Sarael's Reading

By Jory Strong

Carnival Tarot #1: For days Sarael has felt as if a dark storm was gathering and would soon overtake her, ending everything that’s familiar—and now that storm has arrived. Nothing will keep Matteo from claiming his bride. Her destiny was written in his blood and the truth revealed in the tarot cards.

The Hanged Man. The Tower. The Moon. She was created for him. She was born to be a vampire’s mate.

Please note: A previous edition of this story was published by Ellora’s Cave. It has been extensively revised for this edition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jory Strong
• Release date: Aug 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311553744

Jory Strong

Jory Strong has been writing since childhood and has never outgrown being a daydreamer. When she's not hunched over her computer, lost in the muse and conjuring up new heroes and heroines, she can usually be found reading, riding horses, or walking dogs. Her stories have won numerous awards, as well as been national best sellers. She lives in California with her husband and a menagerie of pets. She loves hearing from readers. Visit her website at jorystrong.com or contact her at [e-mail].

Book preview

Sarael's Reading

Carnival Tarot #1

Jory Strong

2nd Edition, Copyright © 2015 by Jory Strong

Original publication, Ellora's Cave edition, Copyright © 2005 by Jory Strong

Smashwords Edition

A huge shout-out and thank you to Jennifer Kiziah for her help!

My thanks to Lisa Marie Rice—author of one of my personal favorites, Midnight Man—for looking over the Italian and offering some suggestions. Any errors added in the 2nd edition are mine.

Cover design by Syneca Featherstone

* * * * *

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Thank You!

About the Author

* * * * *

Chapter 1

The sleek jet landed smoothly on the private runway and taxied to a stop near the waiting limousine. The driver and passenger doors opened and two men emerged from the limo.

Matteo Cabrelli expected them both. The older of the two, Pietro, the limo's driver, could no longer walk completely upright but he refused to surrender his position.

The jet's door was opened and the stairs extended for Matteo by the steward who, like the pilot and Pietro, was padrall, a member of one of the human families who had served vampires in one way or another since the very beginning, each generation passing the duty to the next.

Matteo descended the stairs and walked to the limousine. "Shall I pour you a drink, Don Cabrelli?" Pietro asked.

"Grazie. I'll get it myself. He placed his hand on the old servant's shoulder, ignoring the dhampir with the obsidian black eyes. The house?"

Pietro stood taller. "Everything is ready for you and your kadine. Do you wish to go there first?"

Matteo gently squeezed the old man's shoulder. I don't need to, not with your seeing to the arrangements. We'll collect my missing bride. Once she and I have been safely delivered to the house, you'll return to the carnival for her belongings.

Pietro's eyes watered. I was afraid I wouldn't live to see this day.

I'm glad this happened on your watch.

Matteo got into the limo. Domino followed, deftly lifting the decanter of wine on the bar behind the driver's seat. He poured two crystal glasses, lifted one of them but didn't carry it to his lips until Matteo had added the potent, bitter tasting herbs to his own drink and taken a swallow.

The herbs left Matteo's tongue and the insides of his mouth feeling as though they'd been scoured. He took another swallow, though after centuries of usage, the herbs only muted La Brama, The Hunger.

He finished the first glass and poured a second, in preparation for being in the midst of so much prey and in the presence of a woman who should never have been taken from him to begin with. He'd fought La Smania—the restless hunger and thirst for a mate that came with being reproductively mature—for centuries until he was ready for his life to revolve around a single woman. It had taken him a dozen years to determine the pair whose genes would create her, and then twenty years of hell searching for her after she'd been stolen.

Your grandmother is lucky that the Cabrelli don't want to war with the Santori. She had to guess what Sarael was when she saw the tattoo. With little effort at all, she could have learned that Sarael belonged to me.

My grandmother wasn't born into our world. She's made no secret that she doesn't approve of the practice of creating kadines.

Hasn't your mother told her how painful it is to be adapted the old way?

Domino shrugged. My mother survived.

Death isn't the only thing to fear. In the past the adaption drove too many potential mates to commit suicide or go insane. When we get to the carnival, warn your grandmother not to interfere.

* * * * *

The tarot cards lay on black satin. Three of them, lined up in a row.

