Back and Stronger: Alpha's Daughter

It was her lucky day. When Sophia arrived home, she slipped quietly through the kitchen door. She tipped her head to the side and concentrated, listening for sounds of her father.

Shuffle, Shuffle, she heard, but it was coming from Leos’s room. She crept down the hall and peered through the crack of his open bedroom door. She grabbed her stomach and bit back a laugh. Leo was trying to teach himself to dance. He had a tutorial up on his laptop. She hadn’t done a good job of holding her laughter in because his head jerked and he lunged for the door. It startled her and a squeak slipped out of her mouth.

Leo must have seen the abject terror in her eyes as soon as she made an audible noise.

“Relax. He’s been gone all day and said he wasn’t sure if he’d make it home tonight. Elsie from next door will stay with us if he can’t.”

“Thank the goddesses.” Air whooshed out with each word; her relief was so strong.

Leo eyed her clothes, then pointed.

“What are you wearing? And why weren’t you on the bus?”

“A t-shirt. A button ripped off my uniform shirt. What are you doing here?” Sophia had avoided the question by asking one of her own. One she knew would embarrass him.

“Nothing.” Leo blushed from the tips of his ears to his chin. “I covered for you with him, told him you had to stay after school to make up a science project.”

“Well, maybe I was.”

“Liar.”

Leo sighed and looked down at his feet. “I have two left feet.”

Reeling from the wonder of having spent the day with Neil, and relief that she might not have to succumb to her father’s abuse that evening, she felt happy, giddy, and big sisterly. Oh, Elsie will poke and prod at her, call her names. But nothing Sophia couldn’t handle.

“You don’t have two left feet, Leo. You are athletic, you have coordination. But you have to...” Sophia tapped her lip with her pointer finger. “Think of it like it’s a play. A pass for football. See it in your mind, then execute it.”

“Get out of here. Football play.” Leo stepped back into his bedroom and shut the door in her laughing face.

Sophia shrugged then went to the kitchen to start dinner. She put her schoolbooks on the table so she could do her homework in between. She was halfway through chopping the potatoes to put in the crock pot stew when she realized she had been humming. Oh, she always had to be listening; her father’s plans could change at the drop of the hat. She wracked her brain trying to remember if she had felt like this, even close to this, since her mother’s murder. Carefree. Happy. Normal. No. The answer to that was a resounding no. Her father had to be out of their home occasionally. But before her shift, when the rapid healing had started, it wouldn’t have mattered. She had usually been in too much pain. Too sick to move. Too tired of it all to even try.

Chop, Chop. The blade on the knife sliced through the carrots, and she absently thought about the day. When she finished, she put all the ingredients into the crock pot and went to sit at the table to study.

An area with more electrons is negatively charged, and an area with fewer electrons is positively charged. An electric field will flow from the positively charged region to the negatively charged region.

“What the hell do I need to know this for?” Sophia mumbled.

She tried to read the chapter, really; she did. But it wasn’t long before she was thinking about her day with Neil. The way he looked. Laughing and having fun with him in the lake. She hadn’t even thought it was possible for her to have fun, and especially not as much as she had. She was still bothered by the distance he had put between them, but she sure hadn’t been bothered by looking at him. Maybe she had been. Hot and bothered. She laughed at herself. Absently, she closed her science book and went to check on the food before going down to her chamber to change. It would be her luck that he would come home and catch her in the kitchen in Neil’s shirt. She winced. There would be hell to pay if that happened.

In her dungeon, she changed into the sweats, folded her uniform, and put them on her rocking chair for the next day. Actually, no. She thought. Fuck it. I’m washing my clothes. She rushed around and grabbed her meager wardrobe, her undergarments, and the towel from the bathroom. Sophia ran up the stairs, through the kitchen door, and into the garage. She dumped everything in, started the load, and added the laundry detergent. Not wanting to test her luck, she put it on ‘quick wash’. It would be done before dinner was ready. She ran back into the house and straight into the bathroom. She was taking a shower. In hot water. It may be a world record for fastest shower, but she was taking it. Scrubbing her blonde hair clean, she let the hot water soothe what remnants that were left from her last beating. She let the water cascade down her face. She wished she could stay there. Sophia wished she could have taken a long, hot bubble bath. But it would have been too much of a risk. She turned the water off and jumped out of the shower. After she dried and dressed, she braided her hair back from her face. She rarely wore braids around her father. It was just something he could grab ahold of to force her to succumb to whatever he wanted. She carefully cleaned the bathtub, the floor, and the toilet. She could not leave even the tiniest trace that she was in there. If there was, he’d make her pay for defying his orders and not adhering to the schedule.

