Authors: Christine Warren
“The Wheel of Fortune,” she said slowly. “That’s … interesting. One meaning is just what the card sounds like. It’s the turn of luck in your life. Upright like this, it means good things are happening, and you’re benefiting from them, which is great. But some people also think that when it shows up in a reading it signifies the influence of Fate on your life. That whatever is happening or about to happen to you is something you really can’t control. You just have to ride it out and see where it takes you, because that’s where you’re destined to be.”
She hesitated and looked back over the two other cards she’d already laid down. An uneasy sort of feeling had begun to twist inside of her stomach. She wasn’t quite sure why, but she thought it might have something to do with this impromptu reading. Her hand hovered over the deck until Missy looked at her and smiled her warm, comforting smile.
“Go ahead,” Missy urged. “You said you’d set out four cards on the question and see what they said.”
Tess obediently reached for a final card, slipped it off the top of the deck, and carefully turned it over. The Two of Cups.
“Shit.”
Missy looked at the card, then back up at Tess with an amused expression. “What’s the matter? It’s not like it’s the Death card,” she pointed out. “It looks like a very pretty card to me. Isn’t it a good one?”
“The Death card isn’t really bad.” Tess’s reply came automatically. Her eyes were still glued to the fourth card laid out on the smooth, pristine countertop. “It just means change.”
“Then what does this card mean?”
“True love.”
“Well then.” Missy looked from the card to Tess as a beatific smile spread across her pretty face. “Isn’t that just perfect?”
Five
“Perfect,” Rafe growled as he stalked beside Graham through the semi-hidden hallway that connected Vircolac to the library in Graham’s neighboring house. “Thirteen bloody members on that bloody Council, and I still get stuck with the job of making contact with the witches.”
“You are the head of the Council,” Graham pointed out, sounding amused.
“And you are not helping.”
Rafe’s temper had not improved during the brief, informal meeting with the rest of the Council members. He had his suspicions about why the witches would want to contact the Others for the first time in nearly four hundred years, and none of the possibilities he had in mind made him very happy. The only good thing he could see coming out of the situation was having met Tess. And since she seemed not to consider him to be her favorite person at the moment, even that couldn’t soften the entire blow of being caught up in this political mess. He growled.
“Look,” Graham said, his tone carefully reasonable, “if we’re right and the witches are considering breaking out of the Accord, it’s important for us to talk to them before they do anything rash.”
“I know.” Rafe wasn’t pleased about it, but he did know.
The Accord of Silence had been reached centuries ago, long before the split between the witches and the Others, even before humans had begun writing down tales about men who changed into beasts or cast spells to wither flocks and tell the fortunes of kings. Since the first time when humans began to realize there was something different about some of the creatures walking among them, witches and Others alike had relied on the power of the Accord to keep their existence separate and hidden from humans. It was a formal agreement that none of the races or powerful sects on earth would reveal their existence to humankind. To do so would be folly, but in order to preserve their secrecy, the cooperation of all supernatural creatures and magic users had been vital.
The idea that all of it might end because the witches were tired of hiding made him grind his teeth in frustration. That issue had supposedly been settled in 1627. Why would the witches want to rehash it now? How could they be so irresponsible as to risk the lives of so many non-humans just because they wanted the right to wear pointy black hats in public?
“Don’t sound so grumpy or you’ll scare the human,” Graham said, grinning.
“She is not human. She is a witch.”
“Last I heard, witches
are
human. So unless they’ve been doing some experimentation that we Others haven’t heard of…”
“Bite me.”
“You’re too old and tough. I’d much rather kick you out and go nibble on my wife.” He paused, lifted his head, sniffed. “Who I see has been nibbling on something herself while we were busy. Roast beef, I think. With extra-hot horseradish. They’re in the kitchen.”
Rafe already knew that. He could smell Tess’s sweetly pungent fragrance drifting to him from down the hall. He tried to resist the urge to inhale deeply, but failed, and then he had to snarl at Graham when he caught the Lupine eyeing him with an amused expression.
