The Protector: Hakan & Nisan

Chapter 12

He dreamt of her that night. Of course he did. It was the longest flashback he'd ever experienced and without any help from an elixir. Now that he could see her face in the daylight, he could see it in the dead of night, too, as he flashed and relived a new but old memory, the most painful one yet.  He warily, helplessly excavated the past.

He was the original Protector once again, one and the same, one body and soul. He was turning toward her as she entered the bedroom in the tower, their bedroom he realized, where he suddenly discerned they had made love dozens of times before. He was staring into Nisan's beautiful, unguarded face which was lit up by happiness and love as she came over and told him, "I have a gift for you, my love."

She pressed the assembled enchanted key into his hand and he looked down at it dumbstruck, his muddled mind still trying to adjust to his new body, his new surroundings. "It's yours. I'm yours," she said passionately and he looked up at her as his confusion began to give way to understanding and dread. "I will fight with you, by your side, against the other Immortals." She pressed her lips sweetly to his then to seal the promise, and the kiss felt so damn good and so very right.

Hakan believed her, felt her truth, her vow, her love to his very core. He believed her even as his traitorous free hand took hold of the dagger at his hip, slowly withdrew it from its sheath and rammed it straight through her heart.

"Noooo!" Hakan yelled out, jumping abruptly from past to present, sitting up in bed, sweating, and shaking. "No, no, no," he repeated futilely, finally coming to understand the making of the monster. It was the Original's doing. The Vizier, the war, all of it.

"Why? Why would I do that?" Hakan moaned, grabbing at his hair in anguish. He had felt the love coursing through him, had felt the certainty of her love in return. "Why?!" he screamed out again, railing at the horrendous memory, abuse and act he was now complicit in executing alongside the original Protector. He cursed his ancestor and the centuries of bloodshed and war born out of that one godforsaken moment that would haunt him forevermore.

When Hakan arrived the next evening at the now-crumbling tower, he was angry at the whole goddamn world and Nisan was thrilled. He still had no plan, no idea of right from wrong or what he should do next. Except he knew that he couldn't let her harm anyone else nor could he let anyone else harm her. That was it. That was the only simple truth he knew anymore with absolute certainty. 

So he wouldn't kill her as his duty, friends and birthright demanded.  It had been a quick decision actually, shirking centuries of built in destinies and duties, once he'd had that flashback and landed on one simple, permeating realization. She had been innocent once, willing to give it all up for love.  It was the original Protector who had set this all in motion, not her.  So Hakan couldn't let her harm anyone else but he certainly couldn't let anyone else harm her either. It was his north star, clear as day in his otherwise cracked compass.

But he could certainly be angry with her, for the humiliation of the days before, for making everyone hate him and turn on him, yes, but mostly for all of the senseless deaths that she had helped orchestrate up to that point, out of nothing more than revenge for a broken heart. She had taken her fury out on the rest of the world, when it should have been aimed at him alone. So, yes, he was angry and she was thrilled.

"You don't know if you want to kill me or fuck me," she purred in triumph, a very satisfied smile on her beautiful face.

He strode in, grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her up against the wall. Then he was kissing her hard and frantic, pushing up against her breasts with his chest and trapping her against the concrete with his sheer size, strength and fury. 

She forgot all about her plans to immediately drive the dagger through his heart in that moment. She wanted him alive and inside of her much more than she wanted him dead. Just one more time, she told herself, giving in to her overwhelming feelings for him once again. And so the past repeated on a loop as their otherworldly lust and love echoed through the centuries and permeated the present. She sighed his name lovingly without even realizing it.  "Hakan."

He heard the love, the need stamped into his name by her lips and in that moment the last of his pride gracefully bowed down to his heart. Suddenly his kisses grew softer and his fingers slid gently into her hair and there was no anger to be spoken of, only the rest, all of the rest that they shared, understanding, empathy, a bond so strong that slow, war-torn centuries could not break. "Nisan," he said gently in return then, resting his forehead against hers. 

They stayed that way for long moments, as the emotions they invoked in each other filled their minds, their hearts once more, all but pushing aside anything that came before. They brought out the worst in each other but also the best. And he knew exactly what to do now that his pride had all been stripped away. Lovingly and meaningfully he whispered against her lips, "Nisan, please fuck me."

She went completely still beneath him.

He said it again, stepping back and meaningfully pulling his shirt up and over his head. She saw immediately that he did not have his protective shirt in place underneath and she was struck dumb. He was unprotected against her when she had the enchanted dagger on hand.  He was absolutely vulnerable to her and willingly so. He took her hand then, gently pulling her up the nearby stairs and leading her to the room where they had made love so many times before a century ago.

"What game are you playing, Hakan?" she asked angrily, suddenly more scared than she'd ever been in her life as they entered the all too familiar room. She surprised herself when she called him by name there of all places, for once easily distinguishing him from the one that came before.

"No games, Nisan," he promised, framing her face. "I told you. I'm a different man. I won't be a coward again. I'll be brave, like you. This time I choose you." His earnest eyes begged her to believe him, to trust in him, to let him fully in, mind, body and soul. "To hell with my duty. Where has that ever gotten me?" He repeated gruffly with eternal fire burning in the depths of his ancient amber eyes, "This time I choose you, Nisan.  It's always been you."

She shoved him away with a sudden otherworldly strength that sent him crashing into the far wall, reminding him that she wasn't quite of this world and had the power to snap him in two with her bare hands if she really wanted to. "Lies!" she hissed at him, backing away as if she were afraid of him. "You're such a good liar, just like he was. How do you both tell such cruel lies and so easily speak of love with murder in your hearts?" Her eyes blackened as past and present once again fused in her mind's eye.  "How do you live this duplicitous life and still peacefully sleep beside me at night?" Her fury was building like a category three storm and the rafters overhead began to shake with her rampaging emotions. "You just want the dagger. You just want to kill me again with the dagger," she gestured at their surroundings, "in this very room." She had to laugh at the irony of it all. And she had brought them right back here, to this place, to this moment in time. What had she been thinking?

Hakan grabbed her hand in desperation and yanked her back to his side, not letting her walk out when she turned to go. "No, Nisan, I don't.  I won't." He pulled her tight up against him and she could feel his body vibrating with intensity as he growled, "I saw it, I lived it, that moment, last night in my dreams." He abhorred the flash of memory and cringed against it. He could even now see it so clearly, the look of disbelief and pain in her beautiful brown eyes, the feel of her beloved body's resistance as he thrust the dagger through it, the sensation of her warm, innocent blood dripping down his murderous, disloyal hands. He relived it all over again, here and now in present day, and felt thoroughly sickened by it. 

She was frozen in place at his confession and he pulled her in closer, tighter, making it even harder for her to breathe.  "I saw it, and I can't abide it. I can't stand that we - he - did that to you." He was desperate to make her understand. "Look at me. I'm not wearing the shirt. You have the dagger. If you want to end it here and now, then so be it. I'll take it. I'll take the punishment for the past. But I'm not going to hurt you ever again." 

His piercing amber eyes made the same vow as his lips. "I'm rewriting the part of our history that hasn't happened yet, Nisan.  I'm choosing you."