Thunder (Alpha Love - a Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance Book 3) (14 page)

If you really believe that then you don’t know her at all.
Lindsey’s voice is cold. She’s known Ashton for too long not to tell him what she thinks.
What’s worse is that I know you don’t believe it. But it’s an easy way for you to put her to one side, to put the pack before yourself, yet again. Believing the worst of her is you taking the easy road out, the road that stops you from ever having to lose someone that you care about. Why is it easier for you to pretend to yourself that you hate her instead of admitting that you’re in love with her!

Ashton is silent, but he’s pacing around the clearing, his body vibrating with energy.

Do you know why she needs that money so badly? Do you know what she wouldn’t tell me?

I know bits and pieces, not the whole story. I barely know her!
Ashton tone tells Lindsey that he’s mad, really mad.

Sounds familiar, she feels the same way about you. Share things with her. Open up to her. She’s the one that you’ve been waiting for, Ash. Don’t throw it away
, Lindsey pleads with him.
I saw that you gave her the necklace. If you did that, it must mean that you trust her. So trust her now.

Ashton doesn’t respond, instead he changes the subject.
Hunters are moving into the woods tomorrow.

His words make Lindsey go cold.
Hunters? What the hell, Ash?

Gus. He made an…error in judgment.
Ashton doesn’t expand on Gus’s disobedience, that’s something that he’s settled with him in private.
I’ve given the order for everyone to clear out of the woods tomorrow. No one will be setting foot here, in wolf form or otherwise. The poachers will wander around, they won’t find anything, and then they’ll most likely go home.

Oh yeah? What makes you so sure about that?
Lindsey is less certain than Ashton seems to be. She wonders if he really believes what he’s saying or if he’s just trying to stop the pack from descending into panic.

These guys live for the kill. If there’s nothing to hunt except for a few deer, they won’t hang around.
Ashton’s tone tells her that it’s the end of that conversation.

But Lindsey’s not finished yet.
But what if they do stick around? What then?

Ashton rounds on her advancing on her menacingly.
That isn’t going to happen. What’s the matter with you all? First Gus can’t obey a direct order, and now you’re questioning the safety of the pack? That’s my responsibility not yours!

Ashton is breathing heavily. He’s angry.

Ash, you need to calm down. Stay with me here. You can’t let your emotions get the better of you. You’re right. It is your responsibility, but you don’t have to carry it on your own all the time. We’re a pack; that’s what it means; we need each other.
Lindsey watches as he gets himself back under control. It’s been a while since she’s seen him like this—on the edge. It’s not a good sign.
You’ve been having the dreams again.
She doesn’t even need him to answer her, she can tell just from the way he’s behaving.
How long? Who else knows?
Lindsey goes straight into damage-control mode.

A few months. Only Gus.
Ashton hangs his head like he’s ashamed.

A few months? And you’re only just telling me know? What’s the matter with you? You know that you can’t carry the visions on your own. It messes you up inside, makes it harder to hold back the wolf. That’s what I’m here for, Ash. You should have come to me.
There’s no reproach in her voice; it’s just a statement of fact. She tries not to let her worry for him become too obvious. He never appreciated being babied.

I know, Linds. I know
. Ash morphs back into human form, leaning against a tree, pulling on his jeans that he’s discarded there. Lindsey is unaffected by his nakedness. They’re animals; it was their natural state; and, she’d never been prudish about showing some skin.

She follows his lead, morphing into her human form and catching his t-shirt that he throws over to her to cover herself with in the cold, night air.

“How bad is it?” She stands opposite him, walking up and down. Like all Lycans, she has a huge amount of energy which makes it easier to think when she’s walking.

“Honestly? I don’t know. That’s why I haven’t told you. Because I wanted to have something more to go on. It’s just a few images that keep repeating themselves and this feeling, this feeling that everything is about to change.” Ash shakes his head, raking his fingers through his hair.

“What do you see?” Lindsey squats down on her haunches, studying Ashton’s face.

“A river, it starts off being a river of oil and then it mixes with blood.” Lindsey nods for him to continue. “I hear one of the weres howling, as if it were in pain, one of the females, I don’t know which. A feeling of being trapped out in the darkness.”

Lindsey can see that there’s something he’s not sharing with her.
What else?
She probes his mind with hers.

