Nikola’s POV

I knock on the door three times before I call his name, “Appa.”

“Come in, Nikola.”

In the evening’s darkness, Appa’s office is made up of mostly shadows that are only forced back by the candles lit in the furthermost corners of the room. I frown at them, confused about why he’d done such a thing until my gaze lands on the small body curled within his lap.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I whisper, already taking a step back but my Appa only shakes his head dismissively.

“I would not have invited you in if you weren’t welcomed, Nikola,” he replies before he beckons me closer. “Come in. He’s sleeping like the dead.”

Kalem does not stir as I close the door behind me, not even when I enter the room and stand just before them. He continues to sleep soundly, his face so relaxed that I have trouble finding his smile lines, which is a rare thing.

Kalem was always smiling.

“He’s been exhausting himself,” Appa explains while he rubs a hand over his lover’s side. “He wants you all happy: you, your mother, your father, and even the wolf.”

My gaze rises and meets the dark, red eyes staring back at me.

“The wolf,” he continues slowly. “Two weeks spent at our gates, and now almost another two spent within,” his eyes search mine, widened with their apprehension, “and despite your predictions, he is still here.”

I fist my fingers to release some of the tension that tightens my jaw.

My anger, or rather annoyance, was not directed at my Appa, but at both Hagen and myself. Hagen for defying the odds and myself, for not preparing for a reality in which he did.

“Do you wish for me to be honest with you, Nikola?”

“No,” I reply truthfully, and he huffs a laugh that makes Kalem’s head jostle a little.

“I won’t then,” he promises, though his smile does lessen some. “Advice, then?” I nod. “Stop underestimating the boy.” He says this sharply, void of any affection or humour, simply with the austerity that came with being a leader. “He would not be your mate if he did not share some measure of your conviction.”

A cold shiver runs down my spine, forcing me to shift to get rid of its chill.

Underestimating Hagen was something I had never done. He tended not to believe in himself, but I had always carried the belief that he could do anything in this world if he wished to. But as I thought about it now, I suppose I had forgotten he might be capable of such things amongst matters that revolved around him ‘wanting’ me.

“Can you tell the guards they are free to move and give them my thanks?”

Appa nods, “I will. Oh, there’s a party tonight.”

My heart warms as I take a step back, “Thank you for the warning.”

My Appa liked parties no more than I did, but for all their stereotypes, the vampires loved their celebrations. I suppose if you lived forever and had no true need for sleep, you found ways to fill the time, but it was still excessive in my mind.

It was my habit to stay clear of them, and tonight would be no different.

Departing as quietly as I’d intruded, I leave Appa and Kalem alone as I retreat to my bedroom for an early night. It would be faster to make the trip by teleportation, but that would be at the cost of a glance through a certain window.

I do not pay that price or acknowledge my decision to do so as I peer through the stained glass.

I only mean for it to be fleeting, to ensure the guards had moved, but I find my feet wavering when I not only find them still where they were, but speaking with Hagen. And not in an abrasive manner which might force me closer, but with the casual comfort Hagen had always known how to coax out of those around him.

They aren’t entirely comfortable. No, they are all stiff in their stances, and a number of them can’t seem to help but share glances with each other. But they stay as they are, speaking to him.

I frown, eyes narrowing as I stare at them.

Something was not right, but before I can determine precisely what, the guards disappear, leaving Hagen free to stroll into the castle after them, which he does… with a smile on his face.

I don’t quite remember the journey to my bedroom, whether I choose to walk it or teleport, but at some point I realise that I’m seated on the edge of my bed, staring aimlessly at the floor while my brain tries to compute what had just happened.

I should not be thinking about him this much. I should not be thinking about him at all.

No. We should not be thinking at all — Neo agrees with open mischievousness — We should be doing what I’ve always said we should, and simply act on what we want.

I do not want him — I remind.

Hmm — he replies, neither arguing nor agreeing, which is enraging in its own right. I push him back, needing to think about something other than Hagen.

Except I can not.

I can not switch off the part of my brain that knows that it takes Hagen eleven minutes to get to my bedroom door from the castle’s main entrance, and that it’s been fifteen minutes since he’d been allowed inside again.

I did not want him outside my door, standing there as he did every night while I watched through the door, but it was what he did. It was what he’d done for every night since he’d returned so why was he not doing so now?

What had he and those vampires been talking about?

Had he won them over so easily? So much so that they’d invited him to the party tonight?

It is that particular thought that halts my introspections, bringing them to a shrieking stop that makes my skin crawl uncomfortably. I scratch my nails over it but the anxious musings continues teeming inside, bubbling the blood beneath my surface.

I close my eyes and breathe slowly.

It was fine if Hagen went to the party. Absolutely fine. This was what I’d predicted, that he’d grow tired of waiting on me.

Only, he’d said he was here for me. Me.

Of course, he wasn’t. I knew they were lies so this was good news.

This was what I wanted. Proof of his lies.

But then why the letter?

The letter. Goddess, the letter.

I refuse to look at it now. I refuse to even acknowledge its presence. It had undone me enough as it was, I could not afford to revisit it.

In truth, I did not think I could afford to receive another. By the implication of Hagen’s current absence, I would not have to, because he was not here, just as I’d pre—

Hagen’s steps held a certain rhythm when he was in a rush.