“What?” he snapped.
“Oh, nothing.” Graham’s grin belied his nonchalant tone. “It’s just nice to see the man who once said he’d never be happy with one woman at a time be so focused on one woman.”
“What are you talking about? Don’t confuse me with one of your bloody packmates, wolf boy. You Lupines are the idiots who think mating with one person for all eternity is a good idea. We Felines know better, at least most of us do. We know that variety is the spice of life.”
“But you didn’t always.”
Rafe gave his friend a warning glare. “Don’t bring up that idiotic old wives’ tale. There’s no evidence to prove a word of it. No one in the last dozen generations has been able to remember a time when the spotted Felines mated for life. Leos and Pumas can do what they like, but Felines like me? We’re cats, not bloody wolves.”
“I didn’t say a thing about it. I just think it’s an interesting legend, don’t you?”
“No.”
“I mean, think about it,” Graham continued, ignoring the way Rafe was baring his teeth in annoyance. “It’s the stuff romantic movies are born of. A beautiful witch; the arrogant jaguar shapeshifter who broke her heart by sleeping with another woman just days after she’d promised her heart to him. The curse she laid on him that his progeny would grow fewer and fewer in number with every passing generation until they died out of this world, unless one man of his blood could find true love and remain faithful to her for a year and a day. That’s a hell of a story.”
“And that’s all it is. A story. With no basis in fact and no evidence supporting the idea that it ever happened. Remember that.”
“Who are you reminding, Rafe? Me? Or yourself?”
He shot his friend another scowl and stalked toward the kitchen. He entered through the swinging door to see Missy and Tess seated at the island counter looking at what appeared to be tarot cards. His eyebrows shot up as surprise momentarily took precedence over his annoyance. “What are you two doing?”
Tess jumped at the sound of his voice, her hand jerking awkwardly, the deck of cards striking the edge of the counter. She cried out as the cards scattered, landing all over the sprung-wood floor.
“You’re a little jumpy,” Graham observed, stepping into the kitchen behind Rafe and quirking an eyebrow. “Something the matter?”
Tess blushed and quickly shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I’m just tired. It’s late. I’ll just pick these up and go.”
Rafe bent down to help her retrieve the cards, scooping up a handful where they lay facedown on the floorboards. “You read tarot cards?”
“I used to,” she muttered, snatching the cards out of his hand and shoving them into a little velvet bag the color of burgundy wine.
He looked at her, trying to puzzle out what she meant by that. Obviously, if she’d just been reading for Missy when he and Graham had walked in,
used to
had to be a fairly new development. He picked up another handful of cards and handed them to her.
“Well, at least they all seem to have landed facedown,” he pointed out, trying to think of something to say that would calm her. When he saw his innocent observation make her stiffen, he realized he hadn’t found it. “I mean, so you don’t have to spend all that time flipping them over. That would be a pain.”
“Right,” she muttered, her eyes scanning the floor with frantic, darting glances. “A pain.”
Rafe gave her a puzzled glance, then shrugged, handing her a third pile of cards. He looked around to see if they’d gotten them all and spied one stray card. It must have fallen straight down the side of the counter without getting caught in any of the air currents that had sent the other cards scattering. Instead of falling facedown on the floor, this card had slid down the side of the island and gotten lodged upright in the tiny crack between the top of the baseboard molding and the side of the island. It stood up straight and colorful against the white wooden background.
“Looks like I spoke too soon.” Rafe looked down at the full-color illustration with interest.
Poised on the edge of a cliff, ready to tumble straight over the edge and into the unknown, the figure on the card seemed at once jaunty and pathetic, totally unaware that he was about to leap into a situation that could easily spell his doom.
“That’s an interesting image.” He leaned down for a closer look. “A little unnerving, perhaps, but intriguing all the same. The baseboard is covering the caption, though. What is it called?”
