Torrent (Alpha Love - a Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance Book 4) (6 page)

“I had noticed that, yes.” Sofie’s voice is sarcastic as she lifts her eyes lazily to him. “Are you going to put me down wolf man?”

Ashton smiles sexily, making her pussy stir again. He can clearly feel the tremors inside of her, telling him that she’s ready for another round and he can feel himself responding already. “Damn, girl, what are you doing to me?”

“I could say the same to you,” Sofie responds primly, tightening herself around his shaft as she feels him stirring inside of her. “Don’t you ever get tired?”

“Not of you. I don’t think that would ever be possible.” He leans down claiming her mouth, kissing her deeply, hungrily, as if he could never get enough of her.

“That sounds good to me.” She breathes the words against his lips, groaning in pleasure as he starts to move inside of her again, his hardness already responding to her.

“Ready for round two?” Ashton smiles at her, pushing her hair out of her face and looking at her as if she were the most precious thing he’s ever held in his hands.

“For you Ash, I’m always ready.” She smiles wickedly at him, enjoying the sexual power she has over him.

“Fuck, baby, you don’t even know how much I love to hear you say that.” Ashton takes hold of her hips as he moves inside of her and shows her just how much her words mean to him.

As Sofie makes her way towards the barn, she has a spring in her step that she realizes she’s been missing since events had started to spiral out of control. She and Ashton had made love again and it was as perfect and as satisfying as it always was. With all the craziness going on around them, it was as if they had both realized how much they needed each other, how much they needed the sweet release that they only found inside of each other. It had seemed almost wrong to feel so turned on and fulfilled when the pack was going through the most testing time since…well, since ever. But she and Ashton needed each other; they needed to be together in a way that transcended all reason and all question of right or wrong. Something that perfect could never be questioned.

But what about when you have to leave tonight? How are you going to fill that empty space inside of you when you’re not with him and Lord knows how long for? She tries to squish that unsettling thought underneath her foot as she strides towards the converted barn where most of the pack were staying.

It won’t be that long, she tells herself, it’s not like I’m going to Alaska or anything. She tries to make light of the fact that she’s just lied to Ashton, that he has no idea what she’s planning and that he’s not going to like it. But that didn’t mean that it wasn’t the right thing to do in the long-term. That’s what she tells herself, anyway.

She finds Lindsey in the barn on her own, munching on a piece of toast, her brow furrowed in a frown. “Where is everyone?” Sofie looks around as she walks in, as if she’s expecting the pack to suddenly jump out in front of her.

“Gus has rounded everyone up, handing out bullshit tasks to keep them busy,” Lindsey shrugs, unimpressed.

“I guess he figures that the busier they are is the less they’re going to be freaking out over what’s happening.” Sofie wonders how things have changed in such a short time that now she’s defending Gus.

“He took the TV.” Lindsey points at an empty corner of the room. “Said watching the news isn’t going to help anyone.” Lindsey takes another bite of her toast, looking like she wished that she were biting a chunk out of Gus’s neck.

“Okay…and you disagree with him because…?” Sofie leans over on the kitchen counter, wonder what’s really eating Lindsey.

“I don’t, it’s just I’m not a fan of his holier than thou crap when he’s the one that got us into this mess in the first place!” Lindsey throws the half-eaten bit of toast into the kitchen sink with such force that it almost bounces right out again. Sofie remains silent, watching her friend. This is the first time she’s seen Lindsey really mad, and it’s more than a little disconcerting. “Sorry,” she mumbles after a few moments of silence, “I know that’s not fair. I’m just a little on edge today, is all.” She pulls her dark curly hair back into a makeshift bun, tutting as the tendrils escape, falling around her face artfully. She really was gorgeous, Sofie would be the first to admit that she was glad she wasn’t the competition. Lindsey was happily mated to Hector, a red-headed hunk of a man that would walk over hot coals for her.

“You don’t have to apologize to me. It’s a tough time, of course you’re going to be a little more…prickly than usual. You’re worried about the pack, about your home, where do you go from here…?” Sofie stops as she sees the look of confusion in Lindsey’s face.

“Screw that! I’m worried about my bar!” Lindsey flings an arm out, pointing in the direction of the town.

