“You have no idea how much I hope you’re right.” Sofie keeps her eyes focused on the scene in front of them, knowing that this is nowhere near over.
“Shale Corp has provides thousands of jobs all over the country, hundreds right here in Beaumont. Are you telling me that you don’t agree with helping the economy, Mr. -?” Luke lets the question hang in the air despite knowing very well what Ashton’s name is. He’s making it clear that he’s far too important to bother himself with the surname of a Lycan.
“Just Ashton is fine.” Ashton flashes the crowd a winning smile and Sofie can’t help but grin. He’s just shown everyone that he’s like them, he’s an everyman, not a big shot head of a company that doesn’t give a crap about them. “And exactly how many of those jobs in Beaumont went to people from round here? Can you even name any of the people working on this site?” The challenge in Ashton’s eyes is clear; he’s thrown the gauntlet down.
Luke takes a deep breath as if he’s showing how patient he is, but Sofie suspects that he’s just buying himself some time. “Let’s not get distracted from the real reason that you’re here, Mr -...Ashton.” Luke stumbles over the informality of the address, making himself look even more stuck up than he already does. “I understand that you’re here to reach an agreement with us over what happens to the Lycans currently hiding in the woods.”
“Residing.” Ashton’s voice is firm. “We’re not hiding, we’re residing there. This is our home.”
Ashton’s moved on to playing on the heartstrings of the crowd. The shouts of ‘Wolf Scum’ and ‘Humans First’ are becoming fewer and fewer. Ashton won’t be able to win over all of them, no matter how charming he was, there were too many hard-line xenophobes out there. But the people who are just along for the ride, the ones there for the excitement rather than the purpose, he was slowly bringing them round to his side of the fence.
As if Luke could sense the tide of opinion starting to turn, he goes onto the attack. “Well, if you’re not hiding then why have you refused to come out from wherever you were residing?” He couldn’t have sounded more sarcastic if he had tried.
“I was waiting for a formal invitation.” Ashton’s reply is so off-the-cuff and natural that chuckles go up amongst the crowd. “I’m just polite like that.” He shrugs laconically, looking completely at ease.
“Well, now that you’re here. Shall we proceed with the terms of the agreement?” Luke narrows his eyes at Ashton, looking more like a ferret than a future Governor. He doesn’t wait for Ashton’s assent to continue. “We, the people,” he smiles winningly at the camera and Sofie has to stifle a groan, “We, the people, demand that all members of your pack come out of hiding and join the newly-formed Lycan register. We would request that you give us all the information you have on any other packs that you know of.”
“What happens then? We all get to go back to our homes and go on with life as normal? I’m guessing that’s not part of your grand plan.” Ashton straightens himself up, squaring his shoulders, his attention solely focused on Luke.
“Well, why don’t we ask the people? Would y’all feel safe in your homes knowing that a vicious creature, as we know these Lycans to be might be living next door?” Luke looks at the people around him as he deliberately plays on their fears. “Would you feel safe letting your children play outside knowing that at any moment they could be snatched and even killed by one of these monsters?”
“No! No!”
“Send them away!”
“Humans First!”
“Get out of here, Wolf Scum!”
Luke turns back to Ashton with a triumphant grin on his face. “I believe that the people have spoken.” He holds up his hands as if he were merely delivering the will of the masses.
“Doesn’t this guy ever get tired of the sound of his own voice?” Gus’s voice is a growl in Sofie’s ear.
“Not that I’ve ever seen,” she mumbles back, waiting for whatever’s coming next.
“So we can’t go back to our homes. Where do we go?” Ashton’s voice is edged with anger as he starts to pace in front of the crowd.
“We would find a suitable secure place to relocate you.” Luke shrugs as if to show how simple his suggestion is.
“Secure?” Ashton’s eyes on Luke are like laser beams.
“You would be held in enclosures, away from populated areas, for your own safety as well as that of the citizens of this fine country.” Luke raises his hand as some of the rednecks start hooting and letting off pistol shots.