When he got no answer, he turned his head to look up at Tess. She was staring down at the card in front of him with an absolutely stricken look on her face. Her skin was pale, her blue eyes were wide and dilated, and her lips had parted on a strangled gasp.
“That,” she said, after a long pause and a couple of silent false starts, “is the Fool.”
* * *
Tess stared at the last card in the deck and thought she heard the faint echo of Fate laughing at her in the background. More than anything in the world, she wanted to deny her suspicions and tell herself that it couldn’t be true, that the reading she’d tried to do for Missy couldn’t possibly have ended up being about herself instead.
There was no way the cards had decided to inform her that she was destined to have an affair with a passionate, fiery, charismatic man with an arrogant streak and enough charm to seduce the pink off a flamingo. A man who sounded a lot like Graham Winters, but—unlike the smitten, thoroughly faithful werewolf—one who remained unmarried and unattached. One who maybe had sharp, Latin features and melting golden eyes. They certainly couldn’t be telling her she was the fool, poised on the brink of a journey that would change her life and leave her a different person than she’d been at the beginning.
No, that couldn’t possibly be happening to her.
Except that it was.
She swore, silently but creatively, and snatched up the last card in her deck before shoving the whole thing into its pouch and the pouch back into her jacket pocket, where it would be safe until she could take it home.
And burn it.
“Um, thanks … for … everything,” she fumbled, easing toward the exit, “but I have to—uh … I have to go now. Nice meeting you.”
She darted out of the kitchen and down the hall so fast she’d practically reached the front door before she heard them launch into protests behind her. She was just reaching for the knob when a large, dark hand closed over hers and stopped her.
A dark head bent toward hers, and Tess found herself suddenly feeling small and vulnerable, surrounded by this man for the second time in one night.
“What’s the matter?” His voice rumbled in her ear, low and rough and dark, and she fought back a shiver. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Tess laughed. “No, I’ve seen ghosts before. They’re not this scary.”
“Then what is? I know you’re scared of something, sweet Tess. I can smell it on you.”
She closed her eyes and shuddered. “Do you have any idea how disturbing that is?”
He chuckled and nuzzled her hair. “You’ll get used to it.”
Tess’s eyes flew open, and she shook her head emphatically as she fought back the panic that vow engendered. “No, I won’t. I’m not going to get used to anything about you, because I’m going to leave this house and go home to my apartment and pretend that I’ve never seen you. I’m never going to see you again. In fact, I think that’s going to become my favorite new hobby. Pretending that you just don’t exist.”
“You can pretend all you want, sweet Tess.” His tongue darted out to rasp at the sensitive skin behind her ear, making her shudder. “That won’t make it true. I told you in the alley earlier that I wanted to eat you up just as soon as I found out what you wanted with me. Well, guess what, Tess? Now I know. And now I’m feeling very, very hungry.”
“Tough.” She jerked away from his hold and tugged the front door open, darting down the steps as fast as she could. The Felix followed at her heels as if he didn’t even have to make an effort. She growled in frustration. “Would you go
away
? What do I have to do to convince you I am not interested?”
Rafe smiled and continued to walk beside her as if they were out for a casual stroll. “If you want me to think that you are not interested,
gatita,
you’re going to have to find a way to stop yourself from becoming wet every time I talk to you. You will have to stop your scent from heating and ripening with your desire. Until you manage that, sweet Tess, I am going to know that while your lips tell me to leave, your body wants me to stay as much as I want it myself.”
She turned on him and let out a strangled groan of frustration. “My body also wants to eat three pounds of chocolate on the fourth Tuesday of every month. I don’t let it have that, so what makes you think I’m going to let it have you?”
“I think it,” he said, hooking one arm around her waist and pulling her to him until her hips pressed close against his, “because this is also what I want, and I do not believe in denying my body what it wants. I think it because this is more than desire, sweet Tess; this is a need, and I am going to give you what you need,
gatita,
whether you ask for it or not.”
Then his mouth cut off her protests, and she forgot what she’d been about to say anyway.
Six