiss, but so full of feeling that it brings tears to her eyes.
Torrent (Alpha Love - a Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance Book 4) Page 3
