Page 14 of Free Me

“You got the answer to your question. We’ll let you know when he wakes up.”

“Okay.” Miko squeezed Linus’s wrist once more, soaking in that brief contact, the zing through his palm that shot right to his heart. He resisted the urgent need to lean down and kiss Linus’s forehead. Instead, he honored Liam’s wishes and left.

He exited the ICU and bypassed the waiting room without checking in with Dad. His eyes burned with tears and his heart hurt the farther away he got from Linus, but he needed space to think.

So he left.

FOUR

“…tellthey’d been drinking all night and hadn’t gone home yet. The booze practically oozed from their pores. They were banging on the front door, demanding coffee and donuts, and we’d barely gotten all the chairs off the tables.” Mikel sipped his coffee, briefly pausing the story of drunk and disorderly university students he’d begun telling to Isa and Kell.

Kell Cross had arrived not long ago as moral support for his friends, but the grand-omegin seemed exhausted himself. Not surprising, since he was frequently an extra pair of hands wrangling Emory and Eriq’s triplets. But Isa appreciated him taking the time to be there for Liam.

Isa had asked for a distraction from whatever Miko was discovering about himself and Linus in ICU, and Mikel had pulled through with yet another humorous tale of life at Perks. Isa vaguely remembered overhearing Brogan telling this story to Liam a few months ago, but he paid attention to his friend anyway. Mikel had an engaging voice and a no-nonsense way of telling a tale, especially one about his coffee shop. Isa tried to give Mikel his full attention, instead of constantly glancing at the waiting room entrance.

“The coffee was brewed, though, and we were just waiting on a final batch of cookies to come out of the oven, so I told Miko to go ahead and open,” Mikel continued. Miko had worked at his parents’ shop this past summer, like he had during previous university summer breaks, and the reminder only made Isa more anxious. “Naturally, these three tools are all alphas, and they overtake a table right in the front windows facing the sidewalk. Instead of coming to the register to order, they start shouting at Miko for double espressos and eclairs. Real classy, right?”

“Drunk alphaholes always are,” Kell replied. “Of course, you set them straight?”

Mikel shook his head and grinned. “No, Miko did. He’s tall for an omega, right? And these guys are completely wasted so they don’t clock his gender right away, and?—”

Isa’s mobile chimed with a text, so he checked while keeping half-an-ear on Mikel’s story of Miko standing up for himself.

Liam:They’re bondmates but Miko got weird. I told him to leave. Need you.

Getting weird by itself wasn’t alarming, but things had gotten bad enough that Liam asked Miko to leave? “Sorry, Mikel,” Isa said, no longer caring about the story. “Kell, please excuse me. Miko is done in ICU. Liam wants me to go back in.”

“Really? Did Liam say anything?” Mikel twisted around to look at the waiting room entrance, but Miko didn’t appear.

“I’m sure Miko will tell you, but Liam needs me right now.” Isa had initially resisted the idea of Miko knowing if he was Linus’s bondmate right now, because Linus would not need that additional stress when he woke from his coma, but Liam had insisted it was a good idea. That it would give Linus something else to fight for during his recovery. In this particular instance, Isa did not want to be proved right.

With nothing else to say, Isa stood and headed toward the ICU doors. Buzzed the nursing station to let him inside. No sign of Miko on the brief-but-still-too-long walk to Linus’s room. Linus’s eyes remained closed. Instead of his usual spot beside the bed, Liam stood by the room’s large window, arms crossed, most of his face turned toward the uninspiring view of another building’s reflective windows.

“Little one?” Isa asked. “What happened? Where’s Miko?”

“I told him to leave.”

“I know but why?” He approached his mate, grateful Liam didn’t tense when Isa rested his palm on the back of Liam’s neck. “Talk to me. Your text said Miko felt the bond. That wasn’t what he wanted?”

“I thought he wanted it to be true, Isa, but then he got weird.” Liam reached back to clasp Isa’s hand but continued staring out the window. Despite being physically connected, Isa despised this emotional distance from his mate. “He said he ought to keep his distance and not let Linus know they’re bondmates, that it’ll be better for his recovery. How? Isa?” Liam finally turned, his eyes filled with both fury and grief. “How can he think being with Linus will hurt his recovery? As an omega, being apart from my mate while he’s hurting is unfathomable to me.”

“You and Miko are in very different places in your lives, Liam. We’ve been mates for twenty-three years. Miko just learned he has a bondmate who’s one of his best friends, but who is also someone he’s never looked at romantically before. Has Brogan ever mentioned that Miko has been eager to meet his bondmate?”

Liam scowled. “Not that I can think of, not since Miko started university. Why does that matter?”

“Because this is a huge shock to Miko, little one. A week ago, he was a single student getting ready to root for his home team in the biggest game of his best alpha friend’s career. Now thatfriend is hurt, Miko has a bondmate, and everything that was once stable in his life has been tossed into the wind.” He ran his fingers through the soft, black curls at the base of Liam’s neck. “In some ways, I can empathize with that kind of upheaval in what you think is a stable setting.”

“When you met me?”

“Exactly. I was pushing forty, set in my ways, with three nearly-grown sons, and I had accepted my bondmate was gone. That I would be a widower for the rest of my life. And then I was assigned this awful case about a fight ring full of kidnapped omegas, and I walked into the cell they were keeping you in. The patrolman who found you was scaring you, but you let me touch you. You let me carry you to safety. That one moment changed the rest of my life.”

Liam took a step forward and leaned into Isa’s chest, his arms wrapping around Isa’s waist. “You changed mine, too. But our situation is so different from Miko’s. I was pregnant and those hormones prevented us from being sure about the bond for months. Miko’s sure.”

“Yes, he is, but his life has been forever changed by the discovery. And I have to admit that I admire his courage for thinking of Linus first right now. Of worrying that the bond will be too much, when our boy already has so many things to deal with when he wakes up. I’m not thrilled that this was happening now, because I’m scared Linus will focus too much on Miko and the bond, and not enough on his recovery, because that’s what alphas do. We protect our mates. But right now, Linus is the one who needs to be protected.”

Liam looked sharply up, his mouth twisted. “You agree with Miko keeping his distance?”

“I think we have all raised our different sons to have agency and to speak up for themselves, and that’s what Miko is doing. And it’s possible he’ll change his mind in two hours, once he’shad a chance to really sit with this and think about it. But if he doesn’t…I think we need to respect his choice and not force him to take steps he isn’t ready for.”

---