Torrent (Alpha Love - a Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance Book 4)

by Olivia Stephens

  “The rest you more or less now. I sent my investigators just like I always do to research all prospective drilling sites. Like I told you, I make it my business to find out what I need to know about all my investments.” The way Luke looks at Sofie meaningfully makes her skin crawl. “Anyway, the coincidences they reported on became too many to dismiss. All those missing people, talk of the town having a legend about wolves in the mountains. Let’s just say it piqued my interest. I had my suspicions that your friend the Neanderthal -,”

  “His name is Ashton!” Sofie explodes, refusing to let Luke get away with belittling everyone and anyone, which is basically his modus operandi.

  “Whatever.” He looks completely uninterested. “I had a suspicion that he and his little groupies were more than human – they were the right sort of number for a pack of Lycans, they demonstrated incredible strength and stamina, they tended to meet in private, socialize amongst themselves. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to figure it out. I knew they were dangerous; it was just a matter of time before there was an incident. The events of the past few days have proven me right – the mutilated body found in the woods, the way Darwin was chased down and attacked – these animals are savages, dangerous, violent creatures. There’s nothing magical, beautiful or impressive about them now and there’ll be even less in a few days when there’s no trace of them but the rugs we make from their fur.”

  “You shitheel!” Lindsey turns and punches the wall, knowing that as long as Luke has hold of the wolf caller she can’t hurt him.

  “Like I said, they’re creatures of violence. I’m sure my father wouldn’t think weres were so wonderful if he saw them now.” His mouth twists as he says the words.

  Sofie is struck by his words. “Hold on a second, are you telling me that you’ve done all of this because of your father?” Sofie can barely believe it. “Are you telling me that all of this is because you were jealous? You were jealous that your father admired something that you could never be. Oh that really is pathetic, even for you!” Luke’s expression tells Sofie everything that she needs to know, she’s right. Luke had said that she was bright – he wasn’t wrong about that.

  Luke is brimming with anger, anger at the fact that Sofie has seen through him, has reached his weakest part and exposed it for all to see. He tries to gather himself together, to project the image of the successful businessman and future Congressman that he’s trying to be. “I have never wanted to be a werewolf, not for my father and most certainly not for myself. As far as I’m concerned, they’re mongrels, sub-human and they should be exterminated.”

  “Exterminated! I’d like to see you try, you piece of shit. If you think that you can kill us so easily then you clearly don’t know anything about us.” Lindsey’s confidence is contagious. It’s almost enough to give Sofie hope that perhaps the werewolves can face up against Luke and his followers and win.

  Luke rolls his eyes at Lindsey, throwing a look like she’s a five year old having a temper tantrum. “Everything dies, bitch!” He virtually spits out the word. It’s said with such venom that even Lindsey looks like she’s prepared to take a step away from him. “You and your kind are no different. A little silver through the heart should do it or I’ve heard severing the spinal cord from the brain is a particularly effective method of Lycan execution. But it does get rather messy, that’s the only downside.”

  Sofie is horrified. “You’re sick. You’re a monster!”

  Luke is amused rather than offended. “That’s rich coming from a woman who’s bedding a werewolf. How can you stand the smell, my little bird?”

  Sofie clenches her fists, feeling her nails bite into her palms just enough to keep her focused. “If you feel that way then why are you still trying to get me into your bed, Luke? I wouldn’t have thought you could stomach being with a woman who’s in love with a Lycan.”

  The expression on Luke’s face as she says professes her love for Ashton “You’re confused and whatever that thing has done to you, he’s made you even more confused. You don’t know what you’re dealing with, you don’t understand what these creatures are capable of.” Luke’s expression has turned earnest, he really seems to believe what it is that he’s saying, which just makes it all the clearer that the man has problems, serious problems. “If you stay here, we can talk and we might be able to work something out, come to some kind of arrangement.” He looks at her with his winning smile. Sofie is immune, she always has been. But the way he says ‘agreement’ it’s clear what he has in mind.

  Sofie is about to tell him that he disgusts her, that he has a wife and kids or has he forgotten that? But she’s interrupted by an insistent beeping sound from behind her.

