Dark Witch: Entangled Fates (The Children Of The Gods Paranormal Romance Book 83)

1. Jasmine

Jasmine pushed the pile of Fritos away from the edge of the table. ”It”s a shame that you ladies cannot stay longer and win back some of your losses.” She collected her playing cards, reshuffled them a few times, and then returned them to their cardboard box.

As Lina translated what Jasmine had said into Russian, her two other poker buddies regarded her with mock animosity. Grabbing a handful of the winnings, Jasmine stuffed the chips into her mouth while mock-glaring back at the two and crunching loudly.

Lina was the only one of the three who was semi-fluent in English, but Jasmine had a feeling that the other two understood more than they were letting on.

Panya snorted and released a string of words in Russian that made the other two laugh.

”What did she say?” Jasmine asked Lina.

The girl”s cheeks reddened, which happened often because her skin was so pale that it appeared almost translucent. ”Panya said that if you keep eating your winnings, you are going to get thunder thighs, and it will serve you right for cheating.”

Jasmine frowned. ”I”m not cheating. I”m just good.”

The two older women snorted derisively, and then Panya released another rapid-fire string of Russian words.

Lina translated, ”She says that mind reading is cheating even if you are not doing it on purpose.”

Panya must have gotten the idea that Jasmine could read minds from Amanda”s visit to the lounge the other day.

Rumors about Jaz”s uncanny streak of poker winnings had reached the neuroscientist who specialized in paranormal abilities. She had gotten curious and had come down to the staff lounge to test Jaz for telepathy and precognition.

The results had been unimpressive, and when Amanda had insisted on bringing others to test her further, the results remained underwhelming.

So, Jasmine might have fudged them just a little to avoid suspicion, but not by much. She really wasn”t a telepath or a seer.

She was something else. She was a conduit for the divine spirit of the goddess.

Right.

It sounded good, but was it true?

Probably not.

Jasmine was just exceptionally good at reading people without having to peek into their minds.

”I”m not a mind reader. I”m a body language reader, and as much as the three of you try not to project what you are thinking, you still do.”

After Lina translated into Russian, Panya retorted again, but this time her tone sounded more good-natured than derisive.

Lina translated. ”She doesn”t mind losing because it doesn”t cost her anything. Even the potato chips are free. She says that playing with you teaches her how to guard her expressions and body language so that when she gets back home, she will win real money playing with her friends.”

”I only play for fun.” Jasmine cast Panya a mock glare. ”Tell her to have mercy on her friends and not play for money. It will only bring her bad luck.”

Under the table, Jasmine curled her thumb between her index and middle fingers, forming the malocchio sign to shield against negative energies and ill intentions.

Playing poker professionally could have made her rich, but after all the lectures she”d heard from her father about how it could get her in trouble with bad people or even killed, she only played for fun, or in this case, for Fritos and information.

Not that the Russians were particularly forthcoming. The bits and pieces she had collected so far were pitiful compared to what she could usually gather with nothing more than a few charming smiles and several carefully spaced questions.

As much as she was grateful to these people for rescuing her from the cartel and giving her a ride back home, she was dying of curiosity about them, and all the secrecy they insisted on was just ridiculous.

She was stuck in the crew quarters, not allowed to go to the upper decks, and no one was willing to tell her anything.

Panya waved a dismissive hand as she rose to her feet with Lina and Anya following her. ”Nevezeniye—eto yerunda,” she said before heading toward the door.

Lina translated, ”She said that bad luck is nonsense.”

”It”s not,” Jasmine murmured under her breath.

It was no use trying to convince the stubborn Russian that bad luck was very real. She would find out soon enough.

Jasmine munched on the last of her winnings, walked over to one of the plush couches in the corner, sat down, and stretched out her long legs.

With the kitchen staff leaving to start working on tonight”s wedding dinner, the lounge was emptying, and the place that was usually bustling with activity and lively chatter was turning depressingly quiet.

Ever since Jasmine was brought on board, she”d been observing the same exodus happening every afternoon, but usually some of the staff remained because not everyone worked all three shifts.

Today, though, she”d heard rumors that someone very important was getting married, but no one would tell her who they were or even why they were important.

Well, since Lina and Marina were the only ones who spoke English, they were the only two she”d asked, and both had refused to answer, saying that it was classified information.

Whatever.

It didn”t matter who was getting married. What bothered Jasmine was that with the staff gone, she was about to be the only one left in the lounge. The rescued women who occupied some of the cabins on this level only left their rooms to eat in the crew”s dining room and never visited the lounge, but even if some of them decided to brave it, they only spoke Spanish, and she didn”t.

The truth was that Jasmine hated being alone, and she hated being stuck in places with no windows, but the staff quarters and facilities were all below the water line, and she was not allowed to venture to the upper decks where the Perfect Match Virtual Studios management mingled with the distinguished guests, who were all former users of the service who had found true love in a Perfect Match adventure and were getting married on this super-secretive, exclusive cruise. Not that she knew any of that for a fact, but she had gathered enough tidbits of information to deduce that.

