a/n for those who like music, writing and editing this chapter felt like going through the motions of the entire book for me, so I listened to most of the songs on the Control playlist

Link to my Spotify!

——

Hagen’s POV

Everything feels…

Good isn’t right. Good isn’t enough, because everything feels more than good. It feels…

I picture petals falling from some high treetop where the wind keeps them afloat forever, never letting them touch the ground, and I think I feel like that. And that’s such a weird thought, so out of place for me that I know something isn’t right. But how can that be when everything feels like drifting petals?

Mind fuzzy, I try to hone my senses, but it’s hard when they’re all separate now. Before, they all worked together so I could see the world like everyone else; now, they were isolated, like individuals, and I could only focus on one at a time.

When I used my nose, there was Nikola. Nikola everywhere— beneath my skin, in my lungs, in my soul— and that made my already heavy chest sink deeper into this fuzzy oasis of petals and pleasure.

So much pleasure.

I feel my lips pull apart as contentment loops through me, like the magic still vibrating inside my veins. It’s a buzzing feeling, like little starbursts of energy that made the aches in my shoulders and knees melt from my body.

I try my eyes next. They’re a little open, and I think they’ve been that way for a while, but it’s only when I really focus on them that I see things.

There’s stone and steam, and then there’s… water? None of it makes sense and I don’t mind that for some reason, not until I feel myself sinking into that water.

My body tenses, pushing the petal feeling back and making some sound creep from my throat until I feel it. Him.

Nikola.

I know his hands— they’re the best hands in the world, and they always touch me just the way I like, the way they touch me now. They’re soft and yet strong, and they make me forget all about the water and stone as I lean into the touches, wanting more.

The petals sail and so do I, lost with them for so long that I don’t remember that that was weird in the first place until the water is gone.

I feel my brows tug together, following the single neuron that tries to stitch together what is going on.

How had I gotten here? Where was here?

The last thing I remembered was Nikola. Nikola, with his stormy grey eyes, the ones that bore into me but never looked away. Nikola, and how good it felt to be the centre of that gaze again.

I hadn’t realised just how much I’d missed it until I’d had it again and then… I think that’s when I first felt the flowers, and that was before I even tasted him.

I shudder, stomach warming at the memory that has me curling tight. I want more. I want Nikola. I want my Nikola.

Eyebrows tightening, I try to move but my body is like a boulder, way too heavy and refusing to move on its own. But bodies weren’t supposed to feel like that; I wasn’t supposed to feel like that. My chest tightens with panic as I push against the blurred pleasure, trying to wake up, even though I know I’m awake.

Something was wrong.

Arms wrap around me, circling tightly, possessively, and I know it’s him again, and how could anything be wrong if Nikola was here, holding me?

I part my gaze again, and it takes so much effort but it’s worth it when I see him.

Nikola looks down at me with a frown of his own, but it’s not his angry frown. He’s not mad at me, finally. I blink twice when he becomes blurry and then sink again when I see him clearly.

He’s wearing his worried frown. Maybe something really was wrong, but nothing feels wrong with him so close. I stare at him, willing my eyes to stay open longer, but it’s so hard.

Nikola’s lips move, but I don’t hear his words. It’s then that I realise I haven’t heard anything in a while. I try. I try so hard because it might be important, but I still can’t hear him.

Sadness trickles into some soft part of me, somewhere near my heart, and Nik becomes blurry again.

I’m sinking and not in a good way, and it’s scary and horrible and—

Gentle fingers card through my hair, running over my scalp, and then everything is perfect. I lean into the touch, wanting more and he gives me more.

My eyes become heavy again, the world drifting away, and even though I love it, I try to stay awake so I don’t miss this, but then soft lips press against my forehead, and everything goes dark…

————————

My eyes open with an alertness that wakes me faster than usual. One moment I’m asleep, and the next, I am very awake, too awake.

I look around hastily, needing details to get my brain functioning; only the ones I find come crashing in on top of each other and none of them are familiar.

Instead of the dimly lit husk of the room I’d been staying in, I’m greeted by warmth and someone’s aged self that I somehow know in an instant. I spot a number of stacked books on the shelf to the left and a familiar pair of boots tucked beside a door on the right, but my brain doesn’t register why I recognise them until my gaze runs up the silk sheets beneath me and onto the muscled arm draped over me.

I tense, my body locking up like a recoiled gun. It’s shock and confused ignorance at first that makes me want to lunge, but then a second later, it all comes rushing in and I remember it all.

