Nikola’s POV

I made a mistake last night. Bringing him into the castle had been a mistake.

In actuality, the error started long before last night. It began in all the times I’d let myself pass by the windows, involuntarily checking if he was still there when any sort of notice of our mangled bond would’ve told me so without me being so close.

I should’ve stayed further away because what was out of sight would have likely been kept out of mind.
If I’d done so, I would’ve never seen him face the guards’ resistance, I would have never gone down there, and he would not be here, within the castle.

But it was too late to truly rectify the situation now. What was done was done, and for how much I regretted it, I was happy that it had spawned a chance for Neo and Zyair to reaffirm their devotion to one another.

I had told Neo that he could have his mate, and I’d meant it. What the pair did in their private time was of no concern to me, once all evidence of it was wiped from our bond when I took control again. To my pleasure, it had been.

You did not actually believe that I would do that to you? — Neo pipes up, sounding slightly hurt despite the overall joy that had been spurring from him since he’d seen Zyair.

I wanted to loathe it, but I could not find enough animosity to do so because even if it was not mine, it was a lovely feeling. All that joy, all that love… at least one of us deserved to enjoy such pleasures.

No — I reply — Of course not, but I know how hard it can be to resist those urges.

Neo huffs his agreement though his scent still sours slightly from the reminder.

It was not easy to strip yourself of your mate’s scent along with any proof of them on your body, especially after all the distance they’d spent apart, but Neo had done it for me. More than that, he’d done the same with Hagen’s body, with Zyair’s shared understanding.

I appreciated that; more than that, I adored him for it. But I wasn’t stupid.

That sort of strength would not last very long. There was a reason why we were paired— he was no better than me when it came to the strength of his desires and wants, or thwarting them for that matter, and with Zyair so willing, it would only be a matter of time before he could not resist but to let the proof of their love linger.

I did not know how I would cope then. I was sure we would agree on terms, as we’d already done, but what I did know, was that I would need Hagen gone by the time that came.

I could not bear to have his scent paraded around me…and mine on him, and having him close. I could not.

The only option was to fast-forward the plot of my original plan.

I could never hurt Hagen— I’d quicker cut myself down at the ankles than do so— but time spent within the castle would do it for me. With the abundance of love he’d grown up with, Hagen was too supple to do without kindness and affection for long periods of time. The cold contrast of life within the castle would drive him out.

I simply had to endure until that happened.

I remind myself of this as Knots peers up at me, watching closely while I finish lacing up my boots. I slide a palm under his head, petting him with a crooked smile until he’s purring a hiss and draping himself over my lap.

My eyes rove over his scales, checking that each is rich with health all the way down to where his tail curls against the tips of my shoes. My gaze settles there.

The boots were dry now, but I could still picture their shine from last night’s rainfall. It’d been the point I’d settled my mind on to centre myself while Hagen had followed after me, trying to draw himself closer with each step… so desperate to be close.

Knots shifts, making me stiffen before I quickly stifle the memory. It did nothing to think of things that did not matter. Shows like that would not last, not with Hagen.

With a pat to Knots, I stand to my feet and make for my bedroom door. Breakfast had most likely already begun, and if I didn’t arrive soon, Dad would come looking for me, and I worried him enough as it was.

I hadn’t felt the heat of his anger or the stench of his rage yet, so it seemed no one had yet discovered Hagen’s presence in the castle. That would change soon enough, and I intended to be somewhat in his good graces when we found ourselves at that point.

Breakfast first, and then I would face the mayhem.

With Knots at my heels and a somewhat settled mind, I open my door only to come to an immediate stop with what, or rather who, I find already waiting on the other side.

Propped against the opposing wall, Hagen stands with his head crooked down while he twiddles haphazardly with the edge of a shirt he hadn’t been wearing the night prior. The fabric however is abandoned the moment his gaze lifts and settles on me.

All at once, it seems all the sunshine in the world is poured into Hagen’s deep brown irises as he straightens and hastily steps forward.

“Morning,” he greets with a nervous yet bright smile that rocks the ground beneath my feet.

I stare at him, not quite sure how I’d warped myself into an alternative universe when Hagen waited to greet me like this, and then, because I can not help it and my mind has never felt more confused, my gaze roves over every inch of him.