  “What the hell is that?” She turns around to look at Finn who is tapping away on his tablet.

  “An alert from the drilling site.” He keeps his eyes trained on his screen.

  “An alert? What kind of alert?” Luke pushes past Sofie, suddenly far more interested in the potential that he might lose money than in anything else.

  “Whenever any kind of emergency service is called to the site, I get an alert. It’s the fire service, there’s been an explosion.” Finn gives the bare bones of the information, not exaggerating and not fleshing out any of the details, in a distinctly un-Finn-like way.

  “You really expect me to believe that? You can’t make up anything better than that, Finn?” Luke looks at him with pity in his eyes.

  “There’s been an explosion at the site!” Darwin rushes breathlessly out into

  the hallway looking like he’s just been woken up. He blinks his eyes, taking in Luke, Finn, Sofie and finally Lindsey.

  Luke seems to take Darwin more seriously than he did Finn. “How is this possible?”

  Darwin launches into a lengthy geological explanation that only Sofie knows makes absolutely no sense. She watches as Luke laps up all of Darwin’s made-up crap and she wants to reach out and hug the man.

  “So you see, it’s highly possible that pent-up gas under the surface could have pressurized a pin-prick of a hole in the ground and all it would have take is a little spark to set it off.” Darwin is still lecturing Luke, but the head of Shale Corp is no longer listening, he’s looking out to the sky where a plume of smoke is rising in the distance reaching towards the sky. He cares about the site and the money pouring out of it more than anything else.

  Luke virtually sprints to the door, only remembering his dignity when he’s about to leave. He turns around and straightens his suit jacket, making himself a little more presentable. “This isn’t over.” His words are ominous but the way he hurries out of the crappy motel is more comic than anything else.

  “All that was missing from was for him to come back for an encore ‘I’m going to get you my pretty and your little dog too!’” Finn crooks his finger, doing a pretty passable impression of the wicked witch.

  “Finn, I have to say that is the campest thing I’ve ever seen you do!” Sofie laughs out loud at her best friend.

  “I’m here all week!” He takes a flourishing bow.

  Sofie walks over to Darwin and gives him a quick hug, holding on long enough to show how much she cares about him, but not too long so as to make him uncomfortable.

  “Am I missing something here?” Lindsey looks between the three of them, clearly confused.

  Sofie looks at Darwin. “What you said didn’t make any sense. But I think you already knew that.”

  Darwin shrugs, but looks eminently pleased with himself as he bounces up and down on the balls of his feet.

  “And that bullshit about the alarm, that was genius! I could almost kiss you!” Sofie backs off when she sees the look of horror on Finn’s face. “But I won’t! Anyway, we need to get going before he gets back.”

  “Wait a second,” Lindsey holds up her hands. “Are you saying that none of that was real? The alert, the explosion, it was all a bunch of crap?”

  “Well, not exactly, the alert is something that Shale Corp sets up as
standard on all of its drilling sites. And the explosion is very real; it just happens that we planted it ourselves. We left a little package on site that would create a controlled explosion, we thought we might need a diversion in case we found ourselves in need of a quick getaway, and I suppose we were right.” Darwin smiles knowingly and winks at Lindsey and Sofie thinks to herself how like the old Darwin he seems, not the man that was running scared from the woods only a few days ago. “It won’t cause much damage but it’ll slow things down a little.”

  “You two have to come with Lindsey and me back to Ashton’s house. It’s not safe for you here. It won’t take Luke long to figure out what you’ve done and then Lord knows what he’ll do.” Sofie doesn’t need to hammer home her point, the two men are well aware of what Luke will want to do to them when he realizes that they’re the most likely culprits.

  But Finn and Darwin don’t move towards the door. Instead they look uneasily at each other.

  “What? What’s the matter? Did you two not hear what I said?” Sofie looks between them, wondering what the hell is going on. She feels the edges of her headache returning to the forefront of her mind. She had managed to push it away during her standoff with Luke, but now that was over the pain was back with a vengeance.