“You want to put us in cages.” Ashton can barely contain his anger. His eyes flash golden and the people in the first row of the crowd take a step back, flinching away from him.
“That’s where vicious animals belong, isn’t it Ashton?” Luke smiles at him unsympathetically, enjoying the moment far too much.
“Enough! We are not animals!” Ashton’s anger explodes as he rounds on Luke, snarling at him. A cry goes up amongst the crowd and it seems to bring him back to his senses. Sofie watches as he visibly struggles to get himself back under control. “I won’t sacrifice my pack, I won’t bargain with their freedom.”
Luke looks at him with pity and distaste. “You came to come to some kind of a truce, did you not, Ashton? Or perhaps you don’t want to live in peace with us humans, is that where the problem lies?”
“Don’t twist everything I say just to suit you. Sorry, I forgot, you’re running for office, that’s sort of what you politicians do, isn’t it?” Ashton smiles wolfishly at his adversary and a titter of amusement goes up. “We have been living in peace with humans for centuries, we have no desire to stop now.”
“So you will agree to our terms then?” Luke bangs his fist on the podium, venting his frustration that things aren’t going exactly as he had planned.
“I came to talk to you, man to man. I wasn’t expecting a live studio audience.” The look he gives the crowd is nothing short of disappointment and Sofie hears a few uncomfortably shift their feet, embarrassed at being called out for their nosiness and bloodlust. “I came here to protect my people, not to give them away. I won’t send them into cages, they would rather die first. And so would I.”
Ashton’s speech is noble and filled with emotion and love for his people, the press are keeping their cameras trained on him a little longer, perhaps starting to think that there’s a juicier story than the one they’ve been reporting on.
Luke can start to feel the crowd slipping away from him, he needs to show that he’s stronger than Ashton, that he’s smarter than him. He smiles to himself, he’d planned for what’s coming next, he just hadn’t thought that he would have to use it so soon.
Luke quiets the rabble down, gesturing with his hands before focusing back on Ashton. “It’s interesting that you should use that choice of words. I’ve been doing a lot of reading, since you and your kind stepped out of the shadows. You already know all about us humans so you have us at a disadvantage. But one of the particularly fascinating pieces of information I found was that a pack will scatter if the Alpha dies without a successor. Is that true?” Luke’s eyes bore into Ashton’s and Sofie catches sight of movement within the crowd. Men are starting to move forward to the front of the line, as if on cue. Sofie doesn’t have to guess at who they are, she can smell the gunpowder residue on their hands and the scent of something else that leaves a bitter taste in her mouth - silver. They’re hunters and Luke is handing Ashton to them on a plate.
Sofie just has to take a look at the horror on Gus’s usually blank face to see that Luke’s information is reliable. She focuses on Ashton. He looks like he’s been trapped as the realization that he’s in a no-win situation dawns on him.
Ashton lifts up his hand. “I will happily let you do whatever you want to me. But give me a day to name my successor so that the pack can survive. That is my only request.”
“Over my dead body,” Sofie whispers, ignoring Gus’s questioning glance. She reaches out with her mind, like she’s done before, focu
sing hard on Ashton until she can see him without even opening her eyes. Ash, it’s me. I’m here. Don’t do this. Help is coming. Just hang on a little longer.
She opens her eyes, searching Ashton’s face for some sign that he’s heard her but there is none. The only thing she can do is to hope. Have a little faith, she repeats to herself, ruefully.
“And why should we trust you? You’ve been lying to the people around you for years, lying about what you are. How are we to know that you won’t just disappear if we let you go now?” Luke almost seems amused at Ashton’s suggestion, as if offering his life for something that he believes in were a foreign concept to Luke. It probably was, most likely there wasn’t anything that he had ever cared about that much.
“You can trust me. I am bound by my word.” Ashton’s voice is calm but his eyes scan the crowd, telling Sofie that he’s seen the hunters advancing towards him too.