Nikola’s anger and his resistance. Nikola glaring at me in the library. Nikola shouting, begging me to stop lying. Nikola cornering me. Nikola’s grey eyes filled with anger, and lust, and need.

Nik above me. Nik in my mouth. Nikola’s cock. Nikola’s cum.

I swallow, only the action comes with a simmering ache in my throat that reminds me just how forceful he’d been with me.

I swallow again, shuddering in ecstasy as the sensation ripples through me again.

Heart racing, I stare at the hand tightly curled around my torso and will myself not to move an inch and risk disturbing this perfect dream.

It wasn’t a dream. I knew that. He was right here. I could see him, smell him and feel the heat of his powerful body wrapped around my back, but it felt like one, and I couldn’t let it go so soon, not after everything it’d taken to get here.

Only Goddess knew what Nik would do once the lust cleared enough for him to remember his previous anger and resistance, but if he was going to push me away, to banish me, then I wanted to enjoy what little time I had left to be this close to him.

My soul vibrates anxiously within my body to turn and look at him, but what if that woke him? What if he pushed me away again? My heart clenches painfully, resisting such a thought with so much might it makes my next breath a strained one. I try to slow it, to settle my racing heart, but every effort to calm it only makes the hammering rhythm louder and faster, and my breaths follow suit.

“What are you doing?”

I freeze for the second time since I’ve woken up, only for an entirely different reason.

With all the courage I can muster, I slowly crane my head back until I catch sight of Nik. He’s already staring at me, looking somewhere between confused and annoyed, and for a second I worry my panicking woke him, but he doesn’t look tired. Despite the way his hair brackets his face in an overlapping, somehow perfect mess— which is distractingly beautiful— he looks very much awake. And Goddess, he’s gorgeous.

Nik was an attractive person; there was never any denying that, but by Goddess’ grace… how had I ever stayed away? I didn’t want to stay away ever again. I wanted to kiss him all the time, kiss every inch of him and make him feel as dazed as he made me feel just watching him breathe.

“Hagen.”

“Huh? Yes,” I blink with some effort, trying desperately to remember what was last said. “I… what happened?”

Nikola’s frown returns, but it’s not nearly as harsh as what I’d grown used to. “I’m not sure,” he says as he pulls away. My heart drops, fearing he’s about to get up, but he only lies on his back, taking with him the arm he’d placed around me. I turn to face him quickly, chasing the embers of his touch until I’m curled on my side where the edges of his fingers can brush against my stomach.

Nik’s gaze rests idly on the ceiling as he continues, “You were conscious, but barely. You were…” he pauses, his gaze dropping back to mine. Goosebumps immediately sprout all over my skin as I struggle not to squirm. “I’m not sure,” he says instead of whatever he was about to say. “You seemed overwhelmed.”

Overwhelmed seemed like a good way to put it.

I don’t think I’d ever felt anything like that in my life. On one side, there was the act itself— the pleasure of being fixed in one place while Nik finally gave in to me. Even knowing it’d eventually happen, I’d been terrified of giving him a blowjob for months, that I wouldn’t like it, that I’d hate the feel of a cock in my mouth, but when it’d actually happened, I’d only been scared that I wouldn’t be good enough.

Nik didn’t give me the chance to not be good enough.

He’d just… taken what he’d wanted, using my mouth like it wasn’t even attached to me, and no matter how much I choked or gagged, it was enough to stop him. Which was good cause I didn’t want him to stop.

It hurt, and it was scary, but it was also so good.

Nik didn’t taste like anything specifically, nothing so sharp or distinctive that I could give it its own name, but having him on my tongue— having him in my body— had parts of me I never even knew jerking to life. It fed off his pleasure, so every grunt made me harder, every curse, happier, and when I’d realised he was going to cum, because of me, I’d lost it.

I’d never cum like that, without even touching myself, and somehow, it’d been the best orgasm of my life. Endless. Perfect. Centred around him.

That was the first part. The second was the pleasure that came after.

It wasn’t like anything I’d ever known or heard of. It was like flying and floating, sinking and falling all at once. Suddenly, every fear I’d ever harboured, all the stress I learned to live with, the anxiety of never having Nik again, it all just disappeared, like it didn’t exist at all. There was no worrying about how we fit, what people would think, how I’d get Nik to trust me again, to love me again. It all just disappeared and with it gone, I sank into some weird limbo world where nothing else mattered.