  “They’re not sure that they want to head into the centre of a wolf pack and I’m not so sure that they’re wrong.” Lindsey ignores the shocked look on Sofie’s face. “Our pack has lost everything. Some of the group may decide to take out their frustration on the nearest humans available.” Lindsey nods meaningfully towards Darwin and Finn who look like they want to turn tail and run.

  “I won’t allow that to happen,” Sofie says as much for Darwin and Finn’s benefit as for Lindsey’s. “And I won’t leave my friends to whatever Luke decides to do to them.”

  “Jesus, woman, do you ever take no for an answer?” Lindsey looks at her friend with a half-smile.

  “No,” Sofie shoots right back at her with a half-smile. “Now are you coming with us on your own or do I have to drag you?”

  Darwin and Finn look at each other and seem to agree that they’re safer with Sofie than without her. They hustle, heading out of the motel as she and Lindsey bring up the rear.

  “Because getting into this town just the two of us wasn’t tricky enough, you figured we’d make it a little more interesting on the way out? Double the numbers, double the fun?” Lindsey raises her eyebrows at Sofie, not even trying to keep her voice down.

  “Something like that.” Sofie rolls her eyes at her friends. “What’s the matter? Is the big bad werewolf scared?”

  “Oh, that sounds like a dare, my scientific friend. I like it!” Lindsey’s eyes flash with excitement and she heads out of the door.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The motley group of four hurry down the street, trying to get out of town as fast as they can. They push as hard as they can, but Darwin is slowing them down. Lindsey has taken the lead and Sofie is bringing up the rear and she tries to keep hustling him on, but there’s only so fast the sixty-something scientist can go. Once they’re off Main Street they all relax a little but they still need to get a move on. Away from Ashton’s house and the rest of the pack, they’re exposed and that means that anything can happen.

  “I don’t want to hold you up. You go on without me and I’ll meet up with you later.” Darwin waves for Sofie to overtake him when it becomes clear that he’s not in any shape to jog let alone sprint.

  “Not going to happen, boss.” Sofie shakes her head, signalling for Lindsey to head back towards them. She pulls her a few steps to the side and nods towards Darwin. “We have to slow down.”

  “Not an option.” Lindsey doesn’t even pause for breath. “We don’t know what’s waiting for us in those woods and, personally, I would rather be moving too fast to get hit than slow enough for them to land a bulls-eye.”

  “Well we’re not leaving him here.” Sofie looks over at Darwin who is still taking labored breaths. “Can you carry him?”

  “Not like this.” Lindsey holds out her hands as if to show Sofie precisely how petite she is.

  Sofie doesn’t want to ask her to transform, she knows the rule that Ashton has set, that no member of the pack should shift into wolf form outside of the protection of his house. He had made it perfectly clear that there would be no exceptions. Sofie weighs it up, but she’s already made up her mind. She can’t -- she won’t -- leave Darwin behind, they have to run the risk.

  “What about if you shift?” Sofie gives Lindsey a look that communicates that she knows exactly what it is that she’s asking.

  Lindsey looks at Darwin and then back at Sofie. “I don’t like it. But I don’t have to. It’s the only way we can move at any kind of speed.” She breathes a deep sigh. “You might want to give them a little warning.”

  Sofie nods quickly, striding towards the men. “Lindsey is going to shift, Darwin – you’re going to jump on her back and Finn you and I are on foot. Everyone clear?” She wonders when it was that she started sounding like a military sergeant.

  “Shift?” Finn asks at the exact moment that Darwin repeats, “Jump on her back?”

  “There’s no time to put this to a vote. Just don’t stare while she’s transforming, it’s kind of a private moment.” Sofie motions for the men to avert their eyes as Lindsey gets ready to shift. The men look like they’re in shock but they manage to follow Sofie’s orders, turning around as Lindsey starts to shift.

  “Oh crap.” At first Sofie thinks that Finn’s reaction is down to the fact he’s about to be in the vicinity of a real, live werewolf. But it only takes a moment for her to see how wrong she was. It’s worse than that, much much worse. They have an audience.

