Back and Stronger: Alpha's Daughter
Chapter 1

Sophia moaned in her sleep, then rolled over on the flimsy, dirty mattress. The side of her cheek rested in the warm, sticky blood that had seeped out of the wound on her shoulder and onto the mattress. The bitter chill in the dark, barren basement bit through the paper-thin nightgown that was a size too small for her 18-year-old frame. She jerked her eyes open at the sharp pain in her shoulder, but did not move. She held her breath and listened to the creak of pipes and the scratching of a mouse somewhere in its hole. For a moment, she visualized herself as that mouse. Safe in the hard-to-reach parts of the house, where nothing could reach her in the cozy joists between the floors.

She silently took stock of her surroundings to make sure he wasn’t lying in wait to punish her again. When she was certain he was not near and the only company she had was the spiders that spun their webs in the darkened corners of her room, no, her torture chamber, she exhaled a breath. She eased onto her back, running her fingers over the torn edges of one wound after another. The floorboards creaked from above and she stilled, listening for the weight of each step, the all too familiar sounds that made her blood run cold. Her pulse thundered in her veins. She closed her eyes and held her breath. She bit her lip as she smothered a whimper in the depths of her throat. But the step was agile, and tentative – her brother?

Ever so carefully, she made nothing worse. She took stock of her body. The pain caused her to bite down on her lip to prevent crying out in agony. To do so, and he had heard her, it would have been asking for more punishment. Her entire body ached with a persistent, dull throbbing. She tried to move her shoulder and sharp pains shot through her shoulder and arm, like thousands of blade tips jabbing into her from her collarbone to her fingertips. She stared at the ceiling above her. The only light was a small ray from the morning sun that seeped through an uncovered corner of the one and only basement window. A tear rolled down her cheek and left a streak of grime and dried blood. She brushed it away with the back of her hand and pursed her lips. If she allowed herself to cry, then he’d win.

Her thoughts stirred in the gloomy silence. She had dreamt again. The same dream she had had for some time. She’d tried to push it out of her mind, to let daylight shatter it into tiny fragments and disperse it to the air, but it always stayed with her as if it was part of her – he was part of her. At the start of the dream, she had found the man with the dark hair pulled up in a wavy man bun at the top of his head extremely attractive. His piercing eyes were framed by perfectly shaped eyebrows. A sexy goatee accentuated the shape of his mouth. His lower lip was fuller than the bowed upper lip and they begged to be kissed. Something always happened in the dream. She would turn feral, violent, and she would suddenly be terrified of him. Fear would enter her body and her skin would grow near translucent and she trembled. It never lasted long. She would be back, fighting the urge to touch him. Who was this man? She often thought. Why did he instill so much want and need in her, and in the next instance leave her trembling, her skin soaked in sweat, the urge to run and never stop? The seesaw of emotion left her brow furrowed and her heart racing. The dream, a drug she always wanted more of.

Surely this man must have been important. It had haunted her simply because she thought there must have been some life altering meaning behind it. Perhaps something that would have given her hope. Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to figure out what that meaning could have been. She would either wake from the dream or it would drift away into a gray fog, and then she’d revert to the nightmares spawned by the daily life of her own personal hell.

Sophie rolled onto her knees and reached for the wall to pull herself up. A wave of dizziness washed over her, and her stomach rolled in revolt of the movement. She winced and closed her eyes. She held still, barely breathing, until the room stopped the chaotic spinning. Carefully, with the support of the cinderblock wall, she crept to the tiny bathroom that was tucked under the basement stairs. The bathroom had a small sink that jutted out of the wall with only one faucet. A rust stained toilet sat directly across from the sink with barely enough room to move between them. The masonry walls in the bathroom were covered with dark gray and black streaks of mold. Millipedes moved across the mold and their legs waved from front to back, propelling them forward. She hadn’t even bothered to kill them. She turned the water on and cleaned the dried blood off her body. Sophia gently cleaned her wound and wrapped a tight bandage on it to stem the blood flow, but nothing more.

