Chapter 24: Six Weeks Without Him

North Coast University was nothing like Ashvale.

There were no familiar pine trails behind the dorms, no Ironwood crest above every doorway, and no one who had known me since I was three.

For the first time in my life, I entered a place where almost nobody knew Cole Mercer, Rowan Blackwood, or the story of the slap.

I loved it immediately.

The campus sat beside a gray-blue ocean, and the tactical systems building overlooked cliffs where waves crashed hard enough to shake the windows during storms.

My roommate was a human girl named Tessa Moreno.

She took one look at the crescent necklace around my throat and asked, “Boyfriend?”

“Mate.”

Her eyes widened.

“Oh. Werewolf version of serious boyfriend?”

“Complicated.”

“Excellent. I love complicated.”

Within two days, she knew enough to stop asking whether Rowan could read my mind.

“No.”

“Can he feel when you’re angry?”

“Sometimes.”

“That sounds horrible.”

“It can be.”

“Can he feel when you eat his snacks?”

“I’ll test it.”

Living with someone outside pack culture was unexpectedly refreshing.

Tessa didn’t care that Rowan was an Alpha heir.

She cared that he once ate an entire lemon because Maya dared him.

“That is the information you should lead with,” she said.

Classes were brutal.

Our instructor, Professor Hart, gave us a coastal evacuation simulation on the first day and announced that anyone who lost more than thirty percent of the population would repeat it until they didn’t.

My first attempt lost twenty-eight percent.

I felt proud.

Professor Hart looked at my score.

“Congratulations. You’ve achieved catastrophic failure slightly more efficiently than average.”

Commander Sloane would have loved him.

The hardest part wasn’t class.

It was distance.

North Coast was nearly nine hours from Silvercrest.

The resonance stretched strangely.

Rowan felt like a distant heartbeat.

Present.

Faint.

Sometimes I would wake at three in the morning with anxiety that wasn’t mine.

I would message:

*Training?*

His answer might arrive minutes later.

*Council meeting.*

Other times, Rowan would call because he felt my stress during an exam.

Neither of us could fix what the other felt.

We learned not to try.

“Do you need help or do you need company?” Rowan asked one night after a terrible simulation.

I stared at the phone.

“That is annoyingly healthy.”

“My mother gave me the sentence.”

“I knew it.”

“So?”

“Company.”

He stayed on video while I reorganized my notes.

He didn’t solve the problem.

He was simply there.

By week three, I stopped counting the days until I went home.

That realization made me guilty.

I admitted it during our Sunday call.

Rowan frowned.

“Why would that make you guilty?”

“Because I’m happy here.”

“Good.”

“I don’t miss Ironwood every second.”

“Good.”

“I don’t miss you every second.”

He clutched his chest dramatically.

“Cruel.”

I laughed.

Then he became serious.

“Aurora, I want you to have places where you’re happy that have nothing to do with me.”

The bond warmed.

I looked out the dorm window toward the ocean.

“I think I needed to hear that.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“Because I needed to hear it too.”

He had been struggling with his own version of the same problem.

Silvercrest elders increasingly treated our resonance as part of Rowan’s future leadership identity.

He hated it.

“I want to become Alpha because I’m capable,” he told me. “Not because I have a rare mate bond that looks impressive in old records.”

“Then prove you’re capable.”

“Bossy.”

“Strategic guidance.”

He laughed.

Halfway through the program, something unexpected happened.

Professor Hart selected five students for a live coastal-response exercise with local emergency teams.

I was one of them.

The exercise involved a simulated ferry accident.

No fighting.

No wolf dominance.

No dramatic Alpha politics.

Just logistics.

Medical resources.

Evacuation routes.

Weather.

Human behavior.

I was assigned command of one sector.

For four hours, I coordinated teams I had never met.

At the end, Professor Hart handed me the assessment.

Ninety-eight.

Highest score.

“You see systems quickly,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“You also try to personally monitor too many variables.”

That sounded familiar.

“I’m working on it.”

“You should.”

He tapped my application file.

“Have you considered emergency strategy rather than pack defense?”

I hadn’t.

The question followed me for days.

My future had always been framed through packs.

