Part 3/3 of the Triple Update! Make sure you read the others before this one!

For this chapter, I wrote it to so many songs:

– Betrayal, Ludwig Göransson

– Vanilla Baby, Billie Marten

– Lionhearted, Billie Marten

– Death, Martin Czeny

– Missing the Mark, Aquilo

But the main songs werePrayer by Keaton Henson and Betrayal by Ludwig Göransson

—————

Nikola’s P.O.V

I always thought that Hagen and I were a matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’.

It was what got me through the worst of it, the years when he’d gone from being the person who I loved the most to the person who hated me the most, and then most recently with all the ups and downs we faced as we tried to navigate our bond.

I always thought, eventually, we’d be together, and it would all be okay. Not worth it, but okay.

As I looked at him now though, I saw the truth I’d been running from my entire life. The one that had been blaring at me from the day he’d torn himself from my life and told me that we could only be friends or nothing.

It was not a matter of when. It had never been a matter of when.

“I think I hate you.” I had always struggled with my words, especially with Hagen when I wanted so desperately to find the right ones to give him, but these came easily. “I think…” I pause, considering the words intensely as I look into Hagen’s eyes, and yes, “I think I hate you.”

Hagen had been breathing heavily from the moment he’d pulled himself away from me and spouted the words that had reopened old wounds and left them aching. Those short breaths pick up now, and his brown eyes widen and muddle with something no part of me wants to decipher.

“I just wanted you. All I have ever wanted was you, Hagen, but you don’t want me.”

He had said it, years ago, and I hadn’t wanted to believe it. Did that make this all my fault?

“I thought you did, in some way. I thought you just needed time, so I’ve been trying to figure out what I have to do to make you love me, because I love you,” That wasn’t a question. “But… there’s nothing I can do, is there? There’sneverbeen anything I could do.”

I frown, brows twitching a little as I stare at him, this person I loved so much.“You don’t want this. You don’t want me.”

Hagen’s lips part, and maybe he means to agree or deny it, but they are words I don’t care to hear. My mind was raging with activity, collapsing in on itself as everything came together in a way I’d never seen before, or just didn’t want to, to avoid the pain.

And there is pain. So much pain.

“You’ve never wanted me.”

My words are steady— simple in a way that’s terrifying to the ears, but that’s not how I feel on the inside. At my core, in my spirit where Neo howls and the very bond between us begins to splitter, I feel like I’m breaking all over again.

I had just wanted the pain to stop. That’s all I ever wanted and now, it was worse than ever before.

Hagen swallows, and it seems to take him effort to do so before he manages to speak. “I wouldn’t be here if I never wanted you. You can’t blame me—”

“No, I can’t blame you,” I agree while my fists tighten at my sides. “I can never blame you. It isalwaysmy fault. Everything that happens between us. Everything I do or don’t do.Everythingis my fault. I try to do what I think you want— it’s my fault. I try to make you happy— it’s my fault. I touch you, the way you want me to touch you— and it is still my fault.”

My voice rises with my anger, and that’s a harrowing realisation— that right now, I am angry with Hagen.

It’s the other feeling perched amongst the rage. It’s the emotion that makes it easy to think and speak, and yet so hard to breathe.

I shake my head as I turn, trying to settle myself, but then what was the point? What was the point of trying to reign myself in for someone who didn’t care?

“As if I would force myself on you,” I mumble and then it’s a louder thing as I face him again with all the rage. “How dare you try to twist what happened between us just because you’re scared?!”

Hagen takes a step back as if my volume is a physical obstacle that moves him. His gaze is wide and skittish, and he looks scared, not of me, but of the truth I no longer had the strength to keep hiding behind just for his sake.

“I know who I am,” I seethe, stepping forward. “I know my faults and I know they’re many, but Iknowthem, and I know that I am not a rapist.”

There’s shame in Hagen’s gaze before he snatches it away, his eyes leaving mine for the first time. “You’re not—”

“I know I’m not!” I interject before he can finish. “But that’s what you tried to make me out to be just because you’re scared and you need someone to blame, and because I’m here— because I’m always here— you blamed me! Not this time.”

