The mention of his son had Cad Bane’s blaster in his hand faster than it ever had before. How did he know? He hadn’t told anyone. Arin, the boy's mother, wished Isaac weren’t his, and the only other person who knew was dead.

  Three blaster shots rang, head, heart, lungs. For humans, each and every one was a kill shot. That’s what made him so dangerous. Knowledge. An average bounty hunter would just pick up a blaster and fire away, a true artist of the craft studies it. Learn how to kill each and every prey. Where each kill shot was on each species.

  Unfortunately, he knew too. He activated the long-hilted lightsaber that had been strapped to his back, illuminating the room in a yellow glow, running forward into the plasma. The boy, despite his appearance, wasn’t human. He twisted his body like a contortionist, dodging each blaster shot, and the shots he couldn’t dodge, the long-hilted lightsaber cut out of the air.

  He just needed to keep his distance. His missed shots would just result in him firing another, if the boy missed a dodge, he would die. A battle of attrition will always benefit the ranged fighter.

  Bane activated his rocket boots, shooting back hard and fast as the boy approached. This would be a tedious fight, but not a difficult one. He couldn’t help the small smirk make its way to his lips. That was until something soft hit his back. He couldn’t look, a second with his attention off this boy would mean the death of him. The softness of the cushions and the painful stabbing sensation of the glass told him it was one of those council chairs scattered across the room. The boy had moved the chair. When had he done that?

  Like a practiced athlete, the boy hurled the lightsaber with the long handle at his head as if it were a javelin. Had Cad Bane moved his head a second slower, he would be dead as the plasma blade scarred his cheek, cutting through the chair as if it wasn’t even there.

  Too close.

  “Forgive me, the blood threw off my aim.” The boy scowled, flicking his hand covered in blood, spreading the red liquid over the floor next to him as if it were a mild annoyance rather than an injury.

  “Don’t worry,” Cad Bane growled, his heart in his throat. That was too quick, and he had been too slow. Not again. “You won’t be killing me without this.”

  A blast bolt melted the metal of the lightsaber, killing the circuitry inside. The Jedi’s religious reliance on the Lightsaber, besides any other weapon, was one of their many fatal flaws. Now he was just some brat with some fancy moves.

  “Now,” He turned to face the young man, preparing to ask just exactly how he knew about his son. What he wasn’t expecting was a bloodied fist to be within inches of his throat.

  A quick leap left saved him from a crushed throat, but it left him open to the shard of glass in the boy’s left hand to go straight through his cheek. The cold, bloodied material grated past his teeth, poking out the other side, erupting his mouth into a geyser of pain and blood. He couldn’t focus on the glass poking out cheek-to-cheek. This boy wasn’t aiming to arrest, he was aiming to kill.

  Cad Bane raised his heel to kick him away, preparing to make space and leave a burned hole in his chest from his rocket boots. Before he could even fully raise his leg, more glass magically came to the boy’s hand, and he brought his fists together, stabbing the glass into his ankle, slicing his tendons with surgical precision.

  He couldn’t help the tears begin to well up. Pain was no stranger to Cad Bane, but this boy had turned him into a pincushion of glass. With little option left, he reached out desperately towards one of the droids floating around them. If he missed, he would die.

  He didn’t.

  Bane slammed down hard, aiming to crush his skull, only to narrowly miss the boy. But he got what he needed, some distance. The boy was forced to just back to avoid the blow, giving Bane the time to activate his boots to jump back. Although, his ankle was screaming in pain.

  “You don’t usually have droids,” Anakin said, annoyed, as if it was the only thing that was keeping him alive. Yes, Anakin was his name. That was the name the client had highlighted to avoid. He could see why now. This brat was good.

  A tired huff escaped his lips. His client told him that the bodyguard wouldn’t be a problem, fucking lying clients. He just needed to think, even for a moment. He was a killer, think, process the target, break the man, reveal the prey.

  Okay, the boy was fast, yes, but he was even faster than his limbs should have allowed him. Why? Has this boy studied him? That would explain why out of all of his methods of escaping failed, but the use of his droids as an impromptu weapon worked.

  Impressive. This boy would be a good bounty hunter.

  Should he run? No, his ankle was already ruined. He wouldn’t make it out the door. Hand-to-hand was pointless. He was outmatched against the Jedi.

  But with knowledge came a trap. If the boy knew all his moves, then he would make some new ones.

  The blasters came up, and more shots rang.

  Padme couldn’t help but wonder who this man was.

  Padme had been front and centre to Anakin’s rage the last time. The wide swinging of the saber to mow down rioters, the rush of his being. He was a tidal wave last time, an unstoppable force of sheer mass.