“Sofie. I see Sofie. She’s bleeding, and she’s scared. I’m standing over her. I can taste her blood. It’s me that’s done it to her.” Ashton puts his head in his hands, as if it will close his eyes against what he’s already seen. “She was wearing the necklace. It didn’t make any sense. If she was wearing the necklace, then nothing should have been able to hurt her. I’ve been trying to understand, pouring over all the old stories, trying to come up with something, anything that will make any sense. I’ve come up empty.” He bangs his head against the tree to emphasize the last word. Lindsey winces on his behalf, but he barely blinks.

Lindsey nods her head, reaching out and patting her best friend on the shoulder. “No wonder you’ve started to go a little cuckoo.” Ashton barks a laugh at her way with words. “You know that these things aren’t literal, right? You know that they’re signs, not a map of what’s going to happen.”

Ashton looks at her, reading the fear in her eyes. “Either way, if they’re signs, I don’t think they mean that we’re all going to be swimming in puppies and chocolate,” he notes dryly.

“No, that’s not what it sounds like.” She pauses, wondering if she should say what’s coming next. She figures there’s no point in keeping anything back. There’s been too much of that already. “No one would blame you if you gave the order to lead the pack out of the canyon. We’d find somewhere else, somewhere safe.” As soon as she says it, she sees that her words aren’t making a dent in Ashton’s thoughts.

“There is no way I will do that, Linds. This is our home. I won’t be the Alpha that loses it all.” Ashton pushes himself up from the ground.

“It has been our home for a long time. With everything that’s going on around here now, maybe this is the time for us to move on, before anyone gets hurt.” Her voice is gentle, soothing as she tries to keep a lid on Ashton’s unease and confusion.

“Why do you say
hurt
? I thought you said the dreams were just signs!” Ashton points a finger at her, accusatorily.

“Yeah, but you know what the sign for blood is in a vision, Ash? It’s blood! And you know that, otherwise you wouldn’t be so freaked out at what it means to stay here. You know that you’re running the risk of some of the pack getting hurt, maybe worse. Is staying here really worth it? Worth more than a life?” Lindsey knows that she’s being harsh, but she has to hammer some sense into him somehow.

“We have to fight for this place. This is our land. Not theirs. If we leave here then who is to say that the next place will be any better, that we won’t have to move on from there in a matter of time?” Ashton’s heating up again, his emotions getting the better of him.

“Then, we’ll move on, Ash. Where you go, we all follow. That’s how it works. You’re the Pack Master, you’re the Alpha. You’re the one that knows what is best for the pack; you’re the only one that can know. That’s the deal,” Lindsey shrugs as if to say it’s just that simple.

“What if I don’t know what’s best? What if I’m wrong? I believe that we should stay here, that that’s the right decision. But what if it’s not? What if that’s the decision that gets someone killed? One of ours? How am I supposed to live with that?” Ashton’s fear for his people and his anger at himself for not having all the answers is threatening to turn him into a mass of emotion. He had taught Lindsey that emotion is the enemy of control, and control is so important for a were. Otherwise, they’re just animals.

It breaks Lindsey’s heart to see him like this, so torn up inside. “Ash, you can’t beat yourself up for not knowing everything. You can only do the best that you can. You’re the Alpha, and that makes you different from the rest of us, but it doesn’t make you a god, Ash. You can’t make yourself responsible for every bad thing that might happen to us. That’s not the legacy that your mom and dad would have wanted to leave behind.”

Ashton nods slowly, his eyes growing soft at the mention of his mother. Lindsey knows just how much he misses her. She gives him a moment to collect himself, resting against the most central of the sacred stones. It’s the largest individual piece, and it stands straight up, vertically to the ground.

But as soon as her body comes into contact with it, something happens. She’s no longer in the forest, she’s somewhere else, she’s walking down a corridor, but it’s not like her normal visions where it’s all a little vague and she’s observing what’s going on. Instead, she feels the intent of whoever this person is, this man who is focused on a particular room.

She isn’t just watching him, she
is
him, like she’s hijacking his brain and in his mind she sees Sofie. She can feel the menace inside of him, the need to instill fear, to inflict pain. She taps her suit pocket, something keeps on bumping against her leg. She feels the outline of a switchblade and, as she touches it, she gets a flash of faces being cut, men’s, women’s tens, hundreds of them. It’s too much to take, she closes her eyes against it, breaking the connection, collapsing to the soft ground, feeling the grass and dirt under her bare hands and feet.