I stare.

I stare because he’s clean.

I stare because his skin is finally scraped free of the dirt that had clung to it for an unthinkable amount of time and it’s the first time I’ve seen his bare skin in weeks.

I stare because it is a jarring sight to find him here, waiting for me, when such a thing is the very last thing I would ever dare to expect.

I do not stare because the morning light glistens over pockets of his hair, highlighting the golden strands intermixed amongst all the brown that he’d managed to comb into something malleable.

I do not stare because while he is still too small, his eyes seem somewhat brighter when they’re focused on me and his cheeks a little pinker.

I do not stare because I’m transfixed by the enchanting sight of him. Only…

My lips turn down in a displeased frown.

“What are you doing?”

It takes time to remember to speak, but when I do, I thank Goddess that the words are uttered plainly.

Hagen slips his hands behind his back and clenches them tightly there before he replies, “Waiting for you.”

He says it as if it were obvious as if this—having him wait for me—was a well-practised thing. It was not. I push away the pleasure that tries to spark within me, imagining such a reality.

“How long have you been here?” I ask instead.

Hagen shrugs a little, “A while.”

That was too vague. I should’ve known that he was out here from the moment he’d taken root, but last night had left me frayed.

Hagen had been too much last night— too happy to see me. Too desperate to keep me close. Too much.

I’d retreated to my room to realign my mind and remind myself not to entertain the longing in his eyes, the longing I felt in our bond, that would not be there forever. I’d gotten myself in reign eventually, and by the time Neo had returned Zyair to their room, I’d mostly centred myself, so I should’ve noticed his presence.

The only way I could have missed him was if he’d fixed himself here right after he’d taken back control, which meant he would’ve been waiting here all night.

I narrow my gaze, studying him, but there are no signs of exhaustion that I can spot as Hagen tries to widen his shaky smile under my examination, but his nerves make it a stiff thing.

“I’m here for you,” he adds with a rushed gesture at the walls around us, “in the castle, I mean. So I plan to see you as much as you’ll let me.”

My heart betrays me. It leaps, quite literally leaps, slamming against my ribcage as a witness of such a declaration.

It’s too similar to the thoughts that had plagued me my entire lifetime and too sweet to my ears to be spoken by from Hagen. It makes me mute, which I loathe with a passion when I’m not supposed to be swayed in any measure by past feelings that were running out of a dwindling clock.

Luckily, it’s Knots who saves me from the torture of this new universe.

In a rush of black and dark purple, familiar scales slither past me as Knots rises high to hiss at Hagen. My anger or perhaps my panic, fuels him, making him grow bigger as he hovers over Hagen in a threatening mass of scales.

It’s odd, seeing him prepare to strike when he’d only ever tried to earn Hagen’s trust, but Knots was loyal before anything else, and right now, he was enraged.

Hagen stumbles back, shocked at first by the action and then the height Knots takes as he looms over him, fangs exposed and tongue slithering out.

“K-Knots?” He stammers from against the wall as his fear taints the air. It’s a sour thing that I hate to know but refuse to fix.

Knots’ answering hiss is enough to make his feelings clear— his affection for Hagen had been smothered out with mine. It is also enough to make hurt push past the fear in Hagen’s eyes.

For a moment, I think or hope that this will be enough to make him leave.

I watch, waiting for fear to drive him away. Only instead, Hagen swallows the rejection and slowly raises a hand as he pushes off the wall, “I’m sorry I hurt you too.”

Knots stops his hissing, and all at once, the puppy I know he is, returns as he rears back before Hagen can touch him. Slithering back, he curls himself behind me as he shrinks enough to hide himself while he leers at Hagen.

Hagen stares at him, his gaze nothing short of mournful before he sets that tragic gaze upon me, “I’m sorry.”

The words feel like they always do, like a needle poking desperately at my heart while it tries to find the right point to make the next stitch needed to put it back together. But what was the point in putting something back together if it was a pained task?

“I’m going to breakfast,” I state as I tear my gaze away from his and begin along my usual path, leaving a tendril of my magic to shut the door behind me.