  This was different, worse. It was personalised. He wasn’t the radiating sun of anger he used to be, willing to kill anyone who stood in his way. Instead, he was malicious, deliberate, and near religious in his combat. She had never seen Anakin so happy before.

  A clear smile stretched across his lips as he took in all the negativity of everything around him and drank it greedily. Like an abusive lover laughing as his partner cried among the shards of broken dishes and blood. The analogy wasn’t too far off as Cad Bane tried again to douse the smirking Anakin in red plasma. It didn’t work. Not to her surprise.

  He was breathtaking in its truest sense. He literally took away her breath. She couldn’t breathe watching him. He was hypnotising in his movements, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. God, she wanted him. She really was an addict for her attention. She had been without him for too long, only a couple of days, but her knees were shaking for another hit. Her heart aching for him to look at her once again.

  Here was a man brutally killing another, taking pleasure in dealing pain and all she could think about was him looking at her with those carnivorous eyes.

  What the fuck was wrong with her?

  Anakin had carnivorous eyes for him. There was a growing sense of either irony or fear as the bounty hunter fought for his life. He had spent so long being better, he almost forgot what it was to fear for his life. Cad Bane tried to fire more of his blaster shots, but if they weren’t dodged outright, they were blocked by pieces of furniture.

  Again, he closed the distance, painfully easy, always where he shouldn’t. No matter, he expected this. Bane fell to the floor, trusting his jacket to protect him from the shards of glass and then aimed a brutal kick to his shin. Jedi or not, for a human, a steel-capped boot breaks bones.

  The kick came in like a scythe, but unsurprisingly, he raised his leg just in time to avoid it. Not surprising considering this was one of Bane’s preferred attacks when up close, If he had it memorised, then so did this boy. Unfortunately for the boy, he hadn’t noticed when Bane fell, he had picked up numerous pieces of glass.

  A satisfied smirk came to the Duros. He would have to congratulate the boy. The learning of his fighting style, while impressive, would lead to his downfall. The trap of complacency had been set and sprung. Bane’s foot hooked around, passing harmlessly past the boy’s shins, but with the momentum, he twisted his upper body, flinging the shards of glass like shuriken.

  Those hideous eyes of the bodyguard widened, shocked at Bane’s first-ever new attack. Something he hadn’t prepared for. Bane would have to christen this new move in his name. ‘The arrogant twat attack’ had a nice ring to it.

  The shards of glass flew, and magic Force powers or not, Bane had been too close. Jedi may be able to react fast due to their precognition, but so close? No one could react so quickly without knowledge of it.

  The boy screamed, holding his fingers to his eyes. Knees hit the glittering glass floor as the now blind boy finally understood what true pain felt like.

  There was a proud huff in Cad Bane’s chest as he limped his way back onto his feet. There was nothing better than a well-earned kill. The pain the boy was going through would cloud his head, the fear of living a life of blindness resisting his thoughts. Jedi’s powers came from their thoughts, and he doubted this boy could even string a sentence together in his head with the pain he was going through.

  Bane reached for his vibroblade, feeling around for the familiar weapon. Strange? He couldn’t feel it. Did he lose it in the chaos? No, there it was. He could see it tucked into the boy’s waistband. When had he stolen it? How had he known where it was? It’s usually hidden.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Kidding.” The boy took his hands away from his eyes, revealing not a horrific mess of glass and blood. But rather, all the shards he had thrown in his palms had harmlessly been caught between his fingers.

  “I know about that move, too.” He smirked. How... how did he know?

  Cad Bane never got his answer as he felt two large shards of glass stab his back. Oh… he had been too distracted. Silly him, still an amateur after all. If only he had a few more years, he could have been one of the greats. Huh, he was surprisingly calm? He kinda felt good. He was in pain, but… it was manageable.

  Shock, ah, that must be it. He was going to die, and his body was doing all it could to numb the mental and physical pain. Incredible. Bane reached to his back, plucking out one of the large shards in order to get a better look at it. Heh, it was kinda like stained glass with all his blood all over it.

  Blood erupted from his mouth as more shards of glass stabbed more and more into his body. Thighs, ribs, biceps, spine, nothing was spared as more and more glass from the floor stabbed into him like a pincushion.

  This is what the Senator must have felt like. That was some irony he could appreciate. It clearly wasn’t lost on the boy, considering the wide, malicious grin on his face. Had he intentionally made him suffer like his girlfriend? Clever brat.

  Cad Bane fell forward, preparing to faceplant into the glittering floor, to die in a pool of his own blood. Instead, he was caught by the bodyguard at the last moment, his head resting on the boy’s shoulder.

  “How?” His voice didn’t sound like his voice. Too watery? No, bloody. He never had this much blood in his lungs before. It felt like he was… not airing? Unbreathing? Drowning! That was it, he couldn’t think too well right now. His brain must not be getting too much red juice. Red juice? Yeah, that sounds right.

