Page 98 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

He turned back to his monitors, fingers moving slowly across the keyboard as he shut everything down. Too slowly—the careful deliberation in his movements almost seemed like a delaying tactic. Was he feeling anxious? Had last night’s texting been too much? Had I pushed him too far with that bloody list?

“Just wait in the basement,” I said quickly. “I’ll bring everything down to you. I’d say we could go up to the rooftop, but it’s drizzling.”

“Oh.” His shoulders tensed. “Not the roof. I have, um… bad memories of that roof.”

Curious.

“Basement it is,” I said, and headed upstairs to collect my ridiculous feast.

When I returned, Felix was perched on the basement sofa, looking small and uncertain. He’d forgotten to take off his glasses again, but obviously, I wasn’t going to tell him that. I set four plates on the coffee table with perhaps too much ceremony.

“Four plates?!” Felix’s voice held laughter, though he still wasn’t quite meeting my eyes.

“I know how to spoil a man.”

A delicious blush painted itself onto Felix’s cheeks, and I had to grip the edge of the table to stop myself from doing something stupid like kissing him senseless right there on the sofa.

I unpacked the bags methodically before cutting into the fancy ham that the deli owner had insisted would change my life.

“Wow,” Felix breathed. “This is… a lot. I was sort of expecting a sandwich.”

I scoffed, settling onto the sofa beside him. “No way.”

I adjusted my leg slightly so it pressed against his, an innocent point of contact that caused a delirium of butterflies to flood my stomach. Felix didn’t pull away.

We ate in comfortable silence for a while, though I found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on my own food when Felix was right there, making soft satisfied sounds as he tried each cheese, his tongue darting out to catch a drop of strawberry juice from his lip.

“So…” Felix said eventually, setting down his plate.

I waited, watching him fidget with the drawstring of today’s hoodie: a navy-blue faded university print, at least a size too big for him.

“I’ve been trying to research mate bonds,” Felix admitted in a rush.

I nearly choked on my bread. “Like… online? I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Yeah, so there’s really not much,” Felix said, shoulders hunching. “There’s obviously loads of mythology websites that seem completely mental. Lots of online forums, but I’m not sure how much is actual wolves and how much is people taking the piss.”

“You could just ask me,” I pointed out. “Quite a relevant party, I’d say.”

Felix looked up to face me properly, eyes wide and earnest through his glasses. “I guess… I still don’t quite understand what it feels like. For you, I mean. What you’re experiencing. What it actually feels like.”

I set my own plate aside, trying to find the right words. “You know about pack bonds, right? The invisible tethers between pack members? How we can sense each other’s emotions, general location?”

Felix nodded.

“Rory and I both independently broke our pack bonds, but when we found each other again years later, we discovered we still had a remnant of a bond between us.” I smiled, thinking how grateful I was for that connection. Lone wolves really struggled without any bonds at all. “But mate bonds are different. They’re similar, I suppose, but way more intense.”

I paused, watching Felix’s face.

“I never took much notice, growing up. Didn’t quite believe what the elders said it could be like. Some of it sounded ridiculous, like a magical fairy tale. So when I saw you, that first day…”

The memory slammed into me. That moment Felix had shyly looked up, feeling my entire world tilt on its axis. Like every compass in my body had suddenly found true north.

“It’s like an animalistic possession,” I continued, my voice roughening. “This overwhelming urge to claim you, be close to you, protect you, keep you safe. Cherish you. The need to rip the head off anyone who so much as looks at you wrong.”

Felix blinked rapidly. “I feel none of that,” he said, almost like a guilty confession.

I laughed, pressing my leg more firmly against his. “I know. It’s probably hard to imagine for a human.”