“Oh, right.” Sofie doesn’t know what to say, this isn’t how she had expected the conversation to go at all.

“You think it’s still going to be in one piece once people see me on the news? They’re going to drink every damn bottle of liquor I have and then they’re going to go to town on it!” Lindsey shakes her head and Sofie is surprised to see angry tears in her eyes.

“I know it’s your livelihood and that you love that bar, but I didn’t realize how important it was to you.” Sofie reaches out to cover Lindsey’s hand with hers and gives it a squeeze.

“My dad gave it to me.” Lindsey’s voice is small and the expression on her face makes her look like a little girl. “It’s the only thing I have left of him.”

“Oh, honey.” Sofie pulls Lindsey into her, giving her friend the warm hug that she so desperately needs. “I’m sorry, Linds. I’m so sorry.” She strokes her friend’s hair, calming her as she adds what Luke has done to Lindsey to the mental list of reasons for her to hate him. “But we’re going to get it back for you, we’re going to get it back. This isn’t over yet.”

The steel in Sofie’s voice makes Lindsey lift her head and scrub away the tears that have made tracks down her cheeks. “Why do I feel like I’m not going to like what you’re about to tell me?” It seems to be more of a rhetorical question, but Sofie was about to answer it just the same. “And why do you smell like sex?” Lindsey wrinkles her nose up and gives Sofie a little nudge.

Sofie feels her face burn as if it were on fire. Of course, she had forgotten about that. Now she wishes she’d taken that shower. Ashton had told her not to, that he liked knowing that she had his scent on her. It was a macho display of possession but Sofie would be lying if she said that she didn’t enjoy it. She had pointed out to him that in a place full of werewolves, with their superior sense of smell, it would be like broadcasting the fact that they’d just done the nasty to anyone close enough to catch the scent, which incidentally was everyone. He was unfazed by that, and the sexy smile he had given her was enough to throw her reticence to the wind, a fact she was now regretting a little as she blushes under Lindsey’s intense gaze.

But the look that Lindsey gives her is nowhere near judgemental, if anything she seems pleased that Sofie and Ashton have been doing it. “Well, it’s nice to know that some things around here don’t change.” Lindsey smirks at her friend, her worry over her bar sidelined, for now. “Guessing this means you’ve forgiven him for the little power-play he had going on with Gus over the vote?”

“There was nothing to forgive. He did what he thought was the right thing. I know he only wants to protect me, I can’t be pissed at him for that.” Sofie shrugs, her voice level and calm.

Lindsey looks at her as if she were an alien. “Okay…Who are you and what have you done with Sofie Braun?” She looks behind her as if she’s expecting the real Sofie to appear through the door at any moment, pointing and screaming at the doppelganger.

“Ha, ha, very funny.” Sofie rolls her eyes, jumping up to take a seat on the stool at the breakfast bar. Ashton had converted the barn into a kind of clubhouse, but it was nowhere near big enough to accommodate the entire pack for any length of time. It didn’t take much imagination to realize that soon they’d be getting cabin fever and would be desperate to get out of this place, to run free in the woods. It’s what they’re made for and it won’t take long for their natural instincts to win out over their common sense.

“Earth to Sofie! You still with me?” Lindsey is waving a hand in front of her face, cutting of Sofie’s blank stare into the distance.

“Sorry, must have zoned out there for a second. Blame the lack of sleep!” She smiles wryly at her friend, wondering if Lindsey can tell immediately that she’s lying or if it takes her a good few seconds.

“Right…it’s lack of sleep or it’s the fact that you’ve got something on your mind? Anything you want to share with the group?” Lindsey spreads her hands, looking at Sofie expectantly. “What’s got you all Zen?”

Sofie bows her head, looking at her feet, knowing that once the words are out of her mouth she won’t be able to take them back and they’ll start something that there won’t be any walking away from. “Ashton wants me to leave.” She watches Lindsey as her friends’ eyes widen in surprise, not at Sofie’s words but at the calmness behind them. Before she can be interrupted she barrels on. “He’s made arrangements with the Frontier pack in Alaska, I leave tonight and I’ve asked for you to be the one to come with me.”

