True Colors (7 page)

“Around the third century, or at least that’s the age of the earliest known Primal Tarot. Then there is Will, the god of the Gift; Camael, the goddess of the Hearth; and Hyperion, the god of Law.”

He studied each card as she laid them out, the famous green eyes of Death, the seven royal lions that pulled Inanna’s chariot, the dark sense of vastness captured in the stars in Nadir’s gaze. The cards were arresting but not quite beautiful. They were too uncomfortable for that.

He murmured, “Someone with real Power used these once.”

“I think it’s the person who created them,” Alice said. “The rest of the cards are the Minor Arcana. The gods have their major aspects, and then they have all their minor aspects. Take Azrael. Death is his major aspect, but in the Tarot deck, he has six other minor aspects. He’s also the god of regeneration and green growing things, and he’s known as the Hunter, and he’s also the Gateway or passage. See?”

“Yes,” Gideon said. He was growing fascinated despite himself.

“Inanna’s easy, her minor aspects are Love in its manifestations—romantic, platonic, etc.—and also love’s opposite, which is apathy. Taliesin’s major aspect is the dance, or change, but there’s also stasis, or the pauses between measures in the dance. Some of Will’s other aspects are the wanderer or sacred stranger, and sacrifice, and also greed.” As she talked, she laid out the Minor Arcana in lateral rows underneath the Major cards, six under each, until all forty-nine were placed on the floor. “Camael has both the sacred fool and old wisdom, and Hyperion may be law, but he’s also the trickster.”

“So where do the four and the two come in?” he asked.

“They come in the spreads.” She gathered the cards up and shuffled them swiftly. “There are three classical card spreads used in Primal Tarot readings, but really it’s just one original spread with more detail added in the other two. All the other card spreads were created or invented some time after the original three. The person who gets the reading is supposed to be the one to shuffle the cards and lay them out. The first card is called the Primus, or the primary force or influence in one’s life at the time of the reading. Sometimes it’s called the keystone card of the spread. The interpretation of all the other cards is always based on this one.”

She pulled out a card and laid it on the floor. They gazed down at Azrael’s emerald green painted eyes.

Lord Death.

“Well, that’s more apropos today than I would have liked,” she muttered. “There are three layers to a spread—the Primus, Secondus and Tertius—and it matters if a card is right-side up, or reversed. The top part is what you’re working toward, either a goal or some unforeseen event. The bottom is where you’re coming from. The right side has negative influences, and the left is positive. The last two cards at the top actually have to do with the future.” She set down the last card and looked at Gideon. “Is that the pattern you were talking about?”

He stared down at the cards. “Hell yeah,” he said. “That’s it. He’s attempting divination. That’s why he does it in the days leading up to the Masque. The bastard’s trying to talk with the gods.”

Chapter Five

The Dance

Gideon shocked her when he leaned forward and planted a swift kiss on her forehead. “You’re miraculous,” he said. He smiled, nose-to-nose with her, and she smiled back. “Do you know how many fancy PhDs and profilers have studied the Jacksonville case and never got that? I’ve got to call Bayne.”

He strode out of the room. Full of warmth from his praise, Alice looked down at the full card spread for the first time. Her smile slipped away and she went numb.

All seven of the Death cards were laid out. It was a pure spread.

She had never seen a pure spread before, just as she had never seen a royal flush in poker. Today seemed to be a day of rare firsts. Normally she would have contemplated the spread and let her mind roam free to let the whisper of Power in the cards tell her what they would. While she had told Gideon the truth and she didn’t have much Power, the cards sometimes had a mind of their own.

But she couldn’t handle the implications of this kind of reading tonight. Her mind felt bruised and dull, incapable of hearing the still, small voice in the cards. If they had anything to say to her, it was going to have to wait. She scooped up the deck, tucked it away in the silk-lined box, and pushed to her feet with the slow, awkward movements of the emotionally and physically exhausted.

Gideon had moved to the kitchen. She could hear him pacing and talking. He had frightened her so much just hours earlier. How had his huge, energetic presence become such a comfort so quickly? She knew if he wasn’t already planning to spend the night, she would ask him to stay.

