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‘It doesn’t matter. We have children,’ she replied, wiggling her fingers in the swirling pool, manually backing up the image to show the two beautiful, bright faces in the back of the car. They looked like they were about ten. They had her nose and mouth and the shape of her eyes if not their colour and shared Paul’s hair and the square determination of his jaw. The boy was most definitely a Were and the girl was a witch, but there was so much power shared between them it sizzled through the vision, stealing her breath. ‘So strong. So essential. They are important, Paul. More important than anything. Can you feel it?’

He nodded, his eyes filling with awe as he stared at the children that would be theirs. Children they’d made together. The ones the pack had been waiting for to save them.

‘They only appear in this future,’ he said slowly.

She realised he was right. There was no sign of children in any other future—they, without exception, had shown them anywhere between a few months and a few years ahead, just the two of them, dying, no chance to have children.

This one was unique in two remarkable ways. Not only did this future give them children, it looked like it gave them much more time. It could take a mated pair—especially when they were not both Were—five to ten years to procreate.

‘When does this take place?’ she asked, excitement gripping her, thrusting away the horror of seeing all the deaths.

He tipped his head, weaving his fingers, moving the vision around to try to help answer her question. The image stilled on the phone in Ivy’s lap—she’d never seen anything like it—then on the strange combinations of letters and numbers on the number plate of the car. ‘It has to be many years from now.’

He nodded. ‘They look about ten and we look like we’re in our late thirties or early forties. Which gives us maybe twenty years together.’

She gripped his hand tighter, tears starring her vision as she looked at the image he’d stopped on of their children, so beautiful, determined and calm in the face of such stress. ‘Twenty happy years together where we get to rear those two special people for ten years.’

‘It’s not enough,’ he said.

‘Of course it isn’t. But it’s more than I imagined. More than any other vision gives us by a long way.’

‘But the children, they’re so scared.’

She turned to him, gripped his other hand. ‘I know. But they’re alive. And we can find a way to make sure they are kept safe beyond our time with them. Your mother is there.’ She pointed at one of the dark figures who arrived to fight the attackers who’d made the car crash. ‘And your father.’

He stared at the image. ‘But they’re dead.’

‘Not according to this.’

He nodded slowly. ‘I’ve never had a vision that showed me her before, but I knew …’ He clenched his fist over his chest. ‘Knew in here that no matter what Aunt Iris said, my parents weren’t dead. Knew she still had some significant role to play in my future. I could never stop thinking about her. Maybe this is why.’

‘Maybe you’re right.’ She put her hand over his fist, stroking his fingers until they uncurled from the fist he’d made and twined with hers. ‘When we study this vision to help us figure out what is happening and how we can help our children survive this inevitability, we might learn what happened to your parents all those years ago.’

‘Maybe.’ He met her gaze and stroked her hair back, his eyes starting to fill with bright hope. ‘Although, the important thing is to make certain our children are prepared in every way possible to cope with this future without burdening them with it.’

‘Yes. And we have twenty years to do it. Twenty years together. Ten of them raising our beautiful boy and girl. A Were and a witch. Both of them the hope for the future. I’m more than happy with that, my love. Are you?’

He stared into her eyes for long moments before placing a sweet kiss on her lips. ‘Yes. I am.’

‘Then what do we need to do to make certain this future is ours?’

He cycled back along the thread, too fast to see much more than the sense that despite times of worry and doubt, they had happiness, laughter and love as they explored their relationship and built their little family, surrounded by family, pack and friendships that only strengthened through the years.

Then he came to the moment that would set them along this path. It was as simple as starting their mating in the Goddess’s place under the tree of memories she’d made for them. Then make love again under the moon and the stars on their hill in their timeline.

‘Are you ready, my love?’

‘Always,’ she said.