“I brought you to my room. I cleaned you, and you fell asleep,” he continues, reclaiming my attention. “You slept for five hours.”

“You…” I clear my throat, “you did all of that?” Nikola stares at me with an unreadable expression, but he eventually nods. “You watched me sleep?”

That makes him stiffen, and he watches me even closer, trying to gauge where I’m at like it’s not painfully obvious that I want him to say yes. His only answer should be yes.

“I did,” he admits a little harshly, almost daring me to respond with anger or indignation. “Not to make sure you were okay, but because I wanted to.”

Goddess have fucking mercy.

Growing up and witnessing mated wolves, I’d always thought it was crazy that a few words could have them running off for privacy, but I got it now. One sentence from Nikola and I was trying my hardest not to get hard again.

It was a wonder that he hadn’t already kicked me out of what was apparently his bedroom, and I didn’t want to trigger that impulse, but Goddess… I was only one very weak man.

I part my lips to speak because responding was probably the right thing to do here, but my throat strains, making me cough a little before I can ever get a syllable out. I palm my throat, trying to ease the numbing ache there, and Nikola’s gaze immediately drops, following the movement, and then pulling tighter as he seems to remember the cause.

“You’re in pain,” he states with some annoyance.

“It only hurts a little,” I admit, and though his frown deepens, there’s no missing the way his eyes darken with pleasure.

Nikola’s gaze never parts from my throat as he swallows slowly before he speaks, “I can fix it, if you want.”

“I don’t want that,” I reply honestly.“I like it.”

Whatever brief awkwardness had just been about dissolves entirely with the naked truth on the table now.

Nikola stares at me, his gaze never parting, and he looks entirely fine, even while his fingers twitch against my stomach, brushing the skin there and making my body burn with rekindled light. His grey eyes are guarded now, but staring into them reminds me of how alive they’d been hours ago.

The way they’d looked down at me, never withdrawing, watching me so closely while his hips had thrust cruelly, driving his cock down my throat.

“Hagen,” Nikola calls, reclaiming my attention.

I blink again, trying to focus my mind. I could still just about feel the edges of that happy place. It was receding quickly as the real world slotted back into place, but it was making me distracted when I should be nothing but focused on Nik.

“I asked if you are okay,” he repeats when I only stare at him.

“I think so,” I reply honestly, but that only makes Nik’s frown deepen, almost like he cares. My heart jumps up hopefully, and I can’t stop myself from asking, “Would you care if I wasn’t?”

Nikola’s eyes bore into mine, and in them, there’s a storm of emotions I can barely grasp. They flit by while his jaw clenches, and I know I’ve pushed my luck too much, but instead of getting up and leaving like I probably would, Nik sighs.

“Yes,” he answers reluctantly, but I don’t care. The single word pours joy into my world, making it brighten all over like some kid’s imaginary sanctum. I fist the sheets, just barely stopping myself from grabbing hold of some part of him.

“You…” Deep breaths, Hagen. Nikola looks plainly at me. He lies, waiting, and fuck it— I stop trying to find the right words, I never could anyway. “I got you back, didn’t I?”

Once again, Nikola sighs— actually, he closes his eyes, his fingers twitch, and then he sighs— but after, he nods, and that’s all it takes.

Any chance of my respecting his space goes out the fucking window as I all but dive for him.

I hear myself scream, or maybe squeal, I don’t fucking know. Some jagged sound comes from my wrecked throat while my legs kick out beneath me and I wrap my arms around his neck and squeeze. Nik’s chest rumbles with some soft laugh, his arms circle around my waist, pulling me in tight, and I think for sure I’m dreaming this time cause nothing has ever felt this good before.

If I am, then it’s a cruel one because while I hold onto Nikola for dear life, Zyair does laps in our mind, performing an entire cheerleading routine while he mixes up his words with screams and growls, until there’s nothing but verbalised confetti coming from him.

He’s mine again. Finally mine.

Nuzzling Nik’s neck, I inhale his scent until it’s all I know again, and Nik groans beneath me as his hold on me tightens. I melt into his touch, never wanting there to be another barrier between us. Just the thought of it makes me feel nauseous.

“I got you back,” I whisper as I grudgingly pull back to look at him.

Nik nods again as he looks at me, “I didn’t think you would. I didn’t think you could push me to this point.” I must grin because he frowns, looking slightly annoyed in that way he always did as a kid when I beat him in Connect 4. “But you did.”