She felt angst because she was breaking so many rules, so she rushed back to the garage. While switching her clothes from the washer to the dryer, she noticed her hands trembled. She clenched them tightly to steal the shakes, then went back into the house. She could hear the thump, thump, thump of her own heartbeat echoing in her ears. Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, she focused and set the table for her and Leo to eat, her homework long forgotten. Her eyes zeroed in on the country-bear kitchen clock that hung above the arched doorway. If he walked through the door and saw her clean and happy; not scared and filthy, she knew he wouldn’t stop until she was praying for death. She undid her braid and ran her hands through it to mess it up and was looking for something to dirty her sweat suit when Leo walked in.

He watched her for a second as she frantically searched for anything. She felt his eyes on her and it made it worse. Leo crossed the room to grab her around her shoulders to stop her when she was reaching for used coffee grinds to smear on her clothes.

“Stop.”

Her eyes darted to the clock again. And her breath hitched. Almost dinner. He can’t see her like this, she thought.

“Sophia. Stop.” Leo gave her a shake, and she sucked air into her lungs. She closed her eyes and focused on calming herself. When her breath calmed and her heart rate slowed back to normal, Leo’s arms slid down her shoulders to drop at his sides. Her gaze flung to his face and sadness filled his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Soph.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I may not be to blame for what he does, but I won’t stop it either.”

“You can’t Leo. Nobody can stop him. I know that. I don’t want to discuss this. Let’s eat.”

They ate dinner in silence, then Sophia cleaned the kitchen and slipped downstairs with her clean laundry before Elsie showed up. Wanting to smell him, to feel close to him, she slipped Neil’s shirt back on. Tired from the sun exposure, swimming, and the rapid high to low emotional drops of the last couple of hours, Sophia curled up on the mattress and drifted to sleep to the sound of the liquid silk running through the abdomen of the spider to create its beautiful web of death.

The night was dark, with the clouds floating across the moon. Sophia lay on the dock. The lake water rippled in the night breeze and the loud calls of the crickets chirped in the night. He lay beside her, trailing his fingers up and down the side of her waist and ribs. Her body twitched, so sensitive to his touch that barest graze made her shiver in anticipation. She bit her lip and let her eyes hungrily roam his muscled chest and toned abs in the moonlight. As the clouds drifted and blocked the beams, the light would glisten and disappear like a dance on his body.

“We shouldn’t do this. We shouldn’t even be here.”

“I know, but no one knows,” she whispered. “Nobody knows we are here but us.”

She turned onto her side and let her hand rest on his chest. She leaned over and traced the edge of one of his tattoos with her tongue. He sucked in a breath, slowly. The air thickened. Rain. Rain was in the air. He grabbed the side of her head and pulled her lips up to his. He brushed softly against them. Once. Twice. Then he devoured her mouth, their tongues tangled in an erotic dance. She mewled softly, and he reacted to the vibration in his mouth. The wind picked up and electric currents surrounded them. With a loud boom, crackling electricity discharged in the sky and the night lit up in a spectacular flash. Brilliant flashes of light, one right after the other, lit up the night. The sky opened and rain pelted their bodies. She looked into his eyes. Hunger. Lust. Desire. He had a ferocity about him as he clenched his jaw like he was barely holding on. He was lethal. She ran her hands along the scruff of his face and the touch sent mini bursts of energy from her fingertips and up her body. He snagged her wrist in his hand.

“Be sure.”

“I am sure.”

The wind howled its song like it was a serenade just for them. Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating his eyes. They were raw. He grabbed her wrists in one of his hands and jerked them above her head, clasped tight within his hold. She arched her back off the dock, offering him her breasts. He lowered his head and flicked her nipple with his tongue until she was writhing. With his other hand, he grabbed her panties at the hip bone and with a snap of his wrist; they were gone. Rain fell in powerful torrents. She turned her head and licked at his arm. He tasted like rain, sex...and beast. The heat from his warm thighs caused her to throb between her legs as he lowered himself on top of her. She was swollen. She was ready. He pressed against her, and she opened her thighs. She wanted more. He growled low in his throat. The rain mixing with his scent was intoxicating. She ground her hips upward, needing to be closer to him. To feel his heat with her core.

“Mine.” He growled. Lightning jetted across the sky, and the dock shook at the loud rumble of thunder. Her eyes jumped to his and the feral, deadly look in his eyes seared her soul.

Sophia jerked awake. Her eyes wide, she lay her hand on top of her pounding heart. What the hell? She lay on her back and stared at the drop tile above her head. He scared the hell out of her. The look in his eyes, the unleashed violence. It should scare her. It did scare her, but goddess, she wanted him.