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‘Weak in soul at the moment perhaps, but not weak in power. If you were to leave Pack McVale, you would die and you would take others with you. Not to mention that without you, your pack would be destroyed by the Curse.’ She sighed and stared out at the ocean, a small frown creasing between her brows. ‘Even if you did not care for your own life, you cannot endanger the life of others. It is not in your character to do so. And, despite the fact you feel sootherfrom them most of the time, you would never be able to bring yourself to destroy your pack.’

‘My pack wouldn’t be destroyed if I was to die. My aunt is still alive. She could still bare children if she so wished. But she doesn’t. She wants to lay all the burden of our future on me.’

The Goddess stared at him for a long moment until he looked away, unable to hold her gaze.

‘Your aunt cannot have children. Like so many of those with the talent of spirit-talking, she is unable to procreate.’

Paul frowned. ‘She never said.’ But before he could feel sorry for her, he said, ‘But even if that’s true, she could still bind witches from other packs to ours to keep our coven going. It’s been done before.’

‘Not lightly done, as well you know. And other packs will not want to gift their coven members to Pack McVale when it is in danger of starting the Curse. If the pack is to survive, your line must survive. That means you must survive. There is no other choice.’

‘Choice. There’s the word of the moment. Even my weak, supposedly powerless mother got to choose what was best for her.’

‘Your mother had to leave you all. I don’t think it was much of a choice.’

He jerked around to stare at her. ‘Not from where I stand. She got all the choice. She could have stayed but she chose to leave.’ He sighed and dug his hands a little deeper into the sand, looking down, knowing he was being a whingeing fuck-head, but unable to stop. He was so tired. So sick and tired of it all. ‘That’s all I want. To have a choice that is mine. To know that Fate doesn’t have its hand up my butt making my mouth and limbs move like some great big cosmic joke.’

‘You are not a cosmic joke.’

He snorted, lifted the sand and let it drift through his fingers.

She put her hand on his shoulder—power spiked through him, making him go rigid with it, the sand in his hand sparking and turning to glass as the warlock lightning sprang into being on his fingertips. Despite the dangerous flare of power, she didn’t let go as she usually would do. She did not even seem worried by the fact she was overloading him with power the human body and mind was not ready to accept. Was she angry with him? What had he said to make her so angry? ‘Arianrhod?’ he said through a clenched jaw, managing to turn his head towards her. There was no expression other than a sad expectation on her features. ‘It’s too much,’ he managed.

She shook her head. ‘No. It’s not. You can deal with it. You can deal with so much more. You are not weak. You are strong. But you are right. You should not be doing this alone.’ And so saying, she channelled even more power into him through her hand. He shuddered and cried out, the power firing through his synapses, sparking through his veins, firing his lungs. Oh fuck. Was she trying to burn him to death? To make him explode? He knew his body wasn’t exactly here, but he was pretty bloody certain if he exploded here, he would explode in reality.

‘What … have … I … done?’

‘Nothing. That is the problem.’

‘What more can I do?’ he yelled, his fury overtaking the pain she was causing, taking some of the power and feeding it back into her. She hissed—with pleasure or pain, he couldn’t quite tell.

‘That’s it. See? You have so much more control than you think you do. You do not need my help.’

‘Control? I don’t have any control at all.’

‘You do. But I don’t need to show you. She will.’

Then he was thrust out of the dream-plane and he was falling.