Well, it represents power. Two forms of power. Both outward strength and inner balance. As a pair, they represent a nurturing emotional core and material abundance.
In other words…a marriage. Although a chill comes over me. I think of the royal wedding. Maybe it doesn’t refer to us after all. Maybe it’s the prince and princess that brought us here like this.
I steal a glance at Ryker.
He’s still deeply asleep. My pounding heart didn’t wake him, then. I take a few deep breaths in case his wolf’s senses are honed enough to hear my pulse going faster and faster.
My heart doesn’t want to slow down. Even the Two of Cups is another card that clearly represents a pair. At its best, the Two of Cups is about harmony. Every card I’ve pulled is either half of a fated pair or a pair in and of itself.
But, I think at the cards, I’m not part of a pair. He is only a temporary guest, and he did not come here to find a match. He came here to gather flowers for a wedding.
My conflicting thoughts war in my mind.
A wedding is yet another representation of a harmonious pair. The wedded couple is literally at the center of the ceremony.
I close my eyes and refocus. There is more on the horizon than weddings.
Ryker will leave. Charging his crystals, opening a portal, and going back home are the reasons he’s here. He doesn’t have any other business with me, as far as I know, and I do not have any other business with him. If it weren’t for the storm, we might not have crossed paths at all.
We did, though, and now our lives are entwined for a time.
Eyes still closed, I slide a card off the deck and onto an empty stretch of the table.
When I open my eyes, I am confronted with Death. My body stills as a coldness comes over me. Chills run down my spine, and layer after layer of goosebumps follow.
It takes a few moments for me to process what I am looking at. Of course, it is the Death card—that much is clear. But it is reversed.
Death, reversed.
Death is the end. Death reversed is rebirth and renewal. The end of what exactly? Although deep in the marrow of my bones, I know exactly what it’s referring to. I know what must end although I do not wish it to be so.
I glance at him again, half-expecting to find him watching me, alert and awake.
He’s not. He has turned over onto his side, and his chest rises and falls in a slow, dreamy rhythm.
I want so badly to forget the cards and let myself savor the peace and comfort of the cottage as it is right now, with Ryker sleeping in my bed and sun coming through the windows, but I cannot.
My tarot cards have posed questions that demand answers.
That card is the embodiment of change—of letting go of your old life and stepping into a new one. But when Death is reversed, it usually means that you are resisting the change. Fighting it. But that it is certain. It will come.
Before I ask a particular question that nags in the back of my mind, I cast another spell at Ryker. He was awake all night, and I do not know how long he was traveling before he came to the cottage. He needs as much rest as he can get.
I face the cards once more and close my eyes, allowing myself to acknowledge how fiercely I feel Ryker’s presence in my home. I’m aware of every breath he takes, and his masculine scent is everywhere. I notice him more every minute. As afternoon moves on toward evening, time slips away as I grapple with the questions in my mind and the growing sense that I am about to understand some aspect of it, some fact, that will change everything.
If that is what is fated to happen, then I will learn to survive in my new reality. I have done it before, and I can do it again.
It is time to be brave and ask the cards directly.
Who is this shifter to me? I ask the cards, keeping my mind open to the possibility that the cards may only be able to hint at such a vague question.
Before I can draw a card, I am drawn to open my eyes.
My gaze immediately snaps to one of the candles on my worktable, which lights the instant my eyes fall on the wick. It hits me at once. All of it coming into focus. I know exactly what happened and as my bottom lip drops, my breath leaves me.
Oh, gods, oh gods, it was my fault. This is all my fault.
Because this is the candle I used to cast over the gift for Prince Adom and Princess Charlotte.
