In the Company of Witches

Heads swung toward Raina, a wave of chuckles running through the group. “Actually, it is true,” she said quietly. “The card wasn’t wrong, Min. He sees happiness in unexpected places. Places the rest of us don’t see it.”



Min looked between the two of them, since Mikhael had turned his gaze to Raina. Seeing him among her family like this, Raina couldn’t hold on to her anger or detachment from earlier. He heard a mother’s lullaby in the middle of a war-torn jungle, after all, when others heard only gunfire, screams. When everyone else felt hopelessness, he saw faith. Yet he was a Dark Guardian, knowing the dark side of the soul better than anyone. He’d known her soul in barely a blink.



A little overwhelmed with the revelation, Raina leaned against a chair, nodding to Li with forced casualness. Her senior staff member was pale but determined to be here. He gave her a quick appraisal of his own, telling her he was making sure she was all right as well. Her heart filling with love for all of them, she came to him, put a hand on his shoulder.



“The Six of Air also comes with a warning,” Min said, drawing their attention back. “It says you shouldn’t deny yourself love, or rather, that you should make sure you don’t die without love…or having loved fully.”



As he regarded the card in silence, she shifted. “Two more. You get two more questions for the reading to be complete. Unless you’re tired of it.”



“See if your mistress has one she’d like to ask for me, one she thinks is on my mind. Or hers.”



“I’m not sure it works that way, but sure.” Min shrugged, looked toward Raina.



“He’s just being lazy, getting others to do the work for him.” Raina snorted. “But all right. What were his other cards?”



“Two of Earth for his most important goal. He has to balance his emotional against his nonemotional self, face a gut battle against what he thinks is good and what he thinks is evil.”



Raina pursed her lips. “Pretty accurate on that one.”



“Not necessarily.” Mikhael shifted in the chair, stretching one long leg past Min’s dainty feet. “My most important goal is finding a Hooters where the women’s faces are as excellent as their bodies.”



“Don’t let me stop you. Door’s right there.” While the others grinned at her sugar-sweet tone, she cocked her head. “Okay. I have one. How do others see you?”



Min laid out the card. Sophia lifted her gaze, the two girls exchanging a concerned glance. “Well…” Min cleared her throat.



“Min.”



Raina knew that tone Mikhael used. No-nonsense, requiring a truthful and direct answer, but Mikhael added something to it. A gentle note. He was still aware of his goal here. Always focused, she reminded herself.



“Just tell me,” he said. “I’m not going to be offended.”



“You can’t know that until you hear what I say.” Min was young but no fool. Raina was amused and proud at once.



“If I’m offended, I promise not to grow three heads and eat everyone in the room.”



She tittered, covering her mouth with a slim hand. She wore several rings with garnet stones on them. “All right, then. But remember, you promised.”



“If I break the promise, you’ll be chewed up and swallowed so fast, you won’t feel a thing.”



She giggled again but looked down at the card. “Eight of Fire. Most see you as a means to an end, taking them where they want to go. You arrive in the nick of time so often, it’s kind of mysterious how you do that, like you’re an EMT or firefighter. You’re seen as a…rescuer.”



Raina saw myriad reactions to that, ranging from boy, was that one way off in Saul and Luke’s exchanged look, to Min and Ana’s more pensive consideration. The girls were evaluating the way he’d acted this past hour, how Raina herself acted toward him. What he’d done upstairs with the gunman. They were probably realizing, as she had, there was far more to him than it seemed.



He nodded, glanced at the clock. “All right. Your next clients come in soon, and I don’t want to get you in trouble with your boss.”



Min smiled at that, but she shook her head. “You need one more question for the reading to be complete.”



“All right, you choose, then. Quickly.”



“Okay. This is one…I think this would be a good one to ask. Why do you want to be remembered?”



Mikhael grimaced. Raina already knew being remembered wasn’t a priority to him, but he shrugged, humoring Min. “Go ahead. See what comes up.”



Raina moved closer. She now stood at the back of Min’s chair, drawing close to Luke, who’d shifted over there as well. Mikhael’s gaze rose, touched her, as Min turned the card.



“Wow. Explorer of Fire.”



Raina looked down at a masked man walking through a winding ribbon of fire. Like a man walking through the Underworld.



