The one Sandu had introduced as Siv turned his blue-green eyes on her, studying her intently, as if he thought she might be lying. “How would these cards hold up through the centuries and not disintegrate into dust with time and use?”
It was a fair question. She put the velvet pouch on the table between them. The cards, from being contained in the sack, held concentrated power, and she knew the moment she released them, all of the men would feel it. They were sensitive to energy, just as she was. She opened the bag carefully and shook the deck into her waiting hand, observing the men’s reactions.
All of them, including Sandu, sat back slightly as the power radiated outward. It was a distinctly feminine energy. She gathered it easily as she swept up the familiar cards. They nearly leapt into her hands.
“What do you sense?” She asked the question to answer the question.
“Blood,” the one introduced as Petru said immediately. “Carpathian blood. Female.” Already the energy was pulling back into the cards. “What is this? What kind of trick are you playing?”
Adalasia became aware that Sandu had gone very still. If there was a way for an ancient to go ashen, he had. He stared at the cards in her hands and then slowly lifted his gaze to hers. All traces of tenderness evaporated. A shiver went down her spine, icy cold. He looked what he was, a killer. Top of the food chain. An apex predator.
“That is not just any blood,” he said softly. “You had better start talking fast, Adalasia. That is the blood of my family.”
The other four Carpathian hunters looked from Sandu to her. There was no friendliness in their expressions, either. She took a deep breath. She hadn’t been truly afraid. Now, her heart pounded. She knew they heard. When she had awakened, her hearing had seemed to be much more acute. She knew theirs was, too, just by little signals they gave one another. Before, those signals had made her feel safe—sort of—but now she was just a little terrified.
“Sandu, you had the opportunity to feel the card’s energy in my shop. I thought you felt the connection then. Why are you reacting now?” It took great effort to control her heartbeat in the midst of the predators surrounding her.
“The cards hid the source from me. They only showed your fear of our relationship. I knew there was a connection to Carpathians, but not specifically to my bloodline.”
His tone was low, so soft it should have been calming, but instead, she felt a distinct threat. A frisson of fear slid down her spine. She stayed silent, afraid if she opened her mouth, her voice would tremble, and she refused to give him—or the others—the satisfaction of knowing they were scaring her.
“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.”