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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.