Chapter 200: Let me hold you back

(Hooray!!! We’ve finally reached Chapter 200 y’all. Hope you’re ready to be miserable from here on out, MUAHAHAHAHA. Ahem.)

Reid’s breath hitched, a fragile, trembling sound that broke against the quiet dusk of the room.

​My words seemed to strike him right in the chest, dismantling the heavy, suffocating illusion that he had to be an unshakable wall all by himself. He wasn’t just my protector or my enforcer—he was a terrified twenty one year old, bearing a burden far too immense for his broad shoulders to carry in total isolation.

​"Rely on you..." Reid repeated, the phrase tasting foreign on his tongue, his voice barely a rough string of air.

​"Yes," I rasped softly, my thumb continuing its slow, rhythmic stroke over his jawline. "You don’t have to carry the terror alone, Reid. You don’t have to pretend you aren’t scared just to look strong for me. If you’re bleeding inside, let me see it. Let me hold you back."

​A thick, shuddering sigh finally spilled from his lips, taking every last drop of his rigid control with it. The terrifying, possessive tension in his broad frame melted away, replaced by a quiet, absolute surrender.

Reid leaned forward, burying his face back into the crook of my neck, his arms tightening around my waist with a deep, desperate need—not as a dominant Alpha guarding his territory, but as a man seeking refuge in the arms of the person he loved.

​His hot breath brushed against my pulse, his pine scent softening from a dark, frantic flare into a warm, grounding embrace that wrapped around the two of us like a cocoon.

​"I’ve got you, Kain," Reid whispered into my skin, his chest expanding in a long, slow breath against mine. "And... I’ll let you have me, too."

​"Good," I murmured, my fingers tightening in his damp hair, pulling him as close as physically possible.

​I felt his hammering pulse steadily slow down, syncing up with the unyielding, quiet rhythm of my own heart. In the dark, quiet sanctuary of our room, away from the roaring crowds, the dirty hits, his mother’s bitter threats, and the looming shadow of Game 2, we held each other tightly—two broken, stubborn souls finally learning how to share the weight of the storm together.

The morning sun was brutally bright, reflecting off the damp Seattle pavement as I leaned against the kitchen counter, my phone pressed to my ear.

​When Marina finally answered on the fourth ring, the background noise on her end was a chaotic blur of muffled shouts and low engine rumbles—the unmistakable atmosphere of her late-night work in the gray market spilling into the early morning hours.

​"Marina," I began softly, my thumb nervously picking at the seam of my sweatpants. "I need to talk to you about something important."

"What is it?" she asked, though she sounded quite distant, like she was busy with something. I took in a deep breath and began,

"Reid brought up an idea... about building a biological cover story. Something about documented cases of an Alpha’s rut triggering a late-secondary Omega manifestation in a Beta system."

​There was a heavy beat of silence on the line, followed by the faint rustle of papers and her sharp, exhausted exhale.

​"Kain, I’m in the middle of something very important right now," Marina said, her voice tight, clipped, and laced with high-stakes tension. "I can’t talk about this right now. This is a serious topic about theoretical medical registry, so we can’t talk over the phone. Meet me at the diner near the old docks at eight tonight. We’ll go over whatever research I can pull from the private servers then."

​"Alright," I rasped, swallowing down the sudden knot in my throat. "Stay safe."

​"You too. Don’t overexert yourself at practice today," she warned sharply before the line went dead.

​I lowered the phone, letting out a long, slow breath that fogged against the cool air of the penthouse. Tonight. I would get my answers tonight. But until then, I had a job to do.

​I compartmentalized everything.

I buried the fear of my shifting body, pushed away his mother’s bitter insults, and locked the overwhelming weight of our secret far down inside my chest.

When I stepped into the Serpent’s facility an hour later, every single trace of vulnerability was gone, replaced by the cold, razor-sharp focus of Captain Evans.

​Out on the ice, the air was bitter and crisp, the fresh surface glinting under the arena lights. Coach Devin was on a rampage, blowing his whistle until his face turned red, running us through brutal, high-intensity transition drills to prepare for the Wolves’ dirty neutral-zone traps.

​Reid skated like a man possessed. True to his promise, he didn’t hover or smother me, but his presence on my flank was absolute.

Every time a practice squad defenseman tried to close the gap on my left side, Reid was there first—taking the hit, sealing the boards, and delivering clean, crisp breakout passes directly to my tape.

​By the time Devin finally blew the whistle to end the two-hour skate, my muscles were burning and my compression shirt was soaked through with sweat, but my lower back held only a dull, manageable throb.

​"Good skate, Cap," Russo grunted as we skated toward the bench, unbuckling his helmet and wiping sweat from his forehead. "You’re moving fast today."

​"Got to be faster than the Wolves," I replied, tapping my stick against the ice as I caught Reid’s eye from across the rink.

​Reid offered a small, barely perceptible nod—a quiet, grounded anchor in the middle of the freezing arena. I had eight hours until my meeting with Marina, but for the first time in weeks, the storm inside my head felt entirely under control.

The rest of the afternoon dissolved into a rigid routine of post-skate recovery.

I submerged myself in the ice bath until my lower back went completely numb, killing the lingering inflammation before it could flare into a full-blown ache.

Reid sat on the bench just a few feet away, sipping a protein shake and chatting casually with Miller, but his sharp grey eyes never truly left me. Every subtle shift in my breathing, every slight wince as I moved—he logged it all without making a scene.