The past. The present. The future.

Their black-and-white, whirlpool-patterned backs glowed in lighting meant to awe the townies who ventured into the small carnival tent.

Sarael Castillo rubbed her fingertips over her knees. She plucked at her jeans and wished she could escape this unasked-for reading using cards she'd never seen before.

Helki sat across the table, her ancient, wrinkled face free of expression though her eyes were filled with too much knowledge. You don't wish to see them?

The old woman's voice held a mild rebuke. A challenge. Something that had Sarael's stomach tightening and a shiver going through her despite the denim jacket and the warmth inside the tent.

She ducked her head. Did she want to see the cards?

She shivered again. Her heart beat faster, turning blood into a snake of fear that stretched down her legs and into her feet so she tapped them on the rough wooden floor.

Toe. Toe. Toe. Heel.

Toe. Toe. Toe. Heel.

Toe. Toe. Toe. Heel.

Outwardly nothing was different, but for days she'd felt as though a dark storm gathered and would soon overtake her, ending everything that was familiar.

Bracing herself for what the cards would reveal, she said. I'll see them.

Helki flipped them over one at a time.

The Hanged Man.

The Tower.

The Moon.

The past. The present. The Future.

Sarael's toes and heels tapped faster. Her heart beat harder, widening the snake of fear and sending it racing up her throat to encircle her neck and tighten like a noose, not that she needed to say anything, not with Helki there to voice the interpretation.

"You've lived among us, held in limbo by choices that weren't your own. Soon you'll have reason to leave the carnival, and you must leave."

The elderly fortune teller took Sarael's hand. She turned the palm upward then removed the leather band from around Sarael's wrist, exposing the strange tattoo, a stylized scorpion embedded in a rose.

Helki tapped it. A man who thinks to possess you will soon appear. He intends for you to live in his world.

Sarael believed, feared. She visually traced the tattoo she'd worn from her earliest memory.

And will I live in his world? The world of The Moon.

It's not what I'd have for you but… I have no power to shield you from that fate. Helki tapped the tattoo and then scooped up the cards, signaling the end of the reading.

Sarael left. It'd be pointless to ask more questions or attempt to wait Helki out for additional information.

She returned to the travel trailer she shared with Dakotah. With their long brown hair and dark eyes, the two of them were similar enough in appearance that they could be sisters.

Opening a dresser drawer, Sarael looked at the small collection of tarot decks. None of them spoke to her. She selected a random deck and plopped onto the narrow, single bed bolted to the front wall to keep it from moving around in the trailer when they traveled.

She pulled her legs up and sat cross-legged, looked through the deck and found the cards of her past and present and future. She laid them out side-by-side. The Hanged Man. The Tower. The Moon.

Would it help to draw additional cards and ask for clarification? She shuffled the deck and tried to clear her mind and find the right question.

The trailer door opened and Dakotah entered. Sarael put the deck down, her hand going to the leather wristband and twisting it around and around.

Dakotah dropped onto the end of the bed in a long cloud of luxurious brown hair. She glanced at the three cards on the twilight-colored quilt. They only give one possibility.

Sarael rubbed her palms over her knees. Her stomach was as small and hollow as the ping pong balls used on arcade row.

I can feel the truth in them.

Dakotah flipped the cards so they lay facedown. You can change that truth.

It's too late.

Either way, whether she waited for the man Helki saw arriving or she tried to escape him, it meant leaving the carnival. And the world beyond the carnival was a dangerous place.

She got off the bed and walked to the screened door. She'd rarely left the carnival grounds, didn't often explore the cities they visited.

Surrounding the trailer that had been hers to use since she was sixteen, were dozens of trailers like it. They were all cheap boxes of metal pulled by battered trucks and hidden by the tractor trailers that were used to move the rides and booths from city to city.

The faces and the locations changed, but the nature of the carnival remained the same. And the carnival always kept moving.

It suited most of the carnies. A lot of them were running—from the past, from themselves, from demons only they saw.

Her mother had been running from something when she'd arrived with a toddler and found a home with the carnival. She'd run again four years later, leaving Sarael behind. But the carnies took care of their own.

