Page 194 of Warlords, Witches & Wolves

He ran his hands up her spine, pulling her closer as she pulled him closer. He dug his fingers into her hair, gently pulling it free from the ponytail, the soft silk of it twining around his fingers, his wrists.

His top tore—she had used her claws. He’d done that to her, brought her so close to the edge that she couldn’t hold back her wolf. He shouted his exhilaration up to the sky, feeling like a god, but she pulled his head down and took his mouth with hers.

The taste of her. It was like nectar, sweet and spicy all at once and something for which he’d never get his fill.

He tumbled back and her thick silky hair swung over his face, tickling his cheeks. He laughed. She laughed. So much joy. He had no idea there would be so much joy.

She sat up, took off her t-shirt, her high breasts encased in fine white cotton with little flowers printed on it. So beautiful. So Ivy.

She blushed under his gaze, but it was a good kind of blush, not self-conscious, but full of a sense of herself, her worth, and how she was so god-damned sexy to him, with him.

He reached for the button on her shorts—

The earth began to spin around and around and around.

No. No. Not now. But he couldn’t stop it. The vision flew towards him with earth-shattering force.

He heard her calling out, calling his name, but he couldn’t answer, instead saw Ivy standing with him before the pack, their Alpha declaring them mates, equal expressions of joy and concern crowded around them; he saw Ivy racing before him to their car, shouting at him that he had to hurry because she wanted to start their honeymoon right now then she was in the front seat of that car, her eyes wide as she cried out to him to watch out then they were rolling and rolling and the car exploded and they were gone.

The vision flipped.

They were now on a boat; a storm came up suddenly. The boat capsized, catching them in the rigging and they both drowned.

It flipped again to show them in the kitchen. There was a faulty appliance. He got electrocuted and as he died, Ivy fell next to him, as dead as her mate.

Over and over again, images after images of possible futures before them and in every one, they ended up dead.

Ivy was dead.

His mate was dead.

How could this be happening?

‘Paul!"

He jolted upright, clutching his head, yelling, ‘No. No. No.’

Ivy was dead.

Because he’d completed the mating bond, he’d caused her death. Over and over. He shoved into the visions, looked at the path, looked at ways to change the path that led to death, but there were none. Not one. If she mated to him, she would die.

He snapped out of the vision, scrambled to his feet, shaking his head. No, not just his head. His whole body was shaking. ‘No. Not going to happen. I’m not going to do it. You can’t make me.’

‘Paul?’ She stood, her hands outstretched, the hurt in her eyes a dagger in his heart. ‘What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong?’

He couldn’t tell her. Except, he couldn’t stand the way her face was crumbling, the hurt he could feel inside her through the tenuous link of the mating bond—a bond that he had to stop in its tracks if he could. He put up a block, clamping down on those tenuous threads, attempting to crush them with his magic. But it was too late. They’d already gone too far.

‘Ivy … I …’ Goddess, he didn’t want to cause her pain—which he would do if he stopped the mating in its tracks. It was too much. Too much. ‘Goddess, please, help me.’

‘You do not need me to help you.’ Arianrhod’s voice echoed through his mind reminding him of what she’d just said to him in the vision place.

He kept backing away from Ivy. She didn’t move towards him, but her hand was stretched out and he could feel her pain and confusion pounding into him through the mating bond despite his efforts to block it with his powers. ‘Make it all go away,’ he shouted at the Goddess.

‘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.’

---