Triton's Oath - His Hybrid Princess

17 - I am so nervous!

Ava

I am so nervous.

I finally have my locket back after retrieving it from Mt. BloodMoon. I wanted to spend time with Esme, Aidan, and their kids, but that will have to wait for now.

Everyone is gathered: my parents, older siblings, and their mates, along with Triton. All here to offer support while I open the locket. The younger children are all with my grandparents, who wanted to be here. But I didn’t think I could handle so many people around me all at once.

My hand trembles as I hold the locket. I’ve wanted to open it since Triton told me what was hidden within, but I feel a little afraid of what will happen when I do. Of course, I want to feel the mate bond, but I’m terrified of what those memories will do to me.

I’m going to remember all the heartache I felt and the pain I put my family through when I jumped from that cliff. I think that’s what scares me the most – understanding what made me so unhappy, I would do something so drastic.

Triton lays his hands over mine to stop them from shaking. I look at him, and he smiles. ‘I know this seems daunting, Ava. You’re scared of what you’ll remember and how much it will hurt. I wish I could say that isn’t the case, but I can’t.’ His voice in my head soothes me like nothing else ever could. ‘I will be right here with you, and I will never leave you. I just hope you don’t hate me when you see the truth. I don’t want the mate bond to influence you, Ava. I want you to keep your mind open, and if you can’t forgive me, I will let you go.’

‘You will not give up on me that easily,’ Triton smiles at me. ‘I won’t hate you, Triton.’ I speak to him telepathically. It’s easy with a God when they open that connection with you. You don’t need to be mated to make it so. ‘The only thing I can promise you right now is that I won’t hate you.’

I reach up and wrap my arms around Triton’s neck. His arms encircle my waist, and he lifts me off the ground, my feet dangling by his knees, as he holds me close to him. This is what I needed, to feel Triton’s arms around me like this.

The room is unusually still. The only sounds are the crackling of the fireplace and the soft murmur of my family’s breaths. My heart races as I feel the weight of the moment pressing down on my shoulders.

‘You are my world, Ava. Never forget that.’

I smile at Triton’s words and kiss his cheek before he sets me on my feet.

“Ava? Are you ready, sweetheart?”

I look at Mom and nod. Everyone offers me small smiles, and I can tell how apprehensive they all are. My family hoped this day would never come, but they’re also glad I’ll be whole again.

The locket is cool to the touch, a stark contrast to the warmth that emanates from the hand that clutches it. My eyes search the room again, finding the familiar faces of my mother, father, and siblings’ concerned gazes and the steadfast presence of Triton. His eyes, the color of the deepest ocean, bear into mine with a desperation that is palpable. The bond between us is strong, but it has been marred by years of pain and secrets.

Once I open this locket, all of that will go away. Everything will be as it should have been for the past ten years. The weight of all those years of memories that have been altered by what Triton did when he hid them from me is beginning to crush my insides.

‘Everything will be okay, Ava.’

‘Will it?’ I ask my Dragon with a sigh. ‘What if everything changes when I open it, Amelia?’

‘Everything will change, Ava. But it’s time, we’ve waited long enough.’

‘Besides,’ Amarni says. ‘We’ll feel the mate bond! Can you imagine having se.x with Triton with the mate bond rushing through us?’

I roll my eyes. ‘Is se.x with Triton all you think about?’

‘Since the day we met him.’

Damn, she’s hopeless!

‘Open the locket, Ava. Whatever happens, Amarni and I will always be with you.’

‘Thank you.’

My thumb caresses the clasp, feeling the intricate etchings of the metal. With a deep inhale, I release the catch, and the locket springs open. Instantly, a warm light fills the room, casting a gentle glow on the somber faces of my family. The air grows thick with anticipation, the kind that comes before a storm, charged with the potential of what is about to unfold.

Just as quickly, the first vision hits me like a wave, and I stagger back, gasping. Pain fills me to the brim to the point that I can’t help falling to my knees, palms pressed to my temples, as I scream to the heavens.