Sarael rubbed the leather wristband. Helki had taken her in though she'd refused to tell her anything she knew about her mother, and until today, had never spoken of a future beyond the next town.

Sarael pressed a palm to the door screen. This was the only way of life she knew. It had shielded her and insulated her. To be ripped away from it…

Her heart pounded harder, faster, and she felt as if she'd stepped into the tarot card, stood in The Tower, waiting for the fateful lightning strike that would send it burning and crashing down, leaving her no options and forcing her into a world that was frightening, unfamiliar, unsafe.

This is all I've ever known. I've never left the carnival. I've never stayed behind when it moved on.

Would it make you feel better if I told you that you haven't missed much? That for people like us, this might be as good as it gets. As safe as it gets.

Do you really believe that?

I know it.

Sarael did too. The people who sought refuge from the world beyond and traveled with the carnival all carried wounds, a lot of them unhealed.

Her stomach clenched and sent bile burning into her throat as old memories surfaced. She'd been eight when she'd wandered from the carnival and been lured into a nightmare by a man with a cute brown puppy.

He'd bound and gagged and thrown her into the trunk of his car. She'd been saved from deepening horror and terror only because he'd rolled through a stop sign then panicked and tried to escape the cop who'd only intended to give him a ticket.

She forced the memories away, only to have them replaced by those The Hanged Man represented—the years of moving from town to town, the route identical some seasons, varying slightly in others. The faces of the townies blended and merged, changed as time passed. Their stories were tiny strands in the fabric of her life as she watched them, as she caught traces of their conversations, pieces of their happiness and sadness, their triumphs and tragedies. She was safely removed from their lives, but not untouched. Sometimes, especially when she saw elderly couples walking with their hands clasped, and knew their love had endured, she longed for what they'd found and kept.

Dakotah left the bed and joined her at the door. Helki sent for you to give you a reading?

Yes.

"I know you think she's infallible,

Reviews for Sarael's Reading

[ladyisis_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While the concept for the vampires in this story isn't unique some of the processes are a little different. It is also unusual for an author to have two different realities for a paranormal race. Finally I loved the Carnival background of this series. This is a world few of us know or will ever experience. I have read about the carnies and I have seen them on TV but it is hard to understand their vagabond life style. I guess, like the Old West, the carnivals are a place for people to hide from their problems or heartbreak. There are those of the human race that need to remake themselves for whatever reason and a group that doesn’t question but just accepts is a godsend.This is the beginning of a new series, trilogy, for Ms. Strong. These are all shorter stories and as so don’t have the detail that some of her other stories do. Ms. Strong does put in enough background so you can follow what is going on but there were a few questions that I am hoping will be answered in future books.Matteo Cabrelli is a vampire, but not in the sense of horror movies or Count Dracula. His race is alien to this world. Like most of the vampires that I have read about over the years he is dominant and just a little arrogant and overbearing. He has waited for a long time for a mate and having to hunt for her has tested his patience, not that he had much of that in the first place. He is caring for Sarael for the most part. He does make a few mistakes but he tries to do better when he realizes what he has done. I like Matteo and I would have liked to read more about him.Sarael Castillo has live with the Carnival since her mother brought her there when she was a small child. Her mother deserted her. A fortune teller raised Sarael after her mother left. In many ways Sarael is quite naïve and innocent. She is still a virgin and she has known no other life than the carnival. Being a carnie has given Sarael some street smarts but she is definitely ill prepared to handle someone like Matteo. She gives it a good try though and in doing so almost gets herself in more trouble than she can handle. This story is the perfect illustration of too little knowledge being a bad thing.There are some interesting secondary characters that I would like to learn more about and there is a villain that gets what he deserves in the end. This is a suspense story though there are bad guys that could have made things very tense. This is just two people trying to find their way through a relationship that was started before Sarael was born. Ms. Strong has some steamy hot love scenes throughout the story, more than might have been necessary, not that I am complaining. It would have been nice to have Sarael explain to Matteo her fear of being bound. I think that would have alleviated some of the misunderstandings that caused problems in the beginning. There is some bondage and a flogging in the story but that is about a far as things go. This is a quick fun read that most paranormal fans should enjoy.