Ashton is by her side, his arm around her, looking at her with eyes full of concern. “What just happened, Linds? Where did you go?”

She takes a few deep breaths, flexing her fingers and toes, getting used to the feeling of being back in her own body, not in someone else’s. She’s never had an experience like that before, and it’s not one that she plans on repeating anytime soon. She pieces together the few details that she has, but Sofie’s face is the one thing that stays with her along with the intent she felt within the man she had inhabited, the intent to hurt.

“Sofie.” Lindsey looks at Ashton, her eyes full of fear. “Something bad is about to happen. Soon. Tonight.”

Ashton looks torn, desperate to do something with the information she’s given him, but he also doesn’t want to just leave Lindsey there when she’s just had a pretty traumatic experience.

She reads his feelings perfectly. “I’m fine. Go. Hector will be here soon.” She smiles reassuringly at Ashton, knowing that Hector will have felt her distress and will be on his way to her. She was his mate. It didn’t matter how far away they were from each other, in times of extreme emotion or pain or joy, they could feel each other.

Ashton waits for a beat more, loathe to leave her, so she gives him the push he needs. “If you don’t leave right now, something bad is going to happen to Sofie. And we both know that’s something you will never forgive yourself for.”

Ashton’s decision is made. He doesn’t respond, instead he jumps into the air, morphing into his wolf form as he does and runs into the woods in the direction of the motel. “Please don’t be too late,” Lindsey whispers a prayer to anyone that’s listening, “I don’t know what he’ll do without her.”

Sofie sits on her bed, her shoes dangling from her fingers, wondering if what Finn is suggesting to do to Luke really is possible. But even if it is, won’t it be too late for her anyway? Building a case against Luke and Shale is going to take time, and time is something that she doesn’t have, not when Luke’s investigators are on the case of Ashton and the pack.

She misses Ashton. It’s only been a few hours since she’s seen him, and she misses him like crazy. Perhaps it’s partly because she knows that she might not see him again. After Lindsey gives him the news of what she saw in the hotel lobby, she wouldn’t blame him if he never wants to speak to her again.

But the thought of that makes her heart hurt. The idea of him thinking of her and being disappointed, almost breaks her. She has to talk to him, to explain what happened. All of her best intentions go out the window as she starts to call him on her cell, but there’s no coverage. “Perfect,” she exclaims out loud, throwing the phone on the bed. “It’s just like how the rest of my day has gone.”

She picks up the room telephone but stops herself before she starts dialing. She knows that she can’t risk calling Ashton from there, Shale is probably tapping her calls, and she couldn’t ask Finn to work his magic on the phone, not tonight. Not only was he half-cut, but she had probably also used up all of her favors with him, at least for a while. She thinks,
There’s only one thing to do. I have to go over to Ashton’s house. I can’t wait. I have to see him.
She slips her heels back on, picks up her keys and takes a few steps towards the door.

“Leaving so soon, but you only just got here.” The voice comes out of the darkness behind her, one that she recognizes from his monthly visits to her apartment. She’s not alone. The Collector is there, waiting for her, and she’s in the worst place she could possibly be, away from help and away from Ashton.

She thinks,
If I scream, Finn may hear me through his drunken snoring, but he probably wouldn’t. The man sleeps like the dead at the best of times. And even if he did hear me and come rushing over, what is he going to do? He can’t face up to a man like the Collector. Finn isn’t a fighter, not even close.

Sofie remains still, not turning around to look at him. She tries to figure out if she can make it to the door and outside before he has a chance to grab her. But she doesn’t know if he’s on his own or if there will be guys waiting for her out in the parking lot.

“If you’re thinking of running, I wouldn’t.” His voice is amused, like he’s enjoying this little visit.

She takes a deep breath, steeling herself and turns around to face the voice coming out of the corner of the room. It’s dark, but she can see that the Collector is wearing a suit, he was always in a dark gray suit, expensive looking. Apart from that, he looks like your average, everyday Joe. Nothing about him stands out. But that’s exactly what he’s going for. Anonymity is his currency. His regular looks make him more difficult to describe to the police; he could be any one of millions of men. The armchair he’s sitting in creaks as he moves slightly, bringing Sofie back, back to the dangerous present.

