“You have to phrase your questions in a more open-ended way,” Sophia told Mikhael. “Tarot’s not really good for yes/no answers. It’s not an eight-ball reading.”
“You’re not old enough to know what a magic eight ball is,” Mikhael scoffed.
“All those things are retro now.” Aiden smirked. “You probably remember it as going to the Oracle at Delphi for guidance.”
“Actually, the village wisewoman just read the bones.” Mikhael gave him a quelling look. “Stripped out of mouthy youngsters.”
“She is right,” Min said shyly, looking down at the cards. “It’s better to be open-ended. And you really have to choose the questions. I mean, it’s worked okay with me choosing some standard ones, but you should at least choose one or two. Something that’s important to you, not like your last question.” She dared a reproving look at him. “The Universe doesn’t like to be mocked.”
“PB and J or bologna and cheese for lunch is a very important question to me. And the Universe has no problem mocking us. Turnabout is fair play.”
“Choose a question about love,” Ana prompted.
He slanted her an amused glance as Luke and Saul groaned. “Girls always want it to be about love. Min said it had to be important to him.”
“Love is important to men,” Ana protested. “He can ask about it in a way that means something to him. It doesn’t have to be girly and romantic.”
“Yeah, like: Is forever love possible with a large-breasted porn star who can suck chrome off a trailer hitch?”
“I’m in love just hearing about her,” Mikhael agreed with Aiden.
When Min shot them all a searing glare, Mikhael lifted a hand of truce. “All right, then. Let me think.”
It could be wishful thinking, but Raina couldn’t deny how the scenario looked. The way the males were looking at him and the females were drawing closer to him; how they were all being respectful, but also trying to tease, to engage his attention…That authoritative demeanor of his, patient and yet projecting the boundaries of his tolerance…It was what a strong male role model should provide. Very few of her staff had experienced such a thing in their lives, but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t latch on to it.
Mikhael might be horrified by her thoughts, or he might know exactly what he was doing. Now that she’d stepped in the room, she discovered it wasn’t all clever intuition and his nonexistent charm that achieved the impossible. He was putting off a hum of low-level energy that dampened their fears, helped them put away what had happened earlier. But he was also giving them what she herself had enjoyed—the cynical yet somehow appealing edge of his humor and patience.
“What should be the highest priority in my life…love or duty?”
She stilled. While he hadn’t acknowledged her, she was sure he knew she was there. Min drew out the cards. She was using the Gaian Tarot, another exceptionally appropriate choice. Between her and Sophia, they had more than two dozen decks, but the Gaian deck was the one that was about healing, about soothing the agitated heart while offering guidance to bring the viewer back in rhythm and harmony with natural forces. Typically, both females allowed the one being read to choose the deck, and she saw the basket of their inventory behind them. The fact Mikhael had picked the one that reflected his goal with them was just…fascinating.
He’s centuries old, Raina. He knows shit.
She gave herself a mental chuckle. Yeah, he did. Maybe that, even more than the low-level energy around him, was why Sophia was at his knee, and the boys felt brave enough to make male-bonding jokes. Raina herself had experienced both sides of this particular Dark Guardian, hadn’t she?
She tuned back in to his question. Love or duty. What had prompted that one?
“Six of Air,” Min said, showing him the card. Her brow furrowed. “In some of our decks, that’s about victory, but in this deck, it’s about celebrating the day with people who mean something to you. It suggests that you don’t really celebrate your successes with anyone. You do your duty without acknowledgment.”
“Acknowledgment isn’t necessary. Just commitment to the task at hand.”
Min nodded, but when he met her gaze, she quickly shifted hers to Sophia. The young woman was considering the card as well, but she had the temerity to voice what Min hadn’t. “I think this card is saying you need to let love take a higher place on your list of tasks.” She nodded to another card. “Remember when Min asked how you see the people around you? The Nine of Fire came up. You maintain an even balance by avoiding people, but you can’t. You’re going to transcend, but your path to enlightenment may be different than you expect.”