I shake my head in a distinct, sharp gesture so my rejection is clear. “You can not blame me this time. Not this time. Not this time. Not this time.”

My heart hammers in my chest and there’s a ringing in my ears that’s usually one of my signals to leave the situation and give myself a moment, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to leave and return, to try and fix what was clearly impossibly broken.

We’d never stood a chance, and accepting that was a barbarous, harrowing thing.

It was never a matter of ‘when’. There was never a when.

“Nikola,” Hagen breathes quietly, and when I look at him, I find him watching me with a number of emotions that feel like a confusing trick.

He takes a step forward and I take one back.

“Loving you is so hard,” I confess, pushing the words out past the tightness in my throat. “…It is so unbearably hard.”

Hagen winces and I can feel his pain like my own, but there’s too much of my own to concern myself with it now.

“I—” Hagen’s next words stick in his throat as he stares at me helplessly.

“It shouldn’t be,” I tell him and Goddess, because ultimately, she was the cause of this. “It shouldn’t be this hard to love the person made for you, but it is—youmake it so hard.”

I speak with venom on my tongue and there’s so much of it, so much I never realised was sitting there, waiting to be unleashed. Though that felt like a lie.

I’d always known something was wrong with us. Outside of the obvious, there was something intrinsically wrong with us and our bond. I’d just hoped that we loved one another enough to overcome it.

‘I loved Hagen, so it was just a matter of time before he loved me’. Childish fantasies to put the nightmares to rest.

“It’s not about me. My entire life revolves around you. It’s about you,” I state through gritted teeth, rejecting his earlier statement. “It’s all about you. What you want. How you want this relationship to be. And even when I try to make it about me, it’s still about you.”

The way Hagen stares at me, as if he doesn’t recognise me, is a look that terrifies the core of me, the part of me that’s always been, and will always be, desperate to make him happy. But how can I care about upsetting him when it’s clear now that no matter what I do, it will never be enough?

“I know I am selfish— I’ve always admitted to that, but you…” I stare back at him. “What words could ever describe what you are?”

Hagen’s eyes fill, and he tries desperately to blink the tears away. “…You’re being cruel.”

“All you’ve ever been is cruel!” I shout back, claiming his gaze again as he looks up at me with shimmering brown eyes. “All I’ve ever done is try to love you! Everything I’ve ever done is for you, and it has never been enough!”

“I never asked for that!” Hagen shouts back, his gaze narrowing into a harsh thing. “I never asked for you to make your world about me!”

“I never had a choice!” I exclaim and my magic is quick to rattle through our link that begins to crumble, much like our bond. “It’s been you! From the day I was born, it’s been you and nothing else!”

Hagen shakes his head, and now he’s the one stepping back. “I tried to make it stop! I tried to make you stop so many times, but you wouldn’t listen! You kept insisting that we were bonded—”

“Because we were!”

“I didn’t know that!” Hagen screams back and his voice rattles as his tears fall. “I didn’t know that! I was a kid, t-ten— eleven, and you—”

“I was six!” I shout back, the words shaking me in my soul as the memories I tried my best to bury come back, almost as if it’s happening all over again. “I was six years old!”

Hagen keeps shaking his head, even as the tears fall past his clenched eyes and relentless sobs break from him. “What was I meant to do?! You kept saying that we were meant to be together forever and you wouldn’t listen even though you knew—”

“I didn’t know! I didn’t know what was really between us! I was a child!”

“No,” Hagen starts, shaking his head as if that truth was some unfathomable thing.

“Yes,” I counter. “All I knew was that my best friend was telling me that he wanted nothing to do with me! I didn’t know what was happening!”

Everyone always said how smart I was. How I understood it all, but I didn’t. I thought I knew what mates were, and even though I wasn’t wrong about that being what we were, my understanding of it had to be a spec compared to the rest of it.

My chest heaves, my lungs working hard to keep up with my heart, and that ringing— I jerk as something splashes atop my clenched fists. It’s only then that I realise Hagen’s not the only one crying.

