Back and Stronger: Alpha's Daughter
Chapter 36

How the hell did Neil expect Sophia to sleep after what he’d just told her?

Their minds would be connected once they shift? That was the scariest part. He’d said that he was able to block his thoughts from her, and that she would eventually be able to do the same, but that meant that he would still be able to hear her thoughts!

Sophia hardly looked forward to him replaceing out about her little crush on him. She could already imagine his self-filled expression after they’d shifted back and asked her, “So, you think I’m beautiful?”

Shit. Goddess, would I ever be able to look him in the eye again after tonight? She was just going to have to try and keep her thoughts constantly occupied with other things, she rationalized to herself.

And the even scarier part was learning that her most basic individual instincts would take over. Neil basically made it sound like she would have no control whatsoever. Would she even still be herself? Would she still have Sophia’s thoughts?

In a way, she hoped she wouldn’t. That would make things a lot less awkward for her if only her wolf instincts took over. Without a doubt, Sophia knew that she wanted to run. She could feel that urge getting stronger as the night had passed. On all fours, she wanted to run as fast as she could.

Maybe if she just had instincts to just run as fast and as far as she could, and maybe even hunt, she might just avoid Neil picking up on any other … urges.

“I can feel your thoughts going all topsy-turvy in there. You’re even making me feel anxious. Relax, Sophia,” his voice came from where he was still sitting by the fire. “Don’t overthink it so much.”

Sophia’s mind instantly stilled. Was he able to hear her thoughts even now?

“And no, I can’t read your mind,” he answered her as though he could. “I just know how you can be, and I can almost feel the tension radiating from you. Just try and get some sleep. You’re gonna need it.”

After that, in all honesty, she tried to push her concerns down to the dark place in the pit of her stomach, and Sophia truly did try to get some sleep, but it simply didn’t come. But she had been able to relax enough for Neil to not feel the need to admonish her again at least.

After a while, Sophia heard his boots shuffling against the dirt there and then could tell his footsteps were approaching the tent. “Sophia? It’s time to get ready.”

Has it been two hours already? It was funny how time went by so much faster when one didn’t want it to, but would go so freaking slow the other way around. Just another frustrating irony of life.

“As I’ll ever be, I guess,” she said, sitting up and giving the most winning smile she could muster for him.

Neil didn’t seem to buy it. “You’ll be okay. I will only shift directly after you have,” he repeated reassuringly to her again.

He had his hand stuck out to her, and Sophia looked at it for a moment, as it took that moment for her to try and gather enough strength to take it, for she knew what she will have to face directly after. She finally let him pull her up, and even after she was on her feet Neil kept her hand captured within his.

It made her look up at him questioningly. She found his other hand reaching up to the side of her neck. Sophia had to keep herself from leaning into his too-light touch there, with his fingers at her nape and his rough thumb stroking along her jawline. She couldn’t make herself look away. Not that she wanted to in the least. Not when those eyes were so intensely locked with hers.

“You can do this,” Neil said with so much certainty, that she wished she could feel it too.

But before Sophia could even think of what she could say back to him, or if she should maybe hold his face too or something, the faint sickness in her stomach that had started a little while ago as a dull throb, gave a violent summersault. Out of her control, she instantly bent forward and clutched at her belly as she whimpered at the sudden and painful spasm there.

With his hand on her back, he bent down as well and said to her, “Don’t fight it, Sophia. I know that your first instinct is to fight against the torment, but try and just let it happen. Try and welcome every single pain that will come. Welcome it, because it will transform you into something powerful and beautiful, Sophia.”

“I will try,” was all she could answer as another stinging pain there made it feel like she was being gutted from the inside out.

Welcome the pain. Welcome the pain. Don’t fight it. Don’t fight it. Just let it happen. Just let it happen.

The mantras seemed to be working, as the pain didn’t get any better, but she felt a tremendous difference as her mindset toward it did. Sophia couldn’t explain how it happened, but it was like the mere acceptance of what was happening to her made all the difference. She wasn’t scared anymore. Well, not as much as she’d been a few seconds ago.

Without her having noticed, Neil had a thick blanket laid out on the forest floor, and was standing ready with another one held up in front of him.

“Come and stand here on the blanket,” he ordered, and as she did so immediately. Her steps only faltered slightly as more pain shot through her body like a thousand little ping pong balls with sharp blades protruding from them, ricocheting everywhere, and picking up speed with each change of direction.

Sophia said her mantras again. Whether it had been in her mind, or if she’d said it out loud, she didn’t know. Or cared for that matter.

“Take off your clothes if you still can,” Neil said with pain in his own eyes. Not of his own she realized, but from watching her in agony.

He must have been able to recall his own pain when he was still a newbie shifter, as his bronzed orbs shone with an aching empathy she’d never seen there before.

He couldn’t see her body with the blanket raised high enough, so she started to remove her clothing, even though her mind was protesting against it. Sophia loved these clothes she was wearing and she didn’t want to lose them, so she forced herself to get everything off her before it would be too late.

