Control (Dark Romance)

Prologue

Sometimes, no matter what you do in life, you're in the wrong.

Even when you try your best, even when you think what you're doing is right, you're still the one everyone gets mad at.

The world has its standards and if you don't meet them, then that's on you.

I never seemed to meet them.

"You can't keep doing this, Nikola," Dad groans while he paces in front of me. "It's wrong. You know it's wrong and yet you do it anyway!"

It's not wrong to want to be with your linker - is what I want to say, but it's not what I say.

Instead, I reply in the way I'm supposed to in situations like these, "I'm sorry." 

It wasn't a lie. I was sorry, to an extent.

I was sorry for upsetting my parents.
I was sorry for causing them trouble.

But I was not sorry for my actions.

I wasn't, because no matter what everyone said - my parents included, I knew that if they had to watch the person they were meant to be with, flirt with other people, they would react in 'overly possessive manners' as well.

It was just how we were, werewolves and witches.
It might be different for other species, maybe a little tamer, but where our species were concerned, if you wanted your other half, then you wouldn't be able to resist the bond.

"You say that, but you'll do it again," my dad accuses with a pointed glare.

I would. Not that I could help it very much. But he wouldn't understand that.

Nobody seemed to understand that where Hagen was concerned, my brain's logical functions fizzled out.

It wasn't just the expected nerves of being around your linker or intended mate, it was the desperate need to make him like me, like he used to. Added to that, there was that neverending anxiety to stop him from loving anyone else.

But I was ten years old, and most considered a body's ageing before a mind's, so nobody really listened to me.

I was used to it.

Dad's dark brown boots stop directly in front of me, putting an end to his taunting pacing and locking us all within the sharp silence that lingers for a moment.

When he sighs, my fingers turn white as I grip my knees.

"I'm sorry," I say again, meaning it a little more this time.

I didn't enjoy making my parents upset, I doubted any child who loved their parents as much as I did was capable of such a thing. I actually hated doing anything that caused them problems or made them sad.

They were good to me, so why would I be bad to them. That would be impractical.

I hadn't intended for this to happen, and it wouldn't have, if Levi hadn't opened his mouth. He was the one who's talked to Ma and told her of all the ways I'd been 'troubling' his little brother recently.

I blamed him for this. I actually wanted to hate him for it too, but I didn't hate people - it took too much energy and time. But I could strongly dislike him, that wasn't so hard, so that's what I did.

"I know you are," Dad finally says, sounding tired and confused. 

It's difficult, hearing him talk like that and knowing I'm the cause of it. 

"But you're still angry with me," I comment as I risk a glance upwards for the first time.

I expected raging grey eyes, a fixed frown and clear disappointment, but I don't find any of that, only that abundant love that was always there.