Her gut twisted. How horrible that must be. “Tyrez and I—we’ve been really worried about you.”
He grimaced. “I wish I could repay you. Getting me out of that place, and bringing me here—if I’d gone back to the Dragon empire, I think I would have lost it completely.”
“Tyrez wasn’t going to quit until he’d saved you.”
The Dragon shifter fell silent. Couldn’t he sense the bond forming between him and Tyrez? Or was he too damaged to see it?
She stifled her uncharitable thoughts—that if Ash rejected Tyrez, he’d be free.
She reminded herself he wasn’t for her. Not even in her daydreams. And she had no right to interfere with destiny. It didn’t take a psychic to see they belonged together.
She had no right to Tyrez.
So she took a deep breath, and said, “He really cares about you, Ash.”
“I am a mess. I don’t deserve him.”
The tortured tone washed away her resentment. “Don’t say that. It isn’t true. He risked his life to save you because he believes you belong with him.”
Ash shot her a look, his silver eyes wide—almost panicked. “Why do you say that?”
She struggled to define what she’d sensed. “I can feel it. There is something between you. Haven’t you felt it? You can foresee the future, can’t you?”
Ash shuddered. “I foresee many things. Most don’t make any sense.”
“Can’t you control it?”
He didn’t answer right away. Just when she thought he wouldn’t, he did. “I used to. But now, it controls me.”
She swallowed. “Do all Oracles struggle with it?”
He shrugged, the movement barely visible in the gathering darkness. “I wouldn’t know. As far as I am aware, I am the only one.” He pulled his feet up onto the stone and wrapped his long arms around his knees. “Until they got the collar off, it was so bad”—he broke off—“I-I just wanted it to be over.”
Dani’s heart constricted. That desire to embrace the darkness—she’d felt it in the dreams. Had experienced it too. It was a side of Ash that she understood all too well.
“You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” His voice, so surprisingly deep, had dropped to a soft rumble.
She looked away from him, out over the darkening grasslands. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
He took an audible breath. “But now, it’s better. It’s like the collar was somehow blocking me from controlling it.” His eyes flared silver in the darkness. “Is it better now, for you? Or do you still walk that edge?”
“I-I’m not sure.” Remy had nearly destroyed her. But if she were honest, her life up until Rindek recruited her off the streets had not been easy, either. And now—now she raced across the grasslands on four swift paws and used her mind to throw boulders like they were confetti.
Dani took a deep breath. “Don’t turn away from Tyrez, Ash. I may not be an Oracle, but I believe he is your future.”
Ash sighed. “He doesn’t deserve the hell I would bring him.”
She glanced back at him. “I think... I think that sometimes you have to go through hell to reach heaven.”
The words surprised her, but she sensed the truth in them. Not heaven, exactly. But hope.
She had hope now.
Ash was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Wise words from a wise Dragon.”
“I am not a Dragon,” she protested.
He smiled. “So you don’t have a pocket filled with scales?”
