Games Demons Play (Mystic Isle, Book 3) (6 page)

The corner of Latham’s mouth quirked up.

Shade was still having to get used to the
whole “all knowing” bit.

“Any particular reason you’re staring at Izzy
Lukin like you want to eat her whole?” Latham asked.

“You know her?”
Fuck.
That was one
mile Shade would not tread. One did not fuck with a god’s
property.

“Calm down, demon. She’s been a guest here
before.”

Air rushed out of Shade’s lungs. He hadn’t
even realized he’d been holding his breath.
She wasn’t out of
bounds. Thank gods.

Again, Latham smiled.

“So the usual reason then,” the god
surmised.

“Yep.”

“How do you know her?”

Shade sighed. “That’s a long story.”

“I’ve got nothing but time.”

Shade nodded. That was true. That was all
either of them had.

“Well, that, and looks.” Latham laughed.

A jovial god. Who would’ve thought?

The story came out about Izzy crashing the
Bugatti and how Shade had taken care of her.

“So she
flashed
here?”

“I guess so. I didn’t take her to the airport
and Pierre didn’t either. Last time we saw her, she was in my
guestroom asleep.”

“Persistent little thing,” Latham
commented.

Shade had thought the same thing when he’d
found her bed empty. And he’d felt unusually bereft, but admired
her gumption at the same time.

“So she’s trying to win enough money to fix
the Bugatti?”

“She’s gonna need a new one. I just got a
text from my mechanic. The car is trashed.”

They glanced at each other and cringed. “Such
a beautiful car,” Latham murmured. “You could offer to buy her a
spot at the table. She’d be indebted to you.”

“She wouldn’t take it.”

“You don’t think so?” Latham held up a finger
to signal the bartender.

“I think a snowball has a better chance
surviving in Hell.” Lucifer loved to taunt snowballs. Bastard.

Latham cracked another smile. Shade couldn’t
get over how surreal it was to be having a drink with a god as if
they were bar buddies.

“I make a great wingman,” Latham said,
turning to pick up the heavy crystal glass.

Only the best for a god, Shade mused.

“Forgive me, but I doubt that. What woman is
going to want this,” Shade waved his hand at his horns, “when they
could have that?” He waved in the general direction of the god.
Even Shade knew the god was physically perfect, and was man enough
to admit it.

“I don’t think I’d be the problem where your
Izzy is concerned.”

Shade grunted. His Izzy. He liked the sound
of that. Had long craved a woman of his own. A single woman that
would know him, horns, thorns and all.

“What would the problem be?”

The god watched her for a long moment. “By
the way she’s betting, she’s hell-bent on winning her way onto the
tournament.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s going to be up for a while.”

“Probably.”

“And if she does make it into the
tournament…”

“Yep.” Shade’s thoughts exactly. If they
faced each other, she would undoubtedly lose.

“You certainly have a problem on your hands,
my friend.” Latham slapped Shade on the back.

He sure did. Every moment he watched her, he
wanted her more. Not just sexually, but to talk to her. To hold
her. Listen to her voice and watch her adorable mannerisms. He’d
never been so mesmerized by anyone.

The fact that he was transfixed by a
half-pint vampire should have irked him. Normally, it would have.
He would have resisted. But there was no resisting her. And the
feelings she inspired couldn’t be denied.

No. He’d sit here all damn night. Watching
her. Guarding her. Wishing she would look over at him.

Latham dropped his hand and settled back onto
his stool.

“Anything I can do to help?” Latham asked
several moments later.

“With?”

“Your problem.”

He wanted to get them together? Who would
have thought that the infamous playboy Charles Latham was a closet
romantic? Shade smiled. “I thought you were running a sex
resort.”

Latham snorted. “You want to have sex with
her, don’t you?”

Everything in Shade tightened. He wanted that
more than he wanted his next breath.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” The god’s lips
twitched.

Shade returned his gaze to Izzy. She’d won
another hand.