Knots takes his post at my left side while Hagen rushes forward to fill the space on the right.

I shoot him a glare as he falls into step beside me, and step away, but he stays frustratingly close, matching each of my steps until we’re moving in sync.

“How did you sleep?” He asks. “Good, I hope?” He adds when I remain quiet. Some seconds pass, “You look good.”

I slice a glare his way, but Hagen doesn’t shy away from it.

Determination brings his brows closer instead, “You do.”

This wasn’t Hagen. Not the Hagen I’d known all my life.

Not once had Hagen ever told me that I ‘looked good’, not in the manner he meant right now— the same one that had contained the air with arousal last night.

Hagen liked the pleasure I brought to him as his mate, but not me. I was too young, too male, too me.

I shake the pending hurt off as I look forward, moving faster now with the suddenly urgent need to no longer be left alone with him.

“So, how, uh—” he starts only to rethink it, “how do you spend most days here?”

I do not reply. I’d already made the mistake of conversing with him as it was.

Hagen carries on anyway, “I heard this is like a second home to you.”

I only have to wonder about how he’d come across that knowledge for a moment before I remember who his father is.

“It’s cool,” he says, adding an extra step to his next to keep himself from falling behind me. There’s a shortness to his breaths, and he’s practically jogging to keep up with me now, but he doesn’t let himself slow. “I mean, what I’ve seen of it is cool. It’ll be nice to see more with you, ya know, if you want to show me. I-If not that’s fine! I’ll follow you around and piece it together.”

My fingers curl into balled, ruthless fists at my side as I force myself to breathe through my nostrils.

I had not planned for this when I’d allowed him into the castle last night because not once had it ever occurred to me that Hagen planned to keep himself so closely knitted to myself. To see him in parts, yes, but not to be the subject of his attention to the point of him declaring his intention to follow me.

I want to deny it, to challenge his claims, but I stop myself.

Silence was my greatest weapon in this, so I keep ahold of it as Hagen keeps talking.

“The rain stopped. Did you notice?” I hadn’t. It’s all sunny, which I don’t get since we’re underground. Do you know how that works?”

I did, but I don’t share it. Hagen peers at me, the hope in his eyes almost a physical thing that I can feel caressing my skin.

Ignoring it, I focus on getting myself to the dining room, and when I come upon its guarded doors, I sigh with relief.

Hagen finally stops speaking as he too notes the door, and seems to sense who’s waiting on the other side of it. From my periphery, I notice the way he gulps as his shoulders bunch together before the guards manning the door pushes them open.

Inside is a picture I know well and love dearly.

Surrounding the large dining table that was only put in use when we visited, Appa sits on one side with Kalem at his side. They’re both smiling as they speak to Ma, who’s seated a little closer than usual to Dad. Dad is trying to smile as well, for her, I can tell, but he’s tense, and angry, as he’d been since Hagen first showed up outside the castle.

That anger sparks and then explodes the moment his greyed eyes flick up and skate over to the wolf at my side. Everyone follows his gaze, and I watch almost from a distance as their smiles disappear, and the picture-perfect moment goes up in ashes as all hell breaks loose.

“What is he doing here?!?”

Dad’s bellow rattles against the walls and seems to shake the ground beneath our feet as he jerks up, his grey eyes already glowing, while his muscled chest heaves.

“Nikola?!?” Ma says my name with complete and utter horror as she looks between us.

“Oh shun,” Kalem mumbles as he sinks lower into his chair.

“I knew I smelt another wolf,” Appa sighs those words, seeming exasperated, but there’s concern in the eyes he fixes on Dad, who’s moving towards us with purpose.

Hagen steps back, slipping behind me slightly, and I mean to move, but my body doesn’t let me.

Some innate part of me sits up and preens that he’s taking cover behind me, while the sensible part of me tries to remind me that this was his price to pay to stay in the castle.

Before I have to discover whether or not I am going to stop my father from getting his hands on my mate, Kalem appears between us, a small wall of power that spreads his arms overhead.

“No. No,” he says seriously to my dad. “You don’t want to do something you’ll regret.”