“You broke into my room. You couldn’t have left me a message?” She tries to show him that she’s not afraid, and she hopes that he can’t see the way her legs are shaking.

“Does the door look broken? I picked the lock. Give me a little credit.” The guy chuckles lightly, as if he’s playing to an imaginary crowd.

“I have your money; it’s right here.” Sofie starts to walk over to her bag where she’d stuffed the cash Luke had given her, but the Collector holds his hands up indicating she should stay where she is.

“That’s good. It’s good that you have the cash. You’re a responsible girl; I’ve always liked that about you. You take on your father’s debts; you do what you’re told; you man up. I respect you for that. You and me, we’ve never had a problem before.” He gestures between the two of them, shifting his position in the uncomfortable armchair.

“No, we’ve never had a problem, not up to the point where you broke into my hotel room in the middle of the night!” Sofie puts her hands on her hips, slipping off her heels at the same time. It was clear she wasn’t going anywhere, and if he was planning on doing anything, at least in bare feet she stood a chance of defending herself.

“Really, well that’s not the way I see things. It seems we have a difference of opinion.” He shifts in his seat again, feeling the aged springs poking him in the rear end. “You left DC without even a goodbye, no forwarding address, no way for us to get in touch with you. That was very remiss of you.”

“I was traveling for work. I didn’t just skip town to avoid you guys. I’m still here working. If you’ve been around here for a little while, you’ll now about the drilling site. Besides, it’s not like I’ve ever had any way of getting in touch with you. That was always the deal, the less I knew, the better for you.” She shrugs as she tells him something he already knows. She peers at the Collector through the darkness, trying to get an inkling of what it is that he’s thinking, what he’s planning on doing now that he’s presented himself in her room.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses, Ms. Braun.” His voice is harsh, frustrated. He’s losing his patience. He’s a dangerous man, and Sofie knows not to cross him. He’s told her to keep quiet, so that’s what she’ll do.

The Collector was just one cog in a very big wheel. He was the enforcer. He was the one that they sent for the money, to instill fear into the hearts of whoever the debtor was and to make it clear what would happen to them if the flow of money ever stopped before they said so. Whatever he was planning on doing here, he had to have been sent by someone higher up, which wasn’t good news for her. The higher up news of her went is the more visible she became to them, and these were people that you didn’t want to stand out to.

She had managed to coast more or less under the radar with them, doing what they asked without question, increasing her monthly payments whenever they said so. She kept her head down and did what she was told. That was up until now. Now things had shifted. She didn’t know the lay of the land anymore; she was all at sea, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sofie tries to keep calm, but she’s never been good in situations where she had no control. When her control was away, she felt like a little girl again, a little girl with no idea of what was about to happen to her.

“How did you know I was here?” It’s dangerous for her to ask a question. He’s made it clear that he’s the one that asks and she’s the one that answers.

“Well, that’s the best part of the whole story. A concerned citizen left a message for me at your shiny new apartment. You really should think about unpacking all those boxes you’ve got there sometime, get some plants, make the place a little more homely.” He gives her advice as if he were a friendly uncle rather than an underworld criminal.

Great, yet another person that’s broken in to my apartment
, Sofie thinks.
Why would I even bother to lock the door?

“Anyway, this helpful person gave me all the details I needed. He told me what town you were in, what motel you were staying at, what room number you had. It really was lucky that he got that message to us, otherwise who knows how long it would have taken us to find you.” The Collector smiles at her indulgently.

And wouldn’t that have been the end of the world?
Sofie keeps the thought to herself. She has a fair idea of who that concerned citizen could have been. Luke had admitted he’d been in her apartment and his private investigators had dug up information on her father’s past and her financial woes. It wasn’t exactly a stretch to figure out that he was the one that had led the Collector right to her. It worked in Luke’s favor, giving her the push she needed to ask him for a favor. And now she was indebted to him. His plan had worked out pretty well.
Home run for Mr. Calambor,
she thinks.

“So it all worked out then!” Sofie replies to her captor as brightly as she can while under threat. “I’m just going to walk over to my bag and get you your money. I’m guessing you don’t want to stay in this town any longer than you have to. I can imagine it’s not really your scene.” She holds her hands up as she approaches the bed where she had dumped her bag, moving slowly so that he doesn’t think she’s going for mace or a gun, or whatever he seems to think she carries around with her. She slips the envelope of crisp bills out of the bag and looks at him for permission. He nods, waving her over to him, and she advances slowly, stopping a few feet in front of him. She hands over the envelope, her hand shaking.