“I did,” I repeat, and I am grinning. I can feel it. “You’re mine, and I am never letting you go again.”

Nikola stays quiet this time while his eyes search mine. I wanted the words to make him happy, even if it was reluctantly so, but I can’t tell what they do to him; his face is painfully blank. I frown.

I hate that I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I always could, even when he was angry with me, but it’s vacant now, as if he’s still holding some part of himself back from me.

“What is it?”

Nik’s eyes widen a little but his surprise clears as he answers, “You are right— I am yours. We’re linked and—”

“We’re linked?!” I exclaim, too shocked to stop myself.

Nikola blinks at me, letting a moment pass before he says, “Yes.” He says it very calmly, like it’s not a big deal, like it’s not one of the two life bonds holding us together, just completed like that.

“When?! H-How? ” I stammer, “I thought we had to mate and stuff.”

I feel my face heat but I ignore it. Nikola doesn’t, he stares at my burning face for a good handful of seconds before he inhales deeply and drags his gaze back to me.

“Linkers do not have to have sex to complete their life-bond,” he exclaims carefully while his thumb brushes over the dip of my spine. “It’s a common misconception that they do because it does require both parties to be in a state of extreme vulnerability for that link to form, and for many, that is a state found in the midst of intercourse.”

I wrinkle my nose, trying to ignore his scientific terms to focus on what he was saying, “But we were vulnerable with each other? In the library?” Nikola nods. “So much so that it was enough to link us together?”

“Yes,” Nikola answers. “I… I have never fully released the full depths of my magic, maybe once before, but not like that. I couldn’t help it in the earlier but you were there, and instead of fearing it, you accepted it, to the point that … it channelled through you.”

“And now we’re linked,” I conclude, my grin back in full force.

I didn’t feel any different than before. I mean, I could feel Nikola’s magic in me like it used to be, plus stronger than before, and maybe that was the link, or maybe it wasn’t. I didn’t care— link or not, bond or not, he was still all mine.

“We’re linked,” I repeat with a giggle. “You’re really mine.”

“Even if we weren’t linked, you’d still be mine again. You are mine, Hagen,” Nikola declares, each word a trained hard thing, like a threat, and Goddess, I love them. “I will never allow you to take another breath where you can not feel me within it, and if you grow to regret this, I won’t care. But… I don’t think this is for the best.”

I force myself to nod, to listen, even while those last words strip away all my joy to force a blade through the centre of my heart.

“I do not think I can forgive you for what you said to me, Hagen— what you accused me of. I do not know if I will ever be able to push away the hate I feel for you when I think about everything I endured for you, and I do not know of any bond, or link, to survive amongst hatred.”

“Oh, that’s okay!” I don’t mean to sound so happy, but to hear this is his worry absolves me completely of mine. Nikola frowns at me like I’m crazy, so I speak quickly. “You’re right. No bond I know of has anything but love within it. That’s what it’s all about, but ours isn’t a normal bond, Nikola.”

“You’re saying that we are doomed and that you are fine with that?” He asks, but even at that premise, his hold on me doesn’t loosen any.

“No,” I correct as I shake my head. “I’m saying that there was always more to us. I hated you too, for a long time, and honestly, I don’t know whether or not I still do. I probably do, a little, and the whole time you tried to make up for what you did in the past, I think we kept failing because I’ll never be able to forgive you for all of it; not really…” Nik’s gaze drops, but I duck to catch it, “but that’s okay. I don’t have to. Just like you don’t have to forgive me for what I said, what I did to you. You can hate me for it, once you know I’m sorry.” I stop to look at him, to really look at him. “You know that I’m sorry, right?”

Nikola’s eyes search mine for a moment before he nods, “I do. But it doesn’t get rid of the pain or the hurt you caused me. I’m still angry.”

“So be angry,” I encourage and I know I sound deranged, but I don’t care. “Be angry at me. Take it out on me. Hate me, never forgive me, and I’ll do the same.”

Nikola frowns at me, and I know I’m fucking this up.

“Fuck, Damon explained this way better,” I grumble as I rub a palm over my head, hoping the friction would activate dormant brain cells.

“Damon?” Nikola echoes, his nose wrinkling with disgust. “What does he have to do with this?”

“Nothing, forget him,” I beg while I try to save this before I really fucked it up. “I’m saying you can be angry at me and hate me, and I can do the same if I need to and we’ll still be okay ‘cause we’re us.”