“I won’t regret it,” Dad seethes past his canines. His glowing eyes remain fixed on Hagen; they hadn’t parted from him since the moment they’d found their way there, and in them, lives a fiery hatred that tries to melt the skin from Hagen’s bones.

Neo whines, trying to push to the surface, but I keep him back as Hagen’s fear stifles the air.

“You—” Dad bites out the single word, but his anger chokes him before he can manage any more. He paces, trying to sidestep his Kalem-barrier, but he can’t without putting a hand on him, and that’s something he doesn’t dare to do when that would only serve to awaken Appa and completely turn the tides. “You should not be here! You should not be anywhere near my son!”

“I-I know,” Hagen manages, though the words are a quiet murmur filled with shame. “I know.”

“But you’re here!” He barks, voice booming loud enough to become a physical thing that makes Hagen step back. “You are always here! After! After you’ve already hurt him! You come back! Just to hurt him again!”

Hagen’s breathing builds with his fear but Dad carries on.

“I always defended you! I was always on your side cause I thought you were a nice kid who was just confused!” Dad declares while shaking his head. “But you’re not. You’re just a selfish boy who doesn’t mind hurting others to be happy.”

Hagen gasps a little as tries to get words out, “I-I won’t ever hurt him again. E-Ever. I-I’m making it right— making up for it— a-all of——”

“There’s no making it right!” Dad snaps before he can finish, speaking with so much venom that spittle escapes him. My nose wrinkles as I step back. “There is nothing— NOTHING you can ever do to make right what you’ve done to him!”

Dad was right. There was nothing that could be done to make up for all he’d done, just as there was nothing I could do to make up for all I’d done to him.

We were hopeless. Him being here was hopeless.

“I know,” Hagen whispers, his voice cracking. “I know that.”

It’s the admission that makes me turn.

In Hagen’s declarations of wanting me, I’d reasoned that it was instincts driving him to me, and that he hadn’t truly thought through what he was saying he wanted. But if he understood that there was no ‘making it right’ then what was he really doing here?

Its that curious thought that makes me turn, but I forget the reason behind paying him my attention when I spot the way his hands fall limp at his sides and he slumps into himself, trying to make himself smaller.

I frown as rotten bile rises within me, twisting my stomach with discomfort.

Hagen wasn’t meant to look small.
He was a star encased on earth. A bright thing, always smiling, and easy to laughter. Those brown eyes were supposed to sparkle, not dullen.

He was not meant to look…

“Nikola.”

I turn again, meeting my mother’s stiff gaze this time.

Ma is not concerned with Dad’s endless attempts to bypass Kalem or Hagen himself. She does not even look at him. I do not think she’s looked at him a single time since our appearance. It’s as if he’s not there, only I am, and she is not pleased with me.

“What are you doing?”

I blink, “What do you mean?”

“What are you doing?” She repeats, voice deceptively calm. “With him? Have you decided to work on your bond again?”

“No,” I answer plainly. In our disfigured bond, I feel something sink but ignore the ache that echoes through me. “I made it clear that I have no wish of us being together again, but he refuses to leave.”

“So you brought him inside?” Dad grinds out, and now he’s shifting that harsh glare between the two of us.

“He would not leave, and it was taking up resources,” I reply simply. “At least now, he’ll see my disinterest for himself, and it also provides Neo the chance to be with his mate. It’s not fair how long they’ve been apart.”

The mention of Neo makes Dad soften in a way I knew it would. Kenzo was as faithful a father to Neo as Dad was to me, and even though things had not worked out with my mate, that did not mean Neo deserved to suffer for it.

“Isn’t it up to Nikola at the end of the day?” Kalem pipes up, still paying attention to his duties of keeping my Dad back. “We all promised to do what he wants. He knows what he’s doing.”

It was not very often I found myself agreeing with Kalem or even grateful to him, but I am now.

“It’s only temporary,” I say to them all, glancing at my Appa who nods his allowance. “He’ll be gone soon.”

“I won’t.”

The declaration quiets the room, and in the brief glances I share with the others, I spot their disbelief and shock that nearly overrules mine.

I turn again, this time to glare at the immovable words that come from Hagen. He still looks too small and too dull, but his shoulders are pushed back and now he’s the one glaring at me as if I were in the wrong.

