Adilah~

My mother and I sit opposite to each other with her on her office chair. Cole has volunteered to guard outside just in case someone comes in, but I believe that he's giving us space to talk by ourselves.

"I can't believe my daughter already found her mate, and an Alpha too." Even with her cheerful tone, I see the frown in her eyes.

"Cole said we are not allowed to mate." Cole had told me that it's against the law, that I was not aware of before.

"It doesn't happen very often."

"Mother, let's stay on our actual topic." She's clearly dragging our conversation away from Samirah.

"Right." She sighs and roams her eyes around the room, her excuse of not looking at my disappointed eyes. Her gaze stops at my pictures where Cole was staring at awhile ago. "I suppose it's time for you to know."

I reach out to hold her hands to encourage her. "Samirah is the oldest one out of all of us..." Mom starts, "She was not as cruel as back then, but her life made her hard."

"How so?"

"She was born before the treaty was created, and experienced first hand what was it like back then. I was born that time too, but I was so young to remember anything. " I try to imagine what it is like to be a woman back in those days. I always think that my generation has been taking for granted all the luxury that we currently have -- freedom, choices, and dignity. Without the treaty we wouldn't have had that, that's what we were taught. But right now all I see are manipulation, ignorance, and corruption. I feel like I have not been living in the real world these past years.

"Then what happened to her?"

"Your grandmother told me that Samirah was just like you at your age. Young, tough, smart, ambitious, and hopeful. She always believed that one day men and women would be equal, but then he came."

I bit my lips so not to argue back that I am not like the Luna of Hope who just set me up to be a traitor, but I decided to hear her out first before I say anything out of line. "Who came?"

"Her mate." My mother grips my hands tightly,  "Alpha of the South. " I flinch, I can tell that this is not going to end well.  Maybe we do have some similarities,  my situation is just a little bit better.

"He abused her?" The South has a bad reputation for treating women. It's like the ultimate battleground for us, in fact when we misbehaved as a child they always scare us that we are going to be sent there as punishment to learn our lesson.

"More than that, Honey. He broke her soul, everything that she was. From then on after her mate died and she got away from there, Samirah realized that the only way for us women to be equal was to have our own society. She was one of the ones who led the fight for the treaty to be acknowledged,  and when it did she became one of the first Lunas alongside your grandmother."

"Is it true that if anyone crossed her, they are imprisoned or killed?" Mom's hands trembled when I said the last word. Back then I wouldn't even think of it, but with me and Crimson being branded as traitors who can be sentenced to death it's possible. If it is, then I am changing it.

"At first everything went well, people loved how the treaty was working." She continues telling the story instead of answering me, "But the Annual Ball was enforced and when people started meeting their mates again and actually found to like them some people wanted a compromise. They didn't want to leave their mate's side. Samirah was not very happy, of course. She thinks all men are like her mate, but I know that it's not the case for everyone."

"Like you and my father?" I ask her and I hope. I don't know what I am going to feel if my father was an abusive man. I love him dearly even though I haven't met him at all. Meeting my mother's gleaming eyes, I anticipate the first information she's going to give me about him. She has always avoided this topic, now is the perfect chance to tell me. "Your father was a fine man Adilah, but I don't remember much about him. My memory of him was lost because if not I wouldn't have left him."

My tears start to fall down, "Is he still alive?" Mother shakes her head to stop me from asking about him further. "Samirah developed a drug that can remove someone's memory or sometimes come up with a situation for them to hate their own mates and leave them voluntarily, but it wasn't enough.  So she resorts to more cruel punishments and makes it a crime to disobey the treaty's law to scare everyone into ever doing it. The one rule she strongly wants for everyone to follow is the one that you unintentionally broke Adilah."

"An Alpha and a Luna can't be together," I whisper. Because of what happened to her. Her mate was an Alpha, and Cole is. I am a Luna and she is also. She thinks she's me.

"That's why she's going after you, and so do happens that Crimson is with you too." I feel guilty as I drag Crimson into this and even Benetha. "I can't do anything to convince her or opposed her. Half of our military is in her control. People are also convinced with the pictures of you she showed in a live broadcast. Everyone really thinks that you have something to do with the kidnapping. A lot have already challenged my position, but I can't let Samirah take over this pack too. I am afraid that that's what she's really after, putting all of us in her total control."

Anger rises up in me. My Luna blood is not happy that my pack is being threatened. "Cole was behind the kidnapping for his plan of integration."

Mom lets go of me and stand up. "He fought fire with fire and now it's a mess."

"It has always been a mess, Mom. People just didn't know." I am not defending Cole, but because of it, I learn all of this. Even though his plan was stupid and reckless I wouldn't have known this much. That my society is rotten from the inside, and men have nothing to do with it.

"That's why I am telling you to go far away from here. Don't worry about me, I want you to be free." I step back as she is rounding to hug me.

"I am not going anywhere, Mom. This is where I belong and I am going to clear our names."

Knowing how stubborn I am, my mother sits back down in her chair and rub her eyes. "Then I guess there is only one thing you can do."

"What?"

She opens her table drawer and put something in my hands. It's our pack seal, it's a symbol that the Luna of the pack is giving you permission to do whatever you want or even take control of the pack. The Equality pack seal is a wolf, standing tall with all its paw on top of a scale made out of pure gold. "You need to go to the Justice pack and convince Faith."

"Luna Faith?" I swallow nervously, she's not exactly the type who is easy to convince.

"Present the seal to her and she'll know that I send you there. She owes me a lot, she will not turn you in. She's fair too and hates Samirah with burning passion. She'll be willing to help you. " If that's the case I'll go and try, it's not like I have a lot of options either.

"Thank you, Mom." I walk to her and give her the hug that she was giving me earlier.

"Anything for you, my dear. You are the only one that matters to me aside from our pack of course.  If I have to fight and change the whole world I'll do it for you."

I have always been proud of my mother, and nothing will ever challenge that.

***

Sorry. I am going to be a little busy so I might not be able to update frequently. Hope all of you understand. Have a nice day!