Back and Stronger: Alpha's Daughter

Sophia sat up so fast, that for a moment the semi-dark room with the moon in Her waxing gibbous phase partly shining and lighting the interior through the large window, everything seemed to spin for a while.

Out of breath and feeling her brow dripping with perspiration, she waited for the dizzy spell to pass as she brought her legs up to her chest and hugged them to her but found her one hand was too heavy to move.

When she looked, Sophia realized that her and Neil’s hands were still interweaved, and she immediately felt safe and reassured, but she’d already moved too much and woken him.

“Soph?” he said groggily, but the moment he must have seen her shaking and sweating as though she had a severe case of the cold sweats, he was sitting up and right next to her in a flash.

His hands went around her shoulders instinctively – probably before he could think twice about touching her so soon after she’d had a panic attack because of it, his hands on her, but she leaned into his touch nonetheless. She needed the warmth and support she knew they would bring to her.

“Was it another bad dream?” he whispered, his voice laced with concern as he rubbed her upper arm that was not leaning up against him, as though he wanted to get warmth into that arm as well the moment he felt how cold she really was.

Sophia nodded in confirmation, her eyes stiff with the effort of trying to organize everything that had happened in her mind. Everything happened and swopped and changed so quickly, that it had left her reminiscence of it in a jumbled-up mess. None of it made sense that way.

The only thing that made sense was that it had been absolutely horrifying, damning, and sprung a feeling of undeniable urgency within her, like she was supposed to do something about something – like yesterday already! What was it again?

Maybe if she could piece them back together into their sequence of appearance, occurrence, and change, then she could figure out what it all had meant, and ultimately what the dream was trying to tell her. If it was even meant to convey meaning at all, that was. But by the aftertaste of pressing importance and gravity it had left behind, Sophia was pretty certain that it did.

“Tell me what happened,” Neil said coaxingly.

He must have picked up on her reasoning again, or he might just have been thinking the same logical thing, that talking about a dream was known to be a way to clarify and make sense of things after all.

Sophia did a few calming exercises by taking deep breaths, holding them for a few seconds, and then slowly vacating her lungs of that air again, imagining the worry and anxiety leaving her as she did this. It worked. She felt like she could take on the task of organizing the images still flashing within her mind’s eye like a film jumping back and forth randomly between completely different scenes.

“You were there at first,” Sophia realized as she said it, and felt him stiffen a little at that, thinking that he was responsible for the terror she had woken up with. “You didn’t do anything that scared me,” she quickly assured him before he could go too far with his own thoughts, “we were just dancing, and talking…”

“About what?”

Oh no, she couldn’t tell him about that part. She didn’t want Neil to know that she had been having dreams of him for months even before they’d actually met. She was a special case already, and she couldn’t think how horrible it would be if he looked at her with even more concern and wariness.

What else did they talk about? Oh right, the ‘mates’ topic. Sophia wasn’t exactly keen on telling him something that was a concern of hers not only in the dream, but something that’s been a silent and daunting presence watching from a perch, just waiting to grab her happiness away from her like a vulture, but something that would inevitably have become something that needed to be addressed.

“I asked you about your mate…” Neil stiffened again. “I was worried that I might be keeping you from finding out who your true mate is.”

He remained quiet, contemplative but she could feel a mixture of certainty and uncertainty having a match there, and Sophia decided to carry on telling him the dream, not wanting to think about the possible answer to that one too much.

“You then asked me where my mate is,” she went on reluctantly as she remembered how mean and un-Neil-like he’d turned then and decided not to tell him about that part either. “Then everything changed…”

She knew what happened next without having to try and remember. Sophia felt her throat go dry and gravelly as she tried to force a swallow. There was also no freaking way she was going to tell Neil how truly horrible the next part was. She forced back tears and was suddenly extremely grateful that he couldn’t see her face at that moment as she was still tucked into the crook of his neck as he kept up the stroking of her arms.

And to be honest, she hardly wanted to spend too much time on that part either, so she would just skim over it. “I was back with Matthew in the locker room then.” As Sophia expected, Neil was instantly giving off physical heat with the fury she felt within herself too. “And then I was suddenly back in the basement with my father,” she said quickly before his thoughts could wander on what happened with Matthew in her dream.

Here she had to think through the fog of her dream again, this was the part she knew had given her that sense of urgency, of doing something about it. It wasn’t the part with her and her father necessarily, it was what came after, she knew that much.

