Ashridge Werewolf Pack - Chapter Five (sfw) (Patreon)

It's Monday, so while I'm still posting on here during August (existing patrons won't be charged for September, so I won't guarantee any new content for Sept. See this post for full info), it's time for more Ashridge Pack stuff. I had one hell of a weekend, which involved spending most of it driving, so I didn't get Winter Solstice organsied in time, but I do have this to offer you. 

It's a chapter from Sol's point of view this time, and we get to see the perspective of the true alpha werewolf who seems, at least from the outside, angry and sullen. Turns out, he might have a softer side...

Info post (general)Character 'bio' for Sol and LukeChapters: One, Two, Three, Four

Sol slammed his door much harder than necessary and waited for Harry’s human friend to get in.

Luke. The guy’s name was Luke.

Luke, who was studying for a masters in early medieval history and whose breathing had the slight drag of asthma to each inhale. Luke, who regarded Sol with a mixture of fear and intrigue that seemed indistinguishable from each other. Luke, who had made his usually severe little sister laugh so freely and who had also somehow drawn the attentions of a female from the Stag’s Quarry pack the way a wounded deer draws predators. Luke, a human who knew about wolves and had been welcomed into the pack like one of their own, despite everything that pack had suffered at the hands of humans already. Luke, whose hazel eyes noticed much more than he let on, and who smelled like warm cotton hoodies and coffee and library textbooks one minute, and then anxiety the next, and then a hint of arousal… 

Fuck. 

He started the car and the roaring V12 masked his own soft growl for a second. He could feel his canines pricking at his gums already and he took a deep, steadying breath, even as Harry’s voice still echoed in his mind: ‘I thought he gave you the creeps?’.

A moment later, Sol’s memories supplied Luke’s answer: ‘…he kind of does…’ 

Well, it was probably for the best anyway. Sol wasn’t exactly the most personable of people. He knew he was hard to get to know, and most people gave up the moment he made eye contact, regardless of the colour of his irises. Being a true alpha, he wasn’t averse to meeting people’s gazes head on, and most just backed down instantly, wolf or not. 

Luke got in while Sol still had his eyes rammed shut. 

“Ready?” Sol asked through gritted teeth. 

“Yup,” Luke chirped awkwardly from the seat beside him, shuffling incessantly like a bird struggling to get comfortable in a prickly nest. “This is a beautiful car,” he blurted, and Sol could smell his anxiety again. Whenever he inhaled, it clawed at the back of his throat like overripe cologne and made him want to gag or growl or wolf out. He wasn’t sure which one ranked highest. 

Sol decided not to respond, instead sliding the car into gear and setting off down the drive. He was halfway down it before he realised he hadn’t switched his headlights on, and, not wanting to get stopped by the police despite the fact that his night vision was better than anyone else’s during the day, he narrowed his eyes protectively as the sudden light flared on the tarmac in front of the car. It illuminated a couple walking down on the grass ahead of them, and he felt his lip drawing up in a snarl when he recognised them as the pair from the rose garden. They turned their heads and watched the Aston pass, their eyes glowing a steady challenge in the dark.

“Was that…?” Luke asked, his heartbeat picking up as he spotted them as well. 

“Yeah.”

Luke shivered and a spike of acidic fear lanced through his scent before it faded a minute or so later. He drew a shaky breath and Sol heard a faint wheeze to it, wondering if he was alright. He wasn’t about to ask.

In fact, Sol tried not to look at him at all as he drove. 

From the moment he’d first met him, he’d thought Luke attractive, in a lean, coltish kind of way, but he was jumpy and twitchy like a rabbit. At that particular thought, he had to suppress another growl. That was how the Stag’s Quarry female had referred to him after all, and his stomach turned.

“So… uh… thanks for driving me,” Luke faltered, interrupting his thoughts. “You really didn’t have to. I appreciate it though.”

Sol just nodded again, cursing the fact that he couldn’t think of anything to say. Nothing at all. It wasn’t this hard to talk to Rose, but then again she knew him. And she wasn’t afraid of him. He didn’t give her ‘the creeps’.

