Jory Strong: Dakotah's Reading

Her lips pulled back in a baring of teeth. The men following her had picked the wrong day to take her on. They were human and she didn’t feel remotely human at the moment.

She’d started walking in the direction of a nearby campground, one that had been popular among the psychics who’d come to Ashberg for the psychic fair. The fair was over but a large number of the rigs remained at the site and she felt sure she could hitch a ride, if not to the closest big city, at least to a different city, one where she could begin her disappearance, could begin the process of renaming and remaking herself.

If she ran she could probably get within sight of the campground without the men catching her—unless one of them was smart enough to go back for their car. Even without a breeze, she could smell the sweat and sex that clung to their skin, the stink of beer and cheap liquor. They were no match for her, especially if they could be separated, dealt with one at a time.

She needed to know if they were predators after any female or if they’d come for her in particular. It bothered her that she’d seen others with ornate crosses tattooed on their necks coming and going from the town and the carnival in the last couple of days. Men resembling these, conscienceless specimens of human garbage.

Their deaths would only be a crime if she got caught.

Dakotah veered into the woods when she heard one of the men say, “I’m going back for the car.”

There was a curse behind her and she dropped the knapsack in a hidden pocket of shrubs and vine before she began jogging, luring them deeper into the forest of oak and pine, maple and cedar. Birch, the white of the trees like skeletal sentinels in a rapidly darkening land.

The wolf slid along Dakotah’s nerve endings, willing her to stop and allow its form to rule. She would if she had to, if it came down to her life or death. But the wolf would end the chase in a flash of teeth, in screams as flesh and muscles parted from bones in a rush of hot blood. The wolf wouldn’t stop to question, couldn’t press the cold steel of a knife blade to throats and groins in order to demand answers.

Her pursuers had sense enough to be leery in a jungle of narrow trails and wet leaves instead of alleyways and garbage. They stayed together, cursing, their breath coming and going in short pants. When she’d drained them of their strength, Dakotah stopped and turned, facing her prey though they still maintained the illusion that she was theirs.

“Where is she?” Domino growled, whirling as the ancient fortune-teller entered the travel trailer.

“Gone.”

“I can see that, old woman.” He flashed his fangs. “The Believers are hunting her.”

Helki laughed. “What kind of a mate would she be for you if she couldn’t take care of herself, especially against mere humans?”

Obsidian eyes gleamed with menace. “I have no mate.”

“The cards say otherwise.” She nodded to the bed, to what remained of Dakotah’s possessions, left there when the dresser and desk had been emptied. The tarot deck set apart from the rest. Three cards from it laid out on the dark blue comforter. The past, the present, the future.

Death. Strength. The Emperor.

A fourth and fifth, carelessly knocked to the floor when Domino handled her things. The Empress. The World.

“I don’t have time for this foolishness.”

The fortune-teller shrugged and stepped away from the door, her movement closing the distance between the two of them and leaving the exit clear. “Then go.”

Domino snarled. Frustration and rage rippling through him along with unwilling respect. She knew how close he was to turning. He could read it in her eyes, and yet she tested him.

“I could force you to tell me what I want to know,” he said, obsidian eyes meeting equally dark ones.

She reached up, smoothing calloused fingertips over his cheek. “So like your grandfather. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always loved you best. Accept my words. Accept your destiny. Both lead to Dakotah.” A small smile formed. “The wolves have already made their choice.”

Domino scowled, knowing he’d been bested by his mother’s mother. A woman who had managed to raise Sarael, a stolen kadine, without discovery. A woman who’d seen through the veil of his kind and peered into their world when her daughter, his mother, had been claimed and converted by his father.

“I want no mate.”

Helki cackled. “Neither did your father that night he came to the carnival to hunt and discovered my Giselle.” Her eyes danced with remembered amusement. “What a chase she gave him! What a chase she still gives him!”

Domino grimaced, preferring not to be reminded of The Heat that surrounded his parents. No doubt his mother would soon be pregnant, ready to bear and raise a second generation of sons, followed by more, two or three sons for each quarter of a century that she and his father were reproductively fertile.

“Have your say then,” Domino grumbled.

The fortune-teller stroked her calloused fingertips over his cheek again. Her expression going from amused to serious. “I wouldn’t have you spend the future alone, Domino, dependant on the herbs in order to control The Hunger.” She grimaced with distaste. “Nor would I see you go to the padralls and have them create a kadine for you. A female raised with no freedom. No sense of who she really is other than one whose very existence is centered around becoming the perfect mate for a male she didn’t choose. Accept what the cards say. What the wolf has already told you.” She stepped away from him, leaning down to pick up the cards that had fallen to the floor.

Domino stiffened as she separated the third card from those already on the bed, joining it with the two he had brushed against earlier and knocked to the floor, positioning them in the shape of a V—the Emperor and the Empress connected to each other by The World.

“You see it?” Helki asked him, but Domino refused to be drawn into her game.

“I see nothing but the day fading and the night approaching.”

Helki cackled, tapping The Emperor. “Oh, he is a stubborn one! Forceful and dominating. But what a protector he can be, a provider for those he cares about.”

Her finger moved to the corner of The Empress. “An interesting card for your mate. She wouldn’t see herself in it, but it contains her. Her life has been one of famine and drought instead of abundance. Of harsh choices and betrayal, and yet her soul has not been tarnished and her secret heart yearns for a man to prove that all men aren’t like those who have come before him.”

The fortune-teller’s fingertips settled beneath The World, underscoring it. “The circle is complete. Two separate journeys now become one on a path that is lined with fulfillment, enjoyment, unity as it weaves its way into the future and takes form in the next generation of sons, soldiers to follow in their father’s footsteps.” She cackled. “And to give their father the same challenge that their father gave to his! You’ll find your mate and those chasing her in the woods between here and the campground.”

The men chasing Dakotah stopped in their tracks when they saw the knives in her hands. Wary, but not afraid. The one in the lead grinned, broken teeth in a filthy mouth. “This bitch is going to be better than the ones we had last night.” He smacked his lips. “Oh yeah, unwilling women are always more fun.”

“You think the guy who wants her will care if we knock her teeth out, Chuck? She’s the kind that would bite a man’s dick off just for spite.”

“As long as she’s alive, he don’t care,” Chuck said, retrieving a knife from his pocket before taking his jacket off and wrapping it around his arm. “Go around and get behind her on the trail. This place gives me the creeps. I want to be out of here before it gets much darker.”