As she finished, not even bothered with laying her things neatly there or anything, as it felt like her muscles were being ripped out one for one at that moment. Whimpering in pain, she tried to remember her mantra again, but it was getting harder and harder to remember the words she needed to say.

“Lie down, Sophia,” Neil’s voice broke through the intolerable ringing going off from within her ears somehow. “It makes it easier that way than to try and stand through it.”

Sophia didn’t need him to tell her twice, as she instantly collapsed to the blanket underneath her and he placed the other blanket he was still holding over her. He knew he did this so she didn’t have to worry about privacy too, not that she did so much anymore anyway.

She felt Neil’s touch through the blanket and heard the sound of his voice, but she couldn’t register any of it anymore. She felt like she was about to burst with the pressure building and building within her. It was as if every single blood cell in her body was singing a high-pitched song that caused it to vibrate ferociously, making them continually swell and swell, and boil and boil. Just when it was about to reach its crescendo, Sophia could feel her bones starting to break.

She clenched down on her teeth and moaned as it became impossible to remain in a clenched-up ball anymore, thinking it was the only way she could keep herself together. But as she reminded herself that the pain was what was going to change her into something magnificent. That she was going to be transformed into a powerful creature driven by carnal instincts, she found herself accepting the anguish of every single bone breaking, mending, and setting anew again.

Even when she felt her face extending into a snout, and her teeth growing into long razor-sharp fangs, she welcomed that unbearable pain too. It all happened a lot quicker than she could remember it took her with the first shift, but she also knew that time was relative while shifting, so she couldn’t be certain.

Then as fast as it had started, it all ended just as quickly, and she stilled. But within a split second, Sophia was standing on all fours and feeling the pureness of absolute power coursing through her body. She felt the overwhelming need to run, but first, she looked up at the moon and was about to howl her greeting with the exhilaration she felt, but then she suddenly remembered that Neil was still there as she felt his eyes on her.

Another instinct, she thought but knew it was one she had in abundance even in her human form.

The blanket had come off at some point and Neil was still on his haunches there, with his one hand on the ground as though he needed the support to not topple over. When her sharp wolf eyes looked straight into his still human eyes, she saw admiration and something like wonderment there as he looked her over.

“You’re beautiful, Sophia,” he said simply, but she could hear so much more meaning in those simple words – ones she’d constantly used to describe him as well. “Now it’s your turn to wait for me.”

She felt herself getting restless. She felt like she couldn’t possibly wait another moment longer. She needed to run and run and run and run forever and ever, but she forced herself to wait.

She didn’t have to force herself for too long though, as Neil started undressing right there in front of her eyes. She found that she didn’t want to avert her gaze, and he didn’t seem to want to either.

Taking off his shirt, shoes, pants, all in smooth, self-assured succession, Sophia kept watching as she felt her wolf-self being filled with a completely new instinct as her eyes roamed all over his body.

Lust…

If Sophia had thought she had a mere crush on him before, she’d clearly been kidding herself.

Sophia felt braver and more confident than ever as she even kept watching as Neil’s hands moved to the final piece of clothing still covering him. But as he hooked his thumbs into the top of his boxers, he gave her a wicked smile as he pulled them down, but denied her heated wolf eyes to have a look at him there as he bent down onto his haunches again in the same motion, placing his hands on the ground in front of him as he prepared for his own shift.

Sophia still couldn’t tear her eyes away from him as he shifted in one explosion of a moment. She’d never known that it was possible to shift so quickly, and before she knew it, a proud and majestic being was standing in front of her, with his fur as pure bronze as hers were silver.

She felt her longing for him surge at the impressive sight of him before she could stop herself. But horror at herself soon replaced it as she suddenly remembered that he could tell what she was thinking and feeling. She knew this as sure as she knew her own name to be true, as she could feel the undeniably potent connection between them, exactly like he’d told her she would.

Follow your instincts, Sophia, she heard his voice in her head. Let go…

As though that was all she needed to become her confident wolf-self again, Sophia gave a loud howl at the moon, and she heard him join in immediately after. And with her previous shyness at being caught lusting for him all but gone now, she had no other greater need than to run.

She intentionally channeled all of her carnal energy into that one single compulsive desire, and took off with one hard kickback with her mighty hind legs, sending dirt flying all over the camp. She knew that it had happened at a blinding speed, and through their connection now, Sophia could feel Neil’s astonishment.

He must have wavered in that mental block for that moment, Sophia surmised with a secret smile as she allowed her instincts to take hold of her completely.

Her strong and agile legs kept pushing her ever-forward, burning with the fervent thrill of the run, and heard Neil coming up behind her not long after as he was able to keep pace with her. Barely.

Howling with glee as she ran, Sophia pushed her limbs to go even faster, because if there was one thing she wanted to tell Scott about her run with Neil, it was that she had been faster than him…