She went to the living room and lay down on the couch. She curled on her side to watch the gas flames and listen to the sound of his deep, gravelly voice.

Death and death and death. Death in the past, Peter and David. Death in the present, Haley. Death as the overriding force in her life, and death in her future. She had a killer on her side, and the Hunter as her challenge. She closed her eyes. She wanted so very much to turn her mind off.

She had the sense of something massive looming over her. She opened her eyes. Gideon bent over her. His hard face was softened into an expression of such kindness that her eyes watered. He stroked a curl at her temple. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, thanks. I’m just tired,” she told him. She pushed to a sitting position.

“And sad. I would like to see you happy, someday soon.” He cupped her cheek with long calloused fingers. “It’s almost one o’clock, and we’re done. Do you think you could sleep?”

She nodded. “I’ll get you some things, some bedding—”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. The tough line of his sexy mouth pulled into a smile. “I have a toiletry kit in the Jeep that I’m going to get and then, if you don’t mind, I thought I might let my wolf out. He has a hankering to snooze by your fire if you’ll let him.”

She had no idea where her barriers had gone. They had simply vanished like morning mist. She put a hand over his and let her feelings show in her gaze. “I’d love to meet your wolf. I’m so sorry that we met the way we did, but I’m very glad we did.”

“That’s good to hear, sweetheart,” he said. He bent forward that little bit further and put his mouth over hers. It was a warm, tender, chaste kiss, and so utterly perfect for who and where she was at that moment.

She gave herself another gift: she leaned forward and kissed him back, touching his lean cheek with light, tentative fingers, and let herself trust in him.

He pulled back and growled softly, “Okay, Alice, fair warning. That’s as good as I’m ever going to get. You should know, most of the time I’m actually a bit of a shit.”

She shocked herself by bursting out laughing.

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Go get ready for bed,” he told her. “I’m going to get my kit. I’ll be right back.”

She watched him walk to the door. When he unlocked it and made as if to walk out just in his t-shirt, she asked, “Aren’t you going to put on your coat?” The temperature outside had to be subzero by now.

The glance he shot at her was icy pale but burning hot. “I could use a blast of cold air right now.”

Her breath shuddered in her throat.

Me, she thought. He means because of me.

He pulled open the door. As he went out a sword-like thrust of wind screamed into the apartment. She shot off the couch and retreated to the relative warmth and privacy of her bathroom.

After inspecting her hollow-eyed face in the bathroom mirror, she brushed her teeth and took a quick five-minute shower to wash away the grime of the city. Her lemon-yellow, thigh-length nightgown and dark blue robe hung from a hook on the bathroom door. She slipped them on and walked out of the bathroom.

Fifteen feet away in the living room, a white-blond wolf lay facing the bathroom door with his head on his paws.

She lost her breath.

He was enormous, easily twice the size of a mundane wolf, heavily muscled across the chest and rib cage with long, strong, powerful-looking legs. His eyes were the same icy pale blue as they were when he was in his human form. As she stared at the wolf, his tail waved gently. Despite his ferocious appearance and intimidating size, somehow he managed to seem diffident.

Gideon said in her head,
I thought it might be a good idea for you to meet the wolf this way before you went to bed. I don’t want to scare you if you get up in the middle of the night. I don’t have to stay this way if it’s not all right.

All right? He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and the most dangerous. She fell to her knees and held out a hand. “You’re gorgeous,” she told the wolf. “You couldn’t be more perfect.”

The wolf’s eyes brightened. He stood—good
night
, he kept going up and up—and padded over slowly. She realized he was giving her time to change her mind.

She didn’t change her mind. As soon as he came close enough to touch, she ran a light hand over his thick pelt. It felt soft and luxuriant, even springy under her palm. He side-stepped closer, nosed at her hand and licked her fingers with such open affection, she laughed again in surprised delight.

She gave herself another gift, threw caution out the window and hugged him. She felt the careful shift in his body as he leaned against her just a little, not too much, and he put his head on her shoulder. She rubbed her face in his fur. He threw off heat like a radiator. His big, warm presence filled places inside of her she hadn’t known were empty.