“You feel that the dream was trying to get you to act in some way?” Neil asked, having probably picked up on the pressing sort of presence she was struggling to make sense of while she was trying to get herself to remember what that was exactly.

“Yes, but–” It was then that she remembered. “I was looking in the mirror, and I wasn’t looking back at my own reflection then … It was Bella. She was beaten and tortured like I was.”

Sophia could just tell that Neil’s eyes were darkly set on the dark wall opposite them, and that even though he was still tenderly moving his fingers over her skin with the intention to calm and comfort her, she knew he was bristling with an energy ready to rip someone’s head off. And what she found she was even more certain of, was that she wasn’t nearly as scared about that potential of destruction and devastation within him as she might have been once.

A real living hurricane indeed…

“Did she say anything to you, this Bella?” he asked, and Sophia was momentarily surprised by the weight of the question, as though the answer to that would decide something.

“She accused me of letting her suffer and not doing anything about it,” Sophia said as she felt the pain of that accusation all over again now. “She wants me to save her and the other girls … and Leo too.”

That was what had caused the incessant nudge she couldn’t stop feeling earlier. It insisted on actually doing something about her dreams this time. There was no getting her to relax enough and going back to sleep again. It was an accepted reality, but before Sophia could even think of what she needed to do next, Neil was way ahead of her already.

He must have again felt what she was feeling. Ignoring it this time was an impossibility. It simply just felt earth-shatteringly wrong the moment she would consider thinking that she shouldn’t take the dream too seriously.

She watched as Neil released her gently, got out from under the covers, and swapped his gray shirt for a black one, all in one fluid motion. He then looked back at her with his one hand on the door handle already.

“Get dressed in something dark as well,” he said, his bronzes alive with ire and purpose. Sophia could feel those very same things come to life within her as well. “We’re going out. I’m waking Scott and Connor.”

And just like that, he was gone, leaving a trail of live static crackling in the air in his wake.

Sophia wasted no time either. Pulling her hair up in a ponytail, she got dressed as instructed, following his example, choosing everything black, and exited the room five minutes after Neil had, with her two Glocks in place in her new drop leg holsters tied on each leg. It was a present from Connor when she’d done so well in tactical weapons training a few days ago.

The two Glocks were each given as a present from Neil and Scott, who had told her that she needed an upgrade after the skills they’d seen. Sophia knew that they most likely only wanted to boost her confidence, but she felt cool and ready as hell for anything as she walked into the living room with them.

A living room that was now alight and abuzz with activity. All three men were dressed and ready, each busy preparing assault rifles and handguns galore. Laid out on the table were various ammunition types and sizes, as well as flash, smoke, and explosive grenades.

Sophia knew both her pistols were fully loaded, but she took additional 9mm’s and a flash grenade, just in case. She even strapped a combat knife to her belt too, after eyeing it uncertainly for a while first, but then reasoned that she’d rather be prepared for anything.

She spotted a grim-looking Neil as he carried some tech over to Scott, she didn’t have a clue how they worked, but she knew that it usually involved equipment to help with navigation, night vision, thermal vision, and such.

As he spotted Sophia, something like being impressed and seriously turned on passed over his eyes, corresponding with the feeling she picked up from him as well, but he reigned the latter part in very quickly, which brought a small smile to her lips.

“I guess I don’t need to ask you if you are ready,” he said as he gave her the once-over, maybe slowing his scan of her when his eyes landed on her thighs with the guns strapped there. “If you wanted the badass look, you’ve nailed it.”

At this, the other two guys stopped what they were doing to curiously look at her as well, and eagerly gave their stamps of approval via proud grins.

“Are you okay to do this after what happened earlier, Soph?” Neil asked softly, turning his back to Scott and Connor to give them privacy, and brushing a strand of hair behind an ear, and letting his hand come to rest under her chin as his thumb stroked her there gently.

“I’m fine,” Sophia assured him, feeling that confidence rising within her again. “Where are we going, though?”

She knew the answer to that already, of course, but she felt like she needed to ask anyway. It was like she needed to hear it with her own ears for it to truly sink in. For it to be real. Finally about to actually happen…

With his eyes and jaw set determinedly, he answered, “We’re going back to save Bella, and whatever other girls we can find, and get your brother out of there too.”