One week.
I felt it in the quality of everything — the specific texture of days when something significant is close enough to feel but not yet close enough to touch. Like standing at the edge of a room that is about to change.
He felt it too. The mate bond carried it between us — not anxiety, not dread. Just awareness. The weight of something approaching that you have been building toward for a long time and are finally ready to receive.
We did not talk about it constantly.
We talked about ordinary things. His pack communications. My ward. Bettany's ongoing assessment of every situation. Draven's baby name spreadsheet, which had been updated twice since I last saw it and now had forty-one entries.
But underneath all of it — the week. The door frame. One week.
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On Tuesday he came
