Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

“The minute you arrived, they had to have known it was you they were waiting for.”

“You were busy with your reading. I went from shop to shop. I arranged for gifts to be sent to some of my friends. I saw they were too interested in your antiques store for it to be normal, so I kept my eye on them. They were paying attention to me, but I kept moving around to the various shops until you were finished with the reading.”

“And you pounced.”

He smiled, his eyes warming. When he did that, there was no resisting him. Adalasia rubbed her chin on top of her knees, finding herself smiling back at him. “I need to get out, and I can’t just wave my hand the way you do. Would you mind stepping out while I get ready for bed?”

“Picture in your mind what you want to wear to bed. Every detail.” He waved his hand toward the water, and it was gone. Her body was instantly dry and warm. “Trust me, ewal emninumam. I can give you the exact clothes you prefer.”

She did her best to remember every detail without showing embarrassment over the lacy thong she wore to bed with the nearly transparent camisole. She had a warm robe that was very modest, and ordinarily no one knew what was under that thick robe. She didn’t look at him directly when she was suddenly clothed in her skimpy night attire with the thick, warm robe enveloping her.

“You need something on your feet. Something warm.”

“The floors have radiant heating.” Her hands came up to grip the lapels of the robe tightly at her throat as he moved away from the door to allow her to walk by him. She kept walking all the way past the actual bedroom to the sitting room, where she curled up in a chair facing the fireplace.

Sandu was so silent she didn’t hear him behind her, but maybe he floated. They’d discussed floating in the library. It seemed Carpathians had quite a lot of fun skills humans didn’t have.

“I have friends who can investigate the Castellos for us,” Sandu assured her.

“I think they may have something to do with the dark arts, Sandu. There was evil clinging to him. He was more than human.” She hesitated and then rubbed her temples. Her gaze flicked to his and then away. “I have something I need to tell you. You might not be very happy with me, and I won’t blame you if you get upset.”

Just please don’t yell at me, even if you think I deserve it.

She wasn’t certain she could take it if Sandu turned out to be a man who couldn’t be trusted to keep his word. Already, she feared he was deceiving her over important things, but if they were going to continue forward together, someone was going to have to break the ice between them.

“Adalasia, tell me what you need to say, and do so without fear. You are in my mind. You should be able to see that it is impossible for me to ever harm you.”

“Harming isn’t the same thing as being angry. I’m just going to say this very fast. When you first left your friends to make the decision to leave the city and we connected, you thought you were restless because you had been around humans too long.”

Sandu nodded. He studied her pale face over his steepled fingers. His black eyes unsettled her. There were always those red flames flickering in them, reminding her he was a predator. Right now, the flames smoldered low, but they could leap and roar at the slightest provocation. When he looked at her with such focus, it was so intense, and he never blinked, never moved, just watched her the way a predator might, ready to strike at any moment.

She had seen him fighting like a wild animal out of control—no, totally in control, a killing machine. She had no idea how to trust him now, when she needed him to be that one person in her life she could count on. She hadn’t expected an easy journey, but she had deceived herself into thinking she would have a fairytale with him. He would be the prince in her love story. Their journey together was supposed to be easy, at least in her fantasy. Everything else around them might be wrong and falling apart, but they would stand together.

“I knew that wasn’t the true reason. You were so conditioned to believe it, Sandu, but it was because you needed to leave the city with me. And . . .” She trailed off, lifted her gaze to his and then looked away.

“And . . .” he prompted.

She took a deep breath. “You locked yourself away in that monastery because you feared you were a demon, you feared you would eventually be unable to control what was growing inside you, something more than the undead. A monster you feared could be let loose on the world. Something with too many scars on your soul to be redeemed.”