She takes a step back, as she watches him count it. She’s already done the same, twice. She knows that it’s all there, there’s no chance of anything being missing. That’s why she’s so surprised to see the look of disappointment on his face as he finishes up.

“It isn’t enough.” He looks at the money and then looks at her, shaking his head.

“Wh…what do you mean? It’s all there; I counted it. It’s the same as every month, right down to the last dollar.” Sofie stares at the envelope, confused, wondering if a few of the Benjamin Franklins had slipped out into her purse.

“You’re right. It’s all here, down to the last dollar. What you pay every month is sitting here in my hand.” He holds out the envelope flat against his palm. “But this isn’t like every other month. Your little disappearing act has incurred some additional…expenses.”

“What are you talking about?” Her voice is unsteady. She doesn’t like the way this is going. “What expenses?”

“Well, let’s see.” The Collector starts to list items on his fingers. “There’s the plane that I had to catch to get down here, then the car that I had to hire to get me to this godforsaken place. Then, there’s the hotel that I’ve had to pay for, while I hung around, waiting for you to decide to show up. Plus, there’s the terrible food that I’ve had to eat. Tell me, what place in the world doesn’t have one good Italian restaurant? Seriously, it’s not that hard!” He shrugs at her, smiling as if they’re buddies, and then he looks down at his hand again, frowning like he can’t remember what he was about to say. “Ah, yes, and then finally, there’s my time.” He holds up the five fingers that he’s ticked off on his right hand.

“And what do all these amount to?” Sofie bunches her fists, digging her nails into her palms to stop herself from screaming out in frustration. It almost doesn’t matter what figure he names, she doesn’t have it.

“I’m willing to be reasonable, so let’s just call it double.” The Collector sits back in the chair, observing her reaction.

“Double?” Sofie gulps the word down as if that would make it disappear.

“Yeah, that seems fair, doesn’t it?” He doesn’t wait for her response. “So you’re short about this much.” He indicates a space above the envelope with his fingers of a couple of inches.

Sofie is rendered speechless. After all her worrying, after the indignity of having to ask Luke for the money and watching him count it out, making her look like a hooker in front of anyone that was looking. None of it had mattered. She almost wants to laugh it’s so unbelievable. None of it had been necessary. No matter what she did, she wouldn’t have been able to get them the money they want.

The Collector watches her for a few moments, while she tries to find the words. “What’s the matter, little lady? You didn’t really think that there wouldn’t be any blow-back from your disappearing act, did you?” He shakes his head, surprised at her naiveté. “My employers aren’t in the business of running around after people that owe them money. And they don’t take kindly when people try to skip out on them.” He looks at her meaningfully, leaning forward threateningly, his elbows on his knees.

Involuntarily, Sofie takes a step back. It’s a reflex action, something that she can’t stop. “I didn’t
skip out
on my debts. I don’t know how to say it a different way.” Her voice is steady although her heart is hammering at about a million beats per minute. “In all the years you’ve known me, I haven’t once let you down, not once. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

The Collector mulls this over for a few seconds before getting to his feet and advancing on Sofie shortly. “Little girl, I thought you were smarter than that. We’re not in the business of trust. You don’t get points for being on time with your money every month. That’s what’s
expected
of you. That is the
minimum
that they want from you. So what, you think they’re going to cut you some slack just because this is the first bump in the road? I thought you would have known better than that.”

“What are you going to do?” Her voice is a whisper as her fear gets the better of her.

“Well, that all depends. Do you have the rest of the money?” He looks at her with interest, scrutinizing her face.

“Here? Now?” Sofie looks around, as if she’s expecting a money tree to pop out from the ground.

“The longer you make me wait is the more you’re going to be paying, and I’m not just talking cash. So, the choice is yours, but, if I had such a pretty face, I wouldn’t want to do anything that might spoil it.” He smiles at her kindly, like he’s just giving her some friendly advice. Sofie wonders how many times he’s done this, how many times he’s done the dirty work that he’s been employed for. She wonders if he even feels anything when he’s scaring people, when he’s hurting them.