“Hagen,” Nikola sighs and I hate to hear him say my name like that. “How can you tell me you might always hate me, that you’ll never forgive me, but in the same breath, tell me you want me?”

My lips part, and here it is.

I’ve been waiting to share these words from the moment Levi and Damon had shaken me out of my stupor and made me face the truth I hid from. They’d been sitting on my tongue for months, waiting for the moment I would free them, because it had to be the right time, otherwise they would be lost amongst all the hurt.

In all the ways I’d imagined it, I’d never thought it’d be like this.

I’d imagined doing it after a date I’d arranged for us, something wonderful and sweet and thoughtful like all the dates Nikola had ever taken me on. I imagined putting in all that effort and then some, so he knew without a doubt that he was loved before I even said the words.

And I still could. I knew I could, but what was the point of all that when now, stripped bare as we were after all we’d been through, I could say them, and he’d know it was real, that it was really me.

Shuffling closer, I palm Nikola’s face in one of my hands, making sure he’s looking at me and only me, and then I give him the only part of me left for him to claim.

“I can say it because I know, no matter how much I may hate you for our past, it’s nothing compared to how much I love you now.”

Nikola’s eyes widen, possibly wider than I’d ever seen them. His heart stutters over each rushed beat, and the world around us grows impossibly quiet in a way I know can only be caused by magic. Except, where his lost control usually made things fall apart, everything is still now, like he’s frozen time, leaving us alone within it.

“W-What?” He stammers, voice shaking in a horribly vulnerable way I hate to hear from his lips.

He’s scared. Scared to hope. Scared to believe it. Scared to have this, after all this time, and knowing that I’d put that fear in him breaks my heart.

Nikola may never forgive me for how I treated him for years, but I would never forgive myself for making him so scared to hope that I’d ever feel the same way for him that he’d always felt for me.

“I love you, Nikola.” The words come easily, almost embarrassingly so, but I don’t dare hold them back, or any of the others that want to come out. I’ll never let another day go by without saying them to him. “I love you. I love everything about you. I love how blunt you are, I love how kind you are, I love how selfish you are. I love how much you love me. I love the way you smile when you finish any chapter of any book, I love how angry you get if it starts raining, but then stops within ten minutes. I love how obsessed you are with penguins. I love the way you say my name. I love how you look at me, even when you’re angry with me. I love the way you take control of me. I love the way you’ve always forced your way into my life because you know you belong in it. I love the way you laugh, I love how you smell, I love the way you fucking breathe. Nikola… I love you. I love everything about you. Everything. I just… I love you.”

Nikola stares at me, lips parted now and eyes still impossibly wide. He stares at me with this unreadable expression.

There’s no way to pinpoint it because it’s not just one thing. It’s a world of emotions, and it makes our bond vibrate from its very core.

It would be lost on me if not for the fact that I recognise that look.

It was the same way I’d looked at Nik from the very beginning, during all the moments I tried to contend with the reality that I could so deeply want one person— love and need one person, even after all we’d been through, even after all the ways they’d hurt me. It had seemed unthinkable, insane, but it had always been the truth of us.

No matter what, we were destined; beyond the bond, beyond the link, the way I loved Nik defied all sense. It just was, and it would never be wiped away.

The world distorts around us, as if the wall is blending in with the floor, or we’re being swallowed by a black hole, but I don’t dare to look at it. I don’t care to. I spent my life trying to look at everything other than the person I loved the most, and I would not make that mistake again.

I keep my eyes on Nikola.

“Say it again,” he whispers, voice quiet.

Leaning in so that we’re only inches apart, I say it again, “I love you.”

“Again,” he demands, his voice like gravel now, “with my name.”

“I love you, Nikola.”

Nikola blinks to clear his gaze as a tear slips free, “Again.”

I wipe the tear away and fight back my own as I look at him, only at him. “I love you, Nikola.”

“Again—”

“I love you, Nikola,” I repeat, bringing his hand to my lips so I can kiss his knuckles. “I love you, Nikola. I love you, Nikola. I love you, Nikola. I love y—”

I don’t get the chance to continue as Nikola forces my head up so that he can claim my lips. His fingers slip between mine and latch on hard as I sink into him, opening myself the way I do my heart, and Nikola comes flooding in.

Magic, love, and want. It all crashes into the spaces we’d created breaking each other apart.

Nik’s lips move carefully over mine, somehow tender even with the tidal wave of want and joy radiating off of him. It passes through me with a force so strong I can barely breathe against its tide.

Nikola loves me.

