He did this decisively, handed me five cards without looking at them, and all this lasted perhaps twenty seconds.

“Most people spend time with the cards,” I educated him.

“I do not need to spend time with the cards for I know what they’ll say,” he retorted. “Now turn my first, Ellie.”

“Are you certain you don’t wish to reshuffle?” I offered.

“Yes.”

“Positive?”

It was then I received what I was working for.

His full lips framed by that dense, dark beard I liked so much hitched into a grin.

“Just turn the first card, woman.”

“Happy to oblige,” I stated, nestling my ass more firmly in his lap, feeling his body tense about mine, which I was also working for, and I turned the first card, letting it fall to the velvet-covered duvet in front of us.

Drat.

It was the Earth

A high card.

Sometimes not bad.

This time, maybe not good.

“And that is?” Cass prompted.

“Earth,” I told him. “Training. Study.”

“Mm?”

He knew I was holding back mostly because neither he nor I in this time of our lives needed either training or study.

“Work,” I pushed out. “Toil.”

“Ah,” he murmured.

I quickly tossed down the next one.

Shite.

The Crow.

“That does not look like it bodes well,” he noted, staring at the inauspicious black bird sitting on its black perch, the background a foreboding mix of blues, purples and grays.

“The Crow.” And before he could ask, I quickly shared, “It is not bad. It is a middling card. It means second sight. Reflection. Magic. Mystery.”

“And you read that as…?”

I turned my head to look at him. “Perhaps, after the toil we both know today will bring, you need to take some time to center yourself.”

“Center myself?”

“Think. Meditate. Recognize you’re on the right path but ascertain if the way you intend to move down it is correct.”

He cast his gaze to the cards and again hummed, “Mm.”

I threw down the next, and seeing it, I was surprised he had two high cards come so swiftly, at the same time I was thinking what that card said was not all that card meant.

“The Moon,” he said.

“The Moon,” I confirmed. “Intuition. Magic. Womanhood. Power.”

His arms about me tightened as he remarked, “That one is not difficult to read.”

I would let him think that, for the now, even if I had a feeling it meant far more.

I threw down the next.

Goddess damn it.

“The Manticore,” he stated tonelessly.

He knew that one. He’d seen it before.

“War. Battle,” he went on.

He had a blasted good memory.

I turned and reminded his profile, “Also power. Victory.”

He too turned and looked into my eyes.

“The last one, Ellie.”

I was so certain this would go well. I felt it in my bones that morning after turning my own card.

It had to go well.

For things as they were in his realm could not get worse.