Feral Wolf (Exiled Omegas #3)

Chapter 1

One

Neil

For the most part, people only see what they expect, their minds glossing over any details that don’t quite fit what their eyes are telling them.

The bystanders outside the casino are no exception.

They see me and Raquel, and their brains put together a story based on a set of carefully orchestrated details that I’ve chosen to portray the part we’re playing tonight.

Someone who glances at us as we walk around the side of a fancy, overpriced sports car will assume we arrived in that car.

Another person might take in the well-tailored fit of my suit along with my expensive leather shoes and not notice that the fabric of the suit itself is of much lower quality.

A few will take note of Raquel’s flawless hair and makeup, the form-fitting cocktail dress she’s wearing, and the designer shoes on her feet, but they won’t know both the dress and shoes were a lucky find at a thrift shop.

Most will see my hand resting on Raquel’s lower back and my easy smile and they’ll have no idea how irritated I am at her for choosing the only shifter-owned casino in Las Vegas as our target this evening.

To any observers, we appear to be nothing but a well-off, happy couple having a night on the town, and no one—not even Raquel—can tell how absolutely terrified I am right now.

Yes, I’m a shifter, but that makes this place more dangerous for me rather than less.

I haven’t exactly kept up-to-date with the happenings in the shifter world for the past seven years, so my knowledge of the current state of shifter politics is scarce to say the least. I do know, however, that by entering this casino, I’ll technically be trespassing on the Vegas pack’s territory since I’m not an official pack member and nobody’s given me permission to be here.

The trespassing alone is a big no-no in the shifter world even without taking into account what might happen if I’m caught cheating on top of that.

As a human, Raquel actually has far less to fear since she’s not subject to pack law and isn’t breaking any shifter taboos. If she’s noticed, no one’s going to suddenly transform into an oversized wolf and try to take a bite out of her.

Not that anyone would do that in public.

There are some very strict secrecy laws surrounding the existence of shifters. So strict that Raquel doesn’t even know her best friend—me—is a shifter, and if we get caught playing our little game here, I’m more likely to end up dead than in a jail cell.

But there’s absolutely zero chance of me convincing her to go to a different casino. Not at this point anyway.

For one thing, we’re already here.

For another, this is the only casino on the Strip that doesn’t allow smoking in any indoor areas, and even though exposure to secondhand smoke isn’t normally a factor in selecting a target, it definitely is this time around.

Because Raquel found out a couple days ago that she’s pregnant.

Shifters have very sensitive noses, and as grateful as I am that I don’t have to deal with cigarette smoke either, there’s not a single believable excuse I can come up with for going to a different casino.

Not one the mama-bear-to-be will accept at any rate.

She’s paranoid about doing anything that might hurt the baby, but she needs money. Fast. Her boyfriend, Danny, drinks or snorts his money—and hers—almost as quickly as he can get his hands on it, so hitting a casino is the quickest way for her to get enough to see an OB doctor.

And that means she needs my help because she and I are a team.

The two of us have been occasionally skimming cash from casinos for nearly six years—five of which neither of us were even the legal gambling age of twenty-one.

We keep our cheating as low-key as possible, mostly sleight of hand tricks and some pick-pocketing every so often, and we’ve never hit the same casino twice, so the closest we’ve come to getting caught has been some side-eyed looks from security and a couple overly cautious dealers.

I’ll just have to cross my fingers and hope tonight won’t be when we finally get caught.

Raquel lets out a high-pitched giggle and teeters on her stiletto heels, leaning into my side as if she’s a little tipsy. “You need to relax, Neil, or you’re going to draw attention,” she says under her breath. “I know it’s been a little while, but we’ve got this.”

I stiffen, the edges of my fake smile faltering. Apparently, I’m not doing as good a job of hiding my nerves as I thought. Instead of responding, I give her a vague nod, then straighten my shoulders and force my body to relax, inhaling slowly as I try to convince myself everything is fine.

Breathe in.

There’s nothing to worry about.

Breathe out.

We’ve done this plenty of times before.

Breathe in.

