Shifting Boundaries

Chapter 12

Felix

I managed to fall into a fitful sleep, one I wasn't sure would be possible without Everett's scent wrapped around me. Once the blankets warmed up, I could almost trick myself into believing he was here with me.

Even when I woke up, the wallowing continued for an embarrassingly long time. I couldn't stop thinking that this wasn't how my mating was supposed to go. Usually, mates met with both of them awake. They wouldn't hesitate to accept each other – in fact, most couples sealed the bond the same day they met, or maybe the next day. They would move in together immediately, sometimes going back and forth between their packs until they figured out how to merge their lives. They didn't separate, not like this.

Everett should be mine by now. He should be mine and he should be here, or I should have gone with him. But how could I abandon my students? I didn't know how I got to the hospital, but logic told me that they had defeated the last wolf, the one who so nearly took me out, and they had gotten me help. I owed them my life, so even if I was willing to leave their training in the hands of another, I couldn't.

I reached for my phone and checked it. It was almost noon and I had missed a text from Everett hours ago telling me he arrived in Delta. Knowing he got there safely should have made me feel better, but instead it reinforced the knowledge that he was gone.

I wasn't this man. I wasn't the person who fell apart because things didn't go their way. In the past, I'd scraped myself up and gotten on with things. I wasn't able to fall apart like this when my parents died since Mel and Magnus needed me. Now, I was alone. No one was relying on me to get up and keep going on like I wasn't missing a vital piece of myself.

I gritted my teeth and left the bed, reminding myself that if I lay in these blankets for too long, they would start to smell more like me than like Everett. I wanted his scent to last as long as possible. I left the guest bedroom and wandered down the hallway, feeling like a ghost in my own home. I refused to shower the smell of him off of me. I didn't want to sit in the living room, where we had been so happy just yesterday. I couldn't bear to look at the dining room, where my plate of uneaten food still sat on the table and where his plate had already been put away in the dishwasher, gone like he was.

My house was a shrine to Everett's leaving and I wanted no part of it.

Finally finding a sense of purpose, I went back down the hall to my bedroom, where I quickly changed into jeans and a t-shirt before grabbing my keys and heading out of my house. I pulled my phone from my pocket and called Molly, knowing that she usually took her lunch break around now. Molly was my ride or die, and had been my best friend since we were small.

"Felix! Why did I have to hear from my father that you were awake?"

I winced. "Sorry, Molly. Things have been crazy and I wasn't thinking."

"You mean you weren't thinking about me," she corrected. I opened my mouth to protest her harsh but accurate assessment, but she kept going. "It's okay. I know you found your mate and it's okay that he's taking up all of your attention for now."

I sighed in relief. "What are you doing now? Can we meet up?"

"Oh, can I meet him? Hold on, let me check my calendar."

"Sorry, Molly, he had to go back to his pack for now. I'm alone."

The sound of Molly typing in the background stopped immediately. The silence made me itch. "Meet me at my office? I'll drive us to the diner. I don't have to be back until two."

"Sounds good." I hung up and got into my car. Molly worked in our main administrative building, which was an easy running distance from my house, but I wasn't convinced I would want to come back home after lunch. Better to have a car, just in case.