Second chance mate

Chapter 4 (final draft)

The next day in school Olivia told Ariel everything that happened. Ariel had a smile on her face while she listened.
"I told you. I told you he loves you."
Olivia nodded. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you."
"It's okay, honey. I didn't believe myself either when I was your age."
Olivia giggled and nodded. "So what's next?"
Ariel grinned once again. "Tonight when you go home..."

That night she followed her usual day routine and her father worked late but he came for dinner and he asked her how her day went. It wasn't much but it was progress and that was all that mattered.
Anyways, after she went to bed, she put on an alarm and went to sleep. Alarm woke her up at three in the morning. She turned the alarm off and got out of her bed. She grabbed her teddy bear, opened the bedroom door and walked down the hallway.
She slowly opened her father's door and looked inside the room. He was asleep, spread out on the bed, the covers falling down. She walked inside and stood beside the bed where he was facing.
She gripped the arm that was hanging off of the bed and shook. He woke up instantly and his eyes bright, the color of his wolf.
"Daddy?" She spoke softly
The wolf instantly backed down seeing his pup in front of him. Her father blinked a few times.
"What's up honey? It's like..." He looked at the time. "It's three in the morning, honey. What's up?"
"I can't sleep, daddy. I had a nightmare. Can I sleep here?"
"Of course you can sleep here." He said and turned to his back, picked her up from beside the bed and put her down beside him on the bed. She lay her head on his arm and turned to her side hugged her teddy between them. He turned to his side as well and pushed her hair back from her face.
"Was it bad? Do you want to talk about it?"
She shook her head no. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Was it bad though?"
"No, not that bad."
He stiffened. "Does that mean that you've had worse?"
She didn't reply and shrugged. Not exactly lying but implying what she wanted. Exactly as she had been told to do.
He sighed and pulled her closer to him so she was almost laying on top of his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her head. "Why didn't you come to me before?"
She didn't reply.
"Olivia, why didn't you come to me before?" He insisted, not letting her ditch the topic.
"You... you weren't talking to me. You were ignoring me."
"I wasn't ignoring you." He replied.
"Yes you were! Ever since..." She broke off when his arms tightened.
He kissed her forehead and gently made her look at him. "I am sorry that you thought I was ignoring you but I am not ignoring you. You can come to me whenever you want to talk, whenever you have a nightmare, whenever you feel sad. I am still your father, I'm still here. You're not alone, honey."
She slowly nodded. "Okay."
"I love you, Olivia." He told his daughter firmly, wanting her to know and remember it.
"I love you too, dad." She replied.
And that was how the next few days passed. Both of them made up plans and forced her father to take care of her. The both of them forced him to remember what it felt like to take care of his pup, that he had a responsibility and that his mate would want him to take care of her. And so he got better. He didn't get over the pain he felt because of his mate and her death, and he didn't get over how he missed her but he did remember how to take care of his daughter, how to help her through her pain and in doing so he realized that helping her through her pain, helped him through his pain.
One day, Olivia asked her how exactly she had helped her own father and so Ariel explained.
"My father didn't realize for years that he was doing something wrong. It was only when he started training me for my alpha position that he realized something was wrong between the two of us. In his eyes, he was doing everything fine. He didn't even realize that he had pushed me away. When started training me, I only called him my alpha or something like that and I didn't call him dad. One day he sat me down and he asked me to tell him what was wrong and I told him and he was surprised. It took us years to become father and daughter again. It took me years to get over my resentment for him and it took him years to take up to role that he had left so long ago. We recovered and by the time I found my mate, he was back to his normal self, the one that was before my mother died. He brought the guns and he brought up their ranks and everything when Adrian first came to meet him."
Olivia was smiling at her teacher, realizing that she was lucky to have her for help, that she was lucky and she was so glad for Ariel's presence in her life. At such a critical time as well.
"Tell me about your mate. You never talk about your mate." Olivia said.
It was a sign of her progress that she didn't flinch at the thought of her dead mate, she just smiled a sad and nostalgic smile.
"As you know alphas find their mates at eighteen instead of sixteen like the rest of the back. I found my mate on the day of my 18th birthday. But my dad wouldn't let up the training so he said I had to do physical training in the morning and then do whatever I wanted for the rest of the day and night. But his plan didn't work obviously. I walked into the compound and was slapped in the face with the scent of my mate. I searched in the warriors, figuring it was one of them. But I couldn't see him. By then, all of them knew what was happening and they were sniffing too, trying to see if my scent enticed them. No one stepped up."
She laughed.
"You can imagine my confusion."
"But what happened then?" Olivia asked.
"Nothing. I searched through them and I took just a couple of steps towards the warriors when I heard a loud growl. And I knew that for some reason my mate was not happy that I was going towards the Warriors and he could see me so I just stopped walking. I didn't want to make him angry and I wanted him to come to me. So I watched as a lean man pushed through the Warrior and he came to me. And the moment I met his eyes, I knew that he was mine just as much as I was his from that moment onwards. We met in the middle. I don't know when I started walking, I don't know who was watching and it was like nothing else existed. All I knew was that in the next moment I was standing in front of him and there was an inch of space between us. He leaned down and put his forehead against mine, the simple contact making me shiver. He put his hands on either of my cheeks while I put mine on his waist."
She paused.
"And?" Olivia asked.
"And nothing. He kissed me gently and told me his name. I started to tell him my name when he laughed and cut me off, telling he knew who I was."
"Did you have any problems in your relationship?" Olivia asked her after a few moments.
"We did. No relationship is perfect even between mates. We all have our issues, the ups and downs."
"What was his rank in the pack?" Olivia asked.
"He never could decide what he wanted to be so he was a delta. He chose so many career and he never choose one until he met me and of course he was going to be alpha with me."
So they talked about their relationship and the way he treated her for the rest of the class.