“That’s pretty vague.” Mikhael grunted. “Good for roadside fortune-telling.”
“Like when you drew for where does he get his strength.” Luke pointed to the table. “You pulled that Ten of Water, Min, which you said meant he gets strength from other people’s happiness.”
When the boy scoffed, Mikhael gave him that direct look that could wilt courage at a hundred paces. “Is there something about me that suggests that’s not true, Luke?”
Luke paled, stammering. “W-Well, I meant that—it’s just that you’re—”
“It’s true. He loves puppies, and nothing makes him happier than kissing babies and helping little old ladies across the street.”
Heads swung toward Raina, a wave of chuckles running through the group. “Actually, it is true,” she said quietly. “The card wasn’t wrong, Min. He sees happiness in unexpected places. Places the rest of us don’t see it.”
Min looked between the two of them, since Mikhael had turned his gaze to Raina. Seeing him among her family like this, Raina couldn’t hold on to her anger or detachment from earlier. He heard a mother’s lullaby in the middle of a war-torn jungle, after all, when others heard only gunfire, screams. When everyone else felt hopelessness, he saw faith. Yet he was a Dark Guardian, knowing the dark side of the soul better than anyone. He’d known her soul in barely a blink.
A little overwhelmed with the revelation, Raina leaned against a chair, nodding to Li with forced casualness. Her senior staff member was pale but determined to be here. He gave her a quick appraisal of his own, telling her he was making sure she was all right as well. Her heart filling with love for all of them, she came to him, put a hand on his shoulder.
“The Six of Air also comes with a warning,” Min said, drawing their attention back. “It says you shouldn’t deny yourself love, or rather, that you should make sure you don’t die without love…or having loved fully.”
As he regarded the card in silence, she shifted. “Two more. You get two more questions for the reading to be complete. Unless you’re tired of it.”
“See if your mistress has one she’d like to ask for me, one she thinks is on my mind. Or hers.”
“I’m not sure it works that way, but sure.” Min shrugged, looked toward Raina.
“He’s just being lazy, getting others to do the work for him.” Raina snorted. “But all right. What were his other cards?”
“Two of Earth for his most important goal. He has to balance his emotional against his nonemotional self, face a gut battle against what he thinks is good and what he thinks is evil.”
Raina pursed her lips. “Pretty accurate on that one.”
“Not necessarily.” Mikhael shifted in the chair, stretching one long leg past Min’s dainty feet. “My most important goal is finding a Hooters where the women’s faces are as excellent as their bodies.”
“Don’t let me stop you. Door’s right there.” While the others grinned at her sugar-sweet tone, she cocked her head. “Okay. I have one. How do others see you?”
Min laid out the card. Sophia lifted her gaze, the two girls exchanging a concerned glance. “Well…” Min cleared her throat.
“Min.”
Raina knew that tone Mikhael used. No-nonsense, requiring a truthful and direct answer, but Mikhael added something to it. A gentle note. He was still aware of his goal here. Always focused, she reminded herself.
“Just tell me,” he said. “I’m not going to be offended.”
“You can’t know that until you hear what I say.” Min was young but no fool. Raina was amused and proud at once.
“If I’m offended, I promise not to grow three heads and eat everyone in the room.”
She tittered, covering her mouth with a slim hand. She wore several rings with garnet stones on them. “All right, then. But remember, you promised.”
“If I break the promise, you’ll be chewed up and swallowed so fast, you won’t feel a thing.”
She giggled again but looked down at the card. “Eight of Fire. Most see you as a means to an end, taking them where they want to go. You arrive in the nick of time so often, it’s kind of mysterious how you do that, like you’re an EMT or firefighter. You’re seen as a…rescuer.”
Raina saw myriad reactions to that, ranging from boy, was that one way off in Saul and Luke’s exchanged look, to Min and Ana’s more pensive consideration. The girls were evaluating the way he’d acted this past hour, how Raina herself acted toward him. What he’d done upstairs with the gunman. They were probably realizing, as she had, there was far more to him than it seemed.