  Sofie whirls around to warn Lindsey, but she’s too late, the change is already in motion and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. Lindsey will be unaware of what’s going on around her for a couple of minutes, which means that she’ll be vulnerable.

  “What the fuck?” The question comes from one of the skinheads at the front of the group and the people behind him hustle to get a better look. When they see what’s happening to Lindsey some of them are transfixed, stepping nearer, the majority look like they’re going to wet their pants and take a step back.

  “Finn, Darwin, get behind me.” She doesn’t break eye contact with the leader of the group. When neither of the men moves she snaps at them. “Now!” They hop to it, standing between her and Lindsey.

  “Holy shit, man! It’s a werewolf! The real deal!” There are four guys heading towards them now, their eyes all lit up with excitement at what they’re seeing.

  “Look, we don’t want any trouble.” Sofie holds up her hands, wondering if that was really the best line she could come up with.

  “You might not, but we do! Wolf lover!” The young guy at the head of the group smiles as he takes another step forward, pulling out a flick-knife from his pocket.

  As if the situation weren’t bad enough, her head figures it’s a good time to ramp up the pain spreading across her temples and she winces as the sharpness of it hits her like a club. Focus, Sofie, focus, she reminds herself. This isn’t the time to lose your shit.

  “Stay back! We don’t want to hurt you but we will if we have to.” Sofie’s warning rings out with a conviction she doesn’t feel and it’s enough to give the Lycan-haters pause for thought.

  “Hurt them with what, Sofe? Their faces are more likely to hurt my fist than the other way round.” Sofie can sense Finn’s legs shaking behind her as he whispers.

  “Let me handle this, Finnbarr.” Her voice comes out through gritted teeth and it’s enough to silence the computer genius. The only problem is that he’s not wrong. They’re unarmed and, although Sofie has never seen Finn or Darwin in a fight, she’s pretty confident that they’d be about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. When it becomes clear that things aren’t going to go their way, Sofie comes up with the best plan she can under the circumstances. “If they get mu
ch closer, you two need to run as fast as you can in the opposite direction, you got that?”

  “Loud and clear, boss.” Sofie can almost hear Finn saluting her back. “You tell me to run and I’ll run like the coward I am. Umm, how much longer until Lindsey’s in full ass-kicking mode?”

  “Shouldn’t be too long now.” Sofie prays that it’s sooner rather than later. The men are now only a few steps away from her. “Back off, I won’t tell you again!” She tries to ignore the splitting headache but it’s getting harder and harder.

  “Well aren’t you a pretty thing? Look at you all cute and feisty protecting your little wolf friend.” One of the men smiles revealing a dentist’s nightmare of missing teeth.

  “Hey, you’re that girl from the news!” The leader of the band of xenophobes is clearly more up on current events than they are. “You’re the one they say is sleeping with one of those animals! Wolf Slut!” The men behind him laugh at her new moniker.

  “Stay back!” Sofie tries one last time to get them to back off, hoping that she’s bought Lindsey enough time.

  “Or what, Wolf Slut? What you gonna do to us?” Smiler taunts her as the men form a semi-circle, advancing on her slowly.

  “Run.” Sofie doesn’t even look behind her as she says the word, she can hear Darwin and Finn’s footsteps hitting the grass as they follow her orders.

  “Looks like your friends aren’t going to save you, Wolf Slut. You like Wolf cock, well maybe that’s just because you’ve never had it good with a real man before!” The skinhead leader is close enough for Sofie to smell his foul alcohol-soaked breath.

  “Is that what you think you are? A real man?” Sofie doesn’t hide the disdain in her voice, ignoring the voice in her head telling her not to provoke them.

  “Not just me, bitch! We’re all going to have a go at you. You’re too pretty to waste on that wolf scum!” He reaches out and grabs onto Sofie’s arm, trying to pull her towards him but she twists away, remembering some of her self-defence moves from the few classes she has taken in DC. But as she moves to step away from him, she sees a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye as Lindsey’s transformation is complete. There’s a biting sensation in her side, but she’s too relieved to really notice it.