Luke sighed resignedly, though he didn't smell offended, just perhaps disappointed, and he sat back in the seat, sending a fresh wave of his scent washing through the car. Sol tried every trick he knew not to draw it in, not to concentrate on it, but he couldn’t help it. He’d never been quite this close to him, and certainly not in such a confined space. Luke was Harry’s friend, and Harry was Max’s friend, so they had only the most tenuous of social links binding them together. 

Sol cleared his throat as they paused at a red light in the middle of town and had another painfully awkward stab at conversation. “Apart from that Stag’s Quarry female bothering you… did you… uh…?” he trailed off, immediately regretting opening his mouth. Risking a sideways glance, he found Luke smiling softly, curiously, head tilted towards him over his shoulder. He had a triangle of three tawny freckles on one otherwise blank cheek that Sol had never noticed. Sol, by contrast, had a generous smattering of freckles right across his cheekbones and over his nose that Rose insisted were still cute, even now that he was just shy of thirty. 

“What, did I have fun?” Luke asked with a half-laugh that exposed his throat a little and made Sol’s mouth go dry. “You know what, I actually did? Before all that, of course. Also your house is amazing. I can’t imagine living somewhere with that kind of history. I bet it’s got, like, secret basements and priest-holes and all sorts of weird shit, right?”

Sol allowed himself a slow laugh at that. “Yes,” he said. “You're doing your masters in history?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

He shrugged. “Not sure. Harry?”

“That, or my doofus comment to your sister about archways gave it away?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? You mean there are other tells us history nerds have? Dammit. I’m losing my edge if I can’t spot them.”

He had to laugh. The guy was nine kinds of skittish, but there was something else in his scent that Sol couldn’t quite place. When he risked shooting him a sidelong look, he found Luke’s eyes on his neck and swallowed nervously. “I think you’re ok,” he said gruffly and Luke shut up for the rest of the drive.

“Hey,” Luke asked when Sol pulled over outside the building, “How’d you know…?”

“Harry,” he said as he cut the engine. “I’ve picked him up a few times for pack meets.”

“Right. Of course. Pack. Duh… It’s always about the pack with you guys, right?”

Nodding mutely, Sol cleared his throat, trying to get rid of the awkward prickling under his skin as Luke fumbled slightly at the catch on the door. He had long, elegant, scholar’s fingers, still blotched here and there with faded ink. 

Sol looked away and slid out from the driver’s seat, stalking round the front of the car to the pavement while Luke finally managed to get out without scratching the car or falling over in a tangle of gangly limbs. “Listen,” Sol growled, “What Max said… when we were at Onita’s… You’re not officially pack, but you’re like a brother to Harry, and Harry’s pack, so… you’re kind of pack, ok?”

“I think that’s the longest, continuous sentence I’ve ever heard you speak,” Luke grinned and then immediately appeared to regret it. If he’d been a wolf, his ears would have gone from pricked forward to flat against his head in a heartbeat. “Sorry. I meant to say ‘thank you’, but it got a bit garbled…”

With a surprisingly amused shake of his head, Sol smiled briefly. It was probably true after all. Sol wasn’t prone to long-winded monologuing at people. “It’s fine. Listen, if you get any grief from anyone, or if you think any of the Stag’s Quarry pack is… I don’t know… You call me, ok?”

“Ok. But…” he added as Sol turned away, heading back to the car. “I’d have to have your number for that to work…”

“Oh,” and he held out his hand for Luke’s phone. It felt weird - oddly intimate - and once it was done, he thrust it back at him and nodded once. “I mean it. You call me if you see anything strange.”

“You mean besides Harry’s weird habits?”

“I probably already know about those,” Sol grinned wolfishly, and to his surprise, Luke laughed. It was a free, open sound that came from his belly and made his eyes light up, and for a moment, Sol could do nothing but stare at him. For a vulnerable human, with their muted senses and horrifyingly breakable bodies, Luke was remarkably attractive. 

Sol swallowed the bitter growl that threatened to follow his realisation, and nodded at him. “Take care.”

“You too, and… uh… thanks. You know, for the ride, and… having my back.”

“Always,” he found himself saying before he’d even registered what his mouth was about to do.

Flushing unexpectedly hot around the ears, Sol returned to the car and waited there while Luke let himself into the building. 