The first vision is a memory of a time I feel I have never lived, a time when I first met Triton. He’s on his knees in front of my whole family and Zeus. I see myself running toward my mate and the way his eyes lit up with hope when he first laid eyes on me, the spark that ignited between us when I touched his face, a spark that could never be extinguished. But the joy is quickly replaced by a piercing agony I feel as I am torn away from Triton, my father’s grip on my arm like iron.

I hear my father’s words when he yells at me that Triton will never be my mate. I hear Zeus’s words like thunder in the sky when he banished Triton to his underwater palace for ten whole years. His eyes never leave mine as I watch him through the window as the sea swallows him whole. The pain of Triton’s imprisonment, the fear of never seeing him again, it all rushes back to me in a torrent of emotion that I can’t keep up with.

Years of loneliness and sadness are mine as I watch myself fall deeper into depression. I see the day I jumped from that cliff to my death and how Triton’s mother saved me. I see myself in Triton’s palace, him holding me in his arms as Ivy, Azrael, and Kayson trying to convince me to leave with them.

I feel the moment Azrael connected the two broken halves of my soul. I hear my own pleas for Triton not to send me away from him, and I feel the moment he did the most selfless thing Triton has ever done—the moment he took my memories and the mate bond and sealed them inside the locket.

Triton’s memories fill my mind, and I don’t understand how. The loneliness and despair that had consumed him in his prison for so long. I feel the echoes of his love, his longing for me, and the guilt that had kept him from reaching out right away when he was finally released from his imprisonment.

Oh, Goddess, the pain is too much, and I scream and scream, my voice a raw cry that seems to shake the very foundation of the castle. I can’t stop because the agony is ravaging my insides. It burns so much!

The yelling of my family members sounds like echoes in the wind. I cannot distinguish their words, but I know they’re speaking. My siblings rush to my side, wanting to take the pain from me, but Triton gathers me into his arms, his touch grounding me in the present. The burning instantly stops, and the pain recedes, but the sobs do not.

“I’m here, Ava. I’m here,” Triton murmurs into my sweat-soaked hair. His voice is the anchor I needed, the warmth that cut through the ice that has formed around my heart. The memories don’t stop coming, but with Triton holding me, I can bear them.

The room grows warmer as the light from the locket grows brighter. My family watches with a mix of shock and hope on their faces as my and Triton’s bond grows stronger. I feel it from the tips of my toes to the very ends of my hair. The love that had been buried for a decade begins to pulse through us, a fierce and unyielding force that can no longer be denied. Triton feels it, too, because the pounding of his heart and his grip on me tell me he feels the sparks as I do.

With every memory that surfaces, I feel the bond between us thicken, a lifeline that had never truly been broken. Our bond is so strong that nothing, not even taking it from me, could ever truly hide it.

As my body begins to feel weightless, as the memories settle in my mind, the warmth around us grows, enveloping us in a cocoon of light. The locket still in my hand has grown hot, almost too hot to hold. Triton’s hand glows as he holds it over mine. The locket disappears, and Triton takes my hand and kisses my knuckles.

“I love you,” I whisper against Triton’s chest, the words a declaration and a promise. The Gods and Goddesses know I mean them. “I have always loved you.”

Triton kisses my head and lets out a relieved laugh. “I love you, too, Ava. I always have.”

I smile as my eyes close. He loves me, but then, I never doubted it even before the mate bond.

“I kept my promise,” I mumble because it’s becoming increasingly hard to talk.

“What promise?”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Ava!” I feel my mother drop down beside me, along with someone else. But I can’t open my eyes. “Is she okay?”

“She just needs to rest,” Triton answers my mother. “Remembering so much all at once has taken a lot out of her.”

Darkness is taking me, and I no longer have the energy to fight it. I remember everything, and I have the mate bond back. However, I can’t enjoy the bond because I can’t even feel my body. As for the memories, they have hurt me so much. But I refuse to blame Triton for everything that happened. He tried to fix things, and taking my memories was to help me.

I love him now even more than I thought I could.