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ENZO: I can’t help but be worried. His doctor cleared him for this, but what if he falls or runs into something?
ME: He still has 60% vision, remember? He’s not going to run into anything.
ENZO: You’re missing the point—
I didn’t finish reading the rest of his paranoid message because a hush fell over the crowd, signaling that our omega had finally stepped onto the ice.
In the three years since I’d met Artem Kostyck, I was always awed by his presence whenever he stepped onto the ice.
During everyday life, he was a cheerful, silly fellow. Always ready for a laugh, and quick to tease.
But as soon as the blades of his skates hit ice, he was like another human entirely. Almost like a faerie as he glided across the smoothed surface much more elegantly than I could ever manage during my own curling.
I could feel his nerves and worries through the bond mark I’d placed on his neck, and despite feeling the way he did, he still managed to tilt his chin up and pose as he waited for the music of his set to start.
The first strains of Somewhere Only We Know by Keane began to fill the small stadium and Artie was off.
To a stranger, Artie looked perfect. Every twirl and jump was practiced and perfect, not an inch of the man’s lean body out of line as he made the ice his bitch. He’d practiced this routine for hours and hours a day for the past year and a half, his practices growing longer as his eyesight started to fade.
Steadily developing open-angle glaucoma was what his doctors called it when we’d finally managed to make him go to the doctor after months of him squinting at us or tripping over things. We’d thought he just needed a new prescription for his glasses, but what we’d learned had been so much worse. It meant that Artie was starting to lose his peripheral vision and would continue to lose it until he was completely blind.
Enzo had wanted Artie to stop skating entirely, worried a head injury could exacerbate his symptoms. He’d wanted to preserve what eyesight our omega had left. They’d fought for months about it until they reached a breaking point.
Then they’d both looked to me to be the tie breaker and as I watched Artie skate, I knew I’d made the right decision.
Even if it had driven Enzo to be the most anxious alpha I’d ever met, the constant buzz of my phone attesting to my packmate’s worries about Artie’s set.
He was solid, though. As the song crescendoed toward the end and executed the most difficult jumps of his set, I held my breath until his skates safely met the ground again.
Artie posed, a cheeky grin on his face as the crowd cheered.
The air that had been caged in my chest since he started left me in one long whoosh as I clapped and let out a loud whoop.
Artie turned, waving to the crowd before he skated for the exit and my stomach dropped as I watched his hip catch on one of the low white half-walls that opened up to allow athletes to exit and enter the ice.
There was no shift in the cheering, so I was sure that no one noticed it, but watching Artie’s shoulders sink a half inch before he stepped off of the ice completely made my heart twist.
Already up on my feet, I grabbed my bag and began to make my way through the crowd, throwing half-hearted apologies over my shoulder at whoever I bumped into until I finally made it to the steps.
Artie would be in the holding area waiting for his score so I made my way there, flashing the badge that we’d all been given upon arriving early last week. It was a family pass, but I also had my own athlete pass if someone really tried to stop me.
Behind the scenes was a bustle of activity as the events changed over to the women’s singles, male and female figure skaters mingled, chattering or looking a bit shellshocked as their scores weren’t going to be enough to move them on to the next round.
I dodged around a pair of skaters who were busily arguing, some kind of lover’s quarrel about cheating in the Olympic Village. It didn’t surprise me as the village was always no man’s land and I was just glad to be able to stay in a suite with the rest of my pack instead of in the dorms.
Leaving the loud pair behind, I scanned the long hall looking for my omega. I could feel the echoes of his discontent through our bond and I knew that if I didn’t comfort him soon, Enzo would leave in the middle of a broadcast, contracts be damned.
I found him a moment later, nodding at whatever Mama Burt, his elderly British skating coach, was telling him.
She had been our rock over the past six months, changing her coaching to accommodate Artie’s failing sight.
“Oh, love,” I heard her say as I approached, her hand patting Artie’s cheek, “No one even noticed you bumping into that wall.”
“I didn’t even see it,” Artie said as I approached, his blue eyes shifting to me before returning to his coach. “It was in that stupid black area and I didn’t realize how close it was until I nearly went over it.”
Reaching for him, I pulled the unwilling omega into my arms, inhaling his crisp orange scent.
It had been one of the first things that had drawn me to him when we met at a training camp in London and it still made my mouth water whenever we were near each other.