“What was I supposed to do?!” Hagen asks, his voice cracking to repeat the question. “You wouldn’t stop and then it just got so much worse after that!”

He lifts his head and rests his gaze upon me. It’s mournful and full of guilt, and what I used to think was the beginning of love but was sure now, was just hate.

“You wouldn’t go away!” He accuses with rage to match mine. “You were everywhere! In my home! In my school! In my room! You just wouldn’t go away! M-My whole life was fucked from the minute I said you couldn’t have me, but I’m not supposed to blame you?! You ruined everything! You ruined my fucking life!”

“And what did you think you did to mine?!” I throw back. It’s all I can do, because the only other option was registering the words he was spewing at me, and those hurt enough as it was. “At least you had a life! At least you had something! I had nothing before you! All I’ve ever known was you! It’s been you! Whether or not I liked it, and—and…” my shoulders slump and my voice drops to a painfully quiet thing, “it wasn’t a problem at the start.”

Memories of our summer days flash before my mind, of Hagen’s hands in mine, and I push them away as desperately as I always have. All they were sure to do was make my vision blur, and it was clouded enough as it was.

“It was… It was perfect,” I choke on those words as the memories linger despite my efforts. “You were there, this person who understood me and never wanted me to be anything but myself, and then…. You.” I have to pause to breathe. “You were gone. You were justgoneand you hated me. And what wasIsupposed to do, Hagen?! I just wanted it back. I just wanted you back!”

“That’s not an excuse,” he pushes back, but I feel the longing in our bond, and it’s not just mine. “You think it didn’t kill me to cut you off?! You think I wanted to?! I did it because I had to, and then, you punished me for it!”

I close my eyes. It’s all too much now. I should’ve left at the start. That would’ve been better, but it was too late now.

It was all razed now, and there was no stepping out of it until it all came out and settled on its own.

“I was wrong for what I did,” I admit through my teeth. I have to clench them to stop them from shaking. “I was wrong. I apologised for that when—”

“You’ve never apologised.”

Hagen’s voice is cold and honed, like a surgical blade, and when I look at him, his gaze is much the same.

“What?” I echo because I know he doesn’t mean it as a lie, but it has to be.

“You have never apologised,” Hagen’s face morphs into something I don’t recognise as he speaks. Something warped with so much hate and anger, it takes all the oxygen from the air. “You’ve neveroncesaid you’re sorry.”

I frown. That wasn’t true.

“The night of our first date,” I remind him, “I said—”

“You said that you knew you had a lot to apologise for, and that you would,” Hagen cuts in with such surety that I can hear the words roll off my own tongue as the memory replays itself. “But you never did.”

“No, I…” I think, my mind searching desperately for the truth.

“During Christmas, when I found out you were hiding what was really going on with our bond,” Hagen continues readily. “When you said you thought you were doing ‘the right thing’, you said you were sorry for that.”

“And after months of hiding the fact that you were still fucking with our bond behind my back, and you told me to break our bond, you said you were sorry for that, for how you justare…” He smiles, but it’s a sickly thing that I wished I’d never seen. “But for every fucked up thing you’ve ever done to me— even when we’ve talked about it— you haveneverapologised for that.”

“Is that what you’ve been waiting on this entire time?” I ask when everything he spouts proves to be true. I’d never been one to deflect. Never. But just like him, it’s all I can do now. “You’ve been waiting on me to say that I’m sorry when everything I do for you— every breath I take— is an apology?!”

Hagen scoffs and the sound is as cruel as he claims me to be. “That’s easier, right? Putting it back on me, when you could just say that you’re fucking—”

“I’m sorry!” I say, and he’s so surprised that he stops short. “It’s not hard! I’m sorry. I am sorry, Hagen. I am sorry for every cruel thing I have ever done to you. I am sorry for the way I treated you when we were younger. I am sorry for how selfish I was with you. I am sorry for how wicked my actions were. I am sorry for the ways I scarred you. I am sorry.”

