Deep inside she felt him wrap around her and her wolf, hugging, holding tight, not letting them slip away.
‘Paul. Stop that. Abby, can you pull her back?’
‘I’m trying, but she’s so hurt. I don’t know why I didn’t see this before.’
‘Because my stupid nephew has played with fate. None of us could have seen what he’d done until Ivy started to remember.’
Remember?
An image fluttered in her mind—of Paul pulling her to him, his lips on hers, his fingers digging into her hair, his need filling her as something fell into place deep inside her.
Then he’d stilled, tensed, his fingers digging into her flesh. She pulled back. His eyes were black and there was a look of such terror and despair on his face. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’ Then he pushed her away.
Goddess. It hurt. His rejection had hurt so much. She’d tried to stop him, but she couldn’t move. Then there was a tearing, a horrible tearing, and the world turned in on itself and she was hurtling through the void.
‘Ivy, hold on. I’ve got you.’ Abby’s scent was inside her, her warmth wrapping around both her and her wolf. She leaned into the soothing warmth that was the healer, but it didn’t help. It didn’t help. She was broken. There was no recovering from the tear inside. How had she not felt this before now?
But she had. She had. The echo of it in her had recognised the echo of it in him. It’s why she’d felt his pain and nobody else had.
A mating bond had sprung into place between her and Paul and he’d rejected her. Rightly so. Because the pack needed him to handfast with Mariella. The pack needed the witch to start a new, stronger generation with him. They needed her powers. Her strength. They didn’t need a maternal wolf with no special powers except for an affinity with children.
He’d rejected her to save the pack. And to save the pack, she was willing to give herself.
‘It’s okay. It’s okay,’ she said, her voice trembling past the pain. ‘Let me save you.’ She closed her eyes and concentrated on the flow of energy that was going from her to him. It had been slowed by whatever Iris and Abby were doing, but she couldn’t let that continue. They didn’t know how to fix what Paul had done. She could hear it in their voices.
Only she could save him, with her full lifeforce.
Her death would be a sadness for her family and friends but they would all be safe from Morghanna Cantrae’s Curse and that was all that mattered. That and the fact Paul just couldn’t die. She couldn’t bear the thought of it.
She turned her head to look up at him. ‘Let me save you,’ she repeated pushing past the magical filter Abby and Iris had used to slow down the flow of her lifeforce into him. Now she knew what she was doing, what was at stake, it was nothing to break the barrier and keep doing what she’d started at the hot springs. A thing she was capable of because he was her soul mate. He might have changed their fate, broken the bond in this thread of time, but they weren’t simply mate-bonded. Their souls were bound through time and space. He could not tear that bond, no matter how much he tried.
It was there, a fine thread inside her. One she could use to save him.
‘Ivy, no.’ Paul’s cry was in her ear, in her mind. He started pushing against what she was doing, his own energies flooding into her.
‘Paul. Stop.’
Iris’s voice was a distant echo to the same desperate cry deep inside Ivy. Her desperation allowed her to push up, to stare into Paul’s eyes again. ‘Please. Let me do this. I’m not important.’
He cupped her face with his free hand. ‘You are to me. You must live.’
She shook her head. ‘Not if it means you will die.’
‘I will die without you.’
‘No. You won’t. We are not mates.’
‘But we are. We are.’
She shook her head sadly. ‘You didn’t let it happen.’
‘You remember?’
She blinked against the tears pressing against her eyes. ‘You kissed me. Then you pushed me away. And I … it felt like dying.’
‘No.’ His fingers clenched in her hair, his thumb brushing over her cheek. ‘You weren’t supposed to remember.’
‘I didn’t. Not until I touched you.’ Her tears wet his bare chest, but she couldn’t make them stop. ‘I understand that you don’t want me. That you can’t want me. I’m not the right one for you at this time. You must do what’s right for the pack. I understand.’
‘No, that’s not—’
‘Let me go, Paul. Let me save you and then go and bond with Mariella. I give you my blessing. For the well-being of the pack.’
She took a breath and concentrated, pushing everything she was into him. She felt him scrabbling against her, trying to push back what she was giving him, but she wouldn’t let him. She didn’t matter. Only he did for now. They would get their chance again in some other life.
In this one though, this was the only thing, the one last thing she could do for the man who was meant to be her mate. It was all she could do for this man she’d loved all her life.
Save him.
Save the pack.
It was as simple as that.
She closed her eyes and gave him her life.
‘Ivy, no!" Paul pushed against the power flowing into him, but it didn’t help. She’d already gone limp at his side. His gaze met his aunt’s. ‘Please. Don’t let her do this.’
‘I don’t know how we can stop her.’
‘You have to. I can’t live without her.’
‘We can’t live without you.’
‘Then fix this.’
Iris glanced at Abby who shook her head, tears in her eyes. ‘There’s nothing I can do,’ the wolf-healer said.
‘Aunt. Please.’
‘I don’t know if I can.’
‘Please. Try.’
Iris’s jaw clenched as she pressed her lips together and touched Ivy. She gasped and grabbed her hand back a moment later. ‘Abby, they’re soul-bound.’
