She smiled at him. “Was I that bad?”
He jerked as though startled. “What? No. It’s just that your virginity isn’t something that you give easily.”
“It’s not about giving something away. It’s about being with someone I… I care about and with someone I trust. I’ve wanted to be with you since I first saw you in my visions and knew you were the one.”
Dain picked up her hand and pressed it to his lips.
His chest tightened with love and tenderness he’d never felt before. “Thank you.”
Silence hung between them for a few seconds before Dain asked, almost fearfully, “Since you’ve lost your virginity, does it mean that your gift of prophecy will change?”
“No, it won’t take away my gift. Elaris said it was something I was born with and has nothing to do with whether I’ve been with a man. Other oracles have mated and continued to deliver prophecies for hundreds of years.”
He hesitated for another minute, dreading what the answer to his question might be. Finally, he decided to just spit it out. “Now that we’ve mated, is the curse going to take effect? Am I going to go slowly insane or will I lose my mind overnight?”
She sat up and smiled at him, gently running her fingers through his hair. “I honestly don’t know. However, there’s more to the curse than what we know. As I’ve told you, there’s something I don’t fully understand yet.”
She threw up in the air in a surrendering motion. “It’s very frustrating, but the fates and gods don’t tell me everything I want to know. A lot of times, they just give me little bits of information. Things have to play out and I have to figure it out as I go. Then, the fates or gods chime in with an ‘Atta girl’ or something to that effect.”
In spite of his frustration and fear of losing his mind, he chuckled. “The gods say ‘Atta girl?’”
She grinned. “They have a sense of humor, too.”
He groaned and sat up. “This is so damned frustrating, not knowing. I’m just waiting to see if I go mad.”
Maybe the madness has already started. You did hear whispers last night.
“It is hard, but it’s always been that way. The answers come when the powers that be decide we need to know, not when we want to know.”
“That’s just mean,” he said, jokingly.
She giggled. “Maybe so. Or maybe, if we rely too much on them telling us information, we’ll forget to live and think for ourselves. We’d be nothing more than puppets and would lose our free will.” She sighed. “Look, I know you will become king again. I know that there is a long war ahead of you. You can’t win that war if you’re insane.”
“There is that.” He felt some relief in her words. A warrior had to be able to think critically in order to win a war.
“I think I need to wash up again,” she said. “I left my soap on that rock, anyway.”
They both walked into the creek and washed themselves.
She teased him. “You’re going to smell like lavender.”
“That way the enemy won’t know I’m coming. They’ll think I’m some beautiful female until I unleash hot fury on them.”
Dain grinned. He hadn’t felt so free in a long time. He’d been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders for so long that he’d forgotten how it felt to just laugh and be silly for a moment.
They dried off and redressed. This time, she wore a scarlet tunic.
“Do the colors mean anything?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I just like them. I’ll have to wash this blue one tomorrow. I also have a dark green one, burnt orange, and a dark purple tunic. I wore the blue one in honor of meeting you since you are the ice and lightning dragon shifter.” She grinned. “Plus, I figured it would annoy the great and powerful King Malakar.”
“Color coordinator, as well as an oracle. My woman has many talents.”
He grew serious as they walked back to the ruins. “Kael told me that you left the ruins.”
“Yes, I did. I was trying to use fire divination to search for more answers. Although I often see prophecies through dreams or visions, I am a fire oracle.”
“What did you see?”