He let out a sigh. This was going to take all
damn night. He wasn’t a terribly patient demon. He could wait when
he had to. But tonight… his palms itched to feel her skin. He
needed to taste her. To feel her moan beneath his lips. Hear her
cry out his name.

Hot under the collar, he tossed back the rest
of his drink.

“Catch twenty-two,” Latham said.

“Yep.”

After another lengthy pause, Latham asked,
“You’re not thinking of pulling out, are you?”

“No.”

“Good. Good.”

Shade had it bad for the sultry little vamp.
But he’d find a way to win her and the tournament. He had to.

Exhaustion made Izzy’s shoulders
ache. She needed sleep. She needed blood. But most importantly, she
needed a hot bath. By her estimation, she’d been at it for six
hours or so, but she didn’t want to quit just yet. She was on a
high note, winning the last ten times. And she wanted to make sure
she had the entry fee in hand before she even thought about getting
a room for the weekend.

Rooms at Mystic Isle weren’t
cheap.

Slouching against the table, she
placed another bet and waited for the dealer to deal the cards. Her
eyelids drooped. The nap at Shade’s house had worn off long
ago.

Luckily, Mystic Isle catered to
her kind and she could keep right on playing as long as she liked.
Which she was going to have to do, considering that she’d just lost
a thousand-dollar bet.

But she could feel the sun nearing
the horizon.

“You entered in the tournament?”
the fae at the other end of the table asked.

“What’s the point? Sotenburg is
playing,” the man to her right said.

Izzy frowned. “Who is this
Sotenburg?” she asked, looking at no one in particular.

She felt the gaze of every man at
the table turn her way. Even the dealer. After glancing at each of
them, just a peek really, she looked at her cards again, just
confirming her hand. A thrill of excitement washed through her.
Twenty-one.

“Only the best poker player in the
world, sweetheart,” the wolf two seats down said. “You been playin’
long?”

“Long enough to know a good hand
when I’ve got one.”

She gathered her winnings, made
another wager and dropped her chin onto her palm. A bench would
make a nice bed right now. A nap. That’s all she needed. Forget the
hot bath. A nap and fifty thousand dollars.

She lost the chip, overdrawing when
she should have held. Shite. Another thousand lost. Not
good.

Through sleepy eyes, she counted her
chips. She did not have time to play it safe; she was so close. And
if she was going to be on form when the tournament started, she
needed sleep and sustenance. Sleep would be hard to come
by.

If only she was good at saving
money… like Avery. Izzy would bet another thousand that Avery had
well over two million in her bank account. Coco too. Ceara and
Valencia both came from old money…money they’d been able to keep
and invest. Izzy wondered what her parents would do with her
inheritance.

“Miss?”

Izzy’s eyelids snapped
open.

“Yes?” She glanced down.
“Sorry.”

She slid another chip into the
circle in front of her. When Lady Luck decided to leave, she sure
did leave in a hurry. Izzy chewed on her bottom lip as she stared
down at the hand she’d been dealt.

Thirteen. Not ideal. She requested
another card.

He flipped one over. She did the
math.

“Damn it,” she
muttered.

Twenty-two. Miserable, freaking
twenty-two. That was the third hand in a row she’d lost. Three
thousand dollars. This was no way to win enough money to enter the
tournament.

“Tough luck, vamp,” the werewolf
said.

Izzy had been doing her best to
ignore him. For the third time in what could have only been half an
hour, she contemplated switching tables. But she’d been doing so
well. Had been so in the zone… until these last three
hands.

“Final hand,” the dealer
said.

They were closing the
table?

She started to object but everyone
placed their bets.

Izzy glanced down at her chips and
licked her upper lip. She needed to win back the three grand
otherwise her calculations indicated — no. She wouldn’t go there.
Not yet. She was going to win. She had to win. The winning was
almost as important as getting the money to fix Valencia’s beloved
car. If only she knew how much that would take.

Feeling a little sick to her
stomach, she slid three chips across the table.

