The Pagan Stone Page 0,34

he'd been betting on the pulls, he wouldn't have put money on two people drawing eight Major Arcana in a row out of a deck.

He fixed her drink, switched for his next round from coffee to water. When he went outside again, she stood at the rail looking out toward the woods.

"I reshuffled, recut. And I drew eight cards at random. Only two were Major Arcana, but oddly enough they were the Devil and Death again." When she turned he noted she'd settled herself. "Interesting, isn't it? You and I together pull the most powerful and pointed cards. Because we were meant to, or because we, without direct purpose, foresaw where those cards were in the fan, and instinctively chose them."

"Why don't we try another tool? Have you got your crystal ball in that duffel bag of yours?"

"No, and it happens to be Prada. Are you willing to try to look forward, to link our ability and see what happens?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"Accepting and exploiting, hopefully, the connection. I'm better able to focus during or after meditation, but-"

"I know how to meditate."

"With all that caffeine in your system?"

He only tipped back his water bottle. "We'd better take it back inside."

"Actually, I was thinking of out here, on the grass. The gardens, the woods, the air." She took off her sunglasses, set them down on the rail, then wandered down the steps. "What do you do to relax, body and mind?"

"I play cards. I have sex. We could play strip poker, and after you lose I'll make sure we're both relaxed."

"Interesting, but I was thinking more of yoga." She slid out of her shoes, and into Prayer Position. With fluid grace she moved into a basic Sun Sign.

"I'm not doing that," Gage said as he followed her into the yard. "But I'll watch you."

"It'll just take me a minute. And on your suggestion? We made a deal. We weren't going to have sex."

"The deal was I wouldn't try to seduce you, not that we wouldn't have sex."

"Semantics."

"Specifics."

From the Down Dog position, she turned her head to look up at him. "I suppose you're right. In any case." She finished, then lowered to the grass to sit in the Lotus position.

"I'm not doing that either." But he sat across from her.

Where normally she would have rested the back of her hands on her knees, she reached out to take his. "Can you clear your mind like this?"

"I can if you can."

She smiled. "All right. Do whatever you do that works for you-other than cards and sex."

He didn't have any objections to sitting on the grass on a May afternoon with a beautiful woman. Not that he expected anything to happen. He expected her to close her eyes and float off on whatever mantra (the ohm symbol at the base of her spine, that intriguing symbol on flesh the color of gold dust, right at the subtle dip from smooth back to firm ass).

Don't think about it, he warned himself. That wasn't the way to relax.

In any case, she didn't close her eyes, so he stared straight into them. A man couldn't ask for a more appealing focal point than that rich velvet brown. He timed his breathing to hers-or she to his, he wasn't sure. But in a matter of seconds they were in tune, perfectly in rhythm.

Her eyes were all he could see. Drowning pools. Her fingertips were so light on his, yet he felt weightless, as if he'd float up and away without that tenuous contact.

And he felt, for a moment, absolutely right, and completely connected to her.

It slammed and screamed through him, so fast, image after image ramming into the next. Fox lying by the side of the road in the rain. Cal sprawled, his shirt blood-soaked, on the floor of his office. Quinn screaming in terror, beating her hands on a locked door, and the knife that sliced down to cut her throat. Layla, bound and gagged, eyes wild with fear as flames snaked across the floor toward her.

He saw himself, by the Pagan Stone, with Cybil lying lifeless on the altar flames. And heard himself scream with rage an instant before it leaped out of the woods and took him to the dark.

Then it all jumbled together, image and sound, blurring, changing. The bloodstone fired in his hand, and voices rose with words he couldn't understand. And he was alone, alone as those flames rose from his hand toward the hot summer moon. Alone as