Chapter Six – Sometimes, in a Crystal Ball

Cards were considered an unusual way to foresee the future, and Cassandra despised them with a passion. However, seeing how limited his funds were, Ryder couldn’t afford being picky about the methods this city clairvoyant chose to conduct his fortunetelling. Jack shuffled the cards and laid them out in front of him with a flourish.

“I see…” Jack said slowly and tapped the table with his fingers in a staccato rhythm, “yes, I see.”

“What do you see?” Ryder asked. The strange illustrations on the faces of the cards meant nothing to him. If he were to consider only the images painted on the shiny surface of each card, he would call them ominous. But they didn’t smell of anything foul if he didn’t count the chemical that must have been used to make the colors pop. Those cards weren’t magic; most likely, this clairvoyant was either a beginner who couldn’t yet control his gift, or the tools he had chosen were the wrong sort.

“I see,” Jack frowned and grabbed the cards to shuffle them again, “something that I can’t tell you.”

Ryder startled the young clairvoyant by slamming his fist against the covered table. “You will tell it to me right away! This is the fourth time you’ve laid down the cards. What are you waiting for?”

“Okay, okay, don’t get upset,” Jack hurried to appease him. “It’s just that,” he scratched the crown of his head, pulled at his nose and then grimaced, “people usually don’t like their fortunes told like this.”

“Stop stalling,” Ryder growled. “I am not people. I am the alpha of--”

“Luna’s Sentinels, yes, I know,” Jack said brightly. “But it’s weird that they always fall the same way.”

“Why would it be weird? The fate is the same no matter how much you shuffle those cards.”

“You make a fine point, Mr. Asherman. The thing is,” Jack said and leaned over the table to point at a card with a lugubrious illustration, “that means death. And I don’t feel comfortable telling you that your future points out that you might die.”

Ryder nodded solemnly. Of course, he hadn’t yet managed to secure his fated bond with his mate, and what this young city clairvoyant was telling him was in line with Cassandra’s premonitions. As long as he didn’t change anything, his fate, and that of his pack, would remain the same.

Jack stared at him in admiration. “Anyone else would have left by now, slamming the door. You are amazingly calm, Mr. Asherman.”

“It is because I know it to be my fate. I am here in Glasstone to change it.”

“Change your fate?”

“Yes. However, you are telling me nothing new. What else do your cards say? I cannot read them.”

Jack scratched his head again. “You mentioned Theodore Pembroke as your potential lover.”

“Mate, not lover,” Ryder corrected him.

“Yes, mate. But he’s a blond.”

“Fair-haired, yes,” Ryder said.

Jack tapped his cards again. “Your love interest doesn’t look like that, though. Also, he’s a, how should I say this… a commoner.”

“A commoner? Are we living in the sixteen-hundreds?”

“Well, I thought it would be the sort of language you’d understand. My apologies. What I mean to say is that the cards reveal that your future love interest – not the current one, mind you – is an ordinary person. An Average Joe, as we’d say around here.”  Jack was shifting in his chair, uncomfortable with reading Ryder’s fate.

As he should be, since he was saying a boatload of bollocks. Average Joe was how Danny had introduced himself the first time – it annoyed Ryder to think of that particular situation given the circumstances. Had someone put Danny under a spell too? Someone with a deck of lying cards like Jack the clairvoyant before him? He had a mind to grab the young man by the scruff of his neck and throw him outside on his ass. People of such a sort had no business reading people’s future.

“Do you know a Daniel Wilson? Danny, as he goes by?” Ryder asked.

Jack shrugged and shook his head. “I’ve never heard of the guy. Why are you asking me about this person out of the blue?”

“He likes to go around, claiming that he’s Average Joe.”

“Like in my cards?” Jack’s eyes grew wide behind the thick glasses. “That’s a weird coincidence.”

“There are no coincidences. Your cards are lying.”

“Really?” Jack appeared slightly irritated by being called out on his act. “Just earlier, you were totally fine with dying. Now you can’t accept that you might just like this Danny person?”

“Is it him in the cards?” Ryder leaned over the table to study the suspicious looking things, but as much as he tried, the pictures said nothing to him.

“I don’t know. You’re the one who seems convinced of it,” Jack shot back. “Anyway, I was only doing this to prove to my friend that no one would take me seriously if I were to open a fortunetelling business.” With brisk moves, he began gathering all the cards from the table. “This session is free, so go ahead and leave.”

“Not so fast.” Ryder grabbed Jack’s wrist, forcing him to drop the cards back on the table. “Lay the cards again. If they fall the same way, I will listen to all you have to say.”

“Will you leave after?” Jack was eyeing the exit as if he wanted to make a run for it.