Page 223 of Warlords, Witches & Wolves

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.

This was the Goddess’s place between time. The place she drew him to whenever he’d called to her for guidance, comfort and help. He’d never seen his hill here, strange tree or no, but he knew this was her place. The magic of it, the timelessness, sparkled on the air around him, tingling his skin, filling him with an energy he never felt at any other time.

‘Arianrhod?’ A breeze caught his hair, brushed over his skin. ‘My Goddess? Why have you brought me here?’ She did not answer as she usually did. Nor did she appear. ‘What do you want of me? What point are you making?’

Only the bell-like chiming on the tree answered him, a word whispered to him in their sound: Choose.

‘Choose? Choose what?’

Ivy staredup at Paul as he shouted at the sky, at the tree. She looked around. ‘This is the Goddess’s place?’ A shiver trembled over her skin, but then a voice whispered in her ear, ‘Help him. Help carry the burden. Help him to choose.’

‘Choose? Choose what?’

She said the words at the same time he did. Their gazes met as their words echoed into the distance. She saw the world in his eyes—past, future, present, different time lines, different threads. The burden of knowledge so great. So heavy. And one she knew she could help to carry if only he would let her.

She had to convince him to let her. But to do that, she had to see what he could see.

A thought pressed into her mind, a whisper of knowledge, telling her how it could be done. She could dive in, using the threads of what bound them together and see what he saw. But she didn’t want to force him to share. She wanted it to be his choice.

‘Paul.’

He started to shake his head, his dark curls flopping over his forehead in that way she so loved—even in the timeline where she’d hated him, she had still found the way his curls flopped on his forehead like that annoyingly cute. She brushed the curls back, the silk of them warm on her fingers. He stilled under her touch. ‘Paul.’

‘No, Ivy. Don’t ask me to do it.’

‘You do not know what I want to ask.’

‘Yes, I do. You want me to show you all futures I saw in which you die. But how can you ask me to do that to you? It was hard enough to see it without you viewing it with me. Why would you want to see it?’

Her mouth dried. She’d not thought of it like that—watching herself die over and over was something she didn’t really want to see, but if it was inevitable … ‘Because there’s a choice we can make.’

He sucked in a breath. ‘What do you mean?’

‘If my death is inevitable—whether we mate or not—then we should choose together which way it should unfold.’

‘We? But I am the seer and—’

‘Yes, we. Because we are mates—you cannot deny it—and a future that affects one of us affects us both.’ She gripped his hand, brought it up to her chest, placing it there to feel her heart, then put her hand over his heart. ‘See, they already beat as one. So let’s act as one. You already tried it by yourself and look how that turned out.’

‘I did what I thought was best.’

The hurt in his voice made her smile softly. ‘I know you did, my mate. But it was the wrong choice to try to deal with this alone. Can’t you see that? You have been given a mate—against the wishes of the pack and the coven and maybe history itself, we have been fated to be together. So let’s be together. Truly together. In every decision. In every burden. Let’s do what others only speak about and truly become one.’

‘But …’ His voice faltered, his hand clenching against her chest. ‘How can you want to see yourself die? To choose the manner of your death.’

‘I don’t. It fills me with horror to think of knowing when and how I will die.’

‘Then how can you consider asking me to do this? How will you bear it?’

‘Because, I don’t think of it as choosing a death. I think of it as choosing a life.’

He stared at her. ‘You are so strong. I wish I was strong enough to see it the way you do.’

She cupped his face again. ‘Of course you are strong. How can you not see it?’

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