I feel it. I feel it the same way I feel how much he’s always loved me, the way he loves me just as much as I love him, if not more— which is impossible because Goddess knows I love him too much.

Nikola’s love is like a vice, one that will never let me go. Nikola’s love is like the sunshine, always clearing away the darkness.

Nikola’s love is obsessive. Protective. Strong. Never-ending. Devoted. Just like mine had learned to be.

Nikola’s love is also mine. It’d always been mine.

I love you, Nikola — I continue through our link and he parts our kiss to release a staggered breath.

“You—.” It’s accusatory, but when I part my gaze, he’s smiling at me with so much love I miss my next breath. How long had it been since he’d looked at me like that— had he ever allowed himself to look at me like that? With all the love he held for me? “I never stood a chance against you, did I?”

My heart jumps and flutters out a tune just for him as I smile against his lips, “No, you didn’t.”

Nikola makes a soft sound as if the admission heals him and breaks him all at once. I kiss him again, desperately, hungrily, and with so much love it makes him melt beneath me.

“I know it took me a long time to get here, but I’m here now,” I promise between kisses. “I’m here, Nikola. I’m yours, and I promise you, Nik… you’re never getting rid of me. I’d live inside of you if I could.”

Nik groans as he tugs me closer until I’m lying over him. “You can not say things like that, Hagen.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” He echoes with a surprised laugh. “Look around, Hagen.”

Reluctantly, I force my gaze away from my mate and take a look around, only now realising that we’re no longer in his bedroom. We are, kind of. The bed is here, the boots and the books too, but they’re floating on nothing, and the tiles of the floor hover just beyond the bed’s frame. Around us, the world is a mix of colours and shapes that don’t really make up anything familiar.

“My magic is out of my control,” Nikola admits, sounding ashamed and looking it when I return my gaze to him. “It will not hurt you. I would never hurt you.”

“I know that,” I reply before he can finish such a silly thought. “I can feel it, inside me. In a good way.” I explain when Nikola frowns, “It’s like… latching onto me, using me. I like it.”

“Gods, Hagen,” Nikola breathes as he settles a hand over his face like he’s trying to claim a second to gather himself but fuck that. If we were going to do this, I didn’t want anyone thinking anymore.

I pull his fingers down, forcing him to look at me again, forcing him to contend with me.

“I’m not holding back anymore,” I warn him while I look into those stunning eyes. “I’m done with hiding or trying to be normal. From now onwards, I’m going to tell you how much I love you every single day, and I’m going to be honest about everything— everything I want, everything I feel.” My smile grows again as I stare at him, “I’m still going to write you a letter every day.”

“Please,” Nikola whispers, and it half sounds like a plea for mercy, and half like a plea for exactly that. I go for the latter.

“I’ll be honest in them. I’ll tell you everything, like the fact that I only fall asleep at night when I think about you,” I confess, making Nikola’s eyes glow as he stares at me with such intensity, I have no choice but to give him more. “I just want to be with you, in all the ways we want. I don’t care what anyone else thinks or what they’ll say. I would sacrifice everything to be with you. All I want, all I need, is you, Nikola.”

“Hagen,” Nikola moans my name and I shudder at the sound of it.

“Yes?” I reply, waiting for more, but Nik manages nothing other than staring at me like he used to, like I’m his everything.

I close my eyes before the tears can slip free as I kiss him again until I’m whimpering at how right it all feels.

It had always felt right, from our first kiss, from our first date, from the moment he’d first looked at me when barely knew what love was and told me I was his. But it’d been scary then, too much.

Now, it’s perfect. It’s what I need, and all I want for the rest of my life.

I kiss Nikola until I’m twitching from the currents running within my veins, until I’m almost numb with pleasure, until my head is all dazed again and I’m so relaxed I’m pretty sure my soul is about to slide out of me.

“There’s one more thing,” I mumble when I’ve managed the strength to pull back. When I look at him, Nik is the one who takes several seconds blinking to realign his thoughts. I wait until he’s present to finish, “If you ever— ever— dare tocarry another person’s scent, I’m going to skin you alive, Nikola.”

Nikola’s magic surges around us, making everything brighter and blinding me within the time he takes to roll us over so that I’m on my back, and he’s the one making up my entire world. His hair brackets around me, closing me into him, and I never want to leave.

I stare up at him, into his captivating eyes that flash between grey and purple until I’m high on his love, his scent, him, to the point that I have to fight on every breath to stop myself from drowning inhis kisses again.