Hagen stares at me with wide, tearful brown eyes as if he thought I’d never do such a thing. As if these were words I held hostage when they were just ones I didn’t know he wanted to hear.

And as painful as this all is, nothing hurts as much as seeing on his face that that’s the type of person he thinks I am. Even after all this time.

It was never a matter of when.

“I wanted to apologise on our first date,” I tell him. “I was so nervous about every little thing, and when we were sitting there, I wanted to say that I was sorry, for all of it. I only didn’t because Neo thought it was too soon, and after all the months I spent practising my apology with Damon, I didn’t want to risk it.”

Neo whines, trying to curl up and I’m sure to spread my love to him before he can. I didn’t blame him in the slightest, not when we both were so misguided in trying to navigate this wretched bond.

“I was going to say it, but then we kept running into problems,” I remind him and myself as I recall the last few months. What had just looked like a bump was now an open gash in the light. “There was the scenting, taking it at your pace, navigating your friends, and my lies,” because yes, I did lie. “But I was going to apologise.”

Hagen remains speechless, and maybe that’s a good thing. I’m so tired that I just want this to end.

I sigh and run a hand over my cheeks, hoping to rid it of the moisture there. “If that’s what you wanted this whole time, you should’ve just said that, Hagen.”

“Why should I have to tell you to apologise?” Hagen croaks, and he sounds desperate. As if he needs something to hold onto, something to fight over.

“You shouldn’t,” I admit with another sigh. “I should’ve apologised from the start. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

Hagen falls quiet again, and then there’s that fearful look in his eyes. This time, it is because of me. Maybe he sees what I’d known from the start of this, when he’d proved to me that he would never trust me.

“I’m done, Hagen,” I say, and even though the words feel like broken glass in my throat, I don’t try to hold them back. “I’m done.”

Silence lingers, and its heavy and punishing between us. It drags and for once, I wish it wouldn’t linger.

“You’re done?” He repeats, breathlessly. “W-What do you mean you’re done?”

“I mean, I’m done.”

And I was. Well and truly, done fighting for something that was doomed from the start.

“I’m done trying to win you over. I’m done trying to make you love me,” I meet his eyes as I speak the words. Those were the points my mind had chosen to focus on to get through this and so that was where I had to look, even when looking at him now was the most painful thing in the world. “You’ll never love me, and you’ll never forgive me, even if I apologise for the rest of my life. So, I am done.”

Hagen’s heart beats in tune with me, and it’s cruel to know that we’re in sync in this one way.

“Break the bond if you want to, or don’t,” I declare with a shrug. “Do whatever you want. I don’t care anymore.”

I wait this time. I wait for Hagen to speak the words like I should’ve when he’d finally felt the bond I’d claimed too. I give him the chance so that he can’t claim that I didn’t. This is the last thing I do for him.

Hagen doesn’t speak. He just watches me with tears streaming down his face, looking so lost it shatters my soul, but I can’t be the one to try to fix it anymore.

When it’s clear that he’s not going to say anything, I nod and let my magic take me away from him, and with it, every trace I usually left with him.

It’s quiet where I end up and for once, I hate it.

I hate it so much because even when I stay quiet, biting my lip and clenching my fists to keep silent, my mind is loud with the torment of the end, and this was the end of us. It had been for a long time, I’d just been too scared to realise it.

I expect my magic to slip from me. To turn the world and everything around me upside down, until everything turned to ash, but it doesn’t.

It’s quiet too. Quiet and still, and for the first time, I have no problem trying to reign myself in. There was no need. I’d let it all out with Hagen. There was nothing left.

It hurt.

The tears stream from my eyes unabashed, and even as I try to fight them, the cries come next. My body aches as much as my soul, and our bond— what’s left of it— burns to the touch.

It hurts. After all these years of trying to make it stop, it still hurts and this time, it hurts more than anything else.

——————

This was tough to write because it’s so much, but I’m really glad we made it here

Thoughts??

I’m just going to leave you guys to say anything you wish

Until next time,
Byeeeee humansssss