Control (Dark Romance)

Chapter 47

Hagen's P.O.V

"I don't want you anymore, Hagen."

The words echo painfully in my head, scraping against the recesses of my mind to burrow deeper as Nikola's rushed steps drift further away.

Everyone had said it. Katerina. Kalem. Lincoln.

They had all said it, and it wasn't that I hadn't believed them. I had, but... I'd been so focused on getting here, on finally being close to him, that I hadn't even given myself the chance to prepare for those exact words coming from Nikola's lips.

Shaking fingers dig into my skin as I clutch at my wrists, trying to keep myself breathing, but it's like he's taken all the air from the room with him. He has. He's taken the air, the light, my hope.....

Tears blur my vision, making it all too easy to picture him back here, with that cold, detached gaze I'd never been the subject of.

I didn't think mates were meant to look at you like that— with so much hatred.

It must've defied some preset law etched into the very fabric of what we were— it felt like it did. It felt wrong and sick, enough to have me swallowing up the bile rising quickly.

I press a shaky hand over my stomach, trying to keep myself still and quiet, but my broken inhales are loud even to my ears, as are the crashing of my heart's shattered pieces as they continue to fall.

When Nikola had left, he'd been angry and hurt, and he'd claimed hatred, but I hadn't actually seen it.

I'd seen it this time. Pure, unfiltered and unkept hatred in those grey eyes that had only ever known love.

I suck in a shuddering breath amidst my barely managed gasps, trying to funnel in the air while everything inside of me tries to shut down. Of course things couldn't be fixed in a day, but... Nikola wanted nothing to do with me.

My fingers claw at my chest, pawing desperately at it to ease the pain, but there's no easing this.

Soul-crushing was what it was like when Nikola had left months ago, leaving nothing behind but long-denied truths and guilt and want. But this— when he'd just looked me in the eye and told me that he did not want me anymore— this... this was heartbreaking.

Heart. Breaking.

Twice now, I'd seen Nikola angry and stood as the subject of it, and it wouldn't be the last. I knew that much, and as terrifying as that scorching thought of the future was, I don't let it stop me from turning and following after him.

Nikola did not want me anywhere near him. He'd made that perfectly clear from the way he'd practically plastered himself against the window sill, but I would not— could not— give him space.

Space was what he'd given me, and while it worked sometimes, for the most part, I'd just used it to push us further apart. Nikola was not me, but he'd use it the same way. He'd put more and more distance between us, and I was not nearly as patient as Nikola to endure that.

I would wait years if I had to, but that didn't mean I intended to.

I'm almost at the door when a familiar figure fills it, casting looming shadows over me and the depths of the room as I stumble back.

Horror engulfs me all at once as Lincoln's red eyes zone in on me, his kill.

"He didn't reject me!" I shout as I cast my arms up in a feeble shield as he rushes at me. Scared outside of my own body, I register the hand that stills mere centimetres from my face, with sharpened nails poised to puncture flesh. My flesh. Heart pounding, I look at him through the cracks of his fingers, not daring to move other than to stutter out, "H-He didn't r-r-reject me."