Page 19 of She will Always be Mine

Walking away from Nyra is the hardest thing I have ever done, especially since nothing ever fazed me anymore.

I always had a plan of how I wanted my future to be, but she eviscerated all my plans in the blink of an eye the moment she stepped into my life.

She was the one I never saw coming.

The complication I didn’t foresee.

Nothing is ever simple with her, there’s always hindrances—each one grimmer than the last—waiting for us. I just never expected her to be the one.

Breakfast must be over because I don’t hear any chattering, nor do I hear clanking sounds coming from downstairs, which also leaves me surprised her mom didn’t come to steal Nyra back straightaway.

Meanwhile, I’m still fuming while my mind plays the image of those marks on her face. I understand anger and feeling let down, but to raise a hand on her, I won’t let that shit slide.

The thought rages in my head as I make my way to my aunt in the guest bedroom she’s staying in. I wish I had stopped her like I wanted to, like the last time she and I talked.

“How dare you touch my daughter?”

I pull my gaze away from Nyra’s retreating back to stare at my aunt. I’m too stunned, too raw and hurting, to reply back to her. I stare down at my empty hand that held hers just a lingering breath ago and I close it into a fist. As the shock and the devastation wears off, an emotion she never made me feel rises from deep within me. A toxic mix of fury and betrayal.

How the fuck could she do this?

Her voice still echoes in my ears, telling me what we have is wrong and wishing she never loved me… every word that spilled out of her lips felt like a slash on my skin and scarred my soul.

She viciously pulled the rug out from beneath me, and I know it’s all because she let her fears win.

Her promise was a lie.

She was never going to fight for us. Still, if nothing else, she at least owed me the truth.

“Riaan!”

My attention is drawn back to my aunt. Another complication that I didn’t need. Timings are always a bitch and never in my favor.

I mask all my churning emotions and keep my face neutral while hers is red and seething as she stands tall. Nyra gets her beauty from her mom, who is just as petite but a harder and mature version of her. I have always respected her and found her sweet and super caring. But now, I can sense it all vanishing as she stares at me accusingly.

“I love her,” I reply truthfully, because there’s no other explanation to express what I feel for Nyra.

Though it only seems to infuriate her, Nyra—naïve at heart—always believed that our family may accept us even if it took years but I never held that illusion.

Unlike her, I knew they would be the first to stand in our way, fighting tooth and nail to keep us apart, and tonight, all her beliefs were shattered. Crushed.

I was prepared and she was not.

“I want you far away from her. You aren’t allowed to look at her, let alone breathe in her direction, and you most certainly won’t touch a single hair on her head ever again,” she threatens.

Her fierceness, though expected, has me pulling up short and observing her deeply. Underneath her warning, there’s something else fighting to come to the surface.

It’s in the way her eyes have glazed over, the trembling in her hand as she points her fingers at my chest, and the slight pale color of her face. It’s as if she’s staring at me but seeing someone else.

“Auntie!” I call, worry lacing my voice.

She focuses back on me and lines crinkle her forehead. As she narrows her gaze, I notice that the haunted expression from seconds ago has disappeared.

“Do you understand?” she demands. “There’s no way she touched you willingly.”

I hate the implication behind her accusation. It’s as if she’s saying that I forced myself on her daughter. I might be a lot of things but I’m not a predator. Instead of saying that, however, my anger gets the best of me and I piss her off even further by lashing out.

“Why don’t you ask your daughter? She never complained when I touched her.”

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