The other thing that Jasmine hated was sleeping alone in her tiny, windowless cabin, but it didn”t seem like she would be able to find anyone to share it with for the last three nights of the cruise. The number of male staff members was pitifully small, and they were either too old, too young or in committed relationships.

Jasmine sighed, her fingers drumming an idle rhythm on her thigh. If only she could venture to the upper deck and mingle with the guests, she could perhaps find the handsome helicopter pilot whom she”d flirted with during the boat ride from Modana”s yacht to the ship.

Edgar had been enchanted with her, and he seemed like a nice guy. The two guards who had collected her and the others were not bad looking either. In fact, she wouldn”t have minded a tumble with any of them, but none had come down to see her, not even to say ”Hi, how are ya?”

Had she lost her touch?

Maybe they had been told to stay away from her?

It was ridiculous how tight-lipped everyone was about the whole Perfect Match thing. So what if the couples had met through the company”s exclusive dating service?

If anything, it would make a fantastic PR opportunity.

Jasmine would love to become part of that PR effort, perhaps as the spokesperson in their commercials, or a character in one of their adventures. After all, they based their avatars on real people, or at least that was what she”d been led to believe.

Some sneered at the service and its users, but not her. It would be nice to have the computer find her the perfect guy. After the disastrous results of consulting her tarot cards on matters of the heart, Jasmine was much more inclined to trust artificial intelligence to find the perfect man for her.

The damn tarot had promised her a prince, and she”d foolishly believed they had meant Alberto, only for her so-called prince to turn into an ugly, wart-covered toad.

Jasmine”s stomach churned at the memory of how easily she”d been fooled by the handsome, charismatic guy pretending to be an honest, well-to-do businessman. Alberto had swept her off her feet with lavish dinners, extravagant bouquets of flowers, and charming smiles. She”d been so sure that he was the prince the tarot cards had foretold, but instead of a happily-ever-after, she”d found herself snared in a nightmare.

Shaking off the painful recollections, Jasmine sat up and pulled out the worn velvet pouch nestled in her purse. Despite their disappointing guidance as of late, she cherished those tarot cards above all of her other possessions.

They had been her constant companions since she was a young girl, an unintended gift left behind by her mother.

Or intended, as she chose to believe.

Her mother had left the cards hidden inside a secret compartment in her jewelry box, which she must have known would go to Jasmine after her death.

With no one to instruct Jasmine on how to use them, they had initially been just a collection of pretty pictures, a reminder of the mother she”d lost, and a secret treasure hidden from her father. But when Jaz got old enough to be allowed access to the internet, she”d found all the instructions she needed.

Over the years, Jasmine had come to rely on the cards” guidance, finding comfort in their cryptic messages and, more often than not, finding out that they had been right. But sometimes, she had done so to her detriment.

Well, only once.

They had never steered her wrong before leading her to that scumbag Alberto. May his dark soul rot in hell.

Glancing around to ensure that she was truly alone, Jasmine pulled the deck out of the velvet pouch and began to shuffle. A smile spread over her face as the familiar motions relaxed her better than meditation, yoga, or just about anything else.

Well, save for sex. But that wasn”t in the cards until she got off the ship.

Jasmine snorted. Not in the cards—now that was funny.

She closed her eyes, focusing her energy on the question that had been plaguing her since she was brought on board.

Was her prince on this ship?

Was that why the cards had led her to Alberto, so she could end up here where her prince awaited?

With a deep breath, she laid out the first card, The Six of Cups. The image of two children exchanging gifts stared back at her, a symbol of innocence, nostalgia, and the promise of a new beginning. Jasmine”s heart skipped a beat. That card hadn”t popped up before. Could this mean that her prince was someone from her past? Perhaps it was a guy that she”d met in school and hadn”t noticed back then but who had admired her from afar? And who was also secretly a prince?

Jasmine chuckled. Talk about romantic fantasies. She sounded like a character from one of her period romance novels. She”d never really thought that the cards were promising her an actual prince. They must have meant a prince of a man, and she would be more than happy with that.

The next card was The Lovers. The naked figures of Adam and Eve were intertwined beneath the watchful eye of an angel, the image relaying a profound connection and a union blessed by the divine. After pulling that one, she knew what the final card would be even before laying it down, the same way she knew when she was about to get a winning hand.

And there it was—The Knight of Cups, a dashing figure astride a white horse, holding out a golden chalice as if in offering. The embodiment of romance, chivalry, and the arrival of a suitor. And behind him, rising from the horizon like a beacon, was a castle.

Her prince.

The first few times the same sequence had unfolded, Jasmine had been so excited that her hands had trembled, but now, it seemed more like a curse than a blessing.

It was nothing, a fluke, a cruel joke that some malicious spirit was playing on her.

Her father had warned her against relying on the cards, and at the time she thought he was being superstitious, but maybe he”d been right. After all, cartomancy had only been her introduction to the occult. Since then, she had delved into more serious stuff, but she still had a lot to learn about being a proper witch.

The devil”s playground, her father called anything he considered witchcraft, but he was wrong. Hellish or divine, it all depended on the practitioner.