Torrent (Alpha Love - a Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance Book 4) (14 page)

“You want to see a monster? I’ll show you a monster!” Lindsey takes a step towards him but Sofie’s arm flashes out and stops her. Sofie shakes her head, almost imperceptibly and Lindsey clenches and unclenches her fists, but she remains where she is, even though it’s excruciating for her to let his insult go unpunished.

“You see? They’re creatures of violence, they don’t understand anything else. In time, when we’re together, you’ll see that I’m right.” Luke nods in agreement with himself.

“When we’re together? You can’t be serious!” Sofie has to stifle a laugh as she says the words. “You still think that you and I, that we...I can’t even say it it’s so ridiculous!” She laughs out loud, not bothering to hide it before she focuses on how serious she is about what she’s saying. “To be clear, there is no way, in this world or the next that I would ever want to be with you. I can’t even stand to be anywhere near you! You make me sick!”

For once, Luke is speechless and Lindsey takes her opportunity to catch him off guard. “You knew you weren’t just hunting wolves in Beaumont, otherwise you wouldn’t have brought that thing.” She points at the wooden caller that’s still clenched in his hand. “How did you know about werewolves before anyone else?”

Luke looks at her in disgust, like he can’t bear to put himself on her level by answering her question, behaving like she’s a human rather than an animal. But his need to showboat gets the better of him, so he tells the story.

“I was aware of the legend of the Lycan. The legends are older than religion, older than writing was invented. The stories were passed down, told around campfires and the story spread. Most people thought, and still think, the stories were too ludicrous to be believed, that they were just a way of frightening little children into behaving, but a few people did believe. My father was one of those few.” Luke pauses his attention still trained on Sofie and Finn, as if Lindsey didn’t even exist to him.

“If this is going to be a story about how dear old dad used to beat you and that’s why you’re such a prick now, then can we just skip to the Cliffs Notes version already?” Lindsey leans against the wall yawning extensively.

Luke shoots a look at her. He’s annoyed that she’s belittling his story, that she’s not treating him and this little legend that he’s created around himself with the respect he thinks it deserves. If Sofie hadn’t already thought that Lindsey was the coolest person on the planet, that would have erased all doubt.

“My father was a better man than you will ever meet,” Luke’s tone could cut glass, but Lindsey looks unperturbed. “He used to tell me stories about werewolves when I was a child. But for him, they weren’t the violent, base creatures that we know them to be. My father was a romantic at heart. He spoke of Lycans with reverence, as if they were magical, incredible, wonderful creatures.” Luke rubs a hand over his forehead like he can’t believe how naive his father had been. “He collected artefacts associated with the legend, or junk as I had thought of it in my youth. For years I had thought that my father had lost his mind in his old age. Up until recently that’s all I’d thought the werewolf myth was, just a legend.”

“But that was before you found out about the oil here.” The pieces of the puzzle are slowly starting to fit together for Sofie, she knows what’s coming next. But she lets him tell it anyway, the longer they can keep him talking for is the longer they have to figure a way out of whatever he has in store for them.

“Exactly, Sofie, exactly! You always were the brightest spark in the whole of Shale Corp. It’s down to you really that we’ve managed to come along so far so fast with the drilling in Spring Canyon. You really should spare a moment to think about your career, you’re a damn good oil hound.” Luke smiles that condescending smile of his.

“I’m a geologist, not an oil hound and I’m more interested in being a good person than I am in furthering my career, so save your pitches. Tell us the rest.” She crosses her arms in front of her chest, waiting for Luke to tell the rest of the story, knowing that he’s itching to carry on his performance in front of his captive audience.

“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.