‘I cannot make your destiny go away. Only you have the power to do that.’
He could change the future. He’d done it before. Many a time. Simply by telling others what he saw and helping them avert what fate might bring their way. But there were some futures that could not be changed; they were fixed points. If he mated with Ivy, she would die. He was as certain of that as he was of his next breath. He’d never changed a fixed point before. Didn’t know it was possible. ‘How?’
‘You are a seer, a time-walker, a thread-puller. You have always had the power—you simply need to use it.’
He reeled. He’d never thought of his power like that. ‘What do I do?’
‘Break the thread you don’t like. See a different thread and weave it into your story.’
‘You make it sound easy.’
‘You’ve broken small ones before. This is just a bigger thread. One that carries more weight and meaning certainly, but it can be broken like any other. Just be warned, though, break this thread and it carries consequences you may not like.’
He didn’t care. If it saved Ivy, he would do anything, take any punishment that might come his way.
He opened his mind’s-eye into his powers, saw the threads, found the one he wanted and pulled.
Even as he did so, he knew it wasn’t going to be enough. He had to change everything. He had to make certain Ivy never remembered looking at him and even thinking ‘friend’.
His soul cried out as he gathered the power to change even more of what Fate had woven.
Ivy screamed, the sound viciously painful and full of grief as he tore from her the future that could have been theirs.
Her scream killed even the tiniest bright spark of light he’d had inside him that was her presence in his life.
He grabbed another thread and tore it, manipulated it to change. Ivy’s scream cut off and she collapsed into the long grass in front of him.
He wanted to take her in his arms, to hold her and whisper how sorry he was, but he still had work to do.
To save Ivy, he had to press on.
He held onto that knowledge as he changed past, present and future, turning his life into a literal living hell.
Chapter 4
A cry caught in Ivy’s throat, but she stopped it before it could come out.
There was something wet on her face. She lifted her hand and brushed it away—a tear. Many tears.
She’d been crying? Why had she been crying? And what was the feeling deep inside her, like something was missing?
‘Hey, Poison Ivy. Stop standing there like a toad on a log and dance. It’s a celebration. Come on.’
Stellan grabbed her and jerked her forward into the Dance circle, spinning her around and around. Laughing faces whirled by her as her brother danced her around the circle and back, their clapping and cheering rising in the air with the music and the snap and crackle of the bonfire at the centre of the circle.
What?
How had she got here?
Why were they dancing?
What was being celebrated?
A louder cheer rose and Stellan whipped her around, taking her off her feet before planting her back down again. Only his arms around her kept her from stumbling.
‘You okay?’
‘Y… yes.’
‘Sorry. I’ll be more careful.’ He looked contrite. Her brother contrite? And considerate? What the hell was going on? She looked down and saw she was wearing her favourite spring-green summer dress with the spaghetti straps, tight bodice and buttons up the front of the long, flowing skirt. It was the dress she usually wore to pack celebrations.
He turned her around and she saw the two pack mates in the centre of the circle, their arms wrapped around each other, kissing.
A mating ceremony. She was at a mating ceremony? Whose?
The couple pulled back from their kiss, laughing into each other’s faces.
Siobhan.
Her best friend’s hair was extra-big and freshly tipped, earrings that could have played the role of chandelier hanging from her ears. She had on a tight black dress ruched at the sides, her favourite yellow leather jacket with fringing and six-inch black ankle boots that made her long legs look even longer. When had she bought those? And why had she gone shopping without her bestie?
As Siobhan turned towards her, Ivy saw she had her going out make-up on—green eyeshadow, black lashes, cheeks highlighted by slashes of rose blush and lips vibrantly pink. Under all the make-up and fancy clothes, she vibrated happiness, such happiness it was almost hard to watch.
Ivy rubbed at the ache in her chest. An ache that had edges to it, a horrible thought sliding into her mind—I will never have that.
She pushed the thought away. She wasn’t jealous of her friend. She would never be jealous of another person’s happiness—but why did that happiness make her feel so horribly sad?
Siobhan’s new mate turned and howled into the night sky, revealing who it was.
Chloe. The apprentice to their Pack Librarian, she was six years their senior. The last Ivy had heard, Chloe was travelling through Europe and the British Isles talking to other packs and covens to gather data and see if they’d experienced the same slowing of births and increase in deaths that Pack McVale had been for the last thirty years.
Now she was apparently back here, wearing a beautiful white cheongsam with blossom print—a legacy of her mother’s heritage—her black hair cut into a straight bob and looking as blissfully happy as Siobhan.
They were mated? Why the hell couldn’t she remember Siobhan meeting the older female Were and mating to her? Surely that would have been something she would have had a front row ticket to?
She rubbed at her throbbing head. What had happened? Maybe she’d drunk too much of her father’s delicious 1975 Cab Sav? Although, this didn’t quite feel like that kind of headache.
Siobhan saw her and waved her forward. ‘Ivy. Come make your speech.’
Ivy froze. Speech? What speech?
‘Time for your best-friend speech, Poison Ivy,’ Stellan said, pushing her forward.