Abby’s mouth dropped open as her gaze ran over Ivy. ‘I had no idea. I never felt in her the return of an old soul.’
‘That’s because I don’t think she is an old soul. Neither is he. They’re brand new.’
‘Then how can they be soul-bound?’
‘I don’t know. But look. You’ll see it’s true.’
Abby touched them both on their chests, her eyes closing for long seconds—too long. Ivy’s lifeforce was flowing into him too fast.
Then the healer’s eyes snapped open on her gasp. ‘It’s true. Do you think—?’
Iris nodded. ‘Yes. It’s the only way.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Paul demanded. He’d learned nothing of this in his studies.
‘No time to explain now,’ Iris said. ‘But if it is true, we might be able to undo what you’ve done.’
Paul grabbed her wrist before she could lay a hand on him. ‘No. If you undo it, she will die.’
‘How can you be certain?’
‘I saw it.’
‘You better than anyone knows the future can be changed.’
‘Not this one. It is a static point. If she mates with me, she will die.’
‘And if we don’t undo what you’ve done, you will both die. Ivy in the next hour and you soon after because she is the only thing keeping you here.’
‘There has to be a way around it.’
‘There isn’t.’ Iris’s eyes bored into his, hard as flint, but with a touch of empathy at their depth. ‘Either way, she will die. It is up to you when and how.’
Paul gritted his jaw until he thought his teeth might break. ‘Then let me die with her now. I can’t live without her.’
Iris’ eyes flared with anger and determination. ‘That is never going to happen.’ She tore her wrist out of his grip as Abby put a hand on Paul’s chest and one on Ivy’s head at the same time that Iris laid her hand on his head and one over Ivy’s chest. He tried to move, to slap their hands away, but the moment Iris touched him, it
was like the world around him thickened.
‘No. No. What are you doing? I don’t want this,’ he managed to say before his jaw locked and he could do nothing more than shout in his mind.
Iris’s stern gaze met Abby’s over the two prone bodies. ‘Now.’
There was a sharp buzz in the air over him and then a terrible sting at the point Ivy’s hand clung to his arm. The stinging turned to a burn, then a flame that raced through him. He cried out in his mind, could hear Ivy screaming in hers.
Iris and Abby—they were somehow inside him, inside Ivy, taking the filaments of broken bond and binding them together with filaments of something silvery and gold and glowing.
The soul-bond. The reason his try at changing fate and breaking the mating bond hadn’t worked. He and Ivy were soul-bonded. A bond that stretched beyond life, beyond death. One that made them mates for all time. It was rare. So rare he’d never considered the possibility it could ever be his.
But if they used the soul-bond to rebuild the mating bond, wouldn’t that tie their souls into this life?
And what happened in this life would be repeated through the soul-bond down through the ages.
Ivy would die over and over because she mated with him.
No. No! He couldn’t let them do it. But he had no ability to stop them as they bound his and Ivy’s souls into the mating bond of this life. He had no healing powers, nothing offensive with which to stop them, to shove them away. ‘Goddess, Arianrhod,’ he called in his mind. ‘Please, help me now.’
A gaping void of sound was his answer.
He tried calling out again. Still nothing. Why didn’t she come? She’d always come when he’d called in the past. Now, there was nothing. Arianrhod was gone and he was on his own. Another consequence of his actions?
It didn’t matter. The beat of Ivy’s heart next to his was getting stronger—a song in his heart—but he knew, if he allowed this, one day soon it would stop for good.
He wrapped all the power he still had inside him, knowing what he must do. The pack would find a way to survive without him. They still had Iris. She could bond other witches and warlocks to the pack. She’d find a way to make other covens and their packs agree.
She had to.
Ivy had to survive.
He folded space, sliced an opening into the void, and tore himself away.
Chapter 11
Relief rushed through Paul as he transported himself away—he’d saved her! It lasted all of one second before he realised Ivy had come with him. Her hand was still clamped to his arm, her heartbeat a driving force next to his, her lifeforce feeding into him as she stared up at him with her big beautiful eyes.
The drain of lifeforce was slower now, the need for it not as great as it had been because of what Iris and Abby had managed to do before he transported himself away.
But she was still giving her life for his.
He had to stop her, but he couldn’t remove her hand from his arm in the void. If he did, she would truly be lost.
Why? Why?
Why didn’t Fate want her to live?
The void shifted and changed, the intent of his transportation spell moving them back into the real world with a thrust he was unaccustomed to.
They were thrown through the fold he’d created and landed with a hard thud, rolling through the long grass on top of the hill. He wrapped his arms around Ivy, protecting her as much as he could from their violent landing.
They came to an abrupt halt against a tree.
A tree? There shouldn’t be a tree here. Had he miscalculated?
Not that it mattered. All that mattered was Ivy and what it meant that she’d come with him.
He lifted off her, trying to pull away, but her hand was still attached to his arm with that strange golden force that had sprung to life at the hot springs. ‘Ivy, why did you do it? Why did you come with me?’
