I could understand why she unnerved people. Her gray eyes always seemed to know more than they should. Her hair still had streaks of dark in it, but was mostly an almost identical shade of gray to her eyes.
“How can I help you?” I asked, once it was only the three of us.
“I know you are aware of the problems currently plaguing our pack,” the Oracle said. “It seems the sand wraith attacks are only going to get worse.”
I glanced down at the map. I leaned forward, all my attention on the older woman. “Did you see something? You have information?”
“None of which I think you are going to like.”
I took a deep breath, fingers curling in on themselves as I braced myself for whatever was about to come.
“It’s better to hear it than pretend it’s not there,” I said. “Let’s have it.”
The Oracle nodded approvingly.
“The attacks are going to get worse over the next several months,” she said.
“Which was what we were anticipating,” I said slowly. “But I doubt you would have come to tell me something that we had already suspected. What else?”
She didn’t answer for a long moment as she scrutinized me, as if debating whether I was ready to hear whatever else she had to say. Despite my respect for the Oracle, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy whenever she stared at me like that.
That was nothing compared to how I felt when she actually spoke.
“If the situation is to improve, you must marry your luna.”
Sam sucked in a breath at the words. I didn’t miss the hurried glance in my direction at the words, even as I refused to look at him. I stared straight ahead, processing the words, a frown spreading across my face.
My luna. The alpha’s mate. It was one of those things that I knew I would have to deal with at some point as part of my duty to the pack. I had just hoped it would be a few more years before I had to think about it.
“Mating will cause the attacks to stop?”
“Not just a mate. Your fated mate.”
I kept my face impassive even as I tried not to roll my eyes. I had never taken much stock in the idea of ‘fated’ mates. Amate was a mate. But if the Oracle was telling me that I needed to mate a specific female, then the elders would insist on it.
“Who is this supposed to be, anyway?”
“Emma Mayberry.”
I blinked, the name bringing to mind a freckly, round-faced girl with auburn hair. The last time I had seen her was when she ran out of my house after she came home with me from some party.
Sam’s brow furrowed. “Mayberry? Isn’t that the girl who ran away from home a few years ago? She can’t even shift.” He turned to look at the Oracle. “Are you sure you’re correct? That just doesn’t seem like the right choice for a luna.”
“I’m only telling you what I’ve seen,” the Oracle said.
Sam shook his head. “It has to be wrong. No one is going to accept a luna who ran away from the pack, let alone someone who can’t even shift.”
“He’s right,” I said, drumming my fingers on the table as I mulled over this new information. “Maybe it’s best to keep this to ourselves. We can find out some other way of dealing with the wraith.”
In my mind’s eye, I was back in my room, telling her she couldn’t tell anyone about our one-night stand. If the town had reacted poorly to my hooking up with a female as weak as her, there was no telling how they might react if they found out she was supposed to be my luna. And with all of the other turmoil going on right now with the wraith, I didn’t need any more complications, and Emma would be just that.
“We can worry about fate and prophecy once we have a better handling on the wraith,” I said.
The Oracle’s eyes narrowed, her lips pursing. “Even your father, stubborn as he was, was not so stubborn as to ignore prophecy,” she said. “If you ignore this, then it will spell disaster for the whole town.”
The words felt weighed down with premonition in a way that sent shivers running up my spine. I tried not to shudder.
Even if I wasn’t sure I believed the prophecy, or in fated mates, I couldn’t walk away from it. Once word inevitably got out, there would be enough people—elders and normal pack members alike—who would demand I follow through that I wouldn’t be able to refuse. If I did, I would lose the trust of half the pack.