She turned to slap at him, but he danced back and out of the way, almost slamming into Paul Collins who stood just outside the circle, hands shoved into the pockets of his dark blue suit pants, his white shirt highlighting his rangy, muscular frame and the width of his shoulders.
Something horrible curled in her chest at the sight of him. At the sight of that arrogant look on his aristocratic face as he watched her stumble forward. Was he enjoying her confusion? Her embarrassment as the crowd screamed her name to come take her part in the pack’s acceptance of the mating? She hated him. He was the one who had started the nickname Poison Ivy that Stellan and his friends loved to tease her with.
She just wished he’d shut his big, arrogant, smart-arse mouth and stick with bleating his prophecies like a male Cassandra.
She shook her head. No, she didn’t wish that, truly. She wasn’t mean enough to wish the horror of his prophecies on anyone, even on the bane of her existence.
Why was he staring at her like that now? He looked almost curious? Or worried. Did he not think her capable of giving a speech of welcoming and acceptance for her friend and her mate? She’d show him.
She marched forward, anger buoying her, filling her with courage in the face of possible public humiliation. She’d never liked making a spectacle of herself, hated public speaking. But this was different. This was for Siobhan and Chloe. She could do this.
Walking up to the newly-mated couple, she took her place between them, holding out her hand. Siobhan put her hand on Ivy’s first then Chloe followed and Ivy encased both hands by placing her other hand on top of theirs signifying their togetherness, their acceptance within the pack, and unity of the whole, echoing what the Alpha must have done earlier when accepting the mating into Pack McVale and starting this celebration.
Siobhan leaned in and whispered to her, ‘I’m so glad you are here. I was worried you wouldn’t make it.�
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Ivy jerked to look at her friend. ‘I’d pull myself out of my death bed to be here with you.’
‘Don’t joke about that,’ she said, a cloud shivering across Siobhan’s expression before she grabbed Ivy up into a fierce hug. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
Siobhan let her go before she could ask her what all that was about, and lifted her arms, the fringes of her jacket swishing around her. ‘Quiet everyone. Let Ivy speak.’ She took Ivy’s hand again and suddenly everyone was looking at her with expectation.
Ivy didn’t know what she was going to say—she still couldn’t remember this mating taking place—but she opened her mouth and hoped for the best, leaning on the traditional blessing of welcome from a maternal Were to a newly-mated couple. As she spoke the blessing, she watched Siobhan and Chloe’s faces as they stared at each other. She had a feeling they barely heard or saw anything around them as they smiled secretly at each other. Ivy stumbled over her words—the sexual energy between them was off the charts, blazing into her so strongly she couldn’t help but blush. Wow. They seriously needed to get a room.
Everyone around her laughed and Siobhan knocked her shoulder against Ivy’s, her face aflame, but humour and happiness in her eyes. ‘Ivy!" she said.
Ivy realised she must have spoken the last words aloud. Rather than let her true embarrassment show, she took a ticket from her friend’s usual moxy and beamed at her. ‘This kind of feeling between a mated pair can only mean good things if I’m feeling it this strongly. And nobody deserves this happiness more than you two. I wish you happiness and peace and the blessing of the Goddess upon you. Only, when you have children, can I request you not use Stellan as a sperm donor. I can’t think of anything worse than my brother’s spawn growing inside my best friend.’ Everyone howled with laughter as Stellan’s growl of protest rumbled through the night.
‘I’ll get you back for that, Poison Ivy.’
She waved her hand at him. ‘Yeah-yeah. You wish. Now let’s get this mating ceremony finished so these two can retire to their home before they make me combust with their lust.’ More laughter burst into the air as she grabbed first Siobhan then Chloe into a hug, then she stepped back, ceding the floor to Chloe’s best friend, Megan.
She sighted her parents and went to stand next to them rather than with Stellan who was on the opposite side. She received their hugs and stood between them, her father’s arm slung around her shoulders, while her mother linked their arms. Their actions settled her in a way nothing else could.
Nothing else except …
Her gaze slid to Paul. He’d drawn closer to the circle and was standing just to the right behind Stellan, his face now lit by the flames of the torches marking the circle and the bonfire in the middle. He wasn’t watching the mating ceremony.
He was watching her.
She shivered, the shiver prickling to centre in her core, clenching there.
Her mother shot her a look. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Fine,’ she muttered.
‘Are you cold?’ her father asked, hugging her to him, her mother moving in closer on her other side, her hand now rubbing up and down Ivy’s back.
‘No.’ The night had the chill of early autumn on it, a cool breeze blowing up from the ocean that hid beyond the cliffs at the edge of their packlands only a kilometre away, but she’d been dancing and what with the fire and the bodies crowded around, she was hot rather than cold. ‘I’m actually a bit overheated I think.’
Her parents backed off a little, shooting concerned looks her way.
‘I knew we shouldn’t have let you dance with Stellan for so long. Let me go get you a drink to cool you down.’
‘Some water would be nice.’ Her throat was rather dry.
Callum McVale slipped away and out of the circle.
She stood beside her mother, still arm in arm and tried to concentrate on the ceremony in the centre of the circle and the happiness of her friend.