She leaned on the sink for balance as another wave of dizziness took over. At that time, she could not hold the bile down that had risen in the back of her throat. The bitter taste made her gag, and she turned to lean over the toilet, expelling foamy acid and a bit of blood into the water. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and turned the water on in the sink. Needing to rinse her mouth, Sophia cupped her hands under the water without noticing the dirt and dried blood caked under her jagged fingernails. She sipped the water from her hands and looked at her reflection in the tin mirror above the sink. She swirled the water around, then stopped. Sophia held the tepid liquid in her mouth. Her gaze roamed from feature to feature on her face. She made a sound of disgust, then spat the water at her reflection in the mirror. You are weak; she had told herself. Weak and frail. Pathetic.

She focused her mind and tried to think back to the day her entire world turned from one of safety and security to the one she experienced after. She could barely piece together the broken fragments of her twelve-year-old memory. The blood covering her hands, so much, she felt she was drowning in it. The stench of metal, hopelessness, and despair. Her mother’s body laying at her bare knees. Strands of her mother’s beautiful satiny locks haloed around her head as though she were an angel. Perfect and untouched by the carnage below.

She recalled nothing after she left her bedroom to see what the noise upstairs was. One second, her mother was upstairs in the kitchen preparing dinner. Sophia had been doing her homework in her room. The lilac walls and cream comforter had made her feel so mature and she loved spending time in her sanctuary; where she could do her schoolwork, talk to friends, or daydream without interference from her little brother. Her headphones were in and she was listening to her Avril Lavigne playlist on her iPod. Her head bobbed absentmindedly, and her feet swung to the beat of the song while she wrote an essay on her favorite sport. English wasn’t her favorite class, by any means, but she hadn’t minded it so much when she got to write about something that mattered or that she cared about. When the song switched from one top hit to the next, the moment of silence it gave had been filled with a loud crash and her mother’s voice yelling. Suspecting it was nothing more than her brother breaking something or her father acting silly, Sophia ignored it and went back to her paper. Over the next four minutes and two seconds, she hadn’t given it another thought. The next pause between songs, sounds of panic and horror crept under her bedroom door. Something broke and shattered on the floor. There was screaming, terror clear in her mother’s voice. She cried out. She begged. These were the sounds she would never forget and had been echoed in countless night terrors. She flung the earphones off her head and jumped to her feet. She ran out of the room as fast as her feet could carry her. That’s the last thing she remembered of that fateful day...until after.

The next memory was of her being found at the scene of her mother’s murder. Sophia had been cloaked with her mother’s blood; crimson red stained the white dress she had been wearing. She was in a catatonic state; unable to speak, unable to move. In her hand, she held the murder weapon, her fingertips leaving prints in the blood spatters on the handle. Someone had grabbed her and shaken her violently while they demanded answers, answers she could not give. Her father had looked at her in absolute terror and disbelief.

“What have you done?” he’d asked her.

His eyes were wide and his gaze ran from her face to her bloody hands, the dagger tight in her grasp. That was her strongest memory. Being grabbed and yelled at. Tight hands on her shoulder, tight enough to bruise, shaking her like a rag doll. They had cuffed her, and that’s when her brain registered what was before her. Her mother, her beautiful mother, lay on the ground covered in blood. Her lifeless eyes glazed over in death. Sophia had become hysterical, and they had to sedate her when they ran her in. If not for the alpha stepping in, she surely would have been put to death. She hadn’t known at the time that death would have been an act of kindness, saving her from the fiery pits of hell that she has had to endure. The alpha had promised everyone that he would make her pay for her mother’s death. He was true to his promise. Every day she repeated the nightmare of the day before, for a murder that she did not commit. She knew without a doubt that it was not she who took her mother’s life. The problem was, she couldn’t remember who did, or if she even knew. To make it worse, it’s not just in her chamber of pain that she was punished. Under direct order, she was to be treated cruelly and abused at school as well. There was no escape for her, no way out. There would never be one, for the entire Lucian pack has taken pleasure from following the orders of alpha Thorin Tibald. Her father. And this was her glorious life.

