His Little Wife

Chapter 18

I spend the rest of the day in the pool trying to take my mind off my upcoming nuptials. The idea of being married in less then a week just feels so alien to me. How is this possible? A month ago I didn't even know who this person was. Ever since I was a little girl I always imagined what my wedding day would be like. What I would wear, what my groom would look like and what love felt like. I imagined looking forward to the day, counting down until it arrived. But this was going to be any but a happy day. This would be a day I would remember for the rest of my life, but not for good reasons. This would be the day that I was claimed by a man I didn't know, stopping me from finding true love. I feel my heart weaken under the thought of never feeling love. Never being able to experience what should have been my right. My right to choose who I fell in love with. My right to choose If and when I wanted to get married and my right to decide if I wanted to have children. But all of that was stolen from me. Stolen from me the day I met Lucian.

I swim back and forth over and over, feeling the water wash over me, but my mind still can't wrap itself around what will happen in 6 days time. I keep going and going hoping that eventually my mind will move onto something else. Anything else. Hours I swam back and forth to no avail. Even when I started to feel my body tire, my mind was still stuck on Lucian.

I push myself until my legs feel weak and my arms struggle to pull me through the water. I keep trying to move, hoping when my body was drained of any energy there would be no energy to feed the struggles in my mind. My body continues to move in the water, but instead of moving forward it started to sink down. I tried to pull my arms around to drag myself back to the surface, but in my exhausted state they don't move fast enough. My body slowly sinks to the bottom of the pool as I struggle to hold my breath. I know I have to move my arms and legs to get me moving, but I can't. They won't cooperate. My foot taps the bottom of the pool as a bubble of air escapes my lips, followed by another as water fights its way into my mouth. The lights above the pool shine bright as I look towards my escape. It's so close, my fingers could almost reach the surface of the water as I raise my hand above my head. Another bubble breaks past my lips, allowing more water in, pushing into my lungs. The lights above start to dim as the eerie darkness calls my name. With every blink my vision dims. The darkness calls my name again as I feel it gripping my waists, pulling me back. Then there's nothing but blackness as the light disappears.

'Anna!' A voice shouts.

It's darkness. It's come for me.

'Anna. Breathe, breathe for me.' The voice tells me panicked.

There's a pressure on my chest. It's heavy and then light over and over. It hurts every time it moves back into me.

'Wake up, please.'

Then something covers my mouth, like a seal around my lips as air is forced into my already filled lungs. The air forces the water from my airways as I feel my body convulse. Water comes back up my throat, dribbling down the side of my face slowly, until it all comes flooding out at once as I claw at my throat coughing.

'That's is. Let it out.'

A strong hand lands on my back and hits me over and over as I'm dragged into a lap. I don't fight to move as I let them hold me and comfort me while I continue to bring up the chlorinated water.

When I'm sure there's nothing else left to come out I collapse back into the chest of the person holding me as they run their fingers through my hair, stroking me. I felt oddly relaxed as the person comforted me, just like how my mother used to when she was still alive.

Finally I look up through my lashes, still panting as I look at my saviour. Lucian.

He sits under me with his hand wrapped around my waist, holding me against him. His face is a mixture of dread and relief with his eyes running over my face, as if he doesn't believe what he's seeing. His clothes are all wet and for a moment I think it's because I'm sitting on him, until I pull away. I can see he's drenched from head to toe as water drips from his hair and clothing.

'You're wet.' I say to him, seeing his clothes aren't just damp on the parts that I touched. 'You... you jumped in?' I struggle to ask against the scratching feeling in my throat.

'You were drowning.' He tells me like it was the obvious choice when he saw me under the water.

'You jumped in for me?' I ask aloud, trying to make sense of what happened.

'Of course I did.' He says, pulling me back against his chest.

I don't fight him as he holds me. I couldn't if I wanted to. I was so exhausted. So drained of energy that I just lay there in his lap, leaning against his chest.

'You're not allowed in here on you're own anymore, do you understand?' He scolds me.

I want to protest. I want to fight him on it. This is one of the few places I can go to get away from everything. To get away from him. I didn't want my world becoming even smaller as he took this away from me, but I was too tired to fight. I was too tired to respond. So I just let my body drift off to sleep as I laid slump in his arms. The arms of the person who saved me from death. The arms that I for some reason now felt safe in.