His eyes on her, Afanasiv did as she requested. It was difficult to look away from him. His gaze was too green, too blue, swirling with turbulence, completely at odds with his calm demeanor.
“Lay the cards faceup for me.”
He did so, still looking at her rather than the cards. She looked down and her breath caught in her throat. He had been given the exact same cards that she had. She was being resistant to what she knew was her destiny. She had been so on board with everything, and then she felt so out of sync with him.
Vasilisa looked down at the cards and sighed. “It seems we share the same fate.”
“Did you believe otherwise, my lady?”
There was no mockery in his tone. Nothing to suggest that he was amused by the situation. He just watched her intently. “There is the death card again. You had it. Now I have it. What does it mean?”
She studied the card and the frightening image of the wolf staring back at her. “I know many people are afraid of this card simply because it is named death, but in reality, it is a card of change or transition. It signals that it is time to put the past behind you so you can seize your future with both hands.”
“As the others were telling me to do last rising,” he said. “Is that what you mean? That I should let go of my doubts that I have had about my honor and be more open to using my birthright?”
She nodded slowly. “I believe it does mean something of thatnature, Siv. Sometimes you have to let go of the past so you can accept your future. Close a door so a new door opens, that sort of thing. Or it can mean a literal transition. A transformation of sorts. A death of one version of yourself in order for the new version to have life.”
“If you got the same card, how does this pertain to both of us together?”
“Ordinarily, I do readings for individuals, so it wouldn’t, but I’ll admit I was asking the cards to read for both of us earlier. I believe our fate is tied together. Often this card signals the end of a relationship, not the beginning of one.”
She watched him closely for a reaction. He was without an expression. None. Completely unreadable. Her heart ached. She had been traumatized by the events that had occurred, but so had he. Reliving those memories that had been buried so deep couldn’t have been easy for him. She hadn’t offered him solace of any kind. She’d been more compassionate and understanding of Andros than of Siv. Why? What was wrong with her that she wanted to pick a fight with him and try to challenge the terms of their relationship?
The moment she thought about getting out of their bond, she wanted to cling to him. The thought of losing him was terrifying, and yet she wasn’t opening herself up to him. It was as if she had a block in front of her that stopped her from even discussing what she was upset about.
Afanasiv sat back in the chair, his long legs sprawled out in front of him. “How would you go about ending our relationship, Vasilisa?”
She blinked at him. His tone was so mild. His voice was low. Almost gentle. He looked lazy—until she looked into his eyes. There was nothing lazy about his eyes. The color had gone almost pure amber with green flecks. There was nothing human about his eyes.
She shook her head. “I have no intention of ending our relationship, Afanasiv. If you wish to do so, you’ll have to be the one to find a way to do it. You asked about the death card, and I’m telling you thepossible meanings.” She kept belligerence out of her voice. If he could act cool, so could she.
“It seems we are in for a bit of a transitional period with the death card, and we both are going to have to embrace change if we want to get through it smoothly.”
She avoided his gaze by scooping up the cards.
“Do the swords mean anything significant? It seemed as if there were a lot of swords for only three cards and one of them being the death card.”
“We’re in for a fight, but we knew that.”
He nodded. “Before we decide where to start, we need to straighten our problems out. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my time in the underworld and what had happened. I didn’t because I didn’t have all my memories. They returned in pieces. When they did come back, it was too late, and I knew I was going to have to disclose what had happened in front of you.”
“You asked me to wait and not visit Dimitri and Skyler. I didn’t listen to you. That’s on me.” She stared down at the cards for a moment, shuffling them because the cards brought her solace—just the familiar feel of them in her hands. “How could you know that Lilith wouldn’t get pregnant? What did you mean?”
“I never touched her. I never had any intention of touching her. I gave her that illusion. Even had I touched her, I can control whether or not I release potent sperm or she releases a viable egg. That doesn’t matter, though, because at no time did I ever put my hands on her. A few times she was suspicious because she didn’t get pregnant and she set up cameras. I had to put the illusion on the video, then find the camera in front of her, watch it with her and throw a fit and delete it.”
“If she ever found out...”
He shrugged. “She had me tortured often, Vasilisa. For weeks or months. Sometimes it was for so long I swear she forgot about me.”
He drummed his fingers on the table. The rhythm seemed familiar.She watched as he rubbed at his temples. “There was one important thing that happened that I didn’t tell the others. I will tell only you. My mother’s condition was deteriorating daily. The longer we took to negotiate, the more she was tortured. My father was certain Lilith had no intention of releasing her—or him. He told me that when the time came, if my mother were to die, he would go into the thrall.”
She had heard of the thrall but wasn’t entirely certain what it meant, so she arched an eyebrow at him.
“It’s a kind of madness, an insanity. That is when many honorable Carpathian hunters are lost. No Dragonseeker has ever turned vampire. My father didn’t want to be the first, but he was in the underworld, where he had seen the woman he loved viciously and brutally tortured over time. He worried his mind would fragment and he would become exactly what Lilith was driving him toward being. We planned out what to do in the event my mother died, just as we planned the wording of the contract. We went over it step by step a hundred times and then again even more so our responses would be muscle memory and not emotional.”
Vasilisa narrowed her eyes, watching Afanasiv as he pushed his forehead into the heel of his hand. There were smears of blood from tiny beads of sweat left behind. He didn’t seem to notice. She didn’t move when she wanted to get up and comfort him. She was afraid that if she moved, he would stop speaking. She sat very still, observing him carefully. Something was off, and she needed to figure out what it was. She had seen this the night before. The tapping was part of it, that rhythm. She couldn’t allow herself to be too immersed in what he was saying and not see all the signs of his distress both in the underworld and here in the present day.
“Lilith brought the contract and pens for us to sign. She was particularly elated, almost high, very flushed, her eyes overbright, and she kept telling us to read the contract, that she was certain we would be happy with the terms. She ordered two of the demons to get my mother and bring her to the arena immediately. It bothered us that we were tomeet her in the arena rather than in one of the rooms. It was very hot, more so than usual, and it was difficult to breathe the air down there.”