One two. Three. Four. It was like a gallop, where his foot lifted a little higher on the third step, delaying his fourth.

Those steps break the mould of my thoughts as they sound down the hallway, bringing down with it the beginning of my preordained victory.

He was here, back again, as he was every night.

My lungs contract as I breathe out and my entire being unwinds the knots it’d formed so quickly. Only my relief is short-lived because tonight, Hagen does not quietly fix himself in the spot across from my door to wait out the night.

Tonight, Hagen knocks.

I did not panic often. It was unbecoming and I made sure I prepared for all situations to avoid such an uncomfortable experience. But I had not prepared for this, so… I panic.

Alarms sound in my mind and they’re loud enough that I think they are real for a moment. They are not, which means I can not pull their chord to silence them. Not when they’re powered by my own unease because this was not the plan.

This was a change, and I hated change.

“Nikola,” he calls, making me jolt as he dares to knock again. “I just want five minutes and then I’ll be gone. Promise.”

Five minutes? One would be too much.

“Avoiding me isn’t going to make me go away, you know,” he adds with a huff. “I’ll be here in the morning, so why not get it over with now?”

I glare at him through the door. My magic is quick to strip away the opacity, making the image of him an unchallenged one.

He was no longer smiling, but he didn’t look nearly as tentative as he’d been when he’d first arrived.

I didn’t want him scared. That was not my intention, but I much preferred him cautious rather than recklessly brazen, as he’d been ever since this morning.

My mind churns with the memory of his heart racing at the same tempo as my own, of his eyes flashing between gold and their coaxing brown, and the teasing scent of his arousal that I’d just barely managed to draw myself away from.

Goddess, why did I read that damned letter?

“Three minutes?” Hagen bargains as he pushes up on his toes. “Two?”

“One,” I call, and he immediately smiles, pumping a fist to his side like he’d done this morning.

I dig my teeth into my cheeks to keep my expression plain.

“One minute,” I repeat.

“One,” Hagen agrees, nodding enthusiastically as he takes a measured step back and waits.

With a sigh, I stand to my feet and reluctantly make for the door. I click my fingers for Knots to stay put and he settles down so quickly that his relief at not having to face Hagen too is an obvious thing.

For all his loyalties, it was impossible to miss the way he stared longingly at Hagen when he was not looking. He missed him, but he felt my hurt like his own and preferred the safety of distance.

My hand lifts for the doorknob, but I take a moment to strengthen the magic infused within my barrier. It had rattled some this morning, and I refused for such a thing to occur again.

With its invisible scaffolding secure, I take three deep breaths and beg Goddess for guidance before I open the door. The moment my eyes find his, I start the timer on the clock in my mind.

“What?”

“Hey,” he greets with a nervous smile. “I know you’re literally going to give me sixty seconds, so I just have to say, throwing me… out… not… I thought…. we….”

Hagen’s words blur into the recesses of my mind, becoming fogged with the remainder of my thoughts as my gaze shifts, parting from his in favour of surveying him.

When Hagen had first arrived in the castle, I’d left him in one of the rooms usually reserved for freshly turned newborns. Those rooms came stocked with clothing mirroring the clan’s colours, which was all he’d worn since he’d been here.

He wore those same items now, but something was wrong.

My eyebrows draw closer together as I continue to examine him, searching for the foul wrongness clouding him that only seemed to grow with each passing second, and then, on my next inhale, I smell it.

Immediately, the world as I know it becomes engulfed by flames.

“Whose clothes are those?”

Hagen pauses in the midst of whatever ramble he’d gotten himself into. He blinks at me, confused.

“Whose clothes are those?” I repeat the question to the detriment of my sanity. “Whose clothing are you wearing?”

Hagen’s lips part briefly before he looks down, “Who specifically? I don’t know. No one’s really introduced themselves since I’ve—”

“Where did you get them, Hagen?” I grind out through the fog that warps my sanity.

“One of the guards,” Hagen replies as his eyes lift to search mine. “I needed some new ones, mine need to be washed and I’ll do that tonight, but I needed something now since I was dirty after spending the day outside. You don’t like me dirty.”

“They—” smell like another. They will make you smell like another.

I stifle the words in the pit of my rage.

It should not matter— it did not matter. I remind myself of this, but those thoughts get lost in the wrecking turbulence of the ingrained need to allow no other scent on Hagen but my own.

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” I choke out the stupid question as I look at its owner, and the moment I do, my rage takes a moment to pause.

Hagen is not smiling, nor does he look smug, but there’s something to him.

Some quiet, known sense of victory that burns behind his gaze, and I recognise it immediately because it was what I’d felt my whole life after every little triumph I’d won from him.

“Oh Gods,” I groan as I step back. It’s not by my own choice, but from the blow of the realisation that comes quickly.

Appa had been right.

Hagen was my mate for a reason, and I was underestimating him.

“What?” Hagen asks, tilting his head in the perfect performance of confusion.

“You’re shameless,” I mutter, willing myself not to move another inch. If I did, I would tear the repugnant clothes from his body.

Hagen shrugs as his confusion melts into an expression of indifference, “You kicked me out today. That was playing dirty so I joined in.”

“You overstepped.”

“If I did, then I did it in the morning and you should’ve kicked me out then,” he argues without pause. “But you didn’t. You only did it after you got scared.”