“I am not leaving,” he states, making each word a hard, thing. It makes Dad bristle as much as it does me, but Hagen’s gaze doesn’t waver from mine. “Even if you all hate it. As long as I can be here, I’m staying and I’m sticking with Nikola through it all.”

My rib creaks, threatening to break with the force my heart slams against it this time. It’s a cruelly wonderful ache.

“You—”

“I’m sorry,” he adds, cutting Dad off before he can say another word. Hagen looks at him briefly now, but he looks loathed to divert his attention, “I am. I-I really am, but I…” he glances at me, seeming to think of speaking the words and the indignation makes me impossibly desperate to know them. He swallows, “You hate me. It’s not ideal but I don’t care. I’m not going to try to fix that. I can live with you all hating me if I get to be close to him.”

…

…

…

I’d learned at a young age how to mask my magic.

To witches, to wolves, to every being who could possibly spot the way the magnitude of power sometimes got the better of me. It’s that training that keeps my face plain, my hands loose at my sides, and my expression, something simple, I believe.

Hagen does not see it. Hagen does not see what his words do to me.

But I’d learned the secrets to controlling myself from the very people in this room, which is possibly why a certain chill descends over the space as they all look at him with a shared desire to maim.

Hagen does not see it, but they do.

“Breakfast,” I say, if only to get through this. “I came here because I would like to join you all for breakfast.”

No one moves, which I suppose makes sense with the current state of things, and the unwanted company, but then, Hagen moves.

As if he is not opposite a battalion of people who wish to end him, he walks right by me and then Kalem, heading for the long table filled with my favourite foods. He does not make it however as Appa appears before him so quickly that Hagen stops in his tracks before he backs himself up quickly.

“You believe you are welcomed to join us?” He asks with a somewhat sinister smile. “Truly? Are you that simpleminded?”

“No,” Hagen stammers as he backs away. “I-I was going to fix a plate for Nikola.”

He looks at me then, as if he can feel the way my gaze bores into him, trying to strip back the layers of the imposter pretending to be him so I could see the version of him I did know.

The one who hesitated to touch me in public.

The one who could never claim me to his friends or his family.

The one who accepted my affections only to throw it away right after.

“Stop it!” Dad all but roars, looking as if he might shift and lunge at any given moment.

My magic stirs, preparing itself while Hagen looks at me and only me, as if it were only the two of us, “If you want it, I’ll do it.”

There’s far more he should be concerned with, like my father, who’d turned murderous and was on the edge of actually moving Kalem out of his way, my Ma, who was only scarier when she was calm, and the vampire standing right in front of him, that was the oldest being I’d ever met.

He should be concerned with them. He should not be looking at me as if he’s waiting for the word, as if he might fight past my Appa just to get my breakfast ready.

And yet, he is.

Acting — Neo mutters in a far too proud sing-song.

I feel myself swallow, just as I feel a molten mix of a twister taking foot on my systems while a volcano erupts within me.

“Out!” Dad snaps as he turns from Kalem with a frustrated huff. “Get him out! I don’t want him here, not with us! GET. HIM. OUT.”

It’s that single command that has Hagen cast out of the room, but when my magic seeks him out, I find him only just outside of the closed door. I feel myself relax and loathe myself for it.

“Nikola,” Dad growls my name, but it softens he looks at me as if I’m hurting him. “What were you thinking? What are you thinking?!”

In truth, I hadn’t been thinking. I’d seen Hagen hurt, or almost hurt, and I’d acted without thought. But I can’t say that now. It would only make matters worse.

“He must go,” he declares sternly. “He shouldn’t be anywhere near you.”

“I know, but it was getting annoying seeing him outside of the castle,” That was a piece of the truth.

Dad makes a sound as if he wants to claw himself free of his own skin, “Has he not hurt you enough?” He continues as he steps towards me. “I won’t let him do it again. You can hate me for it, but I won’t allow it.”

He meant those words which was terrifying and heartwarming.

Dad was not like Ma, he was not easy to anger and he was frustratingly forgiving, but Hagen had ran through the course of his grace. Time and time again, and now, there was no more, which left only the other side of my father.