The dealer nodded and started
flipping cards.

He had a sixteen. So did
she.

She chewed her bottom lip. What
the hell was she supposed to do? She stared down at the eight of
spades and the eight of hearts. The red and black numerals mocked
her. It was as if she’d completely forgotten how to play blackjack.
She shook her head but the fog didn’t go away.

Sixteen. Sixteen.

Should she risk it? She had
to.

“Miss?”

She heard the dealer’s annoyance.
She was holding up the game.

“Split,” she said. Was that her
voice? It sounded so… dry. She slid three more thousand-dollar
chips to the left of her circle. Her heart beat so hard, she
worried it would shatter her ribs. Was that possible? Vampire
physiology was so different from human. Everything had changed
since that night Valencia had turned her. She was so much stronger
now. Her eyesight incredible. Her hearing, scary good.

The dealer split the cards and
flipped over two new cards and arranged them on top of the
eights.

An ace and a ten. Nineteen and
eighteen.

She waved her hand to stay. The
dealer went around the table before drawing another card for
himself. A nine.

Relief made her go limp like a
cooked noodle. He slid her chips toward her. She reached up and
massaged her neck.

A walk and a drink would do her
good. Then she would find another table and get back to it. Her
dealer passed her an acrylic tray to store her chips in. After
organizing them, she pushed her chair back and headed for the
bar.

Shade watched Izzy collect her chips. She
looked ready to drop. Young vamps needed a steady diet of two
things: blood and sleep. His beautiful Izzy was lacking both. And
yet she’d managed to rack up a very healthy collection of
chips.

She settled onto a bar stool and kept a hand
on the rack of chips. The blond bartender stopped in front of her
and smiled. If Shade didn’t know for a fact that the bartender was
gay, he would have been jealous when Izzy gave him a smile in
return. A weak smile, it didn’t reach her eyes, but a smile
nonetheless. As soon as the other man strode off to fetch her
drink, she put her head down against her forearms and sagged
forward.

Shade rose from his chair and told himself
not to rush, not to hurry over there and startle her. The way she’d
flinched yesterday, along with the way she’d bolted from his arms
and defended herself, told him to tread carefully. Every hunter
knew not to spook the prey. But everything in him demanded that he
scoop her up and carry her off. Keep her to himself.

Then, as if her bones had melted, she started
to collapse. He caught her before she hit the floor. Cradling her
tiny frame in his arms, he ducked his head and listened for her
heartbeat. Strong and true.

“This is becoming a habit,” he muttered as
Latham skirted the end of the bar.

“What can I do?”

Shade pushed to his feet. “Put her chips in
the vault for me,” he murmured, shifting the beauty in his
arms.

“Izzy, sweetheart?” he said softly, prepared
for a scene.

A shimmer of awareness washed over him. He
was being watched. If you partied hard enough, long enough, you
could sense when you’d caught someone’s eye. A vampiress falling
asleep in a casino was bound to attract attention. But this was
something more. Something darker.

He scanned the room as he exited, holding
Izzy close. Anyone would be a fool to start something on Mystic
Isle. Not only was fighting against the rules, Latham could
vaporize their ass with a single look. Hell, probably with a single
thought.

At the end of a poker table sat Blithe
Jordan. Figured that the bastard would show up here. Shade nodded
at the raven-haired demon and kept on walking.

“Friend of yours?” Latham asked.

“Hardly. Blithe Jordan. He’s convinced I
cheat.”

“Ahh. He doesn’t believe you’re the luckiest
devil alive, huh?”

“Nope. Sat buck-assed naked with the asshole
and played seventy-two hours of poker. Still kicked his ass. And he
still believes I cheat.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Thanks, Latham.”

With the god by his side, Shade strode around
the corner to the private elevator. As if by magic, the polished
doors opened as he approached, erasing their reflection. He had to
admit, the pixie with the long blonde hair looked good in his arms
with her cheek pressed against his chest. Like she’d been made for
him.