Page 89 of Malice

Warmth.

Love.

My breath catches in my throat.

Love.

Hudson smiles softly as if he can hear my thoughts. Do I love him? Could he love me back?

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get some coffee. I have a feeling we’re gonna need it.”

Chapter 29

Hudson

As I’m finishing my second cup of coffee, my phone buzzes across the coffee table. Jocelyn’s name lights up the screen, and I grab it.

“Hey, sis. I was going to call you.”

“What are you doing right now?”

“Since it’s barely eight a.m., I’m drinking coffee and reading my email now that we have service back. You won’t believe what happened this morning. What are you doing?”

“I did a reading for you. I have to tell you something important. Do you have a few minutes?”

“Yeah, of course, but what does that mean? A reading?”

“Tarot. I wanted to get an idea of what your future holds. The only way to know that is to understand the present.”

“You can see the future?”

“No. The future doesn’t exist. We create it with every decision we make, but we can get insight. We can make choices to manifest the reality we seek. All of this with Chester and the Horror has my intuition on high alert, so I asked Source for guidance.”

“Source?”

“The universe, spirit, whatever divine entity you believe in. For me, Source is the energy that powers everything around us.”

“Okay. I’m following.”

“Specifically I wanted to know the role Aster plays in your life beyond the obvious. I sense things about him that I couldn’t quite name, especially after I saw the infinite lifeline on his palm.”

“Infinite lifeline?”

“His life never ends. That’s not normal. When I did a life review on him, there was an interruption filled with blackness, but then his aura returned. I’m not sure he’s human.”

Her words startle me. She can find that out from cards? “He is. He’s human, but special.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t think it’s my place to explain it, but he’s human like you and me, his job just gives him protections.”

“Protections,” she repeats. “That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“My spirit guides kept redirecting me. The more I poked at Aster’s life, the harder it was to see. Like I’m not supposed to know.”

“He’s not dangerous, Joss.”

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