She took in her medium length greasy blonde hair. The bruises on the side of her face were a vibrant array of pinks, blues, and purples. A scar ran through the center of her eyebrow; a constant reminder of one of her more violent punishments. Her narrow nose had a bump where it had been broken. This, she thought to herself, was not how anyone should have to live. At 18, she endured five years of torture. Five years of daily violence. That was over sixty months of living in hell, and for what, she did not know.

Sophia panicked at how much time she wasted, lost in the depths of her own mind. If she were late for school, the punishment would be worse that evening, so she moved as fast as her abused body had allowed for. She scooped up her school uniform from where she placed it the night before. She sniffed it because she couldn’t remember the last time it had been washed. It mattered not. She would get ridiculed and picked on, regardless.

The white button-down shirt was stained at the wrist and collar. The fabric was pulled tightly across her budding breasts; the buttons pulling at their holes. Her navy-blue skirt was too big at the waist, but she was thankful it was not too small, like everything else. Her father had brought it home when he noticed the length of her previous skirt was too short for school policy, though not a soul would dare say anything to him about it. He had thrown it down the basement stairs at her only the week before. Sophia tied a shoestring around the waist to hold the skirt up. It fell past her knees and reached the top of her threadbare knee socks. She slipped on the Mary Janes she took from the lost and found in school when her own shoes had been bare in the soles. Her schoolbooks were in the corner, sitting on a rickety wooden rocking chair with spindles missing from the back. The wood was splintered, and the stain was chipped and scratched. This was the only other piece of furniture in the basement besides her mattress.

Sophia tip-toed up the stairs, careful to avoid the steps that creaked. She prayed her father was still asleep. She feared another beating. It would kill her. Then she thought, yes, it could kill her. Would that be so bad? She rested her ear against the door and listened. Her father was not a quiet wolf shifter. Even before her nightmare had begun, her father had not been quiet about anything he did. When she heard nothing, Sophia placed her hand on the knob and twisted slowly. The oak door creaked open a fraction at a time and she peaked out from behind it into the kitchen.

The kitchen was lovely, and still the same as it had been when her mother was alive. It had marble counters and stainless-steel appliances without so much of a fingerprint on them. The floor sparkled from daily cleaning and the counters shined like stars. Regardless of the beauty, she could not erase the vision of her mother on that kitchen floor. She closed her eyes tightly, forcing the image to the recesses of her mind, then sighed in relief that her father was not there and quietly stepped across the threshold. The sharp contrast of how her father and brother lived to her own in the dungeon below brought sadness to her eyes. This house had once been filled with love and tenderness. No longer was it that haven, but a disguise for the horror that lives within. The light stung her eyes. She squinted until she adjusted to being out of the darkness below. She carefully closed the door behind her, then gestured to her younger brother, who was sitting at the table.

“Is he still asleep?” she mouthed.

Her brother’s eyes widened in shock when he looked at her. His jaw dropped and cereal and milk slid off the spoon he had been lifting into his mouth.

She waited for a response another second, then asked again. At that time, the whisper was minimally louder than the first. Her roughened voice snapped him out of his shock, and he nodded his head. Her shoulders relaxed, and she took a deep breath. She walked carefully into the kitchen, sucking air through her teeth when the pain jabbed at her. She grabbed a banana from the bowl on the counter and poured a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator. It wasn’t the most sustainable breakfast, but it was a quiet one, and that was more important. She felt her brother staring at her.

Leo was 12 years old, the same age that Sophia had been when her mother was murdered. Leo had light brown hair that curled when it grew just a touch too long and two different colored eyes. One was an emerald green with flecks of blue in the center and the other was the color of honey with dark brown in the center. When he looked at you, you felt like he could read your every thought. While Sophia looked like her mother, the resemblance between Leo and their father was uncanny. The only physical difference was the eyes, and more than the color. Leo’s eyes were as steady as calm waters. None of the ferocity or madness lingered there. They were pure and as untainted as a glacier spring. Fear often clouded them, and for that, Sophia was sorry. She fervently prayed her father would never turn on him as he had done her.

