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Chapter Thirty

NERISSA

    "What in Blade's name was that back there at Evangeline's castle?" We have been walking for hours but neither of us has said anything. We only have around twelve hours to finish and I am not sitting in complete silence the entire time just because he is pissy.

    I am tired and weak, it's like I have been running on fumes. I needed good and amazing sleep. My coughing and heaving hasn't stopped and it feels like my chest is going to implode. I figured it would stop once we left Gehena, but it only increased.

    Rapidly too.

    "What? Are you ignoring me, again?"

"You think just because we went through all that, that you mean something to me?"

    I stop and gape at him. "Of course not, you think I want a Fallen even touching me?"

    "Like one would even want to touch you."
    "You know what, Anakin, you want to be hot and cold, fine, but at least choose one before your ego implodes." I hiss. "I don't know what your problem is-"

"You want to know what my problem is? It's you. You're my problem, Nerissa, and I can't wait until I have you out of my life."

"You don't mean that."

His back is heaving as he sucks in calming breaths. Anakin pushes me up against a tree, but I turn up against him. His dagger digs into my throat. "Yes, I do."

Tears burn in my eyes as his words hit me. "You're nothing, you're worthless, and guess what? No man or woman would touch you with a forty-foot pole, Anakin Kumar. You are exactly what everyone says about you," I take my dagger and dig it into his neck.

"Tell me how you really feel, Nerissa."

    "You're a bastard, soul-sucking serpent," I continue, "You will never achieve great lengths either." I dig it deep into his throat and he makes sure he's hindering my oxygen supply with his wrists against my windpipe.

    "Like you?" He starts. "You're how old and don't even have an heir? Do you wonder why? It's because everybody in your lands of paradise thinks you're a fucking cunt with her nose held higher to reach Phanes and his godly glory on giving you a child!" He yells at me.

    "Don't touch me." I growl and push myself off of him before he sneaks up behind me. He pulls me in by my waist.

He presses his lips to my ear. "What do you think he'd do if he knew his favorite little toy was doing to me, if he knew what was to happen between us if I just allow it? Hm? Tell me, Temptation, use your fucking words."

    I can practically hear the smirk find its way across his beautiful lips. "You are my damnation, Anakin Kumar."

    The pad of his thumb draws down my face and it almost brings me to a shutter. "And you, Nerissa Solely," he presses a kiss to my aching throat, "are my sweetest temptation."

    "You would ruin me."

    "You have already ruined me." He says so softly it almost feels like I imagined it.

    "Anakin..." I say gently.

    "You are so gullible." He mutters unkindly before pushing me forward. "So naive it hurts."

    When he moves in front of me, I put my foot out and trip him. He falls flat on his face. "You dirty, disrespectful, pig. Does the dirt taste good? Isn't that what you ate for years you bastard brute?"

    Anakin does not turn around and swing curses at me. He laughs, he actually laughs. A furious kind of laugh that explodes through him until I do not know whether to laugh myself or feel completely disrespected.

    He stands up and sinks into a fighting stance, he is challenging me. I straighten my back, openly welcoming it. I have little to no shame. "Are you serious?"

    Anakin wipes the dirt from his mouth. "I figure it's about time we work out this tension, don't you?"

    "You promised."

"I won't hurt you."

"I don't believe you." I say as he stalks towards me and I do not move, catching my breath in my throat and swallowing it whole. "I am not afraid of you and I never have been. You. Don't. Scare. Me."

    He smirks before he leans in, there is something all fearing in his rises, as if he is going to kiss me. Then he smears dirt all along my face. "Clean yourself up."

Without another word, Anakin turns away and gets close to the cliff's edge. He strips himself of his shirt, leaving him only in the pants that hang low at the waist. Showcasing every scar and every mark.

What is he doing?

He answers me as he throws himself from the cliff. Terror strikes me as the thought goes through my head that he can't swim. My legs are moving before I realize I am and I dive towards him.

His feet disappear beneath the waves as I hurtle towards the ocean. When I cut through the waves my hands instantly search for him. I force myself up to the surface and swallow mouthfuls of air. "Anakin!"

Damn, him.

I call his name frantically. I don't know where he is in this sea and I can't see anything. I can't find him. I am in a body of water and I am all alone. I don't know when I start to hyperventilate but suddenly the pressure of the world is in my chest alongside my heart.

Something curls around my waist and pulls me to them, the curling I exclaim is bloodcurling. Anakin's laughter mixes with it and I start hitting him in a frenzy.

"Temptation, stop!" He says with a grin.

"You could've died!" I scream so loud my throat stains. "You jumped into an ocean with no swimming expertise and you could have died."

I swallow water as Anakin supports me. "I can swim, Nerissa."

"W-what?" I swallow more water and spit it out against his face.

He wipes it clean. "I can swim."

"But you almost drowned...you couldn't swim."

"Kano has a curse on me, in his domain I can never swim."

I stare at him unbelieving. "So how are you?"

"Not all of the oceans are his."

"We're in Posei's domain." I realize. Kano's son.

"I can swim, here." He presses one hand to my stomach and the other to my face. "I wouldn't have jumped off a cliff if I believed I was going to die."

"You...right, of course not."

Anakin looks at me seriously for a moment and then allows the water to take him under. My heart slows as I watch the sun begin to set. He is maddening.

He stays in the water even after I drag myself ot the beach, shivering. I watch as he swims underneath the calm oceans. Every so often he resurfaces to suck in air and runs his fingers through his hair.

Gods, he is beautiful. Especially now, swimming in the ocean like he has all the freedom in the world. Anakin a deadly prince that has spent his entire life surviving, soaking in a dying sun, settling into an ocean that does not belong to his enemy. It is a beautiful sight.

It sucks that he's such a horrible person...he's a major dick. And yet I can not deny that he makes my heart skip a beat every time he is near and there is this draw to him that is intoxicating, but he is him.

My ruin, my damnation.