I bristle as my magic pushes against my fingertips. “I was not scared.” I spit the offensive word out. “You overstepped.”

Hagen’s eyes harden as he folds his arms over his chest, further cementing the scent into his skin. My fingers twitch.

It’s the barrier that keeps my magic from disintegrating the fabric, and I loathe myself for ever strengthening it.

“Okay,” he allows before he takes a step forward that brings him to the edge of the doorway. “Do we need new rules then? Real ones?” He looks me over slowly, his gaze like a touch that makes my skin prickle before it lifts again. “You like rules.”

This was not simply stubbornness. This was tactic— precise, comprehensive, calculated tactics meant to make me break, and in my ignorance, they’d begun to work.

But I would not allow Hagen to cull me so easily. I refused to let him cull me at all.

I centre my dark magic around my shadowing thoughts and allow it to do the work. I leave Hagen where he stands and find myself in the familiar noisy city, but in a setting I’d never been. The scent inside is familiar though.

I distract myself from behind my rage, not allowing myself to pay too much attention to the items I pass my fingers over, or the ones my magic brings to me. If I did, I might notice a stain and then that would put a prompt stop to this, which could not occur until Hagen was put in his place.

The scent is disgusting placed over mine, rotten in a way that makes my stomach churn, but I ignore the displeasure of it as my magic takes me back to the very spot I’d left Hagen.

“Every time, Knots! How can I do this if he keeps—” Hagen stops his rant to my snake from outside the doorway when he notices me. “Oh.”

Relief engulfs him, taking with it his unwarranted anger, but then his nose twitches, and he stiffens.

Hagen’s gaze widens, searching mine with disbelief before he inhales again and then… then Hagen loses it.

Hagen had been jealous before, once. Of course, I had not known it at the time, and he had looked no different than usual when the alleged jealousy had taken place, so I did not know what the signs looked like.

The signs of his jealousy are clear now.

Hagen’s eyes bulge as gold floods them so quickly, it almost blocks out all the white. His muscles tense so much I think I hear something pop, and there is no filtering the scent of his rage— I feel it like a wrecking ball launched straight at me even through the remnants of our bond.

“MAX?!?” He shouts in an outburst so rich with fury it draws me a step closer. “YOU MADE YOURSELF SMELL LIKE FUCKING MAX!”

“Not made,” I correct. “That would suggest this is fake, like a spell. It’s real.”

Hagen tries to come inside, and I know he has every intention of scenting me whether I like it or not, and as much as that proposition sends lust hurdling through me, I send out my earth magic to keep him out.

It does so with some strain, wanting to buckle under his force, but the spell holds, enough so that he can not take a single step over the threshold.

Hagen sees red.

“TAKE IT OFF!” He demands while banging on the invisible barrier that keeps him away. “NIKOLA, I SWEAR TO GODDESS ABOVE, I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU IF YOU DON’T!”

A groan crawls up my throat but I stifle it, but it’s far harder to ignore the arousal filling my cock.

Hagen rages, too caught in his madness to notice and I’m grateful for that happenstance.

I watch, transfixed as he fights against the barrier, trying to tear it apart… just to get to me. He stares at me throughout it, those blazing eyes focused on me and my body like he wants to rip the skin from my bones if only to get rid of the invasive scent.

It’s a pleasure I deny myself.

“TAKE IT OFF NIKOLA!” He booms, openly territorial in his jealousy.

“I can’t,” I reply as I fold my arms just as he’d done. His talons descend and he snarls, and a smile stretches across my lips. “I did not just put it on. I rubbed his belongings all over my—”

Hagen’s shriek drowns my words out, and my smile widens on its own accord as I stare at him.

“Let this be a lesson, Hagen,” I warn as I step forward, bringing the scent closer to him. He rears back, his lips curling with disgust. “Do not think you can toy with me. Because if you do, I promise what follows will only hurt you. Trust me, you do not want to play this game with me.”

Hagen’s golden eyes bore into mine as I close the door, locking him out with his rage that comes pouring through our bond like freely flowing lava.

It spills within the deepest cracks of our bond, but the burn is as rousing as it in scathing.

“NIKOLA!” Hagen screams my name as he bangs on my door. Screams it loud enough that it should make me seek out my headphones, but it only sounds like music to my ears. “NIKOLA!”

Nikola. Nikola. Nikola. He screams my name, curses it, shouts it, growls it.

Twisted satisfaction sinks beneath my bones, into my blood and my soul, and it’s enough for me to withstand the nausea that comes with this scent. I want nothing more than to scrub it free, but then Hagen would know somehow, and that would defeat the purpose of this.

So I lay down, with my view of the door and my mate seething on the other side, and though I do not sleep a wink, with a hand fixed over my crotch, I can’t recall ever feeling so good.

When I open the door the next morning, Hagen stands on the other side, gaze distant from mine, but wearing his proper clothes. He clutches a paper behind his back but says nothing as I begin along the familiar path through the castle.

He follows silently, and I know I’ve won this round.

Only, I made a mistake. One I wouldn’t recognise immediately and by the time I did, it would be too late.

Hagen didn’t learn lessons, not easily anyway. They had to be battered into him, he had to be schooled. It was pleasurable oftentimes, but it required much attention.

