Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

“You keep talking about the gates,” the Carpathian called Nicu said. “What gates are you guarding?”

Adalasia sighed. “Everything I say is going to sound as if I’m making things up.”

“Like our ability to fly?” Sandu suggested. “I think if you can believe that of us, we can believe what you tell us.”

She had to give them something, so she took a deep breath and let it out. “According to everything I was told as a child, there is a wild creature in hell, which can’t be let loose on the world, trapped behind four gates. Each of those gates can only be opened by a specific alignment of the tarot cards. Only one of the ancient decks can make that alignment. I have one of the decks, and these people that were watching me are after the deck.”

Sandu looked at her sharply. She was telling the truth, yet she wasn’t.

“They had a chance to take the deck along with your mother, but they didn’t. They murdered her and left the deck with you,” Sandu said. “Why?”

There was no emotion in his voice. She knew if she touched his mind, there would be none there, either. He could close off his feelings when he wanted, but she couldn’t. The moment he said “murder,” she was thrown back to that evening, opening the door to their home, tired after working but looking forward to seeing her mother. The entire living room was wrecked, furniture overturned and broken, blood pooled on the floor and splattered on one wall and across her mother’s favorite antique gold brocade chair. Her mother lay like a broken doll, small in her death when she’d been so vibrant in life.

Adalasia’s fingers stroked the cards, needing the comfort of them. Her mother’s hands had been on these cards long before she’d ever touched them. Willing herself not to let the burn behind her eyes give way to tears, she lifted her chin at Sandu and his brethren. Men so like him. Men without emotion.

“How could I possibly have the answer to what the murderers were thinking when they killed my mother?”

Sandu’s eyes leapt and burned with fiery flames. “You cannot lie to a lifemate. You know the reason. What is it?” he challenged.

It took a few moments while she struggled to keep her emotions under control before she lifted her furious gaze to his. As it was, she knew her voice held both grief and recrimination. There was no way to prevent it.

“Perhaps I didn’t want to discuss my mother’s murder with men who have absolutely no empathy toward me or her. I can assure you, Carpathian, this lifemate bond you thought was so important between us is pure bullshit. Everything you said has no meaning whatsoever. I reject every single word of it. Shall we get on with this?” She said the last through clenched teeth.

There was a long silence. Very long. She realized that all of them were staring at her in a kind of shocked way, if one could be shocked without expression. She didn’t care if her declaration of their precious lifemate ritual offended them. It was how she felt. Sandu might look like he was the hottest catch in town, and she’d been conditioned to believe he was her perfect match, her prince coming to claim her, but he wasn’t. That didn’t negate the fact that she had a job to do.

I hurt you. I am sorry.

Adalasia didn’t want to hear the sincerity in his voice or feel it in his mind. She pulled at the messy knot in her hair and continued doggedly on. “I read the cards over and over, and from what I’ve discerned, it seems this journey we’re undertaking starts with Sandu and what he can tell us of his childhood. Now that he’s confirmed the blood tied to the cards is from his family, we can get some answers. Obviously, I wasn’t alive that long ago. What I do know is unreliable.”

Sandu raised an eyebrow. “If you think I can help with that, I have no recollection of my childhood. Not a single memory. I couldn’t tell you what my parents looked like or where we actually resided. I would imagine it would have been in the Carpathian Mountains, if that helps.”

The dripping of the water seemed louder than ever. Adalasia sank back in her chair, one hand going to her hair again. She’d put it in a messy knot on top of her head and called it good. Sandu hadn’t thought to provide her with a mirror. He’d remembered a bathroom—of sorts. The bare minimum. A toilet and sink. Towels. A shower. No mirror. She was certain she looked pretty bad when all of them were seriously good-looking, although she no longer cared about how incredible Sandu looked or the magical things he could do.