Jory Strong: Dakotah's Reading

The skin around Helki’s dark eyes crinkled with amusement. She answered by taking a seat and pulling a velvet-wrapped deck of tarot cards from the pocket of her coat.

Without being told, Dakotah took the chair opposite the fortune-teller and accepted the deck. Keeping her mind free of all thoughts as she shuffled then cut and restacked the deck, before handing it back to Helki.

For a long moment the old woman held the deck, her eyes closed as though she was listening to a story only she could hear. Dakotah grimaced and shifted in her chair, a tightness forming in her chest despite her desire to ignore what was going on in front of her, to reject the possibility that the reading was significant for her.

Helki’s eyes snapped open and Dakotah’s pulse jumped in response. The fortune-teller’s knowing expression leaving Dakotah torn between amusement and irritation. But before she could think of anything to say, Helki placed three cards on the table between them. One after the other. The past. The present. The future.

Death.

Strength.

The Emperor.

Uneasiness moved through Dakotah, surprise. Wariness. But she forced herself to remain motionless, realizing in the instant she did so that it betrayed as much as movement would have.

Helki studied the cards, reaching out and laying her finger on the black-cloaked figure of Death, tracing over the scythe in his hands. “You have died and been reborn into a different person. It was a violent transition and death still stalks you in the form of a man who wants revenge.” Her fingers moved to the lion depicted in Strength. “Where others have become monsters as a result of the things you have experienced, you have gained from them, the blending of your will and intellect with the beast within making you stronger.” Helki’s eyes sought Dakotah’s and she gently tapped The Emperor. “The time will come when you will face the enemy who wants you dead, but you will not do so alone. Another change awaits you. This time at the hands of a man unlike any you have known before. A man who wants your life, not your death.”

Without another word, Helki gathered the cards and stood, leaving Dakotah to stare at the place where they’d been—the tarot images forever burned into her memory. She shivered despite the warmth of the trailer, longing coiling around in her chest, weaving through her heart, momentarily wrapping her in hope until she tossed it off.

Helki had guessed correctly about the past. Had somehow glimpsed the wolf underneath Dakotah’s skin and interpreted what it meant in the present. But the fortune-teller’s vision didn’t accurately reflect the future.

As much as the wolf might want a mate, Dakotah didn’t have any illusion that such a thing was possible. Lovers, yes—though not often and never for longer than it took to gain release. It was foolish to wish for more, to hope for more, to allow herself to believe the future held anything but running and surviving.

Domino Santori watched as the fortune-teller left the trailer and made her way back to her own home on wheels, pausing for a moment to look in his direction, as though sensing him in the darkest shadows of the night.

He grimaced like a small boy caught at mischief and could easily imagine the flash of amusement in Helki’s eyes, could very nearly hear her knowing cackle as she disappeared from view. No doubt she would share her thoughts tomorrow.

Within moments, the reason for his presence at the carnival emerged from the trailer Helki had just left. Dakotah.

Her scent reached him first, stirring his lust. Stirring the wolf’s lust.

Domino smiled when Dakota headed in the direction of the woods. He already knew them well. Not as a man. But as a wolf.

Anticipation roared through him. He had never run with a human who could shift into wolf form. Had never hunted with one. Never shared the night and the glory of chasing a deer or rabbit, killing it and feeding a hunger of the body and not The Hunger of his race.

He was dhampir. A soldier of the vampire race. A man born to protect his kind. He had the strengths of a vampire—the needs of one—and yet he could move about in the sun, feeding on the enemies he hunted, draining them of all life without sanction—at least until The Transformation, The Change occurred—turning him from dhampir to full vampire, a reproductively mature male who would have to deal with both The Hunger and The Heat.

He would lose his ability to move about in the sun in a human form, a price he was required to pay in order to secure the part of his alien heritage that would make him nearly impossible to kill, that extended his lifespan so it covered centuries instead of decades. He would gain the ability to change into mist and dissipate into the air, the vampire’s most effective self-defense mechanism, though unlike most vampires he would still have access to a physical shape—the wolf’s—should he need to be out in the sunlight.

It was a shape he enjoyed. A wildness he embraced. One free of the rules that usually governed him—with the exception of one. Neither the dhampir nor the wolf were allowed to attack humans who didn’t deserve to die.

He didn’t expect to encounter such a human tonight, not when the woods were cold and unwelcoming. A perfect place to run in his other form.

Domino’s cock pressed against his jeans, his balls grew heavy, aching to be free of the confining clothing. To hang between his legs in proud display in the presence of a female. In the presence of a potential mate, the wolf claimed, and the man laughed. He couldn’t imagine craving only one particular cunt when there was such a variety of pleasure to be had among mortal women. He couldn’t imagine finding a female whose mind interested him as much as her body, whose strength and courage he could admire, not for just a night but for the centuries that lay ahead for him.

Let others of his kind tie themselves to kadines—the human females created and raised for the purpose of being converted. Let others claim their brides and see them through the changes. Exchanging blood three times so the bodies of their mates were altered enough to enable them to bear a vampire’s young, though they weren’t fully vampire themselves.

It was a responsibility Domino didn’t want. A cleverly disguised trap that led to loss of freedom.

To take a kadine was to be sexually bonded to her for centuries. The connection so deep that her happiness would become his, her sorrow his. Her life his, because without his blood, and his blood alone, she would die.

It was the ultimate insurance against betrayal. The ultimate insurance against one vampire coveting the mate of another. A complex design woven into their cells by ancient, alien ancestors. Ancestors who’d ruthlessly done what was necessary to survive, to adapt, to ensure that they wouldn’t become extinct on the hostile, primitive world in which they found themselves.

Domino followed Dakotah as she moved deeper among the trees, each step a freeing of the wolf inside her. It amazed him how well she hid what she was. Fane had made no mention of it and he’d stationed himself at the carnival until Matteo Cabrelli had arrived from Italy in order to claim Sarael. Even Domino’s own wolf hadn’t been entirely certain until tonight. But as soon as she’d stepped from the trailer and bathed in the light of the moon, her focus on the woods—he’d known.

She stopped in a small clearing, a place that was little more than rocks and the half rotted trunk of a massive tree, lying on its side, a handful of its branches still reaching for the sky in silent supplication. Domino halted as well, making sure he was downwind of her, seeing a wariness in her body as she paused, searching the shadows as though she could feel him there, before relaxing and shedding her jacket, hanging it over a tree branch.