Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

“Adalasia, how did the blood of my family get on those cards?”

Her gaze jumped to his. The red flames leapt higher. She forced herself to give a casual shrug. “Unfortunately, there are many things I don’t have answers for.”

“It is possible that because I have your blood in my veins, I was able to discern the origins of the blood on the cards,” he mused aloud.

She lifted her chin, determined to distract them. “It is my practice each morning to give a reading to myself to start my day. A few weeks ago, I began to see that danger was drawing close, just as my mother had said it had with her. Then I began to see a man come into my readings, one that was to take a journey with me. It was a very dangerous one, to find the origins of the cards and secure them from those who would twist them for their own purposes. If he was the right man, I would be able to connect with him telepathically. That would be how I would know.”

She shuffled the cards and fanned them out without looking at Sandu. “There is a legend in our family. One that seemed absurd until I met you. That legend said this man would come, and he would be my life partner.” She bit that last word out between her teeth, forcing her gaze to meet his. Letting him see that perhaps that legend handed down in her family for centuries had gotten it all wrong.

I see that you are very angry with me, Adalasia.

She didn’t deign to answer him because it was too late to undo what he’d done. He wasn’t sorry. She didn’t detect remorse, and if he lied and said he was sorry, that would only make things worse between them.

“Tell us about the cards,” Benedek prompted.

Adalasia was more than happy to turn her focus from Sandu, although she had to choose very carefully what she was going to give to these men. “My family was given the task of guardian to the cards. We’re the gatekeepers, and supposedly, at one time, we had others who watched over us. Our guardians are gone, vanished over the ages. I believe Castello and the others are part of a group who want the cards.”

“Why didn’t they take them when they killed your mother?” Sandu asked.

She could tell he wasn’t ready to accept everything at face value, not with the blood of his family on her cards. She couldn’t blame him. She hadn’t looked forward to explaining. She hadn’t wanted to get to this point with him. There were things she might be able to tell him when they were alone if she ever came to trust him, but the others? She kept her hands steady with great effort. The familiar feel of the cards helped.

“They can’t wield them. Only my family can. Mother to daughter. That’s how it works. The cards will only talk to a member of our family.” She shuffled again. “The cards are capable of hiding themselves. It is possible they did.” She had taken them off her mother’s body before the police had arrived.

There was silence throughout the chamber as she laid out the cards on the small table and studied them. Only the steady drip of water could be heard—that and the sound of Adalasia’s heartbeat. If she could hear it, they all could. There were gaps in her story, too many, and she knew it. Sandu knew it. He was allowing her to get away with it for now. She knew he wouldn’t forever. His black eyes held those fiery red flames. The flames burned low, but she could see they leapt every now and then when he turned his gaze fully on her. A little shiver went through her body. She didn’t want to ever get on the wrong side of him.

She let her gaze slide over the other four. They watched her with the same unblinking, very focused eyes of predators, like Sandu, but they didn’t have access to her mind in the way he did. He could share with them, even connect her mind with theirs, but there was an intimacy Sandu had created between them when he had bound them together with his ritual words. Just the thought of him doing so without any discussion stirred her temper. She tried to push it down hastily. There was too much at stake to allow him to see too much of her.

She should have known there was no hiding anything from him. Those black, merciless eyes found her, the red flames burning over her skin like a physical touch.

“Why do these people want the cards?” Petru asked.

“My guess would be to open the gates. I don’t have those answers. I know only the bare minimum. Four decks that were to be protected. The cards guard the gates, and we’re the gatekeepers, mother to daughter for centuries. As I mentioned, at one time, we had others guarding us, but they were killed or corrupted, leaving us on our own.”