The Shifting Price of Prey Read Online Free Page B

forehead.
    I frowned. ‘What’s the matter?’
    ‘Feed ’em,’ he urged, shoulders bowing as if with pain.
    O-
kay
. I pressed my left index finger against the scalpel. The edge sliced the tip, dark viscous blood welled, scenting the air with honey and copper, and I readied for the pain but it
didn’t come. Odd.
    ‘Quick,’ he whispered.
    I took a steadying breath. ‘I offer my blood solely in exchange for the answer to my questions. No harm to me or mine,’ I said and touched the first card.
    A tiny tongue licked at my finger— Startled, I jerked my hand back, or would’ve without Tavish’s Compulsion holding me in place. The tongue licked some more, tickling, then I
felt a little mouth press against the cut, lips sealing around it. It started sucking my blood down, hard and fast enough that I could feel the draw on my heart. I shot an anxious look at Tavish.
He was hunched in his chair, the cobalt colour leaching from his eyes, leaving them pale and cloudy, his dreads turning dry and brittle, their beads clear as glass. Then a bead shattered, the
pieces hitting the floor with a soft ping. Uneasy, I tried yanking my hand from the card. I couldn’t.
    ‘What the hell’s happening, Tavish?’
    ‘Channelling.’
    ‘Channelling what? Something in the cards?’
    He grunted.
    I took it as a yes. And judging by the way his hand gripped mine, whatever it was, it was powerful. What the hell was in the cards if they could do this to him? And why hadn’t he told me
what to expect? Unless this wasn’t it?
    ‘Harder,’ he muttered. ‘Harder than I thought to stop you.’
    ‘Stop
me
? But I’m not doing anything!’
    More beads shattered. He crumpled forwards, his head dropping to his knees, his hand a death-grip on mine. ‘The card? Is it changing?’
    I dragged my attention back to the card. Thick gold mist topped it like a tiny thundercloud, and on the front the dark bruised red of my blood coloured the card from the bottom up, as if it were
litmus paper drawing it up. Which in a way it seemed it was, as there was still a thin white strip at the top.
    ‘Tell me when.’ Tavish’s words were a hoarse whisper.
    The strip turned pink . . .
    Brighter red . . .
    Then the dark bruised colour of the rest of the card.
    Suddenly the mouth released my finger with an audible satisfied sigh.
    I cut a troubled glance at Tavish. ‘It’s let go—’
    He toppled out of the chair, his hand slipping from mine, and curled into a foetal ball under the desk.
    I flung myself to my knees, grabbed his head; his face was lined and shrunken like an old man’s.
    Weakly, he pushed at me. ‘Talk to the card, doll,’ he ground out harshly, ‘afore she leaves.’
    She?
But a stab of Compulsion had my body pulling back into the chair, my eyes fixing on the bloodstained card and my mouth said, ‘Tell me how to find that which is lost, and how
to join that which is sundered, to release the fae’s fertility from the trap and restore their fertility back to them as it was before it was taken.’
    The tarot card vibrated. The blood swirled away in wisps of reddish smoke until I could make out a picture. A dark-haired, hawk-nosed male in his thirties, dressed in a purple toga, his head
wreathed with a crown of golden laurels, lounged on an ornate throne. He held a silver-bladed dagger in one hand, and behind him a large golden eagle perched on a staff-like pillar. The
Emperor.
    The Emperor on the card laughed; a loud arrogant sound that filled the large room. I started. The ginger tom leaped from the desk, its fur bottle-brush stiff, and at my feet Tavish whimpered. On
the card a huge, fanged snake slithered up the staff and hissed at the golden eagle. The bird flapped its wings angrily and launched itself out into the room, soaring up to the ceiling.
    I repeated my question.
    The Emperor laughed again, pointed his silver dagger out of the card at me and bellowed, ‘He knows! He will tell you! For a price!’
    Of course he