You could not leave Hagen with one teaching and believe it effective.

It wasn’t, because Hagen always bit back.

——————————————————

It started quietly, in ways I could not understand.

Why did he palm my doorknob in the middle of the night if he never tried to come in?

Why did he linger in the breakfast room for five minutes before he’d come to find me again?

Why did he walk a step behind me now instead of directly beside me?

Then there were other festering questions I struggled to answer, like, why had Dad stopped his verbal assault on Hagen? Why did Hagen and Kalem share a wink sometimes? And why in Goddess’ name was Ma so quiet about the whole situation?

Everyone, in their own ways, had taken a step back, and in the empty space, Hagen had stepped forward in ways I could not figure out, which was maddening.

Each day, I woke up more agitated than the last, which only made his ever-present company all the more exasperating.

He followed me everywhere. Ever.Y.Where.

Like an ever-present shadow that was infuriatingly resistant to light, Hagen echoed my every movement, never allowing himself to part from my side for more than six feet.

From the moment I opened my bedroom door to the moment I closed it in his face, he was there. Frustratingly close, and aggravatingly devoted in his stubborn motive to simply be near me, even at his own detriment.

That would be its own problem, but then he’d kept his promise about the letters.

The letters… they were their own form of torture. A shameless display of selfishness, and I loathed them as much as their maker. Yet my eyes remained glued to the space beneath my door every morning, waiting for the moment they’d be slid under at precisely 6:55 a.m.

I managed half a minute, and sometimes, on good days, a whole one, before my magic delivered it to my hands so that I could greedily consume each word.

When I was fifteen, I had my first kiss, and I thought it was amazing.

I thought that I really couldn’t be meant to be with you because it was so good, and if we were meant to be together, if we were really mates, then it could never be so good.

But then, that day in the kitchen, you kissed me, and I realised that first kiss wasn’t amazing. It wasn’t even good.

When you kissed me, I thought I was going to die. Everything stopped, everything, and then it started again, two times stronger, and brighter, and better.

I stopped us because I was going to cum. Did you know that?

You kissed me, told me I was being good for you, and I almost came.

So, yeah, my first kiss was not amazing. Nothing that came before you was amazing.

Consuming today’s letter had opened a void in my room.

Not my own, not even one I recognised, and I’d only even perceived its presence when the pulling energy on the other side almost took the letter from my fingers.

I closed it then, destroying with it whatever was on the other side for such an offence.

I hadn’t been able to look Hagen in the eye when I’d managed to leave the room, and by the devious smirk tugging at his lips, he knew precisely how the written words had nearly threatened to undo the very fabric of this world.

I’d ended up late enough for breakfast that I’d missed Appa and Kalem entirely, and even after my parents had left, I’d found myself sitting at the cleared table.

Things were fraying, far beyond my control, and I no longer could tell what was going to happen.

It was as if Hagen had somehow wiggled his way into my mind and was pulling at strings to see what each one would do. I’d never felt so unruly within my skin, and no matter how desperately I tried to centre myself, things remained in disarray.

I could not plan this, because Hagen was out of control.

I could at least recognise he was poking me. I just did not know how to make it stop.

You do — Neo argues — You just don’t want to.

“Nikola.”

I glance up and scowl when I find Hagen standing in the doorway. “Aren’t you supposed to spend some time with Lincoln and Kalem? They’re already in the garden.”

That was another thing. Hagen had learned my life— every step, every thought, every movement. There was nothing I could do that Hagen didn’t already know or was ready for.

He was everywhere.

“I’ll meet you in the library after,” he adds with a grin.

My teeth grind together as my earth magic takes me to the entrance of the garden and then promptly scatters out to put some of the energy rattling beneath my veins to good use. There’s a squeak in the distance, and I know Kalem, somehow, felt that.

“Sorry,” I call as I start on one of the etched paths that eventually lead me to the pair. Kalem kneels beside a bed of roses with sheers and a large gardening hat, while Appa leisurely aims his disfigured water can over his dark orchids.

“It’s okay,” Kalem dismisses as he stands. “But um,” he pauses, looking back at Appa before he shares a nervous smile with me, “Nikola… would you mind if you weren’t… here today?”

I frown. “Why?”

“Well,” Kalem shifts in his place, looking at Appa again. “I like you here with us, and you know I love you! But… you… you’ve been really angry lately, and well…”

“It’s scaring the plants,” Appa finishes for him. “Kalem says they’re scared of you.”

That only makes my frown deepen, “The plants told you that?”

Kalem’s nervousness disappears, replaced instead by offence that makes the air outside colder. “Yes! And you know what? This is my garden and it’s supposed to be a happy place.”

“I’m happy,” I argue.

“No, you’re not,” Appa argues calmly. “You’re frustrated, and it’s affecting the plants.”

Frustrated because of him. Hagen.

My talons dig into my palms, drawing blood as I try to think of words to argue but I can’t find any.

This was supposed to be mine. This castle. A place where I was happy and had nothing to worry about, and instead, he was here— trampling over everything.

“Maybe next time,” Kalem offers while he gives me a not-so-subtle ‘shoo’. “Maybe.”

Exiled, I walk to the library. Walk to avoid touching my volatile magic.

I didn’t want to hurt anyone and would never risk it, but with the way it was coursing through my veins, it felt like any attention paid to it would send it out in every direction before it finally struck the one thing I had to keep it away from.