The ruthless side. The side that made him the pack’s most valuable warrior for years. The side that allowed him to make the tough decisions no one else wanted to, and he would do that here.

Even if I hated him for it, he would do what he thought he had to.

I would not allow it to come to that.

I lift a hand, knowing Dad was barely withholding himself from not taking it and the moment I do, he envelopes it in his fist tightly. His grip is terribly brutal, as if he is trying his hardest to keep a hold of me.

“I know what I’m doing,” I say calmly. “It is temporary.”

“And if it’s not,” Ma counters from beside us, her gaze still deceptively harsh. “If he does not give up, and he stays?”

“He will leave,” I promise. “It will be annoying and aggravating for us all, but let him see for himself that it is hopeless and he will leave on his own. He will see the changes and stop pining for something that no longer exists between us.”

It’s the truth.

For all the pain it would cause, for how hard it would be to watch him leave when he eventually did, to know it was the end, it was the truth.

Hagen and I no longer existed in any of the forms we existed in before.

We died as friends from the moment he’d cast me out.

We died as lovers from the moment I’d hidden the state of our bond from him.

We died as mates from the moment he’d made me hate him as he’d always hated me.

There was nothing for us.

“And if he doesn’t?” Ma asks. “If he sees that, and stays anyway?”

“He won’t,” I dismiss. He wouldn’t be able to bear it.

“But if he doesn’t?” she presses harshly. “I want to know what you’ll do if he does not leave. If he stays here because he’d rather be miserable here than be away from you. What would you do then, Nikola?”

I frown, head tilting, “He would never do that.”

Hagen valued himself over me. He would not stay here, miserable and mistreated, simply because it meant he could be closer to me.

I’d made such sacrifices my whole life, watching him from the sidelines even with the chance of being stoned if I was spotted, simply because a glimpse of him was worth any bruises. I knew the pain of such a thing, and while the reward of simply seeing Hagen had been enough to keep me going, it would not be the same for him.

Hagen could not endure such things, and even if he could, he would never do it for me.

It was the truth, but they all look at me as if it isn’t.

I stand, a confused defendant facing a tribunal that all stare down at me with sad gazes. Some are angry, some are fragile, others angered, and vengeful, but they’re all sad.

“Then shall we allow him in here?” Its Appa who breaks the quiet with the surprising question. “If Nikola’s plan is to work, that is?”

“No,” Dad snaps, leaving no room for argument.

“Maybe another day,” Kalem suggests with his weak smile. “Why don’t we just enjoy breakfast today? Okay? I made your favourites, Nikola! I have watermelon!”

Kalem rushes ahead with a beaconing hand, and with a reluctant smile, I follow after him. I squeeze Dad’s hand as I part, sending a wave of love through our family bond his way.

I knew he worried for me, but I would be okay. Hagen would leave and we’d figure it out after, there was no real reason to worry when it would end.

It was just a matter of time.

——————

From the moment the doors open, Hagen pushes himself upright, his gaze refusing to meet anyone else’s from the moment he spots me.

Wordlessly, I make a start towards the library, and he falls into step with me, not bothering to cover his back. It’s as if he fears nothing, not because he thinks I would protect him, but because it does not matter to him as long as he is close.

If only.

“How was breakfast?” He asks immediately with no envy in his tone, only genuine curiosity. “I saw watermelons before, did you have some?”

I stay quiet, focusing instead on the vampires we pass by.

Some of them stare at Hagen, almost surprised to spot him clean or perhaps in the castle’s walls. Some stare at him with slightly colder gazes, settling the blame of the castle’s sudden chaos onto his shoulders.

Hagen notices it. I know he does by the way he stiffens up, and stumbles over his next question, but he carries on regardless.

“So,” he continues, “where are we heading now?”

We weren’t going anywhere.

“Where are we going?” I’d asked, forcing Hagen to a stop so he could face me.

“‘We’ are not going anywhere,” he’d declared while waging a finger between us.

Jaw clenching, I wash the memory away from my mind along with recollections of what had followed that night. None of that mattered now.

“I wasn’t lying in there, just so you know,” he continues hurriedly. “I was not getting anything for me, only for you.”

Lips fixed shut, gaze steered ahead, I keep walking.