His heart was pounding in his chest and he forced himself to sit perfectly still. His inner wolf was trying to communicate something to him, but he couldn’t articulate it. Even when the main apartment block door had slammed shut and Luke’s footsteps had faded almost to a whisper, Sol stayed put, listening. Only when he heard the faintest click of an apartment door closing inside, storeys above him, did his vigilant wolf relax a little and let him return to the Manor. As the car pulled away, however, he felt the urge to howl again and ground his jaw together until it passed. 

He almost wound down the windows to clear the scent of Luke from the car. Something made him stop though and instead, he inhaled deeply. There was definitely an inexplicable note to his scent that drew him in, kept him in place, almost anchored, and it scared him. Deeply. It made him think of Max and Laura, or Chris and Liam; not only of mated pairs, but of bonded pairs. With Luke being human, he knew that that was impossible; he was just being stupid and jumpy after sparing the guy from that female. His instincts as a true alpha were to protect the most vulnerable in the pack, after all. His canines lengthened and he tasted blood as he bit his cheek and snarled, pushing the Aston faster as he climbed up the hill towards the house. 

The party was still in full swing when he returned, but he no longer felt like being there. At the sight of everyone laughing and touching, reinforcing pack bonds and flirting here and there with strangers, he felt his skin crawl. He wanted to shift, to run, to flee back to the woods to a time where all he had had to worry about was his next raw meal and a warm den to shelter in for the night. The desire was so strong that it made his muscles ripple and his skin itch. He felt his eyes flare whisky hot. Being feral had had its appeal for sure, but then he thought of Rose - of the way his sister laughed and of her fiery eyes - and that held him back. 

He was more than that now. The pair of them were survivors, and he was her older brother. “You are not an animal,” he hissed to himself as he closed the car door and locked it. 

Rose’s wheelchair made a very specific but barely audible sound, and Sol’s sharp ears picked up on it the moment she came round the corner of the house. “Heard the car come back,” she said, her eyes narrowing when she saw his expression. “Everything ok?”

“Think so,” he said, coming up to her and managing a smile. 

She inhaled a little more deeply and then punched him on the arm. “You’re such a sap, brother,” she grinned and he felt his cheeks flush unexpectedly again. She was the only one who could read the microscopic changes to his expressions for what they really were. Everyone else just saw a thunderhead and backed away. 

A thought suddenly dropped through his brain and he stalled. 

“What?” she asked, amused. 

“I gave him my number,” he whispered. “I should have told him to call Max or even Harry, not me. I had no business interfering like that, but I just…”

Rose, to his surprise, actually laughed. It wasn’t the elegant laugh of someone with their bloodline and social standing either, but a full-throated bark of glee. 

With a soft snarl and a half-hearted curl of his lip, he turned back to her and said, “I didn’t give him my number for that. It’s in case…” he paused and then changed tack a bit. “On our way out, we passed the two that were harassing him. They’re out there, Rose. I…” A horrible feeling swirled through him, like he should have protected Luke better, like he should still be with him or have done more for someone who could not protect himself against creatures with fangs and claws and supernatural speed and strength, and he swayed slightly on the spot. 

“Hey,” she whispered, grabbing his hand and holding him so tightly that the bones of his hand groaned beneath her grip. “You’re a good alpha, Sol. Pack leader or not, you’re a good alpha. And Luke will be fine.”

Sol took a deep, shuddering breath, and nodded. “I don’t want to be here anymore,” he said. “I…” and he glanced over his shoulder at the gathering. The alcohol smelled sour on the air and the press of bodies made him want to roar.

“Go,” she smiled. “I’ve got this. Parties have never been your thing anyway.”

He leaned down and kissed her forehead, briefly breathing in the scent of her hair and nudging his cheek against her temple in a display of protective affection before heading into the house. 

A few minutes later, a seven foot tall werewolf silently slipped out of the back door and into the woods, black fur bristling all over his body save for a little slash of white between his ears, long claws digging into the earth as he dropped to run on all fours up into the hills. He growled with pleasure at the sensation of leaf matter beneath his paws again, feeling the air filling his lungs to bursting and the burn in his muscles as he pushed himself faster and faster until that was all he could feel. 

At some point he heard the packs howling again, presumably calling a farewell and an end to the party, and he tilted his nose skywards as the moon began to sink towards the horizon and lifted his voice in a morose solo; a melancholy counterpoint across the hills.