“No time!” Hugh hurled over his shoulder as he took the stairs three at a time.
He crashed through Ash’s office door so hard he literally tore it off its hinges. The Phoenix glanced up from his paperwork, unfazed as always.
“Ah,” he said, as if he’d been expecting the intrusion. “I take it Ivy spoke to you.”
“How could you—“ Hugh’s chest heaved, his words coming in short, gasping breaths. It wasn’t just the physical exertion. He was furious, more furious than he ever had been in his life. “How could you offer—how could you dare—am I too late?”
“If you are asking whether I have already burned Ivy’s feelings for you, the answer is no.” One of Ash’s eyebrows rose very slightly. “Believe me, you would have known if I had.”
The wave of relief that rushed over Hugh was so strong, he had to grip the back of the chair opposite Ash’s desk in order to stay on his feet. He’d beaten Ivy here. He was still her mate.
“Why the hell did you even offer to do such an appalling thing?” he demanded. “Damn it, Ash! You won’t burn someone’s animal, but you’d do this? Why?”
The Phoenix put down his pen, carefully. He steepled his fingers in front of him.
“Because I know exactly how painful it is to be unable to be with one’s mate,” he said quietly. “And if someone could do something to take that burden away from me, I would welcome it.”
“Well, I don’t!” Hugh glared at him. “Don’t you ever, ever use your power on me, understand?”
Ash’s shoulders stiffened. “I told Ivy I would not do it without your consent.”
“I don’t consent. I will never consent. If I ever think you’ve burned so much as one second of my memories, the tiniest bit of my pain, then I will bloody end you.”
Ash did not comment on the likelihood of this. Which was just as well, since Hugh was one wrong word away from hauling back and punching the most powerful shifter in Europe square in the face.
“I will never affect any part of your mind or soul without your express permission,” Ash said, with utmost formality. “As the Phoenix Eternal, I swear it.”
Hugh let out a long, shaking breath, some of the tightness draining away from his own shoulders at last. “Good. We’re clear on that, then.”
“Very.” Ash studied him for a moment. “Would you have me make a similar vow regarding Ivy?”
Hugh opened his mouth to say yes…but hesitated.
It’s not enough, she’d said.
Ivy creeping about the house, finding any excuse to leave a room the instant that he entered. The way she flinched whenever she looked at him. Like he was a severed limb. A useless remnant, a gruesome relic of past trauma. Something better off burned and buried.
“Hugh?”
He twitched, pulling back from that echoing, silent space inside. There was no voice there to insist that he still had a purpose, that his mate still needed him.
Ivy didn’t need him. She needed to heal.
“No.” He sank down into the chair opposite Ash, weary in every part of his body. “No, don’t promise that.”
“It is irrelevant anyway.” Ash straightened the paperwork on the desk, precisely aligning the corners of the pages. “As I told Ivy, I will not do it to only one of you.”
“Yes. You will.”
Ash looked up sharply. “I beg your pardon?”
Hugh took a deep breath, bracing himself. “Ivy’s going to come see you soon. She’ll ask you to burn her side of our connection. I want you to do it.”
“No,” Ash said without hesitation. “You do not know what you are asking.”
“I do. I know exactly what it’s like to have something, and then lose it utterly. I wouldn’t ever want to forget my unicorn. I don’t ever want to forget Ivy either. But she needs to forget me, if she’s going to heal.”
“Hugh, you cannot ask me to do this to a friend. If I give her the comfort of forgetting, it will only increase your own suffering.”