“You mean it,” he whispers, and at first I think it’s a question until I realise it’s a statement, one he’s surprised to make himself. “You mean it all. It’s the truth. Every word. Everything you’ve said these past weeks. You meant it.”

I nod, passing my hands over his shoulders so that we’re as connected as we can be.

“You need me,” he says.

“I need you,” I admit.

“You’ve always needed me.”

“Always.”

“You can’t live without me,” he declares, and I smile.

“There’s nothing without you. Nothing outside of you.”

“That’s not healthy,” he says, but even as he does, his eyes are glowing my favourite shade of purple and he’s smiling.

Goddess, I love his smile.

“No, it’s not,” I admit, but I’m smiling too. “But I don’t care, and I know you couldn’t care less. Once you have me, that’s all that matters to you.”

Nikola’s lips twitch a little, “How do you do that?”

“Do what?” I ask while I trail my fingers down to circle over his chest, right where his heart was, my heart.

“Know me?” He replies, and never before has it been so easy to answer a question.

“I love you,” I answer, my heart beating with his. “I love you, so I know you.”

Nikola’s eyes become blurry again, tears filling them quickly, and as each tear falls, I’m right there to wipe it away. I’m right here, waiting on him, waiting for him, with everything that I have and everything that I am, as he’d always done.

“You love me,” he repeats. This statement comes with more surety than all the rest, and yet the words still shake as he dares to utter them.

“I love you,” I promise, holding him close. “I love you, Nikola, and I will never, ever, stop loving you.”

Nikola’s lips find mine again as he sinks onto me, giving me his full weight, giving me everything because he’s done holding back. The weight of him is perfect, the depth of his love, bottomless and overwhelming, and yet it’s exactly what I need to breathe.

Nikola stops holding back, I stop running, and for the first time possibly in our lives, I think we’re exactly as we’re meant to be.

Nik’s tears fall against my skin, running down my cheeks and joining with mine, but we don’t part, don’t dare to. Even as my lungs tighten and my chest aches, I don’t tear away from him. I needed him more than air, more than anything, and now that I finally had him, I wouldn’t let anything take him from me again, not even my own foolishness.

Nikola Amorenia was mine, and that was another fact I would never let him doubt again.

——————————

It’s strange how easily we fit together when everything else is stripped away.

There’s no awkwardness as Nikola climbs from the bed while the world slowly slides back together as it should be, and takes me with him. None as I follow behind him as he opens a wardrobe to dress himself, and I watch closely for the whole process.

Before, after we’d shared anything good, it would be taken away as quickly as it had come.

I would pull away or be reminded of some awful thing, or Nik would move too fast for what I was ready for, and it’d all come tumbling down like a tower of Jenga. But there’s none of that now. There’s no room for it.

There’s no me and Nik, two separate pieces of a whole. There’s only us, one thing, and there’s no tearing us apart.

It’s scary to think that if this is how it feels now, what would it be like when we’re properly mated?

Ahhhh!! Don’t even! I’m barely keeping it together as it is — Zyair warns in an excited squeal — Think about mating and I’ll have no choice but to go first!

I chuckle but resist getting into a fight about who gets to go first as I focus my thoughts entirely on Nikola’s toned back and firm ass.

I think we would’ve stayed naked in bed for another five hours if not for the fact that my stomach had decided to grumble like it was attached to a megaphone.

Zyair had been so embarrassed that he’d tried to beat me to death for shaming us before he scurried away, leaving me alone to deal with it. I’d tried to hide in Nikola’s shoulder until he’d forced me up with a pat, stating very seriously that it was time to get proper food in me.

I didn’t know what time it was, my internal clock all sorts of fucked up, but I was pretty sure it was nowhere near breakfast which was just fine ‘cause right now, I just wanted to be with my Nik.

Nikola plucks free a clean pair of boxers before he meets my gaze in the mirror. A quiet challenge sparks within his eyes as he rolls his shoulders back, making his nudity impossible to ignore. He watches me closely as he turns, exposing himself to me as if he thinks I might look away. When I don’t, taking the time to run my gaze down his body and then back up extra slowly instead, his smile widens into something deviant before he dresses himself shamelessly in front of me.

“What should I wear?” I ask once he’s done and I’m still standing there naked, and okay, it’s not awkward, but embarrassing enough for heat to fill my chest and race up my neck.