“Well, that is comforting!” Luke’s sarcasm drips off of him and he smiles at the crowd to get some laughs going. “But, for argument’s sake, shall we put it to the test? Shall we see if you really can be trusted?” Luke doesn’t wait for Ashton to respond. “I asked you to come here alone as a show of good faith. Did you?”
Ashton swallows hard, not even blinking. “I came here alone.”
Without wasting any time, Luke pulls something out of his pocket. Sofie recognizes it as the wolf caller, but before she can tell Gus to send a message out to the pack to keep back, Luke has already put the whistle to his lips.
Sofie experiences the effect of the caller for the first time. It’s painful, the noise of it pierces her ears and all she wants to do is follow the sound. She covers her ears, trying to block it out but she can’t. Then she remembers Gus’s words, how a sensory overload can make her sick, that she should concentrate on just one thing and tune out everything else.
She reaches out, but the wall of sound coming from the caller is too strong. But you’re stronger, Braun, she tells herself. Get it together! She reaches out with her mind again, focusing on a faraway sound of a bird, she tries to make out what kind of bird it is. Just from the way it flaps its wings she can tell that it’s small, like a swallow. She focuses on every aspect of it that she can gather until all the other sounds around her fade away. She lowers her hands from her ears, she doesn’t even hear the shrill piercing of the whistle anymore.
But it’s not just herself she has to worry about. Gus is already making his way out of the tree-line, hypnotized by the sound of the caller. She grabs hold of his shoulders, pulling him back, shaking him.
“Gus, wake up. Listen to my voice. Wake up!” She shouts in his face but he doesn’t even see her.
She looks around and sees Ashton kneeling down on the ground on all fours, his eyes shut and his teeth gritted against the pain. Gus had told her that Ashton’s senses were more honed than any one else’s in the pack. The sound to him must have been like torture.
But it’s not the sight of her lover on the ground that makes Sofie’s mouth go dry. Slowly, the other members of the pack start walking out of the trees, in human form completely at the mercy of the wolf caller. She sees Rudy stepping forward as if he were in a dream. Lola follows close behind him and the rest of the pack assemble around them, each locked in their own minds. She can’t see Lindsey or Hector, and she allows herself a moment of relief at the thought that they might have gotten away.
Sofie seems to be the only one not affected by the sound. She’s still focusing on the sound of the little bird many miles away, closing her ears against the shrill whistle. But she has no choice, she has no intention of letting them all walk out there alone. Here goes nothing, she says to herself. She doubles over, pretending to be in pain, and follows Gus out of the trees as if she were sleepwalking, keeping to the back of the pack.
She keeps Luke in her line of sight, having to fight the rage that threatens to overtake her as she catches his scent. He seems pleased with himself, looking out at what he’s achieved. He ignores the werewolves standing there like lambs to the slaughter and looks at his followers, pointing an accusing finger at Ashton. “Now do you think that this is a man that we can trust? He has lied to me and he has lied to all of you. He clearly hasn’t come alone, he’s brought his entire army of monsters with him! No doubt he was trying to ambush us and kill us all!” The crowd gasps and shouts abuse at the Lycans as Luke goads them on, whipping them into a frenzy.
Sofie can sense the bloodlust rising in the crowd. Luke has put on a good show and now they’re ready for the money-shot. They came for death and destruction and they don’t want to be disappointed. The crowd starts advancing on the powerless weres, the hunters leading the way.
Sofie squeezes her eyes shut, praying to anyone that’s listening for her plan to come through. But nothing happens. She wonders if this is it, if this is what everything is going to come down to – the weres are going to be killed, picked off one by one and there’s nothing she can do about it. Tears of frustration make her catch her breath in her throat. She blinks them away, and as she does, her new, improved eyes detect movement off to one side of the canyon.
Dust starts to fly up into the air as a crowd start stampeding towards the Humans First Brigade in the canyon. A sound goes up and Sofie realizes that it’s coming from the stampeding mass, they’re howling like wolves. It’s The Howlers, the werewolf supporters that Finn found have come through. They’re barely half the number of the human supremacists but it’s enough to give the more faint-hearted fence sitters of the group pause for thought. They stop advancing and Sofie watches as about a quarter of Luke’s followers drop their placards and run in the opposite direction.