Hagen wouldn’t win this game, because it wasn’t a game. It was my life, and I refused to allow him to send it into disarray again.

But when I get to the library, there he is, seated in my window seat… waiting for me.

“Hey!” He greets as he jumps down and quickly fixes the area. “That was quick.”

Don’t engage. Don’t engage. Don’t engage.

“What are you reading today?” He asks while he follows me as I head past him and down the towering aisles stacked with all types of literature. “You finished your book yesterday,” he continues with disturbing accuracy. “So what will you start next?”

Lips fixed shut, I keep walking.

Ignore him. Ignore his presence.

“The last one was a history book, right?” How did he know that?!? “What was it about?”

Silence.

I ignore him, and at the aisle filled with more geographically-inclined reads, I head down the passageway.

Hagen sighs as he strolls behind me, “I guess I’ll find out myself when I read it.”

I stop. I do not mean to, but the statement is so surprising that it makes me do so.

Hagen does the same. Stopping at the exact moment as if his body was tethered to mine. I turn and find him already looking up at me with a frown.

“You plan to read it?”

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

I should not be speaking to him.

Hagen’s brown eyes light up, and the joy that wiggles pass the sealed cracks of our bond is staggering enough to almost make me miss my next breath.

“Uh, yes,” he stammers with surprise as he straightens a little.

“Why?” I. Should. Not. Be. Speaking.

“Because you did,” he replies quickly.

I frown, and then I glare at him. “That makes no sense.”

“It does to me,” he replies with an impossible smile. It’s as sweet as it is poisonous. He knows it’s illogical, he just doesn’t care. “Plus, it might still smell like you.”

My silence returns this time, but not of my own will.

I feel my right eye twitch as my fingers do at my sides.

Hagen’s eyes dart to and fro for a moment before something curious ignites behind his gaze. His lips part but it takes a moment still before he dares to speak, “I miss your scent, Nikola.”

I turn and continue down the aisle, only it’s soon coming to an end and I can not recall what I was even looking for in the first place.

“It’s muted behind your barrier,” he continues in a ramble as he rushes forward, only he doesn’t stay behind me. He comes forward, trying to claim my gaze as he bends, craning his neck so that he’s in my eye-line. His stare chars my skin, but I ignore it. “I barely catch it, but I sometimes do on things you’ve touched. Like your doorknob or your books.”

“Shut up,” I mutter as I try to scrub away the understanding that comes with the mention of the doorknob.

I’d thought he’d been contemplating trying to come inside, which would have been extremely stupid given the magic that would keep him out, but all he’d ever done was touch it before he’d curled himself on the ground against the opposite wall.

He would always take his post for the night, but not without nestling those very fingers against his nose.

It was strange, incomprehensible, and weird. It had been. Not now. Not when it was clear that he’d been seeking traces of my scent.

…Goddess

“It’s the truth,” he insists while I find myself at the end of the aisle. With only the wall left, I force myself to face the books beside it and survey those instead. “Nikola, it’s the truth. I miss your scent so much.”

Do not listen to him. Do not engage. Do not—

“I feel better with it,” he whispers as he tries to squeeze himself between me and the wall. “It makes me feel safe.”

I whirl, and the movement is so quick that it surprises Hagen enough to stumble back. His back slams against the wall, and I keep him there as I slam my hands on either side of him. The wall vibrates beneath my fingertips and Hagen sucks in a ragged breath as his eyes lift to mine.

The barrier trembles between us, a thin sliver that keeps us apart, but it’s still closer than I’d let him get to me since he’d shown up in this very room to tell me he wanted me.

“Don’t lie,” I snap on a growl that reverberates in the quiet room. “You want to be here? You want to prove a point? Do that. But do not lie just to get what you think you want. If you do, I will send you back myself and lock you in the pack for the rest of your life.”

Rushed breaths brush against the edge of the barrier; I can almost see them, and I feel their echoes in my veins as Hagen stares up at me with wide eyes.

It was not only a threat, but one I fully intended to follow through on if he intended to make a mockery of my feelings with his selfishness.

“It’s not a lie,” he whispers ahead of his racing heart.

My magic stirs, readying to send him home.

“It’s not!” He protests as if he can feel it. “It’s not a lie! It’s not! Pull out a fucking lie detector, or use a spell and you’ll see for yourself! It’s not a lie!”

I glare at him, hating every word spewing from his mouth while he stares up at me behind his heaving chest.

“I’m not lying about any of it!” He continues as his chest steadies, pressing against the barrier with each breath. “I-I know you don’t believe me, about any of it, but I mean it. I mean every word I say, every word I write. I want you, Nikola. I want you.”

Longing fills my chest, inflating my heart like the pleasure that races through my body, pumping itself amongst all the anger and hurt.

“Stop,” I mutter as I close my eyes and try to breathe.

“I’ll do anything to have you, to have any piece of you. I come here at night just to sit where you sit—”

“Stop,” I insist with a step back.

He continues with a step forward, “I hold the books you touch—”

“Stop!” I snap as I glare at him, but he does not retreat.

Hagen’s eyes hold mine, growing heavy as something seems to unlock and he continues. “I find the forks you use to eat,” his breaths come faster, pushing past his lips as he licks them tentatively. “I use them… I-I lick—”

“STOP!” I shout, loud enough to make him finally still as his mouth slams close, but he’d already said too much.