  “Because.” The boy’s voice was hot, he missed having that warmth. Shame he would never be able to hear the reason as the next words blended in with the surrounding darkness.

  The body of the blue man dropped with an audible thud as Anakin dropped him. Padme could only stare in shock, looking at Anakin. He looked like an angel of death, covered in blood, burns and the black remains of his tattered clothes.

  Slowly, he turned to her, those hideous eclipse-eyes locking onto her as if he were her next target. Her heart found its way into her throat, unsure whether it was lust or fear.

  There was so much she wanted to tell him. That being without him for a few days was agony, that she wanted to thank him for saving her life, and that he looked really fucking hot right now. Instead, she went a different route.

  “I was told to kill you by my magic space ghosts.” She blurted out. He only raised a brow, not too surprised.

  “I see… you aren’t doing a very good job.” He said with the coolness of a person that wasn’t just told they were being hunted by space ghosts.

  “They weren’t overly convincing.” She admitted.

  “They rarely are.” There was a small tug at his lips. “Their little group meetings are the worst, they are like the Galaxy’s worst alcohol anonymous. But I must say, I am proud that I’ve pissed them off enough to start asking people to kill me. I’m surprised it’s you, though. I would have suspected Palpatine or Yoda.”

  She just looked at him in silence. What was he? Crazy? Yes, but she was crazy for him, so it didn’t matter.

  “Are you scared, Padme?"

  Yes.

  She saw what this leads to, what those eyes mean. He was capable of so much, yet always chose the worst option. Could she really forgive a man whom she knew had done the irredeemable? She was looking at a mass-murderer in the making, but couldn’t stop staring at his lips.

  She closed the distance between them anyway.

  She was hurt, exhausted, embarrassed, hot, overstimulated, and bloodied. Most importantly, she needed a fucking win. And win it was. She half expected him to shove a piece of glass into her throat. Those eyes of his weren’t capable of love, only brief passion. For now, she would have to settle for that.

  His lips tasted like her own blood, with a thick taste of iron on his tongue. The touch of his calloused hands over her cut hips stung, and the smell of burnt skin and clothes was pungent.

  It was an awful kiss. Anakin made it worth it.

  His tongue cradled her own gently, with more care than she expected him to have. Everything about him was perfect. He knew how to angle her jaw with just a slight nudge, placing his chest against her own so she could feel the rhythmic pulse of his heart against her own. She thought that she would be in control, that his flustered self would be helpless to her, yet he took the lead. His hands, while hurting against her injuries, pulled her against him. What was gentle turned more needy, interest to lust.

  Her fingers must have felt like agony on his burnt skin, but still, he pushed harder into her, feeling her in her entirety.

  “Right now?” She gasped between breaths. It sounded desperate, but she was too needy to care about that now. They would have to clear some glass to make room.

  “You’ll have to wait.” A voice came from the side.

  Anakin’s eyes shot back to the door. That blasted door. Nothing good has come through it so far. Her suspicions were proven right when she saw two figures approach.

  “Are we interrupting something?” Mace Windu growled from the doorway, alongside the green-alien Yoda.

  Windu looked awful. His clothes had been ripped, his skin sweaty, and by some miracle, his scowl seemed to deepen even further. Yoda didn’t look too bad, although there was a disappointed look in his eyes. Like a Father who just caught his son breaking a prized vase. Though in this case, she supposed the son would be the Republic and the vase would be the Jedi temple.

  “Yoda Master, his eyes,” Windu stressed. “We should deal with him now, while he isn’t a threat.”

  “Aware I am,” Yoda said, although his voice didn’t quite carry that seniority it used to have.

  “One does not earn those eyes by merely tapping into the Dark Side. Underestimated how far you fell, we did.” Yoda continued.

  “Trust me, the fall from Jedi to Sith wasn’t as far as you think it is.” Anakin spat back.

  His grip steeled around her, and his biceps tensed against her. God. He was going to fight the both of them right now. Anakin was powerful, but these two? At the same time? Could he do such a thing?

  “The path you’ve chosen, Skywalker, sure are you?” Yoda asked in his broken basic speech.

  “I do not have a path.”

  “For your sake. Hope we do. However, not for us to decide.”

  Out of all the people Padme expected, it wasn't them. Two of the most politically powerful people walked into the room as if their respective Governments weren’t a hair’s breadth away from war. Like casual buddies, they walked in smirking, sharing a secret joke between them.

  “How are you here?” Padme gasped, looking at Dooku as he stood alongside Palpatine.

  “Diplomatic immunity,” Windu answered, out of everyone looking the most furious. For all her problems she had with the Jedi Master, she couldn’t help but share the same sentiment.