Ironwood Tactical Command.

Maybe Silvercrest someday.

But the world was larger than pack borders.

Humans needed evacuation planning.

Cities needed disaster response.

Werewolf territories cooperated during fires, floods, and earthquakes.

For the first time, I imagined a career that did not require choosing between Rowan’s pack and mine.

Not because I wanted to avoid commitment.

Because I had discovered something I genuinely wanted.

I called Commander Sloane.

She listened.

Then said, “Good.”

“That’s all?”

“What do you want, applause?”

“Maybe.”

“No.”

I smiled.

“Professor Hart thinks I could specialize in emergency systems.”

“He’s right.”

“You knew?”

“I suspected.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because careers assigned by mentors are only slightly better than careers assigned by mates.”

I went quiet.

She was right.

Again.

I hated it.

Week five brought the first serious strain in the resonance.

Rowan had a council examination.

I had a final simulation.

Both happened on the same day.

His anxiety flooded me during my preparation.

Mine reached him during his examination.

By noon, we were both irritable.

Rowan called during my lunch break.

“We need to close it.”

I knew what he meant.

Resonant mates could learn to dampen emotional transmission.

Neither of us had practiced because the idea felt wrong.

Like deliberately shutting a door between us.

But right now, the open bond was hurting both of us.

“I don’t know how.”

“My mother sent instructions.”

“Of course she did.”

We practiced over video.

Breathing.

Visualization.

Separating my emotional state from his.

At first, nothing happened.

Then the distant pressure in my chest softened.

Echo whined.

*He’s still there,* I told her.

Rowan looked strange on the screen.

“Can you feel me?”

“Barely.”

“Same.”

I expected sadness.

Instead, relief washed through me.

My thoughts felt fully mine.

“That’s better,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

Neither of us took it personally.

That felt like another milestone.

We reopened the bond after our assessments.

Rowan passed.

So did I.

On the final day of the program, Professor Hart offered me a recommendation for North Coast’s full undergraduate track.

I accepted the letter.

Not the university.

Not yet.

The possibility.

Tessa helped me pack.

“So you’re going back to wolf boyfriend?”

“Among other things.”

“Tell Lemon Boy I said hi.”

“I absolutely will.”

Before leaving, I walked alone to the cliffs.

Six weeks earlier, I had arrived frightened that distance would weaken something important.

It had.

It had weakened dependence.

The need to constantly check.

The fear that loving Rowan required constant proximity.

What remained felt stronger.

Choice.

Trust.

A relationship that could survive silence.

When I returned to Ironwood, Mom crushed me in a hug.

Dad complained I had become too thin.

I had not.

Maya arrived twenty minutes later and demanded every detail.

Then a black Silvercrest vehicle pulled into the courtyard.

My heart jumped.

Rowan stepped out.

Echo surged so hard I laughed.

He stopped several feet away.

For one second, we simply looked at each other.

Six weeks.

Then he opened his arms.

I ran.

He caught me.

The resonance burst open.

Warmth flooded through both of us.

Joy.

Relief.

Love.

I buried my face against his shoulder.

“I missed you.”

He laughed into my hair.

“You said you didn’t miss me every second.”

“I didn’t.”

“Rude.”

“I missed you now.”

“Acceptable.”

When we separated, he touched the crescent necklace.

“You kept wearing it.”

“I like it.”

“Good.”

I looked at him.

“I might want emergency strategy.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

So I did.

Not once did Rowan ask where that would place me in relation to Silvercrest.

Not once did he ask what it meant for his future Alpha role.

He listened.

Asked questions.

Smiled when I described the ferry simulation.

When I finished, he said, “You looked happy just talking about it.”

“I was.”

“Then keep exploring it.”

That night, lying in my own bed again, I realized the six weeks away had given me something I hadn’t known I needed.

Evidence.

I could leave a person I loved without abandoning them.

I could go somewhere alone and return because I wanted to.

Distance did not always mean rejection.

Independence did not always mean loneliness.

And love did not have to be measured by how impossible it felt to survive apart.

Sometimes the healthiest proof of love was knowing you could stand alone—

and still choosing to walk back.