Lindsey works her mouth, but no words come out. Absently, Sofie wonders if this is the first time that she’s seen her friend speechless, it was disconcerting to say the least. The silence stretches out between them until Lindsey shakes her head, getting a hold of herself.

“Tonight? And you’re okay with that? With him sending you away?” Lindsey looks at her incredulously. “I really am starting to wonder if I’m stuck in ‘Revenge of the Bodysnatchers’.” She paces up and down in front of Sofie, thinking out loud in an unstoppable stream of consciousness, trying to make sense of what she’s hearing and Sofie’s reaction to it. “It’s not like I’m surprised that Ash would do this, it doesn’t take a mind reader to figure out that he wants you as far away from this mess as possible. And I guess Alaska is about as far away as you can get. But what I don’t get is how calm you are about it. I know you’re a scientist and you have a tendency to be a little uptight,” Lindsey holds her hands up as Sofie levels a look at her. “Well it’s true! But you fight for what you believe in and for what you want and I know that you want to stay with the pack, you want to stay with Ash, you proved that when you asked to be turned. So that’s why it makes no sense that you would just let him ship you off to the back of freakin’ beyond and sit there smiling serenely like the Mona Lisa!” A look of realization stops Lindsey in her tracks. It’s a light-bulb moment as the penny drops. “Unless of course you’re not planning to just let him ship you off.”

Lindsey’s last sentence hangs in the air as Sofie nods slowly. “We have a winner!” Sofie jokes weakly. “We’re not going to Alaska. I’m not going to run away, not when I know that I can help.”

“So where are we going?” Lindsey looks at her curiously, her head tilted to get a better read on her.

Sofie does something that she’s been practising, she opens her mind, she lets her friend see exactly what she has planned.

It takes a few seconds but Lindsey’s eyes widen in understanding. “We’re going to the spring. You’re going to drink from the stream.” It’s a statement not a question that falls from Lindsey’s lips and Sofie wonders if it’s full of wonder or fear or a little bit of both.

Sofie nods her head, grimly. “Ashton told me that’s how the transformation starts. I have to drink from the spring and then he has to turn me.”

“We don’t even know where the spring is, Sofe. It’s a legend.” Lindsey doesn’t look at her as she says the words.

“These woods, hell this whole canyon is sacred, it has power. You’ve told me that. It stands to reason the water does too, doesn’t it?” Sofie forces Lindsey to look at her, to give her the answer she already knows.

“Like I said last night, it’s possible.” Lindsey shakes her head, she doesn’t need to add ‘but not probable.’ “And if it doesn’t work? If we don’t get you back to Ashton in time? What then? You could die, Sofie!” The fear in Lindsey’s eyes is easy to see. But Sofie doesn’t reflect it back to her.

“We could all die if I don’t do something.” Sofie marvels at the calm in her voice. She knows that she sounds like she has an exaggerated sense of her own status in all of this, but there’s something inside of her that tells her that what she’s doing is right. She truly believes that this is the only way to save the pack and potentially every other pack that Luke decides to go after.

“You said yourself that I’m a part of all of this -- that I’m important in some way to what’s going on, that Ashton will need me to do what needs to be done. Well, this is the time to test that theory. If you’re right, then making me a werewolf could be the key to all of this.” Sofie doesn’t allow herself to think about what could happen to her if Lindsey is wrong. She pushes the unwelcome thought out of her brain.

Lindsey looks at her, resignedly, but she tries to change her mind one last time. “If anything were to happen to you, I don’t know how Ashton would carry on. Doing what you’re asking, if it doesn’t work it isn’t just putting you at risk it’s putting the whole pack in danger. It would destroy Ash.”

“Then we have to make sure that it works.” Sofie hopes that her confidence is more convincing from the outside looking in. She’s scared, of course she’s scared of what could happen if everything goes horribly wrong, she would be stupid not to be. “There’s already too much at stake for us not to try, Linds.” Sofie watches as her friend’s expression remains uneasy. “Last night, you pledged to help me, you said that you had to trust that whatever was driving me is what needs to be done, that whatever it is, you’ll be ready. Well that time is now. Are you ready?” Sofie stands up to her full height, hoping that she looks more imposing than she feels.

“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.