Sofie laughs out loud, covering her mouth quickly, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that she’s the only were that hasn’t been hypnotized by the caller. The swift retreat of some of his followers is not lost on Luke. His face twists in anger, making him look less like an up and coming governor and more like an angry dog.
It’s only the hard core haters and hunters that are now left and they’re being chanted at by The Howlers.
“Freedom for All!”
“Were Together!”
“Lycans Rule!”
The hunters seem to be re-thinking what they’re about to do. The presence of dissenters has clearly thrown them off their game and each of them takes a look at Luke. He takes a look out over the assembled wolves and nods his head in grim satisfaction. It’s the signal they’ve been waiting for. The hunters lift their rifles and as the safety catches click off, Sofie starts to run towards the front of the still-life weres.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bullets sing through the air and the sound wakes the weres out of their daze. As Sofie sprints through them she sees them slowly come back to reality, suddenly aware of the danger that they’re in.
“Run!” She shouts at them as loudly as she can, pushing them towards the tree-line, trying to get them out of the hunters’ line of sight.
Some of them start to move, turning to run, others stand stock still, fear planting them to the ground. Sofie watches as Lola tries to grab Rudy from behind but he can’t move. It’s like he’s frozen to the floor. Sofie wheels around as a howl splits the sky and she sees Rudy lying on the ground, blood gushing out of his leg where a silver bullet has found its target.
She grabs Lola, almost pulling the woman off of the ground, not realizing her own strength. “Get him out of here!” Lola reacts instantly, lifting Rudy up as if he were a child and running towards the trees as fast as she can.
Sofie rushes to the front of the weres, standing beside Ashton, pushing him away as he tries to push her back. She waves at Luke, making sure that he sees her. After everything that’s happened, it’s a gamble that he’ll even care if she’s shot, but she has to rely on his arrogance, his unnerving belief in himself and the fact that he may, in the end, get what he wants from her.
“Luke! Stop!” She watches as his eyes widen in realization that he’d been firing at h
er.
“Guns down!” He barks the order loudly, not wanting to run the risk of hitting Sofie.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ashton has hold of her shoulders, like he’s trying to make sure that she’s really here.
“Pretty sure, I’m saving your ass.” She looks at him with a winning smile, trying to make light of the horror that’s unfolding around them. Before Ashton can respond she raises her voice, addressing the crowd. “There’s no need for this. Why are you so desperate to see blood? What do you have to gain from it?”
Shouts go up from the crowd, ‘Wolf Slut’, ‘Lycan Scum’ is no mixed with ‘No More Guns’ and ‘Freedom For All’ from The Howlers.
Luke looks at her blandly, unimpressed with her attempt at persuasion. “And I thought that you’d come here to tell me you’d realized the error of your ways. But you’re just here as a distraction, to come to the rescue of these...monsters.” He says the last word so distastefully he almost spits it out. “Clever girl,” his voice is so quiet only Sofie and the other weres can hear him. She knows that she doesn’t have much time before he calls the hunters to arms again.
“Sofie, get out of here. I’ve lost you once, I won’t lose you again.” Ashton tries to shake some sense into her but she ignores him, using all her strength to push him away and surprising herself as much as him when she succeeds.
“Luke is not a man that you want to follow.” Her voice is loud as she looks out across the crowd, zeroing in on the faces that look most conflicted about what’s happening, the ones that have turned themselves away from the bloodshed. “Not all evil comes in the guise of creatures that we don’t understand, monsters as Luke wants you to call them. Sometimes evil walks on two feet and looks like any other man.” Her gaze focuses on Luke as she says the words, not leaving anyone in any doubt of her meaning. “The Lycans haven’t done anything to deserve this hatred. He’s planted the seed of fear in your minds and now he’s reaping it for his own benefit!”
Torrent (Alpha Love - a Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance Book 4) Page 17
