My alarm going off had me groan and force my eyes open. When I checked the time and realised I had slept through the first one, I cursed quietly and pushed myself upright. I had not been sleeping well. The knowledge that my mate was in a room below mine, separated by nothing but floors and the choices I had not yet been able to make, was doing something persistent and uncomfortable to my thoughts every night.
Her room sat directly below my own. The walls were soundproof but I found myself reaching through the bond in the dark hours, tuning into her without meaning to. She slept peacefully while I lay on my back and turned things over in my mind until the early hours. The only thing that had helped at all was focusing on the rhythm of her breathing through the bond, steady and unbothered, until something in me finally settled enough to let sleep come.