She was so happy for Siobhan. She’d been so worried about her friend lately. Siobhan loved her soldier training, but she’d been unable to settle to anything else and had become a bit wild when she wasn’t training and taking a guard shift.
But now—she’d never seen her friend more settled. Maybe this was what she was waiting for, the final piece in the puzzle to make her life exactly how she needed it to be.
It was what every Were dreamed of—right?
She rubbed at her chest, the ache pulsing there now.
Her gaze slid across the pack circle again.
Paul was staring at her, a look of worry on his face.
But why was he looking at her like that? There was no reason to worry about her—other than the fact she seemed to have lost a bit of her memory. Had she been sick? But if so, then why was she here celebrating? It didn’t really make sense. Nobody else seemed concerned though. Maybe she really had drunk too much wine. Siobhan was likely to have been in celebration mode since mating and had undoubtedly dragged her along to celebrate with her and Chloe.
Yes, that’s what it must be. She was feeling rather tired all of a sudden. And her head really did ache. Now she was out of the limelight, she had to admit her head was beginning to thump rather nastily. And the ache in her chest she’d noted before was sharpening, not getting better.
Her gaze skittered to Paul Collins again. He was still looking at her with those piercing blue eyes of his. Blue eyes that reminded her of the electric blue colour of glacial lakes, a colour that had filled her heart with so much joy when she’d first seen it on a trip to visit a New Zealand pack her family had ties with ten years ago. She’d thought back then of Paul’s eyes.
If only they weren’t always filled with such arrogance and disdain when looking at her.
Her wolf whimpered in her mind, its claws scratching under her skin.
Shh, girl. She hated it when her wolf was unhappy. We’ll slip away as soon as the happy couple are gone.
Her wolf pushed at her, impatient.
She rubbed at the ache in her chest. She knew what her wolf wanted. I promise we’ll go for a run. After she’d taken something for this headache that was getting worse with every moment.
Her mother touched Ivy’s cheek. ‘Go take a moment, beautiful girl. I left some headache remedy sitting on the kitchen bench.’
She stared at her mother—how did she always know? But her embarrassment over her mother knowing she’d partied too hard the last few days didn’t stick. Her mother’s maternal empathy was just too all-encompassing.
Rose McVale, one of the strongest maternal wolves in the pack, took her daughter’s face in both her hands and kissed her nose. ‘Go, take care of that headache. You’ve done your duty. Siobhan knows you haven’t been well. She won’t mind if you slip away.’
Ah, so she had been ill, not partying. That did explain her fuzzy memory.
‘Besides,’ her mother continued. ‘They’re about to slip away too after the speeches by the look of things, so you definitely won’t be missed. So go. We don’t want you having another collapse.’ She smoothed her hand over Ivy’s wild curls. ‘You need to take better care of yourself. You’ve been working way too hard.’
‘I’ve got things to accomplish, Mama.’ She had to find some way to bring something special to the pack. She couldn’t continue to be average in every way.
‘I know, my driven girl. We’re all so proud. But working hard does no good if all you do is drive yourself into the ground. Okay?’ Another kiss, this time to one cheek then another. ‘Now go.’
Ivy almost melted under her mother’s caring, but her head was pounding and her chest was aching, and even though she would have lingered to hug her mother for longer, she gave Rose McVale a quick kiss and slipped away into the darkness towards the building that was her family’s private home.
Chapter 5
Ivy swallowed her mother’s headache remedy. She sighed in relief as the healing powers Abby, the pack healer, had woven into the liqui
d took immediate effect.
She took another spoonful before putting the large bottle down. She frowned at the bottle. Why was it so large? Usually her mother and Abby didn’t make this in such large batches because it had a short shelf life. It was half empty. Was this because she’d been sick? And just how long had she been sick?
She glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall beside the pantry. The dates were crossed off up to March 29th.
It was March 29th? But the last day she remembered was February 28th.
She gripped the bench, her wolf whimpering inside. She’d been sick for a month? Were never fell sick like that, their immune systems managing to fight off most things, but if not, changing into their wolves usually took care of the general round of bugs and viruses.
What the hell had happened?
She tried to search her memory for a clue—what was the last thing she’d done?
It was shrouded in thick fog, couldn’t remember what had happened. There was a whisper of her having been studying and then getting up because she felt something—an anguish or a pain—then, nothing.
Had she collapsed? And why had she suddenly come back into her head in the middle of the mating ceremony? Surely if she’d still been sick, her parents would have made her stay at home. So she must have been well enough and communicating for them to allow her to go. Not only go, but dance with her brother and stand up and give a speech.
But what had happened to her that she couldn’t remember anything up until Stellan grabbed her and made her dance?
A month. Gone.
Hell.
She glanced at the calendar again, but the date was the same as it had been the last time she looked.
The date!
Uni! She’d only just started back. Now she’d missed a month of it? She’d never missed a day of school or uni in her life. How was she going to catch up?
Oh Goddess, she felt sick.
She clutched her stomach and ran to the loo, getting there just in time to heave up all the food she couldn’t remember eating at the mating celebration.
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