Soul Ties

Chapter 4: Inner Thoughts

"What do you mean you know about Seren?" I ask with what little breath I have.

"Don't make a fool of me more than you already have by asking such a ridiculous question," my mother scoffs while pacing back and forth. My eyes try to focus on her movements, but it's impossible with the amount of thoughts crowding my head. "Did you really think I didn't know?"

I shake my head, but I'm not sure if it's to answer her question or at the situation unfolding in front of me. She knew? I can't wrap my mind around how she'd have known something like this and had never mentioned it to me.

"If you knew, why haven't you ever spoken to me about it?"

"And what would you have said, Lynx?" She can't look at me. "What could you have told me that I didn't already figure out just by seeing the two of you together?"

My eyes widen just thinking about what she could've seen Seren and I doing. Had that sound I'd heard earlier been her watching us? Those eyes that had made my skin crawl, were they hers that entire time? The heat from my entire body rushes straight to my face.

I'd come here to face my mother and finally tell her the truth, but nothing could have prepared me for this. I never thought in my wildest nightmares that she had known the entire time, and had kept our secret for us.

"Mother." I slowly get up, reaching out my hand to take hers. "Just please let me explain. I came here today to talk about this very thing with you because I didn't want to hide it anymore. I didn't want to hold this secret from you." She lets me take her hand, yet still refuses to face me.

"There is nothing you can-"

"Please," I beg, clutching her palm firmly. Her eyes finally catch mine, though I can't really tell what's behind them as she sits down with me. I just hope I'm able to say the right things.

"I'm sorry for sneaking around. For even letting this get as far as it has because it could've put you in a worse position than you already are. What Seren and I have is something more than I could've imagined having with anyone else."

The tears I'd been trying to hold back begin to flow freely down my cheeks. I look down at my mother's hand, and somehow it seems smaller than mine, smaller than I've ever seen before.

"Lynx, you know your fate," she says. "This relationship can't last, and I'm sorry darling, but it has to end now."

Every bone in my body suddenly feels heavy. I instantly feel like I'm falling over and it takes all the muscles inside of me to hold myself up. I choke back a sob when I look into my mother's eyes, which are expressionless.

Try harder, I scream at myself.

Sitting up a bit straighter I say, "I know what's expected of me, but that doesn't make it right. As your daughter I thought you'd want what was best for me, but now I can see you aren't on my side at all."

"As a Lunoid, what's best for you is to respect and honor the Goddess. You've learned that since birth, and it has not changed." My mother snatches her palm away from mine.

"But I've changed. My love for Seren has changed everything that I was taught to be a rite of passage. How can loving her be wrong? How can I go out and find someone who my soul is supposedly destined to be with when I feel all of that right here with her?"

I couldn't take it anymore. It was like my mother wasn't even trying to listen to anything I was telling her, and just babbling out what she'd always told me. The same rules she forced upon everyone. Not anymore.

"If your soul was meant to be with her, you would've had a golden string around your finger, but you don't. Do you question Thysus' judgment?" she practically spits at me.