This casino is no different from the others. Unless they catch me. Kill me.

I cough and my steps falter, but I push the annoyingly intrusive thought away. There’s no point in worrying about that now.

Pausing for a moment to steady myself, I pull the mask of the indulgent boyfriend I’m pretending to be back in place and link my arm through Raquel’s. We stride through the doors side by side, entering a world of flashing lights, overdressed patrons, and scantily clad servers.

I studied the layout of the casino floor before meeting up with Raquel so I steer her to the right, away from the banks of slot machines and the electronic versions of various other casino games.

We weave our way through the other patrons, sticking to the edges of the room until we reach our destination: the roulette area.

We stand off to the side, pretending to whisper sweet nothings or whatever to each other as we observe the ebb and flow of activity around the tables.

I spend a few seconds scrutinizing each dealer, noting how many customers they have and if they’re distracted.

Once I’ve narrowed down a few possible targets, Raquel and I move toward the tables for a closer look.

The dealer at the first table seems bored, and her gaze slides to the watch on her wrist between each spin of the wheel, which probably means she’ll be getting off work soon.

Her lack of attention would make this table an ideal target, except of the three customers sitting there, two of them don’t have drinks in front of them and their attention never wavers from the spread of chips on the felt layout.

Raquel catches my eye and gives a slight shake of her head. Since I’ve reached the same conclusion—to avoid this table—I dip my chin in silent agreement, and we make our way to the next potential target.

The dealer at this table isn’t staring at his watch, but he spends a little longer than necessary chatting with the two female customers between rounds.

Raquel and I share a look, and she moves closer to the dealer, flashing him a wide smile as he spins the wheel and drops the ball.

He returns the smile with a flirtatious grin of his own, but just as quickly his attention shifts to the stacks of chips signifying people’s bets.

A dealer who’s flirting with customers to get tips can still be easily distracted, but not our best bet. I’m not willing to completely discount this table as an option, but I want to check out at least one more before making a decision, and Raquel’s head tilt signals she feels the same.

The next potential target is on the opposite side of the room. I place my hand on Raquel’s lower back as the two of us make our way there, and she leans into my side, fluttering her lashes at me as if we’re madly in love.

We’re not.

Besides the fact that she has a boyfriend—even if he is a complete asshole—I have zero interest in women, but pretending to be a couple means people pay less attention to us as individuals.

The third option is an immediate no go. The dealer is laser focused on her area and there are too many bettors already at the table. Raquel and I both nix this table and move on to the next.

“If this last one won’t work, I say we go back to the flirty guy,” I say in a low voice as I pretend to brush a kiss over Raquel’s cheek.

Raquel giggles and covers her mouth with her hand, leaning closer to me. No one’s likely to overhear us, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

“Agreed,” she whispers, shooting me a mischievous smile. “He seemed like a boob man, and if there’s one good thing about early pregnancy, it’s that my cups runneth over.”

She shimmies her shoulders a little in demonstration, and I chuckle, shaking my head as we wade through the crowd of patrons toward our final potential target.

Drawing closer, my wolf perks up and my nose twitches as the instincts I mostly try to ignore these days tell me we have a problem: The dealer at this table is also a shifter.

Running into another shifter isn’t exactly surprising given our location, but a shifter dealer isn’t a variable I’m comfortable with.

Unfortunately, that’s not something I can explain to Raquel. There’s a small chance there will be something else that will make her rule out this table, but to her human senses, this table probably appears to be an ideal target.

The dealer has a blank look on his face, and he barely glances at the layout before spinning the wheel and dropping the ball.

The five customers at the table are a little rowdy, a couple of them pretty sloshed if the multiple empty glasses next to them are any indication, and none of them seem the type to pay much attention to me or Raquel.

With any other dealer, the setup would be perfect.

But this dealer is a shifter and probably has much more awareness of his surroundings than it appears.

Shifters in general have quicker reflexes than humans, so even if this guy is a complete space cadet, the odds are good that he’s more likely to pick up on the sleight of hand tricks I use to game the system.