Chapter 60

Jaxson flickers his gaze to my shocked ones. The sky still rains with blood, but as his cold, pale eyes peer into mine - none of it matters.

In a flash, my back clashes with the mountain and Jaxson's steel chest presses against my naked one. A surprised gasp tumbles from my lips, his large hands curling into my hair, so I'm staring up at him.

A shot of my arousal seeps into the air, and I can see Jaxson's nose flare. He eats even more of the distance between us until not even a breath of space sits between us.

"J-Jaxson-..." I stutter. I wanted to push him away - this isn't the time nor place. But right now, I can't do anything but want to lean in a little more and seal our lips - but I can't.

So, I do nothing.

He chuckles darkly, his face leaning closer to my own until our noses brush. His intense pale eyes burn into my own, bleeding mercury as he leans down and tickles his lips over my neck and below my ear.

"Are you scared?"

Yes! Yes, I am!

"You should know, Nieve..." Unlike other times he's spoken that nickname, I feel like he was mocking the name this time. As his lips run up and down my neck, all I can do is stay silent as my heartbeat grows unsteady. "I'm an imposter."

He murmurs the words into my ears like they are his sacred secret. His voice is emotionless, cold. "There's so much you don't know..." he murmurs.

"J-..." I want to say something, but his grip on my waist tightens. I'm sure I'll find a bruise in the shape of his hand after this.

"It was me. This world you hate so much - I created it," Jaxson drawls, causing my heart to take a brief pause as his words registered in my head.

I was waiting for the punchline, but nothing came.

"I was the first being to shed blood on this world. I've killed men, women-... and children. I've tortured, I've burned nations in cold blood. I've started wars - I've taken everything. I introduced greed, power and destruction. You think your father was a tyrant...? My darling, I was - *am* - worse."

I listen to his words - I remember all I've seen. As his soft lips flutter over my neck and ear, as he whispers his darkest sins, as he holds me close to make sure I hear everything, I wonder - why he was doing this to me - to us - now!

"This world you're trying to change is the cycle I created. I've sat on thrones made from bones. I've bathed in baths filled with blood. I lived in darkness, so I condemned the world - your world - to the same fate."

Jaxson pulls back, and I couldn't look at him. I was afraid if I look I'd see the truth in his eyes. Confessions I wasn't ready to accept. "W-why are you telling me this?" I whimper.

I'm upset I didn't know this earlier. Would it change how I already feel? Part of me feels like it already has.

"Because I told you, I'm done. If you have to hate me to move on, then so be it," Jaxson growls, snatching my chin forcing me to meet his eyes. "You say the Gods are cruel - and maybe your right. But the cruellest thing they've ever done to you-... is setting you on my path."

He pushes away from me, and my knees crash to the bloody ground. Tears rain down my face. Is it true? Did I really know anything about him? Was he the only stranger in this relationship?

I wanted Jaxson. The one who would comfort me no matter what I did. The one who protected me, the one who put me above all else and made me feel like I mattered - my feelings mattered!

But he was the beginning of everything wrong with this world. He's the monster, the tyrant everyone warned me about - except the man himself.

No! Instead, he picks the time I realise I love him to throw that shit in my face. Like my damn mother!

Lucinda didn't care about leaving me behind. She didn't see my heart was in her hands to do with as she pleased. She didn't consider her daughter would be lost and broken without her.

No! She fucking left. She left and died with her damn secrets! Now Jaxson is doing the same! What the fuck is it with us Carson women and our damn mates!

Still, I couldn't bring myself to express any of it, my heart shattered by yet another person I love. "You said we were perfect for each other," I barely recognise the words leaving my lips, but Jaxson hears.

"I was wrong," with that, darkness drinks him in, and he disappears.