"Micah," he says, my name rough in his throat. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."
Neither of us moves for a long, suspended moment. Then, as if pulled by the bond between us, we both step forward at the same time.
When Nick's arms close around me, the physical relief is immediate and intense. The bond-ache begins to subside, replaced by a warmth that spreads from the mark on my neck throughout my body. I press my face into his chest, breathing in his scent, feeling his heart hammer against my cheek.
But even as my body relaxes into his embrace, my mind won't quiet. He's here because the bond forced him back. Because the physical pain became unbearable. Not because he chose me, but because biology gave him no choice.
"I shouldn't have left," he murmurs into my hair. "I thought...I thought I needed space to think, to process everything. But all I could think about was you."
Relief and hurt war in my chest. He came back. But why? Because he missed me, or because the bond made staying away impossible?
"We need to talk," I say, pulling back slightly, needing to see his face. "About what happened. About what it means."
Nick's eyes, those blue eyes I've loved for nine years, meet mine with an intensity that steals my breath. But underneath the relief, I can see the guilt, the conflict, the uncertainty that drove him away this morning.
"Yeah," he agrees, his voice low. "We do."
Whatever comes next, whatever Nick has to say about our bond and our future, I know one thing for certain: he's here because his body gave him no choice. The bond demanded proximity regardless of what he truly wants.
And that might be the most devastating realization of all.
Nick
"Keller! Eyes on the ball!"
I blow my whistle as Max Peterson takes a basketball to the face, distracted by something across the gym. Can't blame him though. I'm just as distracted. Have been all morning.
The ache in my chest started the moment I left him this morning and has been getting worse ever since. It's like having the flu, but deeper—a bone-deep wrongness that no amount of Advil can touch. And underneath the physical pain is the guilt, constant and crushing: I bonded him and then I ran.
Like a fucking coward.
"Coach Keller? You okay?" Aiden Martinez approaches, basketball tucked under his arm, concern etched across his face.
"I'm fine," I manage, wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. "Just fighting something off."
Fighting the consequences of being the worst kind of alpha, the kind who marks his omega and then abandons him the next morning because he's too scared to deal with what he's done.
"You look like you have a fever," Aiden observes, too perceptive for a sixteen-year-old. "Maybe you should go to the nurse?"
The irony isn't lost on me. He's probably feeling just as sick as I am, because I was too much of a coward to face what happened between us.
"I'll be fine," I insist, forcing a smile. "Back to practice. Three-point drills."
As the students return to their exercise, I check my phone. The browser tabs I opened during my prep period are still there: "Supporting your newly bonded partner," "Bond-breaking procedures for omegas," "How to be a good alpha." Like I can Google my way out of the mess I've made.
No messages from him, not since the careful "Hope your day is going well" text I couldn't bring myself to answer. What would I even say? "Sorry I permanently tied myself to you and then ran away like my piece-of-shit father"?
Christ. I'm thirty years old and I've managed to screw up the most important relationship in my life in the span of forty-eight hours.
The rest of class passes in a blur of whistles, instructions, and mounting discomfort. By the time the bell rings, I'm fighting nausea along with the fever and headache. I know what this is—bond-separation, getting worse by the hour. But I deserve every second of it.
"You coming to lunch?" Ryan Sullivan asks, poking his head into the gym as I'm gathering equipment. He teaches history and coaches baseball, and we usually eat together in the faculty lounge.
"Yeah," I nod, though food is the last thing I want. "Be right there."
In the faculty bathroom, I splash cold water on my face and stare at my reflection. I look like shit—pale except for fever-bright cheeks, dark circles under my eyes. And there's a change in my scent that any alpha would recognize. Bonded alphas smell different. It's a biological marker: this one is taken.
Except I've never been the "taken" type before. Nine years of dating and I've never felt the urge to settle down, to claim someone as mine. Until he went into heat and instincts I didn't know I had demanded I mark him, bond him, make him mine in the most permanent way possible.