Arousal and need and pure want rocket themselves through my system, strong enough to strain against my barrier, slipping through enough to scent it.

Hagen’s nostrils flare and then his eyes glow as his own arousal slips into the air, along with desperate longing that I can no better deny than the actions I’d witnessed for weeks now.

“Nikola,” Hagen whimpers as his eyes dart between my own. “Nikola.”

I stifle a curse as my nails dig into the stone beside his hair.

My heart pounds in my ears as the world bleeds from my senses, leaving nothing but Hagen and Hagen… and Hagen.

I need to leave. Now.

I need to go before he breaks me, because I’m almost there and I’m too angry to do anything decent if I get my hands on him, and dear Goddess, I want to put my hands on him.

“Nikola,” he moans my name, carefully drawing back my attention and my focus as he always does.

I close my eyes and clench them tight as I try to resist him, and the pull of him, but his voice is like a siren’s call.

“Nikola,” he beckons, voice sweet even as it trembles. “Look at me.”

I do. I hate that I do, but I do.

He blinks at me, gaze heavy and sated as if I’d already unleashed the fatal desires I was barely keeping caged within.

“…please.”

My first mistake wasn’t letting him in the castle, or visiting the window every day.

My first mistake was underestimating Hagen Calderon.

I don’t break— it’s not like some part of me snaps out of the place, departing from the rest of me.

It’s more like the pieces he’d broken in the first place, the ones I’d been trying to keep disjointed for weeks, snap back together, helpless against the pull.

Against the yearning, against the hunger that Hagen had been stoking for weeks, and it all shatters with the single word.

And then there’s no stopping it. No stopping myself.

The barrier shatters, splintering into pieces, and as Hagen’s chest crashes against mine and he sobs with relief, I force him against the wall and take his mouth with mine.

It’s like coming home.

The taste of his mouth, the familiar softness, the wet glide of his tongue across mine, the plump lips parting to let me in, to let me take.

And he lets me take. Hagen parts his lips, parts his legs, and he gives in.

Hagen surrenders and with it, my mind begins its descent into madness once again.

Mine. The word blares in my mind, louder than ever before as every inch of my body slides against some part of Hagen’s, overloading it with pleasure after so long apart.

Mine.

My mate. My Hagen. My infuriating, radiant Hagen.

Hagen moans as my magic wraps itself around him, sticking to his skin and burrowing beneath. It’d always been there, even when he didn’t know, but after months forcibly stripped back, it eagerly takes its place, and then with pure greed, slips deeper.

Hagen whines under the attack, but welcomes it, shivering all over while his nails scrape at my skin as if he’s trying to hull me, to claim it for himself. I growl as I take hold of his wrists with my magic and lock them against the wall, ignoring his protesting sobs as I wrap my hands around his neck and descend on his mouth with a vengeance.

I don’t kiss Hagen. I consume him.

My mouth invades his, biting his lips, sucking on them, and then on his tongue. I swallow the very essence of him while I squeeze until he chokes. I immediately form an addiction to that sound.

I squeeze tighter, rolling my hips against his, grinding my cock against his, forcing my scent into his body and soul.

But it’s too intimate. His mouth on mine. Too much, so I force myself to withdraw.

With parted, wet lips, Hagen stares up at me, for once not speaking. He can’t. While he strains against my magic, he tries to filter in air through his caged throat, but he doesn’t complain or panic. He just watches me.

His breaths rasp out of him and he just… watches me.

My fingers tighten, and his eyelids weigh themselves down, but still, he doesn’t let our gazes part. Silently, pliantly, he waits for what I do next, eager for it— for anything, and that alone makes me impossibly harder.

I hover over him, my gaze glued to his lips while our scents mix, teeming with lust and raw hunger. Breathing it in causes shudders to race through us both, and even so, we selfishly breathe in deeply, wanting more.

I drug myself on it— his scent in its natural form, and then the compelling thing it becomes when mixed with lust and surrender.

I lean closer and his skin brushes mine, setting me aflame, and I hate him for stripping away my resolve so thoroughly.

“You’re the worst,” I groan while my magic travels all over his body, unable to stop, and so desperate to touch.

Hagen bows into it, welcoming every caress as his lips spread in a drunken smile, “I know.”

“You want me like this? Hating you?” I sneer while I will myself to loosen the grip around his throat. I can not.

I stare at it— his throat, with his pulse beating against my fingers, and my eyes linger on his skin which is wrongfully bare of my scent, of my mark.

“No, I—” I drop my hands and replace them with my teeth. “Ahh!” Hagen moans as he strains his neck, welcoming me as I sink my teeth in just enough to break the skin, but not enough to leave a mark. “Oh, Goddess! Fuck! Fuck! Fu-ahhh!” He gasps as I move, delivering more, and he moans with each rough bite I leave behind as I travel over his neck and collarbone. They aren’t loving, just uncaged need.“Yes!”

I bite his neck until it’s red with imprints of my bites, and my body vibrates with the desire to make each permanent.

“You want me to hate you,” I mutter angrily past my hurt while my gaze stays transfixed on the already healing bites.

Hagen shakes his head as he parts his dazed eyes to look at me. Despite my words, he looks impossibly happy.

