Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 48193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 241(@200wpm)___ 193(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 241(@200wpm)___ 193(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
Surely I would only fit if he were holding me.
With the thought shocking me to my core, I return to the cards.
What brought you here? I ask, not of him, but of the cards and the moons. There’s a simple answer to this question, but I already know it. I want the cards to show me the hidden reasons that Ryker—who is not from this land and was sent here by his commander—truly came here. Why did fate send him here? Why truly, with the meaning of life and purpose has this man come to my door?
When the cards are sated from shuffling and warm in my hands, I sit down at my worktable and clear a space. I keep Ryker at the forefront of my mind, held in concentration, asking the cards over and over to respond to him. To show me the inner truth of the most beautiful man who has ever crossed my threshold.
Open my eyes, I request of the cards. Show me the things I cannot know. Help me to understand the will of the fates.
One by one, I draw four cards and lay them out on the table.
The first card is the Two of Cups.
The second card is the Lovers.
The third card is the King of Pentacles.
The fourth card is the Queen of Pentacles.
I look at the cards in their neat spread before me, my heart racing.
The lovers on its own would have given me a shock, but along with the King and Queen of Pentacles? What could the cards be referring to if not me and Ryker?
But we are not lovers.
“We are not,” I tell the cards in a breathless whisper as my heart races. Even the Two of Cups echoes the message of the Lovers card. My questions catch in the back of my throat. This desire I feel, it is not temporary. This shifter is for me. But shifters have mates. Surely, I cannot be his lover.
The cards stare back up at me. They could represent the future or the past as well. Perhaps another lifetime. A star-crossed lover maybe?
The King and Queen of Pentacles together represent…
Well, it represents power. Two forms of power. Both outward strength and inner balance. As a pair, they represent a nurturing emotional core and material abundance.
In other words…a marriage. Although a chill comes over me. I think of the royal wedding. Maybe it doesn’t refer to us after all. Maybe it’s the prince and princess that brought us here like this.
I steal a glance at Ryker.
He’s still deeply asleep. My pounding heart didn’t wake him, then. I take a few deep breaths in case his wolf’s senses are honed enough to hear my pulse going faster and faster.
My heart doesn’t want to slow down. Even the Two of Cups is another card that clearly represents a pair. At its best, the Two of Cups is about harmony. Every card I’ve pulled is either half of a fated pair or a pair in and of itself.
But, I think at the cards, I’m not part of a pair. He is only a temporary guest, and he did not come here to find a match. He came here to gather flowers for a wedding.
My conflicting thoughts war in my mind.
A wedding is yet another representation of a harmonious pair. The wedded couple is literally at the center of the ceremony.
I close my eyes and refocus. There is more on the horizon than weddings.
Ryker will leave. Charging his crystals, opening a portal, and going back home are the reasons he’s here. He doesn’t have any other business with me, as far as I know, and I do not have any other business with him. If it weren’t for the storm, we might not have crossed paths at all.
We did, though, and now our lives are entwined for a time.
Eyes still closed, I slide a card off the deck and onto an empty stretch of the table.
When I open my eyes, I am confronted with Death. My body stills as a coldness comes over me. Chills run down my spine, and layer after layer of goosebumps follow.
It takes a few moments for me to process what I am looking at. Of course, it is the Death card—that much is clear. But it is reversed.
Death, reversed.
Death is the end. Death reversed is rebirth and renewal. The end of what exactly? Although deep in the marrow of my bones, I know exactly what it’s referring to. I know what must end although I do not wish it to be so.
I glance at him again, half-expecting to find him watching me, alert and awake.
He’s not. He has turned over onto his side, and his chest rises and falls in a slow, dreamy rhythm.
I want so badly to forget the cards and let myself savor the peace and comfort of the cottage as it is right now, with Ryker sleeping in my bed and sun coming through the windows, but I cannot.