“This suggests you want to be remembered as the Knight of Fire. You don’t hesitate to move into danger, but you don’t endanger others. Your work is very important to you.” Min cleared her throat, glanced up. “You strive for perfection in ways that may not be sane, but this isn’t the card of someone who cares about sanity. You reach into fire to pluck out the steel. You want to be remembered as one who created your passion and guarded your loved ones.”



Knight of Fire…Raina knew he never took himself that seriously, because he didn’t really think about things that way. He was a Dark Guardian. That was what he did.



Thinking about what she’d learned about him in the past few short days, she realized the tarot did bring it all together. Knight of Fire…Valuing happiness in unexpected places. A man who needed to make love a greater priority, so he didn’t die without giving himself that experience. A man who might be facing that choice even now.



She didn’t dare let herself think beyond that. It was past time to go to work.



SHE RETURNED TO HER DOWNSTAIRS OFFICE, FOCUSED on the practical. She shuffled appointments for Li and Gina, because she was giving Li the night off, no matter what he said. He would work with Aiden on one client, a female who wanted to be taken by two males, and he could get his energy from that session. Aiden would rein back his appetite for Li, give him the lion’s share, because Li would need it due to the trauma.



That accomplished, she sat back. Thinking about the reading, her thoughts went to Isaac. Rising, she took the garden exit, moving toward the guesthouse. To her enhanced senses, the newly erected perimeter barrier hummed like a high-voltage electrical fence. She was sure Isaac could hear it, feel the reminder, but she passed through it safely. He was sitting on the porch, staring off into the woods morosely, probably waiting for Death to step out. He knew he was out of options.



Taking a seat on the top step, she pulled an apple out of the sack she’d brought and polished it on her skirt before beginning to work on the skin with her paring knife. She didn’t speak for a while, but he watched what she was doing.



“I was listening to Min do a tarot reading,” she said at last. “She thinks the purpose of the cards isn’t to deliver answers, but to give you guidance to determine your own destiny, make the best choices. Maybe I should send her out here and let her read for you. Would you like her company? I’ll send Saul with her, but I expect you aren’t going to hurt her, are you?”



He shook his head. “I don’t hurt…others like us. I didn’t mean to do that.”



“You did mean to do it. But you didn’t want to. I get the difference.” She finished the skin, offered it to him. He took it, playing with it, wrapping the winding around his wrist and then tearing off a piece to eat. “You’ve been taught that kindness and compassion are weakness, Isaac. You take advantage of people who offer them, because they’re not to be trusted. If that kindness is tested, they’ll cut and run, sell you out, won’t they?”



He didn’t answer. “It doesn’t matter how long we live,” she continued. “There’s always room to learn something unexpected. You’ve had a rough go of it. In order to change that, you have to have a certain nobility of character. I don’t know if you have that. I can’t see it in you, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there, buried under all the shit you’ve been covered in for far too long.”



He looked away, blinked. “Don’t waste fake emotions on me, Isaac,” she said gently. “Tears, false remorse…What matters now is what you truly are, not how well you pre-



tend.”



He nodded, averted his face farther. She could feel the misery coming off him, the resignation and hopelessness. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.



“Come here,” she ordered. “Come sit with me.”



He rose from the couch, knuckling at his eyes in that embarrassed male way that said the tears had been real, uninvited. She lifted her arms, let him lie down on the porch boards and put his head against her breast, his arms loosely around her waist. She rocked him like a large child, smoothing her hand over his brow, down his upper arm.



“I don’t think I can change. But I wish I could.”



“Well, wishing is always a start. A nap is a good start as well. I’m going to wrap you up in a sleep spell now.”



He stiffened, sat up. “No.”



“When was the last time you slept? Really slept?”



“It doesn’t matter. I can’t.”



“Inside the boundaries of my property, you’re safe, Isaac. I could put you to sleep without your consent, but I want you to give it. You’re exhausted, and it only increases your fear and desperation. Sleep will help you feel more in control of your destiny.” She feathered her hand over his brow. “It will be a true, deep sleep, no nightmares or fears. Wouldn’t you like to be unafraid for a little while, see what that’s like?”



“She was like this at first,” he said abruptly. “Motherly, kind. Then, when I told her I didn’t want to do what she wanted, she hurt me. Hurt me until all I knew was fear, until I flinched when she blinked, and that made her laugh. She had a terrible laugh. She killed Tara, like she was nothing. She was nothing to her.”