Her eyes softened, and she ran a hand over his soft brown curls as he turned his head and smiled at her. Then his eyes ran to the rough bandage on her shoulder, noticing for the first time the bruises that covered my face.

Sophia carefully sat and Leo worried about his bottom lip, then slipped out of his chair. He went to the freezer and got an ice pack. He handed it to Sophia and dropped into the seat next to her.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t look okay. I think you need to go to the hospital.” He gazed at the bloody bandage showing from under her white shirt.

“No, I’m fine. It’ll stop and you know it’ll be much worse for me the next time if I went, not that they’d help me, anyway. No one will.”

“But Sophia--“

“I’m fine, Leo.” Sophia placed her hand on his arm, “Really.”

Sophia worried about her brother. Though their father thought of him as the golden boy, Sophia feared that one day he would turn his abuse on him. She would often deflect her father’s temper away from her brother and onto herself when she sensed her father was going to lose control. It was rare, as her father had treated Leo well, but it happened enough that Sophia bore marks from safeguarding her brother against their father’s unhinged wrath.

There was a thump, and they both froze. Sophia held her breath, ready to bolt regardless of how much pain the movement would have brought her. Leo’s eyes filled with tears, and he blinked them away. She knew her brother feared him. To be fair, everyone was afraid of him. Leo was as careful as a 12-year-old boy could be to not anger their father. He was reserved, quiet, and respectful. It no longer mattered if anyone upset him. He appeared to be in a perpetual state of rage and one blade of fur away from snapping.

“I’m sorry,” Leo said.

“For what?”

“He was mad at me for getting an A- on my exam. He was yelling before you ever came upstairs for supper.”

“Leo, that’s not why. Just trust me, okay? You owe me no apologies.”

There was another thump, and they heard their father’s feet hit the floor, then shuffle into the hall. Sophia stood quickly and bit back the yelp of pain she inflicted on herself by moving so fast. Leo jumped up and moved to his seat, taking Sophia’s glass of orange juice with him. As quiet as a mouse, Sophia had opened the door to the basement and slid through the crack to the darkened staircase, closing the door softly behind her. She pressed her ear to the door again.

“Morning, son.”

“Morning.”

There were sounds of the refrigerator opening and the toaster lever being snapped down.

“Where’s your sister?” Their father asked.

“She left. Said she’d walk to school.” Leo said around a mouthful of cereal.

“Aren’t those her books on the counter?”

“Uh. Yeah. Those are hers. I told her I would bring them, so she didn’t have to carry them that far.”

“You lying to me, boy?”

“Of course not, father.”

“You need to work harder at school, boy. Make up for the shame she brought to our family. One day you can be Alpha, and much will be expected of you.”

“I know, father. I hope if I do, I’ll become a strong and compassionate leader.”

“Compassionate? Compassion is another word for weakness. Do you think I wanted to treat your sister like that? Even though she deserves everything she gets. She should have been terminated years ago and by pack rules, that’s what every member expected. The mercy I showed your sister!” he spat out the word, drool glistening off his chin.

He got up and paced the room, running his fingers through his hair and pulling. It stood on end and made him look like the crazed psychopath he was.

“It got me nowhere! You think she deserved life, after what she did to my wife, your mother? Who in their right mind would want a monstrosity such as her to walk this earth? I live with it daily. Every time I see your mother’s face in hers, I want to wipe it away. Obliterate every filthy trace. She is an abomination.”

Sophia frantically tried to think of a way to get out of the basement. She knew without a doubt that if her father laid his eyes on her, she would be beaten again. She and Leo would have to leave soon to make the bus. If she missed it, the school would call and the beatings that came later that night would make last night’s look like child’s play. They were always severe, but when he thought Sophia had embarrassed his position as alpha, it was always much worse. Sophia knew firsthand, since her mere existence had been enough for him to fly into a fit of rage about how ashamed he was of her. She learnt many years ago to read his eyes. This let her know how badly she would be beaten before the first strike happened. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

She heard her father belch, and his heavy footsteps grew further away. After only a moment, the door popped open, and she nearly fell through.

