The Demeter Twins - Hellhound Sequel

Roman’s POV ~

I sat with Paulina on my lap.. as she calmed herself, my mom walked out to the overgrown backyard.. She sat on the ground and reached her fingers into the earth. I knew she was communing… gaining insight into what the earth knows.

Paulina asks “Will you walk through the house with me? I want to see my parents’ room. I am remembering more than I did. Macie is feeding me small memories that are happy ones”

I stand, lifting her when I do, I stand her on my feet. Taking her hand, I whisper “Lead the way, amore’” She heads up the stairs.. never turning loose of my hand. We go to the third floor.. she points to a closed door. “That’s the nursery.. I hadn’t slept there since my second birthday. My room is at the end of the hall. Two doors up.. here… this is my parents room.”

We walk inside.. and it looks like they’ve just stepped out for a minute. She walks around the room.. touching and picking things up. Her eyes widen and she hurries to a door at the side of the room. Opening it, she breathes in deeply, and says “It smells like them.. even now. I can still smell my Momma and Daddy!”

I say nothing. I can feel she doesn’t need my words.. just my company. She smiles at me and says “Watch..” as she grabs a coat hook on the wall and pulls down on it. A door swings open to our left and a small sitting room comes into view. She steps inside and says “All my momma’s important things are in here.”

I immediately mindlink my parents and Perseus to come to the Alpha’s quarters. Paulina starts looking through the bookshelves.. pulling a photo album out, she sits on the floor and starts flipping through the pages. She whispers “I do look like my mom!”

When Perseus found us, he pulled Paulina up and tells her “Let us pack all this up for you. We will bring everything home with us!” She nods at him.. with a little smile and says “Under the table.. in that corner.. is a locked box.. under the floorboards. Momma always said it was her treasure trove of secrets. I don’t know what’s in it.. but I want it, please?”

Perseus takes her to her room.. and I go in search of boxes. Mom found me as I was coming up from the basement and she offered to help pack up Elena’s sitting room. Mom looks around the room, then says “Your mate is special, Rome. Very special. Oakley told me to check her left foot.. she carries the Mark of the Moon.”

I asked “What does that even mean, Mom? You always said our mate was going to be special. How did you know?” She laughs and says “I only meant she’d have to be special to mate both my boys! Goddess knows she’d have to be, to put up with the two of you!” I muttered a gee thanks, as she laughed again.

Then she said “Something really bad happened here, Roman. Whoever wiped out this pack.. are still looking for her. That Alpha that found her? He’s been at this pack, poking around.. several times.. three times, in the last two years!”

I ask “Alpha Brennan? The one who was going to sell her? Do you think he may not have just found her.. like he said?” She shrugs.. “I don’t know, sweet boy! But I do know there are no such things as coincidences. If we can figure out the why.. we will be able to find the who. Her memories are going to help. I just don’t want her overwhelmed.”

I sigh and hug my mother and say “I’m sorry about Felicia, Mom. I know now, I never felt anything close to love. I don’t even know what I was thinking.. I wanted my mate, and Perseus was content to just sit and wait. I think I was acting on frustration.. more than actually caring for Felicia.” She kisses my cheek and whispers “Did you apologize to your mate? She’s the one you have to have forgiveness from. I am your mother.. I am always in your corner! Even when you fuck up worse than Hogan’s goat!”

Shaking my head, I tell her “I don’t even know what that means! You’re always using euphemisms I don’t understand! Who is hogan’s goat.. Tell me, Mom.. how did he screw up?” She laughed.. “It’s from an old Irish folktale. A man named Hoek Hogan had a nasty old goat.. filthy thing.. stunk to high heavens.. and he liked to drink alcohol. The villagers always thought it was funny to give him a pint or two and watch him get fucked up. He would tear through the village.. head butting things.. biting people.. run into walls.. stumbling all the way home.. One time, the goat was so drunk he destroyed the entire market, in the town’s center.. so, they butchered him for the meat..and when someone would get drunk.. become a nuisance.. they would be compared to Hogan’s goat!”

I just shake my head at her “You know what!? Forget I even asked! I don’t even want to know why you know that shit! I have the weirdest parents on the planet, I swear!” She just laughs and tells me to get the boxes downstairs.. she was going to find her daughter!

After we loaded the three boxes, Paulina wanted to go home. I asked her if she wanted to go to Sadie’s or the pack house. She smiled, leaning her head on my shoulder, she whispered “You two are my home.” My heart melted. Thank you, Goddess.. for allowing me to love this amazing woman!

Grandpa says “I think we need to research the library.. Paulina, darling.. do you have a birthmark.. on your foot perhaps?” She sat up and answered “I do.. how did you know?” He laughed and said the oak tree told Renata..

She took her boot off, and I pulled her sock off her tiny foot. There… across the entire top of her foot.. on the left side, was a crescent moon.. surrounded by five stars. She gasped and said “It’s always been a small white birthmark.. now it looks silver.. and see? It’s glittering in the light! That’s new. Why did it change?”

Mom says “That’s another thing we will research. I will need to send a message to Mother Moon.. we will probably need her to shed some light in this whole situation!” Pers and I both groan. Dad deapans “Thought your mom would let that one go!” Paulina laughs and we all felt it.. like a bubble of happiness just exploded in the car. Perseus asks “What was that?” While Mom just grins.

Dad asks “Paulina, when did you notice your powers? Has anyone else noticed them?” She looks confused and responds “I don’t have any powers… not real powers. I helped a bird heal, once.. but that’s because I asked Mother Moon to not ler her die.. other than that,.. None that I have noticed, anyway.” Mom pats her knee.. “Oh.. you have powers, baby girl.. Haven’t you noticed when you cry, it rains?”

Paulina shrugs “Lots of people cry when it rains.” Dad grins at her, realizing she honestly doesn’t know she’s gifted “No, my daughter! It rains, BeCause you’re crying!” She gasps.. saying “That’s just crazy!”