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“Are there any specific readers who use these cards? This designer?”
The woman gave a tight uncomfortable smile. “Yes. There is someone but she’s very busy. Busy as in exclusive. Exclusive as in expensive.”
“Money is no object.” Julian pressed his palms to the counter, making his menacing nature known. “What I don’t have a lot of is time. What is her name?”
“Luna Star.” She exhaled loudly and pursed her lips together, annoyance in her tone. “But she’s busy.”
“Luna Star?” Greyson laughed. “We’re wasting time. We should go see Kade.”
“Ignore my friend,” Julian told her. “I want my reading.”
“She’s busy. I don’t know if she can see you?—”
“Can I help you?” The beautiful woman he’d rescued in the woods stood with her arms folded across her chest. Raven curls brushed over her shoulders and down her back. Her icy glare faltered as she drew closer, slightly softening, then morphing back into a resting bitch face.
A rush of energy twisted through him as he stepped toward her. Her warm vibrations roused his wolf to attention.
“Julian. Julian Fortes.” He resisted touching her, still not certain as to whether he could trust her or what she was.
“Luna. He’s your next client,” the saleswoman told her.
“This way.” Cassia turned and disappeared through the black velvet curtains.
“I’ll meet you back at home,” he told Greyson and Rafe. Without looking back the wolf chased his prey.
* * *
“Please sit,” she instructed as she let him into a small room and shut the door behind him.
Julian observed her move with confidence as she turned her back to him, her fingers brushing a lock of her hair over her shoulder. His interaction with the woman from the woods had been brief. While her hair had been shorter in the woods, a familiar storm swirled within Cassia’s mocha brown eyes.
Julian glanced to an enormous ceramic crucifix that hung on the wall. “You afraid of vampires?”
“I’m afraid of all supernaturals,” she offered, her voice without emotion.
As she began shuffling the cards, Julian noted the distinctive pattern of the cards and smiled. He reached into his pocket and fingered the tarot he’d brought.
“Perhaps you should be afraid of me.” Julian flipped over a card. DEATH. “Do you recognize this?”
Cassia continued to shuffle, ignoring the tarot card. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“Is that right?”
She set a neat pile of cards in the middle of a circle of crystals. She reached for a long wooden match and struck it against the outer surface of an abalone shell. The scent of sulfur filled the air seconds before she brought the flame to a bundle of sage.
“Yes.” A wave of smoke filtered through the tiny room, escaping though a crack in a small stained-glass window. “I knew you’d come.”
Julian’s wolf clawed at the surface, urging him to get closer to its prey. “I don’t like games. Why did you run from me that night in the hospital?”
“This isn’t a game, Alpha.” She set the bundle of sage into a pewter caldron and stared up at him, meeting his gaze. “I called you here.”
“What do you want?” Julian demanded. “What is the meaning of this card?”
“Hell is a terrible place,” she commented.
“You’re human. Aside from the evil that walks among you, what would you know about Hell?”
“They come for me too,” she revealed. Her face softened, her eyes lowered to the cards.