She looked up at him, her beautiful eyes achingly certain. ‘I thought you were meant for Mariella. I was ready to sacrifice myself for that belief. But when Iris and Abby started to do what they did, I realised I was wrong. I couldn’t let you go. You’re mine to protect.’
‘But I was trying to protect you. To save your life.’
She scrambled up to kneel beside him, the way she was attached making her brush up against him, sending shivers of longing through him. ‘By forfeiting your own? You should know that cannot be allowed.’
‘I cannot have you die because of me!"
She jerked back a little, eyes widened as his shout echoed around them. Then frowning, she said, ‘You mentioned visions? Of me dying?’
‘Yes,’ he hissed. ‘As we were mating I saw it. So many times through so many different threads. I tried and tried to see if I could change it, but nothing worked. Every future showed the same thing—if we mated, you would die.’
‘Show me.’
He reared back, scrambling to his feet, but of course, she came with him, her fingers tightening on his arm. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not? Why are you the only one allowed to see what happens in our future?’
‘My gift is given to me. The burden mine alone to carry.’
She stepped closer to him, touched his face. ‘What law says that is so?’
‘What?’
‘There is no law that states you must shoulder the burden of your visions alone. No law that states you alone must change them and watch if you fail thinking it is entirely your fault.’
‘But that is the way it has always been. I see the future and it is my job to find a way to stop the disasters from coming.’
‘But don’t you share your visions with the pack’s leaders?’
‘When it’s something they can help me change.’
She smiled at him. ‘Then you can share your visions.’
‘What? No. That is not what I meant. Even if I tell them about what I see, I am the one who mostly decides what must be done because nobody but me can go into the visions to figure out the different paths to take.’
‘But what if it doesn’t have to be that way? What if you don’t have to be the only one to decide what must be done?’
‘It isn’t possible. For that to occur, you would have to come into the vision with me, and I don’t know any seer who has ever been able to make that occur. The visions are for the seer alone to bear.’
He’d stepped away as he spoke, but she came with him, moving even closer until he could feel the warmth of her along his front, her breath on his skin.
‘But what if it can be done?’ She reached up and touched his face, her fingers sliding down from his brow to his chin.
He knew he should refuse her touch, but in this moment, he couldn’t make himself step away. Her touch was pleasure and agony combined. His heart throbbed with its need for the contact. He swallowed hard, forcing himself to not reach for her. ‘It can’t.’
‘I think it can.’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘Am I? You brought me through the void to this place. Why not take me into your vision?’
‘That was simply a transportation. A mistake. It isn’t the same.’
‘Have you done that before? Transported someone with you?’
‘No. It’s not something that can be done.’
‘Then how did you do it now?’
His mouth opened with a reply, but there was none. She was right. He had been taught he could only transport himself, but he had just proved that teaching wrong. ‘It’s different,’ he said weakly.
‘I think it’s the same. If you wanted to, I know you could do it.’ She stumbled a little.
‘Ivy.’ He grabbed her arms, pulling her closer to steady her. ‘Why are you doing this? You need to let go of me. You need to leave this place. If you don’t, you won’t survive.’
She looked up at him. ‘If you want to save me, you need to mate with me.’
‘If I do that, you will die.’
She shook her head, a little chuckle erupting from h
er mouth. ‘This is a circular argument. I will die now if you don’t mate with me and I will die if I do mate with you.’
‘You could live if you would just let go.’
‘Then you would die. And I would die with you.’
‘No.’
She cupped his face, her thumb rubbing over his cheek. ‘You may have broken and changed the threads of our mating, but they are still there, deep inside because we are soul-bonded. It’s what is allowing me to give you my life energy to save you. It’s what allowed Iris and Abby to start weaving those threads back together. Fate may have allowed you to cut the mating bond of this life, but it didn’t allow you to get rid of the soul-bond. I am your fated mate. Not just in this life, but through time.’
‘How can I live knowing our mating will be responsible for your death?’
‘You take too much on yourself. It’s no wonder you are always so unhappy.’ She frowned, rubbed her head. ‘I have two memories of you in two different life threads vying for pre-eminence in my mind. In both of them, you are so unhappy. It makes my soul ache to see it so.’
‘You shouldn’t be able to remember the other timeline.’
‘But I can. Maybe it is this place.’
‘What? My hill?’
‘This isn’t your hill, Paul.’
He lifted his head and truly looked around for the first time. It was his hill, but it looked different. There was a vividness to the colours of the grass and trees and sky that wasn’t usual, like he was seeing everything through a golden tint.
It wasn’t just the colours that were different. The grass wasn’t quite right. It was blowing in a breeze that wasn’t there and the clouds hung in the sky, unmoving, as if painted in the violet sky. Scents hung in the air that did not belong on his hill—cinnamon and honey and spicy scents mixed with the scent of exotic blossoms on the tree overhead.
A tree that shouldn’t be there.
A tree as ancient and gnarled as any tree he’d ever seen, with a crown of gold and amber leaves arching over them. The leaves shivered on its branches, emitting a bell-like sound he’d not noticed until now because he’d been so focused on Ivy and trying to get her to leave him. But now he did notice it, he realised he’d heard that sound before.
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