“Shh,” Leo said. “You must hurry.”

She grabbed her books off the counter, not thinking of the lie Leo had told on her behalf.

“Leave them. I’ll bring them.”

“Right.”

Sophia slid quietly out the kitchen door and moved with her back pressed up against the house to prevent him from seeing her if he looked out a window. Unadulterated fear of her father caused her lip to tremble, and she bit down on it. She would not cry; she told herself. Sophia had stopped crying from fear long ago. Careful to not leave sole marks in the flower beds for him to see, she moved slowly, quietly. When she rounded the corner of the house furthest away from his room, it was safe for her to go directly to the bus stop. She moved as fast as her broken body permitted, arriving out of breath and bleeding profusely from her wound. Blood ran from her shoulder and down her arm, seeping from beneath the bandage and marked her white shirt.

Leo crossed the grassy expanse at a run, with a backpack slung over his shoulders and her books in his arms. He arrived out of breath and a look of panic in his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Sophia asked.

“Yeah. Here,” Leo passed the schoolbooks over.

“Did he see me?” Sophia had asked.

“No.” Leo shook his head from side to side. “I don’t think so. But Soph, he wasn’t okay, you know?”

Sophia nodded sadly. “I know. Thank you for covering for me, Leo.”

Sounds of other were-shifters drawing near caused Sophia to step away from Leo. She often kept her distance so that he wouldn’t be treated with the vile abuse that they subjected her to. He has so much to give, to offer, and Sophia wouldn’t have him tainted with being her brother, though everyone obviously knew he was.

“You don’t have—”

“I do, you know I do. Now hush.”

The shifters arrived in a variety of moods. Some grumpy or tired, while others were exuberant for another school day. No matter their mood, they sneered at her and kept their distance. The girls whispered behind their hands; then snickered and whispered some more. Occasionally one would point at her then they’d laugh. Their plain uniforms were accessorized with whatever trend was hitting the internet that day, hair done and make up on their cruel faces. Sophia wondered what it would be like to be normal. The males were worse. They sneered at her with lower lips curled and stared at her breasts. She knew they talked about her in the most inappropriate ways, then in their next breath verbalized their displeasure that she hadn’t been put to death. That’s how everyone felt, except Leo. That she should be dead. Goddess, she often thought, she wished she was too.

Sophia kept her head high and her eyes straight ahead at the road in front of her. She knew that if she looked at them, and they saw the tears in her eyes at their cruelty, it would only get worse. Much worse. And they would use it against her throughout the day at school.

After the hands of time ticked by at a pace so slow, she thought it went backwards, the 42 foot long bright yellowy-orange school bus pulled up, and the doors slid open. Everyone lined up, but Sophia held back, leaving a space between her and the others. She glanced through the 14 windows; she saw there was no place to sit that kept her away from those who had treated her the worst.

Leo and his friends climbed on the bus first, moving to the back to take their seats with the rest of the popular kids. Sophia would take her seat directly behind the bus driver, though he often joined in her ridicule. After all, her father ordered it. When all the others were on, Sophia braced herself for the pain of climbing the steps onto the bus. She winced and bit back cries of agony. She knew when she reached the top, all eyes would be on her. Only Leo’s would show kindness or concern. Painful step after painful step, she finally made it up the stairs. The bus driver closed the door. The squeal as it unfolded and locked in place as horrible as the sounds of a jailhouse door. That day it had felt like a casket closing, trapping her inside with no way out and stifling her ability to breathe. The driver depressed the gas and laughed when she stumbled forward, then caught herself before she face-planted. As she expected, all eyes were on her, laughing at her. Some even threw wads of paper or gum at her. Sophia slid in the seat and closed her eyes. She calmed herself, fighting back the tears she refused to let fall. When she opened them, the bus had been eating up the roadway. Sophia knew in a short period of time she would walk into Satan’s inferno where all his minions were tasked with making sure her punishments never ended. No reprieve. No escape. Her hell.