The Border Trilogy (Book #1) Enemies to lovers, Forbidden love

Prologue

Ever wonder why age old rules are still in place today? Laws are carried out even though they were established in a different time. A time much poorer than today, a time that was less hopeful. Perhaps a time more violent than today? We never really question them do we, we just follow them. I guess because it doesn't really bother us one way or another, we've lived this way for years and it's worked for us so we keep going. Consciously following rules, ironically like zombies. I'm the type of girl who does what must be done, follows the rules without questioning and stays away from whatever is deemed forbidden in my tribe, the Kairi tribe.

We're named after the ocean, as in ocean village because we possess all rights to the ocean- since it's on our side. Our side of the border I mean. What's on the other side? Well we don't really speak of them much within the village, or to anyone really. They're the reason we have our number one law, which is one of three main and most important laws:

The Third Law; No one hunts outside the hunting lines that were set up by former hunters.

The Second Law; No one may hunt, hurt, or come in any contact with any humans.

The First Law; No one crosses the border.

Because across the border is the Theon tribe, our lifelong enemy. Since we don't speak much of them not everyone knows exactly why they are our enemy, yet they blindly follow the laws and believe that there is a logical reason- which I only learned about not too long ago. According to my grandfather, one of the Theon Elders once betrayed one of our Elders centuries ago and almost had him and his family wiped out by another tribe, the Ra'am tribe, our now common enemy. But there was no sufficient evidence to prove it to be true, so they couldn't do anything about it. After that there was some kind of dispute over the land in which their tribe and ours battled over until finally, our tribe killed half of their Elders, and the border was set. Every adult in each tribe had to sign a treaty that acknowledged that our side of the border and the ocean was completely ours, and that the Theon tribe would never be able to cross over for anything. Everything on the other side of the border was theirs, and we would not be able to cross over to their side.

The treaty is still active today, but years after it was signed, two boys from the Theon tribe crossed over to get to the ocean to leave the land and travel. They were caught by one of our protectors, and brought before our Elders.

Protectors are like the police in the modern human world, they protect us on our land from anyone that should try to harm us from our own, or any other tribe. The Elders, also known as 'The Council' are what I suppose the humans call their government. They are the head of the tribe, everything that happens within Kairi goes past them. They decided that the two boys should be sentenced a death penalty for breaking the treaty. Seeing as how a death penalty for crossing the border for any reason was not mentioned in the treaty, the new Elders of the Theon tribe argued that it was unjust, cruel and unfair because the boys meant no harm. Still, they were killed. And so the treaty was refined, stating that anyone who crosses the border may be sentenced to a death penalty by the tribe's Elders. And though it's never happened since, with every year our hate for them, and their hate to us, grows stronger.

And what are we? You might call us vampires, but that's like adding insult to injury. Our ancestors were vampires. Active only during the night, they were able to live through two centuries in one life time and survived only on blood. But with each generation, all the medical and technological advancements made by humans, they slowly died off and we adapted to the new age. Our genes over the years changed, the powers we might have had as vampires that our ancestors possessed faded away. Only a select few of us still possess certain traits- including myself. But I refer to them as enhancements of what anyone can do. For example I can run faster than most of my tribe, some are stronger, some leap higher, some see or hear from miles away clear as day, but that's the extent of it. Where are our ancestors survived only on blood we find no use for it today; we hunt, cook and eat animals around us. Calling us human is as unfit and as bad as calling us vampires considering we each possess the strength of at least 10 humans combined and are faster than them. When it comes to healing, we don't get sick but if we get hurt or injured it takes time to recover, whereas our ancestor's wounds would recover within minutes. Back then our ancestors were able to live up to two centuries, but now we have the same life expectancy as humans. With every generation we became weaker, but at least we don't need the sun to hide for us to come out.

We are the day walkers.