Nik was mine, and he could do whatever he wanted with me, but he was still Nik— a wolf that was five years younger than me. Though where that used to make me feel weird, it just had a depraved lust pulsing through me.

“These,” he states as he frees more of his clothing from the drawers.

“You can use magic to get the clothes in my room,” I remind him, biting back my smile as he whirls to pin me with an irritated look. “What?”

“Stop testing me,” he warns, his voice hard like it’d been in the library.

I drop my hands, trying to hide the way my cock twitches with interest. “You like it when I do.”

Nikola’s eyes narrow, not denying it but not playing either, “Keep this up, and you won’t wear anything at all.”

My heart drops, real fear encroaching as Nikola’s lips spread into a wicked smile. He wouldn’t actually do that to me, but he could… and fuck, would he? I didn’t really know, not with how unfamiliar we were to each other when we were like this. Worse yet, I didn’t know whether or not I’d listen if he was actually serious.

“As you said yourself, if you carry any other’s scent on you, I will skin you, Hagen,” he threatens, and I can tell he means every word. I bite back a moan. Nikola holds his clothes out for me, “I can barely stand your own.”

Lust evaporated, I glare at him, “You love my scent!”

“On me,” he corrects, returning my glare. “You should only carry mine.”

“Oh.” My short-lived anger fizzles out, replaced instead by jittery pleasure and a wave of happiness that has me smiling down at my feet. “Then,” I shift, clutching the clothes to my chest, “can you scent me now?” I look at him, “Can we do that again? Like we used to, only all the time from now onwards?”

Nikola’s joy joins my own, rushing through the bond and the link with a persistence that has me swaying towards him. Nik’s hands reach out to steady me and he holds me by my shoulders while I stare up at him, wanting it now.

I held myself back all this time because I physically couldn’t scent him, but I wanted it now desperately, especially with the ache of what he’d done to me almost faded to nothing.

“Please,” I beg, my breath catching as my need grows at a deliriously fast pace. “I-It’s been so long, and—”

My words are stolen from me as Nikola’s hands move to my neck and his thumbs press over my scent glands. The world shutters out, falling into blissful silence as his scent invades my body like his magic, seeping into all the places meant for just him and unbinding my muscles into a weightless, lump of nothing.

A keening sound crawls up my throat, filling the room, and it’s humiliating even to my ears, but I have no control over it as I clasp the clothes to my nose, further cementing myself in a world of just Nikola.

“We will scent each other often, Hagen,” Nikola breathes as he steps closer to me, drifting one hand down to my wrist so he’s scenting me from two places. “Whenever we want, as much as we want. You don’t have to ask— you won’t have to ask. My scent will be all you know.”

“Nik,” I whimper as I try to work in a breath, but there’s only him. “N-Nik.”

“That’s it,” he encourages as I find myself slumped against his chest, naked, and so hard I’m leaking all over myself, but I don’t care. “I’ll give you what you need, p—”

My moan devolves into an enraged snarl at not only the disturbance that comes in the form of a very insistent knock, but that its arrival comes now, just when Nikola was about to give me back my name.

It was the only thing he hadn’t shared yet, and I wanted it so badly I could kill whoever was on the other side of that door.

“Nikola,” a voice calls, and I know it anywhere. Aunty Kat.

Well, shit.

—————

I think I’m going to call it and say these two are my new favourite (I’m so sorry Damon and Will 😭)

Thoughts??????

Thoughtssss on Subspace Hagen???? Thoughts on Nik’s little bit of resistance before Hagen’s love confession????? Thoughts on the confession ughhhhh

Hagen you sweet lovable little shit. I love that his love confession was like nonsensical brain vomit and it’s just so him!!!! UGH and Nik asking him to keep saying it while he teared up, yeah that got me!

God, I love these two. They’re so sweet and deranged and obsessive and pure in some ways I LOVE THEM!

I don’t even care what’s coming next chapter, like it does not worry me in the slightest, cause these two are really locked in. If anything, I think it’ll be a laugh to see people’s reactions

Also, THEY’RE LINKED!!!!!!!!!!! It just felt right, especially with Nikola’s descriptions from the last chapter! I love love love it

UGH from Chapter 50-52 I’m gonna be rereading a shitload!

Welp, that’s all for now! Please leave all thoughts and comments! I read them all even if I don’t reply

And if you haven’t heard, in addition to Patreon, extras are now available on my website for those in countries where Patreon isn’t available – my website is tippysuniverse.com

Until next time,

Byeeeeeeeeee humanssssssssss