BORDER

Chapter Twenty

ANAKIN

    I am awake.

    What?

    How the actual fuck did that happen?

    I take in the scene before me and notice I am in Kano's crooked ass kingdom. I clench my jaw. I do not want to deal with this right now. Did I live? The glass ceiling ahead of me shows me. Am I looking at my body from the other side?

    No, because I can feel her and I can see. Her hair strands are across my thighs as she is passed out on my legs, toppled over.

    Nerissa.

    What the Russa happened to her? She looks like she is on the brink of death. I gently cradle her in my arms. My hand slaps her face to wake her up but she doesn't stir.

    "Nerissa?!" I slap her cheek gently, again.

    No response.

    I check for a pulse. She is breathing, but is passed out. I hold her to my chest. I smooth her darkening hair from her angelic face. As I do so my chest squeezes. I notice something that wasn't there before. A feeling, a sensation that fuels my rage in an entirely different way.

    More specifically, a fierce feeling of protection.

    I saw something while I was knocked out. The memory is faint but I remember watching her. She was swimming and she was swimming like her entire life depended on it. Considering our current circumstances though, it kind of did.

However, I wouldn't know that though. It was as if I was in her spot. Feeling things she was experiencing. Seeing things that I should not have been able to see. I continue holding her, rocking her back and forth as gratefulness teases that soft spot in my heart. She just saved my life.

    She doesn't need to know I am holding her like this when she wakes up, she never will either.

Now, her entire tan is gone and all that remains of her golden locks is a very slight speck of blonde hair mixed in brownI feel a sort of pain I am not used to feeling. Specifically in my chest. It hurt. Like true heartbreak seeing her like this. Somehow over the past three or so days, her face became slimmer, her body toned, and the light in her faded. It makes me upset.

    "Now don't catch feelings for a whore like that, bastard child." His voice causes me to clench my jaw. I know that voice anywhere, it belongs to the only person in the world that calls me such degrading names as a nickname. "She's fine and alive. Stop being such a little bitch boy about it."

    I straighten my posture and instead of throwing Nerissa, I bring her closer and tighten my embrace around her. He is not going to touch her the way he touched my mother or anyone else.

    My little temptation doesn't need to know what happens in the dark or for Kano what happens in the light when everyone chooses to look the other way. No matter if all secrets come to light, sometimes other things like loyalty can be blinding.

    She is mine and I'd be damned if anyone thinks for even the slightest moment they can touch what's mine ever again.

    I cock my head to the side. "Assaulted any more women lately?"

    Kano is not respected in the land of Gehena considering the amount of sexual assaults he has against women. One, most famously, is The Medusa. The unnamed woman that was tricked into his temple before he raped her. Knowing anything about Phanes, he is probably working with Kano to make the poor girl seem as a myth and a monster.