Forget Me Not (Book 3 of Acceptance Series)

Chapter 3

I stormed into the house, and my father looked at me from his newspaper. "Do not say a word," I growled at him, and he growled in warning. "I am already pissed off at Mom."

"What did she do this time?" he asked, looking back at his newspaper. He flipped through the pages, and I could tell he wasn't really reading it. "Do not growl at me, Thomas Junior," he warned when I growled again. He looked up and scowled. "You aren't the Alpha yet."

"I will be soon," I muttered, and he snorted and muttered, 'not with that attitude.' "She growled at my mate," I said. "And then she ordered me to go back to the house and into the office."

"Mate?" my dad asked, looking up at me. Interest filled his eyes, and I could tell that he already knew who my mate was. "Who is your mate?"

I scowled and narrowed my eyes at him. I could tell that he knew who my mate was, and I was sure that he wasn't going to tell me how he knew about her. "Serenity," I said, and he nodded. "Did you know too?"

"I did," he confirmed. He placed his newspaper down and ran a hand through his blonde hair. There was a look of conflict on his face, but I didn't care how he was feeling. I wanted to know what he knew and what my mother knew. I wanted to know, so I could better protect my mate. "I know a lot of stuff that is kept unsaid to protect both you and her."

"How?" I asked. "How is keeping stuff from me supposed to protect me?"

"It protects you because you won't be doing anything stupid," Mom said, coming into the room with Addama at her tail. Her face looked as if it was made out of stone, emotionless, and cold. "Come on," she said. "It's better if we talk in the office." She started to make her way up the steps with my dad and Ceira following behind.

Addama grabbed my shoulder when I was about to go up the stairs, her eyes watching as they disappeared from view. "Trust your mother and what she is doing," she said, looking at me. "I know that you do not understand it, but she knows what she is doing."

I furrowed my brows in confusion. "What do you mean?" I asked, and she shook her head and smirked.

"You will find out in time," she said. "Just don't get pissed at your mother. She has dealt with this issue for years. Most of the times she had to wait to deal with it because the person she has been after is usually one step ahead."

"Who is she after?" I asked confused.

Again, Addama shook her head. "Come, we don't want her to worry." She started to make her way up the steps, leaving me there to stare at her retreating back.

I hated not knowing what Addama meant, and I couldn't help but wonder if this was how Mom felt. I had heard the stories of their "love" story and had promised myself that I would love Serenity even if there was a spell involved.

I would fight it every day until we could live with each other peacefully. I just wished I knew how hard it would be...

***

"You're late," Aenes said when I walked into the room. He scowled, and I could tell that he was annoyed with me. "Where have you been?"

"Thinking," I replied. I sat down in one of the seats and saw that they were still standing. "What? Aren't we going to have a meeting?" I asked.

"We are but not here," Mom replied. She was leaning against a bookcase, and her blonde hair pulled into a tight braided bun. I had heard and seen that she had her hair short, but I couldn't really... understand it being her.

I was so used to seeing her with long hair that if she had cut it, I wouldn't be able to recognize her without it.

"What do you mean?" I asked, cocking my head. "This is the office." I stood and gestured around the room that we were in. "We can have the meeting here."

"Which people can come into at any time. It is not safe for what we have to discuss," she replied. She turned around to face the bookshelf and pulled out a random book, showing a secret tunnel.

"Uh... Mom?" I asked. "Why did the bookshelf just move?"

Mom looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "It's a secret passageway," she said. "It's going to have to move if we are going to go through it," she replied.

"Where does it lead?" Ceira asked. She moved to my side and eyed the wall, warily. She didn't trust it, and I couldn't blame her. We had been in this office for as long as we could remember and tried to find some secret passageway. However, we never did.

"It leads somewhere," she replied. "Somewhere safe." She looked down the passageway, her eyes holding pain and sadness. She leaned against her mate, and my heart started to beat with jealousy. "Your grandfather showed it to me because I needed to train in Wolf form," she said. She cleared her throat and shook her head. "Come on. We have a long way to go before we are safe."

She walked into the tunnel by the rest of the group except for Ceira.

"Do you trust it?" Ceira asked in a whisper, and I shook my head, no. "Me neither." She took a deep breath and nodded. "But, I guess we gotta follow them."

"I guess so," I replied. I held out my hand, and she grabbed it. I squeezed her hand, trying to reassure both myself and her before we followed the party through the tunnel.

As soon as we went into the tunnel, the door shut and left us in darkness.

Goddess, protect us, I thought, anxiously. I kept following the way that they had been, making sure that Ceira was halfway behind me. If anything happened, then I wanted to deal with it and not have her deal with it. And protect my mate.