The Protector: Hakan & Nisan

Chapter 15

Hakan only had a few minutes to take it all in, to mourn Zeynep and all that was lost to him now, before Nisan was suddenly on him, dagger back in hand and coming quickly at his chest. He pushed against her and they struggled for long minutes, the dagger inching closer and closer to his heart. They strained and pushed against each other as they always had, always would. Suddenly he gained the advantage and managed to ever so slowly turn the angle of her hands until the tip of the dagger was pointing back at her own chest.

As if seeing it from far above and in slow motion he pushed against her through the thick, inert air and it felt like one of his cursed flashbacks. His strength finally began to override hers and suddenly the tip of the dagger broke through her shirt, broke through her skin and hit its mark. She didn't even flinch. She just stared into his eyes knowingly, expectantly, her heart breaking all over again just like she knew it would.

This was the comfortable, familiar pain she knew and expected.  She embraced it. This is what made sense to her. Just this. Not the love they'd shared the night before in the tower. Not his confession of devotion over duty. Not those promises that were just beginning to ring true to her, mocking her in this very moment as the blade cut through her defenses, her skin, and drew blood.

"Nisan," it was a horrified whisper as the fog of survival instinct married to an age-old duty suddenly lifted at the sight of her blood drawn by his hands.  He'd done that.  He couldn't blame the old Protector this time.

Hakan stared at her chest in horror. Blood was soaking through her shirt where the dagger was entering her body near her heart and he stumbled backwards, letting go of her small hands and the dagger encased within. "Oh my God. Nisan. I-I'm so sorry."

She was bleeding from her neck and her chest now but she was utterly calm, her emotions as still as sleeping morning waters. Her large, dark eyes were suddenly clear and human, so very human. She looked like any other woman who'd just had her heart broken by the man that she loved.  Again.  But at least this time she'd been expecting it.

"Nisan." He hated himself. He had broken every promise he'd made, within hours of making them. They were both remembering those empty promises now. I'm a different man. To hell with my duty. I am yours. And especially, I won't hurt you.

He held a hand out to her, yearning, sorrowful, but she flinched, making his heart crack. He dropped his hand in defeat. When it came right down to it, he was no better, no different than the original Protector after all. His overriding instinct was still to kill her.  Her words from the previous night came back to haunt him then, too.

"How do you both tell such cruel lies and so easily speak of love with murder in your hearts?" 

The blade was in her hand at her side now, dripping a mixture of his and her blood from its tip. That fucking dagger. He never wanted to see that godforsaken weapon ever again, as long as he lived. He hated that thing, that evil talisman that had wreaked so much havoc, so much damage in his lifetime and the many centuries before. It was cursed. And so were they.

They stared at each other for long, pregnant moments, both of their hearts breaking even as they longed for each other, hated each other and themselves. The space between them was mere steps but suddenly much too wide to bridge. 

This is where they would always find themselves Hakan realized with a sinking, broken heart. This was their legacy of love and pain and regret, so much fucking regret. This was the intersection of their joint destiny on a continuous loop.

And then it was Nisan who was turning and walking away from him without a backwards glance, without a word.  It was the harshest punishment that she could have doled out.  She just left him with nothing but his own self-loathing to choke on.

In the deafening, stunning, empty silence that followed, Hakan fell to his knees. He had just lost both Zeynep and Nisan in this impossible fucking war foisted upon him by the barbaric fates. He had managed to save them both but at the expense, the sacrifice, of his personal connection with them. It was a cruel joke by unkind, cunning fates.

He truly had nothing and no one left now.  His aloneness, his impotence, his failure was all that endured. They were all that remained in the rubble, the shambles of his life, as the weight of the world finally came crashing down around his head. 

On his own, he could no longer withstand the immense burden of it and once and for all he buckled beneath it, brought to his knees. 

He had nowhere to go now, no one at his side. He aimlessly walked around the city, barely noticing that his shoulder had slowly ceased to bleed on its own.  When exhaustion finally overtook him he slept on a park bench out in the open, exposed to the cold night air and the Immortals who still wanted to kill him. But he welcomed death now. He saw no other way to end this war once and for all. 

He had believed he could disrupt the pattern, change the outcome and give him and Nisan a life together, in peace, in love. What a foolish boy he had been just a day earlier. Now he was a battle-worn man who had lost everything and everyone. And he was tired of fighting this lost cause. He was done with it.

As he woke with the rising sun the next morning, stiff and empty, he knew what he would do. He would sacrifice himself to satisfy the bloodlust of the Immortals, to end the Protector bloodline and finish this war once and for all. He was truly good and done with it.

He knew where they'd be, deep in the bowls of the Hagia Sophia, the ancient place of worship that had been turned into a museum in modern-day Istanbul. The Immortals felt at home there, he'd remembered Nisan saying once, hidden away within the unexplored tunnels that existed below.

It was more than a calculated guess as his instincts pulled him towards her. As Protector he was inevitably drawn to his enemy, his love, who were inexplicably both one and the same.