“Thank you for staying,” she whispered.

I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else
, he said quietly. He nuzzled her.
Go to bed now. You’re safe.

Something coiled tight inside of her unwound. She sagged against his powerful, sturdy body and nodded. Then she climbed to her feet, passed her hand over the wolf’s head in one last caress, and went into her shadowed room to climb into bed.

Exhaustion swirled around her as her head hit the pillow. She heard quiet sounds as Gideon moved through the apartment, and she knew he was checking the windows and doors.

She thought the wolf might have padded into her room to touch the index finger of her out-flung hand with his cold nose, but she might have been dreaming at that point. In her dream, the wolf rested his head on the edge of the bed and gazed at her with a devotion she would have believed impossible before that day. Then someone turned out all the lights in her head, and she slept.

Waking wasn’t a good experience. It came hard and fast. She surfaced out of a nightmare with the chill of clammy skin and the wicked whiplash of wind snapping just outside her bedroom window.

She had kicked off all her covers and curled into a tight ball. She forced her muscles to unclench. She rolled to look over the edge of the bed at the floor. No wolf. Of course he wasn’t there. He would be in front of the fire, where he said he would be.

The blurry letters on her bedside clock read 3:23 am. The room felt empty and cold, the shelter from the storm all too insubstantial. Her nightmare had been full of dark, wet knives, and she missed him. She just missed him.

She didn’t give herself time to fight the impulse. She slipped her glasses on her nose, grabbed the top blanket as she climbed out of bed and walked into the living room.

There she found everything in the world. Warmth and light from the fire flickered over the massive body of the wolf that lay on the floor stretched out on his side. His clothes were folded in a neat pile nearby, his holstered gun resting on top. His half-closed eyes shifted but he held still as she lay down on the floor behind him. She set her glasses on the nearby coffee table, dragged the blanket around her and curled shivering against the wolf’s broad, warm back.

Gideon’s mental voice rumbled quietly in her head.
Bad dream
?

“Yeah,” she whispered. She rubbed her face in his fur.

The powerful muscles in his back tensed.
Is it all right if I change?

She nodded. “I can’t remember the last nightmare I had,” she said. “I’m not usually a needy person—”

Hush, sweetheart.

The wolf rolled on to his stomach. He shimmered into the change. Whatever else she had meant to say flew out of her head as Gideon’s massive, nude human body lay stretched out before her. Gold light played over the broad muscles of his long back and spilled into the graceful hollow of his lower spine, his buttocks and strong, heavy thighs. He was lean everywhere, the taut covering of his tanned skin rippling over the flex of thick muscle and fluid shift of bone as he came up on his elbows to look at her.

The expression on his hard, lean face was serious, concerned. Her throat closed on a lump as he rolled over and gathered her against his chest. “I’m glad you’re not a needy person,” he murmured. His voice rumbled against her cheek. “But I want you to need me. Don’t apologize or prevaricate. Just need me.”

“It’s so scary,” she breathed. “When I ate lunch yesterday, I didn’t know you existed.”

He cradled her head in one hand and leaned over her. His pale gaze glittered like aquamarines. “Yesterday is gone. Who we are to each other today and who we will be tomorrow—those are the things that matter.”

She read the lines and marks on his harsh face with the tips of her fingers, and stroked down the long, strong column of his throat. A heavy, hard length grew against her thigh, and it felt strange and new, but at the same time so familiar and necessary.

She looked at him in naked bewilderment. “I don’t understand how any of this happened,” she said, through trembling lips. “We haven’t even kissed yet. I mean, we have, but not really.”

A fine tremor ran through the big hand that cradled her head and his face flushed with raw, sensual hunger. He closed his eyes and growled, “Your last few days have been so hellish. I’m trying to be so goddamn careful and give you what you need—”

She touched his mouth in wonder. She thought, I dreamed that a wolf came to my bed and watched over me while I slept. There was an epic story in those silent eyes, of mountains that had been crossed and a world that had been fought, and countless years that had been spent in service and in solitude. And there was a promise in that wolf’s eyes, a promise from an old warrior soul that knew what it meant to dig down deep and hold true to what he claimed no matter what.