BORDER

Chapter Thirty One

ANAKIN

    She is my salvation.

I know it, I can feel it in my soul but I will not damn her with me. I will not sacrifice my temptation for the minute of satisfaction that the gods will award me before they rip it all away.

Nerissa is ungodly beautiful. She is this very sunset, my first ever sunset. The ones I have read in books and short stories can never compare to this moment. Soft pink, bright yellow fading into orange, and orange fading into dark blue – she is a sight to behold. I watch her, curled up on the beach, her head on her knees, the light in her eyes darkening. She is so bright, she is the lightness to my darkness.

    I am pushing her away for her sake. And a little bit of mine...she can't love me. I know she can't, no one has loved me in a hundred and fifty years. Even then the love I received from them was by pure luck and circumstance.

She can't love me and I can't have her love me and me to continue lying to her. I plan to show her that the life she currently lived is all a lie. It has to be. Lani as glorious as it sounds can't be perfection, nothing is. Nothing can ever be that happy.

    Except me when I am with her.     She will hate me, until she realizes I am not the enemy. But I can't convince here that I am not the enemy, that Phanes is, that the people she puts her full faith in are. It is the people who make her so fucking delusional to the point she believes they will do anything for her that are the problem. They are all liars.

    Every. Single. One. Liars.

When she finds out the truth, will she forgive me? Well, considering our circumstances I don't think my little temptation has a choice.

    The reason she doesn't have an heir isn't because of what I said. It is completely inaccurate. They feed off the delusion and lies they feed her, she is more than what meets the eye. I can feel it and to keep her contained, to keep her weak, they paint this comforting story of peace, hope, and love.

    There is so much she still doesn't know or hasn't seen about our world yet.I just know saying that would piss her off and that's exactly what I need. I need her to explore her other emotions and open up to me, but she is not ready. I am not ready as much as I want to be. I can't open up to her. Not yet.

    The reason is, we still have yet to face the last challenge and it is our lives at stake here. If I make the slightest slip-up, we will lose everything. The walks, the journey, the undeniable romantic tension that painted the colors of the world around us will all implode to nothing.

    She makes me see colors and experience things I never even thought I could. Somehow in lightning me, she has not dimmed. While yes, her skin has faded to a honeyed color rather than that rich gold that she is used to, she is still so pure.

    I continue watching her as she watches me. Keeping my gaze as cold as possible, making sure to keep up this act of hatred. I had hated her, hated the very ground she walked on, I hated she existed around me, but in such a short time, that has nothing to do with the mating bond, Nerissa Solely has snuck into my heart. There is no denying the feelings in the air even though I don't think she can place them.

Does she even know mates exist? Or have they corrupted her brain entirely?

There are so many things she hasn't seen. So many things she has yet to do, because she was trapped for a century and a half in a world of dreams. She isn't just an angel. She holds so much power inside of her, I am dying to see all that she is. I know Phanes knows, I know that is why he has kept her in Lani.

Risen angels left Lani all the time, I had heard them talking about it in the Golden City. Angels exist all over Etna, so what is so special about Lani. More importantly, what is so special about Nerissa? The gods know.

All of them did.

Blade didn't obviously, but the rest of them know what she is capable of and created this source of protection for her. Trapping her inside this little box and making her their ultimate test to do that to all of Etna. That is their plan, wasn't it?

Keep the weapons locked and stored away until they are challenged and separate all of the bastard brutes, as she called us fallen. God's was she in a world of hurt.

Sick. They are all fucking sick.

After a while, I pull myself from the ocean and we trudge up the beach until we are right back where we started. We are silent as we do it. I did not realize how little time we had. It was getting to be sundown and we only had till the end of the night to finish this.

    I scan her. Her confusion seems to be taking over as she glances at me. She is so convinced I hate her but the truth can't be further than that. The look in her eyes only hardens my gaze towards her as we stalk forward.

That is the moment when I decide I am going to rip Phanes from piece to piece and throw him in the Medusa's lair wherever she might be.

    I am going to ruin him just like how he ruined her.