“And I know they all hate me— you too, but it’s nice being this close again. I know that’s selfish, but I plan to be as close to you as you’ll let me for as long as I can.”

Straight ahead. Quiet.

What point was there in denying it? He could believe what he wished, in a week— no, within a few days, he might still be here, but he’d give up on following me this closely or waiting outside my door.

I’m about to turn a new corner when Hagen rushes forward, filling the space in front of me and forcing me from a stop if only to stop him from coming into contact with my barrier.

“I don’t know how to do this, Nikola,” he says with raised hands.

I don’t want you to do this.

I don’t want you to do anything.

“I don’t know how to get you to talk to me or how to make you give me a chance when I know you really mean it when you say you’re done, but I’ll figure it out. You did.”

That was different. I actually love you, more than anything else in this world.

You were enough for me. You alone were enough for me.

I’ll never be enough for you.

“ I mean, I’ve never been as strong as you,” he whispers, head ducking with shame before he quickly forces it back up, “but I’ll get it, eventually.”

No, you won’t.

You’ll give up.

“I just want you to know that I’m not giving up.”

I stiffen, refusing to blink as he stares back at me. Carefully, I check my mind and the pack link, being sure that nothing had slipped out and I hadn’t said it aloud so how did he know?

How did he know exactly what I was thinking?

Hagen takes a step forward, and I take an immediate one back. His jaw clenches but his gaze never wavers, “I’m not giving up, Nikola. Whether I have to talk to myself for the rest of my life or wake up early to put together your breakfast plate before anyone knows, I’ll do it!

“I’ll do it happily because even if you don’t talk to me, I’ll get to be close to you. Even if you don’t look at me, I would get to see you. And even if you pretend I don’t exist, at least I’ll get to witness you live. That’ll be enough for me.”

It’s lies.

It’s all lies.

He doesn’t mean it. Don’t believe it. It’s not real.

I remind myself of this while I block out the tidal wave of emotions that try to inflict me, the ones that blur my senses and make my barrier waver.

Running away would be easier than enduring this.

“I know you don’t believe me,” Hagen mutters sadly, his mind once again in mine, “but I mean it, and I’m going to prove it.”

I swallow, forcing myself to remain in control of myself and these awful emotions that had only ever led me astray by being endlessly intertwined with the man standing across from me.

“So you’ve stated,” I mutter with a nod. “As I have stated that you are free to do whatever you want, it won’t change a thing.”

Hagen’s eyes narrow, turning slightly hateful with undeserved rage that only ignites mine, “Yes, you did.”

There’s a challenge hidden there, a resistance meant to overthrow my rule as if this is some game he intends to win, which is as infuriating as it is begrudgingly amusing when there was no game Hagen had ever won against me.

“Well,” he says, stepping out of my way and returning to the space at my side, “lead the way.”

Five days. I give it five days.

—————–

Finally! A chapter that doesn’t make us depressed! Or it shouldn’t, when the humans on Patreon got this, a lot said the opposite and some even cried, which is awakrd when it made me a lil excited at the end there hehehe

Thoughts???????

Thoughts on Hagen standing on business again???

Thoughts on Apollos’ reaction?????

Thoughts on Nikola’s thoughts?????

I wanted a bigger reaction from Apollos ngl, and I did start writing it, but with all the players in the room it felt unrealistic. 

We will see an Apollos-Hagen scene (I’ve already written it), and it’ll be a tough one (real tough), but it has to happen in the story, I just couldn’t get it done here without it being weird.

Also some people were talking about how Hagen would eat in the last chapter and I want to remind you that when Nikola let him inside, he did warn him that he’d have to hunt for his own food unless he managed to convince a cook inside to feed him.

Chapter 50 is already written and a sneak peek is up on Patreon for the Gold Tier, you guys should be getting it early next week!

With how much I’ve had to spread out releasing the chapters for it to be fair to those on Patreon, I’m not sure you all will get the 5-6 chapters this month, BUT if it goes over into August, you’ll just get the last 2/3 then! 

Anyway, vote and comment, and please leave all thoughts! I would love to hear them!!!

Until next time,
Byeeeeeeeee humanssssssss