“I want you… however I can get you,” he replies as his eyes search mine. “I used to think you were crazy for thinking like that. But I get it now. Anything is better than nothing.”

“No,” I mutter, shaking my head to dismiss him and myself of the idea.

That was how I’d thought my entire life and I was punished for it. That kind of thinking was twisted, and sick, and what got us here in the first place.

But I wanted it. Goddess, I wanted it.

His desperation. His eagerness. His hunger. I want it.

“Yes,” he pants as he pushes his hips up to rub against my cock. I hiss a breath and he makes a soft pleased sound, “I’ll do anything, t-take anything.”

“Stop,” I snap, but it’s closer to a plea.

“Never,” Hagen whispers, his eyes on mine. “Anything you want, Nikola,” then, with a quiet sweetness, he says, “I’m yours.”

The world shifts, fading into black, white, and arrays of colours I can’t compute. I can’t control it. The descent.

I can’t stop it.

“Fine,” I snap, at the end of my rope and tired of trying. I step back, just enough for him to slide down the wall. “Get on your knees.”

Hagen’s answering moan echoes around the empty library as his eyes seem to fill with hearts before he drops to his knees.

A thud follows, loud enough that I know it hurts, but Hagen doesn’t flinch, he only stares up at me with reverence.

Gods be good.

My magic follows my most depraved thoughts, escaping me with a force I don’t recognise and don’t care to.

I settle my hands over my belt buckle while my magic locks Hagen’s arms behind his back, forcing his chin up and his chest out as it pushes him back into the corner between the aisle and the wall. I follow, crowding him against it as I slide the strip of leather free until he’s buried in shadows between my legs, and Hagen moans gratefully as his eyes drop from my open belt to the bulge against my trousers.

I don’t let myself think. I was tired of thinking, and now I just wanted to feel.

Stiff fingers pop the button of my trousers free and then drag the zipper down. The sound is almost too loud in the quiet space, making it undeniable what was happening here.

Hagen shoulders bunch as he tries to shift, but my magic doesn’t allow him an inch. He would stay still and take it.

Staring into his brightened brown eyes, I silently dare him to look away as I free my cock from its confines, allowing my full length to hover over Hagen’s lifted face. It bucks as Hagen’s gaze shifts to focus instead on my shaft, and then again when a rough breath shudders out of him.

I watch him, waiting for the panic. This was where it usually made its appearance, but it does not come this time.

This time… Gods, this time… Hagen drags his gaze from my cock with what looks like effort before he licks his lips and whispers, “Use me”, before he parts his lips and opens his mouth wide.

“Fuck,” I hear myself groan as I set one hand against the wall and the other over his head to force him back.

Precum drips from my enraged tip, descending over Hagen’s offered tongue, but he doesn’t flinch away. He pushes against my magic, straining forward with all his might until it drops and rolls down the centre of his tongue.

Eyes glazed, he trembles and releases a throaty moan like a starved animal, but he keeps his mouth dutifully open as he waits for the rest.

It’s the undoing of me.

Any sort of sanity that lingers disappears, leaving only my hunger as I dig my fingers into the wall, grip a fistful of his hair and thrust my cock inside his open mouth.

I don’t go slow. I don’t ease him into it.

I feed him every inch.

Hagen chokes as my cock fills his mouth and plunges down his throat. I feel the muscles there tighten, constricting, and I thrust deeper, forcing him to take it all. His eyes bulge and he chokes again as I drag my hips back before I do it again, filling his mouth with my dripping cock, but he still takes it all.

Goddess, he takes it.

Eagerly, he stays put while I use his mouth in the dark corner of the library. Despite every gag, every thrust, and my cock plunging in and out of his mouth, he stares up at me, plaint and willing, and still my good boy.

With a groan, I tighten my grip on his hair, thrusting faster, and Hagen’s gaze turns pleading, desperate for more, and of course, I give him more.

I use Hagen just as he’d asked me, not bothering to be gentle or kind.

I just wanted my cock in that mouth, burrowing down that tight throat, and without a single thought related to anything other than taking what was mine.

Sucking in a shaky breath, I hiss as I ease my hips back, and his teeth graze against my cock. It hurts, a little, but in the same delicious way my head used to hurt when he’d pull my hair, so I don’t correct him.

I ride the edge of that salacious ache before I leave my tip between his swollen lips for a moment. I watch, loving the image of Hagen’s mouth around my cock, and then I thrust back in.

I moan as my cock delves down his slowly-stretching throat, and it echoes throughout the library.

Electric pleasure races up my spine, claiming my entire being as I use Hagen’s mouth until I’m shuddering all over.

My legs shake and my eyes try to close, but I don’t dare let them.

I refuse to miss even a moment of this.

My cock. Inside Hagen’s mouth. I was inside of Hagen’s mouth and he was…

“Ngh! Mhmm! Ungh!” Hagen moans as he swallows around me with each thrust, happily surrendering to the carnal claim.

I stretch his throat, forcing it to learn how to take me, and even as tears stream down his face, Hagen never strains to be free. He doesn’t want to be free.

“Putain,” I curse again as I slow my hips down so his lips drag slowly over my length. “Tighter.”

Hagen’s lips immediately tighten and his cheeks hollow, making me moan as my balls tighten, already on the edge of it.

