Double Claims: The Lost mate-Chapter 79

Triton stood upright from where he had bent low on the ground. He tossed his drawing stick aside and advanced towards me.

I folded both arms across my chest and avoided his gaze as I stared in the other direction.

"Maria, if Trevor wanted us to find him, he wouldn’t have left. We have more pressing issues than searching for a man who left on his own will. We..."

"I refuse to believe it." I snapped immediately. "Trevor would never leave me. He is my mate. He loves me."

I fought hard to resist the welling in my watery eyes. I didn’t want to believe Triton even if he repeated the same thing a thousand times. I wanted to take it as a lie, to rebuke the thought of Trevor ever leaving me in my lowest moment.

"He left, Maria. There’s nothing we can do."

Right there, I couldn’t contain the watery pressure in my eyes anymore. A teardrop escaped my eye, accompanied by more.

Triton did something unexpected as he drew closer to me and embraced me. I felt too weak and heartbroken to react, even as his hand was around my waist. He patted my back.

"Please don’t cry. It’s going to be alright. I’m sure he’d return."

I stifled my sobs and tried hard to convince myself to accept his words that were supposed to give comfort. I cleaned my tear streaked face with the back of my palm and disentangled from Triton’s hug.

"I’m here for you," Triton continued saying. "We aren’t mates or couples, but I’m here for you as a friend."

I said nothing, but simply nodded sluggishly.

Triton held my both hands, prompting me to face him.

"Maria, please promise me that you’d work together for us to solve this problem and you won’t let Trevor’s disappearance stand in the way."

I swallowed hard and hesitated before answering. "I promise."

I sniffed and wiped the rest of my teary face. "Let’s continue," I muttered.

Triton smiled briefly before picking up the stick he had used in drawing and crouched to the ground.

He drew a rectangular shape in the sand.

"This is it," he tapped the tip of the stick in the rectangle’s center. "This is where your mother is headed to."

I shot him a hard stare. He had just referred to her as my mother once more, even after I had warned him. He continued talking, obviously not understanding that my stare was a warning.

I lowered to his level on the floor to have a clearer view of what he was sketching. Above the rectangle, he wrote ’naked tomb’ on it.

"This is the naked tomb?" I asked, pointing at the sketched box.

He nodded. "Yes. But, I don’t know why she has to kill and do all these to get there. Is there a secret passkey to that place that involves killing? And what does she even want there?"

"I’ve been there before." I said in response. "It’s an ancient training house for fighting. I didn’t need to kill anyone to get in."

I began explaining to him what happened the day I entered the naked tomb, how I felt frustrated about not having any abilities and almost killed myself.

He listened attentively, refusing to interrupt my moment.

I was now seated on the floor and no longer squatting. My limbs had begun hurting, causing me to change position.

"If it’s just a training room and it’s easy to get into it, why exactly is mo...Laura, killing to get there?" He paced around as he asked this question, his brows furrowed with a deep sense of worry.

I shrugged. "I don’t know. Maybe there’s more to the naked tomb than just training." I traced the boxes he drew in the sand with a finger.

Triton had a finger placed on his jaw. He was in deep thought and still hadn’t found an answer to his surfacing thoughts.

"I need a map of the lands. There’s something I need to see." He dipped both hands into his pockets as if looking for the map inside there.

That meant we needed to go to Veilwood. I badly wanted to go there to see how the land was, because a bit of doubt still settled in me that my mother hadn’t destroyed the land.

"We have to go to Veilwood for that, won’t we?"

Triton shook his head. "No. I’m not sure we’d see your maps after the lands have been ruined. We’d go to my pack. Lycanthia is still safe. We have maps there too."

My heart sank as this was a bitter pill to swallow. This meant that Veilwood was in terrible ruin that even the maps weren’t spared.

I still wanted to see my pack regardless.

"Still take me there," I muttered weakly to Triton.

He glanced at me, and then back at the body of water beside us before taking a deep breath.

"Let’s go." He said finally.

He walked ahead and I trailed behind him.

The sun had begun to scorch, the burning impact making me feel uncomfortable. My veil wasn’t with me. I hadn’t worn a veil for weeks and I didn’t plan to wear one ever again.

From what I deduced from the ongoing incidents, wearing a veil was literally useless. It was a law enforced by the predator to protect people from harm when clearly she was the harm.

I felt angry that I didn’t know more about Laura’s plans, who exactly she was and if she was working for the forger or if she was even the forger.

"Your wolf? It’s perfectly fine," I mentioned as Triton and I walked together. "You told me the curse affected your wolf."

"My wolf isn’t fine, Maria. You won’t understand." The statement was accompanied with a hollow sigh. I wondered what he meant. I looked at his face and his eyes looked like they contained pain.

I didn’t ask further questions as I felt happy for him that he had healed his wolf.

We forged ahead and I was desperate to see my land. The environment was unfamiliar and I wondered how long it’d take to reach Veilwood.