Mated To The Alpha

Chapter 1

Stephanie

My name is Stephanie Connell. I live with my adoptive parents.

For the most part, I’ve thought my life was a mystery. Tell me why an 8 year old was wandering through the forest, only to appear outside an orphanage with no memory?

By the time I turned nine, I was living with Mark and Betty — my adoptive parents. My greatest gifts. Bless them.

They told me it was a cold night when I arrived. One of the coldest the orphanage had ever known. Lightning streaked across the dark sky. Miss Philo found me unconscious on the porch, soaked and shivering. She took me in.

I had no recollection of who I was, or how I had made my way there. Just a blank slate & name I didn’t choose. I had been deemed extremely lucky to have found shelter that day.

My age was make-shift. Miss Philo had observed me, given me a name and age to go by. It took a month for me to adjust to the other kids. I was thin & looked sickly so they made fun of me.

The other kids didn’t understand me. I didn’t understand myself.

The storms didn’t stop. For a month, the nights were wild — thunder growling like beasts, rain clawing at the windows.

My behavior on those nights were considered the strangest.

I had dreams. Nightmares.

I saw a large mass of water, trees twisted in unnatural shapes, fishes that weren’t quite fishes. Heads that didn’t belong to anything I knew.

The other kids were freaked out by my presence. The sounds of discomfort I made while asleep chased the sleep from their eyes. Eventually I had to change rooms.

Miss Philo was kind to me, sharing a room with her eased my discomforts, even if it didn’t silence the storm within me.

A certain night I had slept and found myself before a shrine. Skulls arranged in perfect cubes. A fire burning at the center. Figures with bowed heads. I walked further to see the sculpture of a woman with what seemed to be a tiara around her head.

Chill ran down my spine as I shook violently. “Stephanie! Stephanie!” a voice kept calling. It was too loud, urgent. “Stephanie, snap out of it!”

My eyelids fluttered open. Miss Philo’s face hovered above mine, distraught, her hands gripping my shoulders.

The small window in the room within view. Lightning flashed. The room was cold.

“Are you alright dear? Look at me.”

My eyes met hers, tears wells up in them.

“Everything is going to be fine. You just have to trust me. You’re safe now.”

I was safe from what? I had no clue. A lump was stuck in my throat, a strong urge to cry, but I couldn’t understand my feelings.

Miss Philo was dabbing at my cheeks. My fingers brushed my face, wetness. It couldn’t be.

“You are safe now. You are safe. None of that is real. Whatever you dreamed of, was a trick of your mind. You have to understand that to move beyond it. Am I clear?” Her eyes held unto mine, she looked so firm, so certain.

I nodded in understanding. I didn’t want this to continue. I wanted to be normal, not the new weirdo as the orphans called me. I wanted them to like me.

But what was normal? How do I become that? I thought to myself.

That night, the strange dreams stopped.

Snacks became my answer to normalcy. Miss Philo indulged us, and I ate as much as I could. I even convinced some of the other kids to share theirs with me. I learned to help with chores around the orphanage. The months passed quickly.

Then one afternoon, a couple came to adopt a child.

They chose me.

I was nine. The newest among the children.

I guess I wasn’t meant to stay there long.

Mark and Betty Connell treated me like their own. Warm, patient, they were in their thirties. I shared Mark’s dirty blonde hair and had a touch of Betty’s round cheeks. But that was where the resemblance ended. My parents had brown eyes, Mom’s hair was jet black. I didn’t quite fit the picture, especially in the height department.

When I got enrolled in school, I was excited to be able to fit in with normal students. My eating habits spiraled. By highschool, I was labeled as fat, chubby and made fun of. I was back to not having friends which sucked for me. I found comfort in food, stress-eating my way through the silence.

Then came junior year. And Maria Moretti.

She was someone I had admired behind the scene. She was beautiful, long legs, blonde curls and brown eyes. What I would give to look like that I often thought. I first noticed her in sophomore year, the time she had indirectly stood up for me

Joshua had mocked me for my weight. Maria had stared him down “Don’t you think it’s a little much coming from someone with crooked teeth?”

The other students at the cafeteria had laughed their asses out, causing him to get humiliated and flee. After that day, he had gotten braces and kept his distance.

The crazy part? Maria and I bonded over ice cream.

“French vanilla, blueberry and coconut shavings please” we both said in unison at the Icecream van.

She turned to me smiling. “Well, isn’t that something”

I stood there in my gray baggy clothes, while she looked effortlessly stunning. It wasn’t that she wore a lot of makeup. She was just that pretty.

I felt too nervous to reply because I never expected she would talk to me directly.

“Stephanie, right?”

Surprised and thrilled, I nodded too fast.

“Yes, that’s me. You’re Maria. I see you in school.”

“It’s nice to meet you. You’re so cute.”

She called me cute.

Coming from her, it was the best compliment I’d ever received. My parents said it often, but it never counted. They had to say it, they were my parents. But Maria? She didn’t owe me anything.

I guess “cute” fit. I was kind of like Winnie the Pooh, soft, and round.

We got our ice creams and said goodbye.

And for the first time in a long while, I felt satisfied.