Control (Dark Romance)

Chapter 4

It was new terrain for me as well.

I couldn't recall a time in my life when I felt so muddled.

I'd always been powerful, so it was easy to find solutions to daily problems; excluding that, I didn't feel that incessant need to impress others that crippled so many.

But this was different; this was the only person I actually wanted to impress, to enamour the same way they did me.

"It's Hagen," I explain as I meet his eyes.

Nodding a little, Dad pats the space beside him, "Come sit."

I don't argue, knowing it was always best to follow his lead. 

I find the space beside him, making the bed groan with both our added wait, but it holds.

The second I'm settled, Dad drapes his arm around my shoulder and forces me to lean against him. It didn't matter that I was almost his size; he still held me as if I were the pup that needed him to tether me back to reality.

"You remember the story of how I met your mom?"

The beginnings of a smile stretch my lips as I nod, "She was drunk and angry when you found her. You both yelled at one another in the woods, and then she passed out."

A heavy laugh rattles his frame, causing us both to shake with the force of it as he pats my arm, "Yeah, that about sums it up. She was my mate, and I was her linker, but that didn't make either of us like the other very much, and that son is the nice way of putting it."

That wasn't a lie. Ma's version of this story wasn't ever so kind in words.

Tension bleeding away, I take my breaths with his and let his words ease my rigged muscles.

I could see this in the past, in memories, Dad's deep voice telling me all sorts of stories on my worst nights until I calmed down, same as I he now.

"I accepted it quicker than she did, knowing that even if I didn't want a witch, that she was my mate, and there was no arguing against that.

"But your mom didn't see it that way. She thought I was a threat to her power, so she wanted to break the bond." He sighs with a slight chuckle, "I knew trying to convince her not to wouldn't work; she's always been stubborn. Trying to stop her would only get me the boot, so I took another approach. I took her side."

It was humorous to hear this story from Dad's side when Ma always said she didn't know what had happened. One minute, she was trying to get rid of the linker life had forced onto her, and then the next, she was living with a mutt who owned her heart.

"It took time, Nik," he continues, careful with his words as always, "lots of time for her to even consider that I was worth the trouble, worth more than her magic and then even more time for her to trust me, love me. It took a lot of time."

His message was clear, a reminder that even after this monumental moment for me, it might take another five years before Hagen would ever trust me after all I'd done.

"There's no one to blame for the state of your relationship with Hagen now," he quickly adds, as if reading the steady decline of my thoughts, "None of us understood it all at the start, if we had, your mom and I would've done a lot more for you then. But there's nothing to be done about that now. You've come a long way now, and that is all you have to show him."

"If he will let me," I reply, my insides turning enough to make the wood panels under our feet begin to melt.

"But you will do it," he presses, his hold on me tightening, "tonight and tomorrow, and however long you choose to keep fighting for him. You'll show him that you're worth it because you are."