Page 99 of Protected By Her Mate

Charlie! How can she be with me when we’re in the past?

I’m a part of you now, which means I’m always with you. I’ll be waiting for you when you come home.

She fades into the background of my mind, leaving behind a reassuring warmth. I stop struggling and allow my immortality to flow from me.

I watch Magdalene who’s still chanting the same words over and over. Her blackened fingers entwined with mine, gripping me with crushing strength. When she turns her head to look at me, her eyes are black as pitch, no white to relieve them.

Finally, everything stops. The chanting, the cries of anguish from the spectator’s at Vanessa’s death, everything. All eyes are on Vanessa whose body has disintegrated into a pile of ash. My brother is on his knees gripping his head, moaning and rocking. Then the ash lifts off the ground in what appears to be a spiralling breeze, floating above Keenan’s head before igniting with an inner fire.

From beside me, Magdalene gasps and claps her hands. “Isn’t it wonderful? You were thinking of Charlie when you released your immortality. You infused it with your mate’s spirit before handing it over to Vanessa.”

“Uh huh.” I have no idea what’s happening.

She slaps my arm and grins. “You and Charlie turned Vanessa into a phoenix! You gave her the gift of rebirth through fire because your mate’s spirit is infused with fire. You and Charlie and Vanessa are all linked now.”

I’m awed by the scene before me. The depth of Keenan’s feelings for his mate, a mirror to my own feelings for Charlie. Tears of joy run unchecked down his face as his mate turns into a beautiful fiery phoenix who is now floating back to the ground where she’s greeted by her loved ones.

I startle as a hand curves over my shoulder. When I look, I see what appears to be a dust devil beside me. Destiny. “You’ve done what you came here to do. You must now leave this timeline before you cause damage.”

“Damage? What do you mean?” I ask, but the whirlwind is kicking up a small storm that encompasses the three of us. No one on the cliffside seems to notice as we leave the way we came.

Magdalene explains as we travel, “Travelling through time almost always has consequences. It’s difficult to keep the natural order in balance when fucking around with timelines. If a witch is going to do that sort of thing, she has to do it with surgical precision. We should be grateful to Destiny for allowing our trespass on her domain.”

Picking up on the subtext, I realize Destiny is still with us. “Destiny will have my gratitude until my dying day.”

“Which will now be a lot sooner than it would have otherwise been if you’d kept your immortality.” Destiny’s voice is loud in my ear as we land in the dusty library in Wolf-Haven castle. Books now litter the floor.

I turn to look at the blur in the air. “Still, you have my eternal gratitude. Immortality has no meaning to me if I can’t be with Charlie.”

“You are free to be with your mate now,” Destiny says. “The curse will no longer haunt you. I’ve made sure of it. Enjoy your mortal years.” With that she’s gone. I don’t know how I know since she’s not a corporeal presence, but the atmosphere in the room seems to lift, as though a heavy presence has gone away.

“What does she mean the curse will no longer haunt me?” I demand of Magdalene.

She shakes her head as though trying to reorient herself. “It means you’re dying.” At my scowl, she clarifies, “Slowly and in line with a human lifespan. Your wolf will still be able to heal you quite effectively, so you’ll die somewhere in the upper range of a human lifespan.”

Nope, still don’t understand. “So because I’m human and Charlie is human and we’re both going to live out a human lifespan, the curse no longer applies?”

“Sort of, but more like you’ve put the curse on hold for several decades. The curse is meant to separate the Wolven-North men from their mates. Death is a form of separation and both you and Charlie must die one day, meaning the curse will have its way at that time.”

She’s wrong, not even death will separate me from my mate. Once Charlie dies, I’ll follow close behind and we’ll continue to exist together in the afterlife.

I ask, “In the meantime, Charlie and I are free to live our lives without fear of the curse separating us?”

She nods. “I think that’s what Destiny is saying.”

“I need to find Charlie and tell her.” Charlie already knows, having seen most of what transpired in my head, but the desire to go to her is overwhelming.

“Say hi for me,” Magdalene says.

I pause at the door, looking back at her, taking in the bend to her shoulders, the weariness around her eyes. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me and my family.”

She smiles at me, the tiredness disappearing. “You deserve to be happy. Go find your mate.”

Chapter 37

Set the world on fire

CHARLIE

---