“Mwh! Agh! Mgh!” Each thrust forces a perverse, gargled sound from Hagen, and each one makes me desperate to force out another one.

Hagen whimpers, gazing up at me imploringly while he squirms. His hips strain beneath me, desperate for friction to appease the bulge between his legs, and his body is locked so tight that his muscles press seductively against his shirt. His arousal is stifling, and so good, I can’t help but inhale it greedily as I fuck his mouth. He should hate this, should want it to stop, and yet, I’d never smelt his arousal so strong.

Whimpering, Hagen blinks past his tears to look up at me.

“I’m not touching you,” I huff as I push his hair back. I wanted to see everything. “This. Is. For. Me.”

Hagen nods around me, his eyes glowing as he tries to suck me between my thrusts.

“Goddess, Hagen,” I growl as I watch his lips work. “You’re swallowing.”

Hagen whines, and there’s no mistaking just how much he wants it. The force of his arousal and desperation that comes torpedoing through our bond weakens my knees, making my balls slap against his chin, and Hagen jolts at the impact before he begins to shake.

He moans loudly around my cock, his eyes roll back, and as he begins to cum, he drags me down with him.

Gripping him tightly, I fuck his face faster, harder too, until books in the aisle fall from the jostling shelf. I use him, taking all his has, thrusting as far as his throat can take me before my orgasm rushes up through me, taking me to the climax and then imploding as I begin to cum.

My cock slides over Hagen’s tongue while I coat it and the back of his throat with my cum. I mark every inch of his throat. I fill his mouth and his gums. His eyes don’t stop rolling, he doesn’t stop choking or cumming, and I can’t stop.

I keep thrusting, cursing him and this world, and as the last threads of my reigns slip from my ever-deft control, my magic bursts from me, except instead of destroying the world around me, it floods into him.

Hagen, my linker, he takes it all. My magic, in all its excess, and it makes his pleasure all the greater as it does mine.

We fall together, tumbling into madness, and in the chaos, there’s pleasure like nothing before. Pleasure I’m free to enjoy without the fear of what I’d do around me, of how Hagen would react. My magic was going to one place now, and Hagen was taking it just as he’d taken me.

It feels like my orgasm has lasted an eternity before my mind returns to itself, and my soul slots back into my body. The ringing in my ears stops, and things come back into focus, but small shockwaves still pass through me, making me shiver as my orgasm takes its time receding.

With a ragged groan, I drop my head against the crook of my arm, trying desperately to catch my breath while my cock remains lodged down his throat, and Hagen is, somehow, still cumming.

I can taste it, I can smell it. Better yet, I can see it.

In every twitch, in every tremor that runs through him.

In the endless tears that stream down his face. He’s still cumming, still riding the wave of my magic, and he loves it.

He loves it.

Looking down, I groan at the sight of the cum seeping past his pants. There’s so much and he hadn’t even touched himself. I hadn’t touched him.

Even now, his arms remain locked behind him, and he’d cum from using his mouth.

I stare down at him, at those empty, brown eyes that focus on nothing anymore while he breathes gently around my cock. His eyes are red-rimmed, his face a mess of tears and snot, and there’s a little cum on the corner of his cheek.

Gathering it with my thumb, I push the digit into his mouth beside my cock, rubbing it into the inside of his cheek and Hagen jerks again as the scent of his arousal grows.

I free the wet digit, wiping it off on his chin before I step even closer to the wall, forcing his head back until every inch of my cock is in his mouth.

Hagen breathes around me, but even as his chest settles and his breaths even out, he doesn’t part his eyes, he doesn’t strain against my magic— against me.

He should be. He should be pulling back, panicking, regretting this, not…

“Goddess,” I sigh as I push his hair back. Hagen trembles against the touch, whimpering between tentative sucks of my length.

It was over.

In all the years of our joined lives, I’d never lost against Hagen. Not once.

I planned for everything. It was how I operated, how I succeeded.

But I hadn’t planned for this, and even when I’d tried, he’d outmanoeuvred me at every turn.

I’d never be able to stay away from him again. Any chance of that was long gone now.

Hagen had done it. He’d broken me.

————–

These two are disgusting, sick, fucked up and I’m OBSESSED WITH THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hagen using Nik’s forks!??!!? – SICK I LOVE

okay okay, thoughts????????????

Thoughts on the build up????? On the scent-jealousy scene from them both????? On Hagen’s other letter hehe???

THOUGHTS ON THE LIBRARY FAST AND ANGRY FACE F**K????????????????????

Some of yall predicted all this shit so I do hope I delivered, if it felt shorter than my usual smut, well it was quick and most definitely some angry sex which was why there was less dialogue and more Nik raging and goddddd

nikola amorenia the man that you are… Hagen you lucky son of a bitch

“you’re swallowing” 🫠

So originally this was going to be a surprise double update, which I meant to do up until I finished editing and realised it hit better all together, but it was gonna stop with the ‘get on your knees’ and then we’d have a full smut chapter, but this works too hehee

I really really hope yall like it! I can’t wait to hear all your thoughts!!!!!!!!

With this, the Control month is over but I’ve decided to restructure my Patreon to make room for more chapters, so stay tuned for that!

Until next time,

Byeeeeeee humansssssssssssssssssssssss