  How is it that the man who betrayed the Republic is allowed to walk confidently wherever he likes? He should be in shackles, not treated as a guest.

  “You? A diplomat?” Padme scoffed.

  “Yes, well, I'm not thrilled to be here either.” Dooku sneered, looking around at the Temple, as if it were a garbage heap. “However, you have something that legally belongs to me.”

  “Anakin, come here boy.” He called like a master would a dog. Only stopping short of whistling and pointing to his feet.

  “He’s mine.” The words came out harsh and sharp. It was possessive, embarrassingly so. She didn’t care. She wouldn’t lose him now that she had him so close.

  “I believe a deal was struck between Anakin and me, consisting of six months of slavery at the cost of my sparing you,” Dooku explained. Back with Grakkus? No, that couldn’t possibly count, that was too long ago, it shouldn’t count. It can’t count. Not here.

  “We don’t recognise your sick slavery in the Republic.”

  “I am sorry. However, he is correct.” Palpatine interjected. “The Senate has been sent a message from the Hutts acknowledging the deal struck. We cannot afford to upset the CIS and the Hutts. I will be the first to recognise the injustice, but the people of the Republic must come first.”

  “I won’t let that dictator take him.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I have no plans on taking him with me.” What? “I’m just going to kill him, he’s my property after all, and he’s been a pain in my arse. Like putting down a misbehaving pet.”

  “That… you… that’s not possible!” Her eyes searched towards the Jedi. “You can’t allow this! You’re peacekeepers, keep the peace!”

  Windu only looked at Anakin in disdain, unsure whether he hated Dooku or Anakin more. As if deciding who should die. Yoda at least had the shame to look away.

  “It’s okay Padme, he has a habit of getting what he wants.” Anakin sighed. Although his eyes didn’t fall to Dooku, but instead to Palpatine.

  No, this couldn’t be, not when she just got him back. No! She wouldn’t allow it.

  “Then let us strike a new bargain?” Everyone raised a brow, Dooku being the most shocked. Good, she needed his attention the most. He was the one she needed after all.

  “What did you have in mind?” The Chancellor asked, with an annoyed, sceptical look.

  “Just us.” She growled a little too harshly at the Chancellor. From the beginning, Anakin hated that man. She didn’t, she couldn’t. He had been only a benefit to the Republic, maybe one of the few true men in the Senate. But she had been making nothing but bad decisions, and she had no reason to stop. Even if it meant burning herself, she would follow her heart, at least just for today.

  “Pardon?”

  “She said just us,” Anakin growled with a clear hate towards the man. “Padme currently owns me, Dooku is the one who is owed me, and I, of course, am the product. The topic of my servitude does not concern you.” Anakin had a smile reaching from ear to ear. Whatever she did, he was ecstatic about it. No doubt because she gave her the chance to mock the Chancellor.

  Yoda glanced between the two of them. He saw what she did as well, a chance. A small sliver of hope. That perhaps no more blood had to be shed.

  “Very well. Correct you are. Leave you, shall we.” Yoda nodded, taking Windu in tow, who looked displeased at the whole matter. When was he ever not displeased?

  “Very well I agree.” Dooku nodded, however, Palpatine didn’t look as content as his counterpart.

  The Chancellor glared at the Count with a look she never expected. Hate, genuine hate. How? He always seemed so… peaceful. Even when Senators screamed at him, insulted him, and spat death threats. He had never shown even a slight hint at anything besides a slight smile. She had never seen the chancellor be so aggressive before, he had always been so… passive. Yet the way he looked at the Count could be described as nothing less than belittlement. Was it because he led the CIS?

  “Dooku, I hope you understand what you are doing.” Silence followed the chancellor’s threat.

  “You’ll get what you want,” Dooku nodded.

  The chancellor was clearly unsatisfied with his response, but as much as Padme respected Palpatine, she didn’t see what he could really do. Dooku was too powerful for him both politically and combat-wise. The Count, by all rights, had every right to Anakin.

  Regardless, Palpatine left the room, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. Is this what Anakin saw in the Chancellor? A silent fury?

  “Shall we begin?” Dooku asked with a sickening smile.

  Dooku had won. No matter what, he would leave a winner, she just had to make it so she was a winner too. She was done with losing.

  It took two hours before those doors to the room opened again. For two whole hours, Padme, Dooku and Anakin were alone. And while three people were in the room to begin with, only two people were left alive.

  Despite all the press conferences, despite all the failed attempts at reviving the cameras, not a single soul found out what occurred in that room. Nothing was known except for the fact that two hours later Count Dooku walked out of the room carrying a confirmed dead Anakin Skywalker, and six hours later Naboo joined the Confederation of Independent Systems in what the Senate is calling the most horrendous act of defection the Republic has ever seen.