Chapter 5 #2
While the rest of the guests continued drinking and socializing in the ballroom, I followed the host to a door located along the back wall.
A tall man, easily towering at seven or eight feet stepped to the side to allow us to pass through.
He must have been part orc with a height like that and ears that came to a sharp point.
Not to mention the permanent scowl on his squared face.
Walking through the hallway just beyond the back door, I noticed that this corridor looked much different from the rest of the casino. It lacked decor and all the showy pretense the other areas had, leading me to believe this passage was not for public use.
“Won’t any of the other guests be joining us?” I questioned after several minutes of walking in silence.
The man shook his head. “No. All games played in the SWR require…discretion. It will be just you and Mr. Reynard there.”
Great.
Nothing like an intimate setting with a man who clearly has an unhealthy interest in me. I couldn’t blame him, but shit, I hated to blow his ego to smithereens without any witnesses. It took away an element of fun.
After going up a single flight of stairs, the man pushed open a door, allowing me to enter.
Stepping over the threshold, my first impression of the room was that it reminded me of a medieval castle.
The walls were made of stone, the iron sconces on the walls provided flickering light that danced with the shadows, and the lone table in the center of the room was made of thick slabs of aged, heavy oak.
Resting on top of the table was a single deck of black playing cards.
Hearing the door shut behind me, I glanced back to see that the host who had led me here had already abandoned me. There was one other door in the room, opening moments later as Ace stepped inside.
His smile was all cockiness and his green eyes were pure mischief.
“I’m happy to see that you decided to join me.” He stopped at the side of the table opposite me.
My smile dripping with sweetness, I replied, “This has nothing to do with you. I came for the money.” Cold, hard truth.
“Ah, of course you did.” He smirked at me before gesturing to the table. “In that case, go ahead and place your bet, Miss Bechette.” His hand made a smooth sweeping motion over the table.
I allowed my mind to wander, calling forth a vision of the cards that would be dealt. When I saw I’d hit twenty-one spot-on in three cards, I smiled excitedly to myself. Stepping forward, I tossed the metal chip onto the center of the table where it landed with a thunk.
Ace’s eyes lingered on me, making me feel like he was readying himself for his next meal. Somebody was hungry for a meal I didn’t plan to serve.
Leaning forward, he braced himself against the long edge of the table.
“Let’s make this interesting. If you win, I will triple your money.”
This sounded too good to be true, but little did he know how sure I was that I would be walking out of there with a shitload of his money.
Without hesitation, I agreed. “Deal.”
A dark smile flashed across his stubbled face. “You aren’t going to ask what happens if you lose?”
I mirrored his stance, leaning forward over the table as I looked into his eyes. I tried searching through his immediate future to find any visions of him crying over his financial woes, yet I found nothing. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t be shedding tears, but there were no visions of anything at all.
Determined to maintain my self-confidence, I shrugged and stated what I was sure was fact, “I won’t lose.”
He made a sound deep in his throat like he just barely suppressed a chuckle. Slowly, he straightened up, his fingers adjusting cufflinks with nonchalance.
“Suit yourself, Little Spade,” he said with amusement trickling through his voice.
Narrowing my eyes at him, I corrected him. “My name is Eve. I can do without the disparaging pet name, Mr. Reynard.”
Without that shit-eating grin leaving his face, his hands made quick work of shuffling the deck of cards. The way his fingers slid over each edge was hypnotizing. I caught myself allowing my imagination to run away with thoughts of what else those hands could do.
Not once did he break eye contact with me to check what his hands were doing. Instead, he observed every move I made while his lips remained in a lopsided smile.
“I find the name endearing. If I were going to insult you, I’d be using much stronger language.” A thoughtful pause. “And if you call me Mr. Reynard again, I will give you a taste of just how harsh my words can be, Eve.”
With grace and precision, he fanned the deck in an arch over the center of the table before scooping all the cards up into a neat pile off to the side.
He dealt my two cards face up—a queen of hearts and a ten of clubs, combining to a solid twenty.
In traditional fashion, he laid his first card face up—a king of spades.
Twisting his hand, he made an extravagant show of selecting the second card, laying it face down on top of the first.
Conventional wisdom would tell me to stay and forgo having him deal me another card. However, I wasn’t a conventional type of girl, was I? In the amount of time it took me to blink, my mind’s eye confirmed the next card would be an ace to bring it to a perfect and nearly unbeatable twenty-one.
“Hmm,” I hummed as I tapped the pad of my finger against my pouty lips. “Whatever is a girl to do?” I said with an air of practiced mock innocence.
Maintaining a neutral expression, Ace waited for me to decide whether or not I would opt for another card.
“Hit me,” I ordered.
“Bold move, Little Spade.” He did as he was told though, and laid another card on top of my hand.
The predicted ace of hearts lay there, clinching my win—or so I thought.
“Quite the hand. I bet you would love to be walking out of here with even more of my money.” He grabbed the edge of his base card and gave it a flick to flip over the top card revealing an ace of spades. “Blackjack.”
In an instant, I went from thinking I had solved all my current life problems to having them vanish from reach. Staring in disbelief at the cards, my brain refused to reconcile that my foresight hadn’t shown me losing.
Not possible.
Unaware of how long I had been standing there speechless, I finally shook my head. “There’s no way.”
Ace picked up the top card, weaving it back and forth between his fingers. “Oh? Just like there’s no way you were able to best every dealer in my casino today?”
He walked around the table, still maneuvering the winning ace between his fingers in a steady rhythm. When his footsteps finally came to a stop behind me, the warmth of his solid body pressed against my back, one of his arms encircling my waist.
Whispering into my ear, his arm tightened around me. “Someone was being a very bad girl today.” The way he secured me against him left me paralyzed.
His face pressed into my silky locks of hair as he lightly inhaled the scent of my shampoo.
“Did you think I couldn’t smell your power every time you called on it?”
One moment I had forgotten to breathe, and the next I was trying to steady my quick breaths.
Squeezing my eyes shut as hard as I could, I compelled my ability to thrust out into whatever future awaited me.
My precognition ran into a void, unable to see anything.
Something blocked it, preventing it from reflecting what was to come.
I tossed more energy into my attempts, only to be met with even more resistance that left me trembling from the expenditure of my efforts.
Ace’s hand dropped down to grab my hip, spinning me around to face him in one dizzying motion. My sapphire eyes popped open with the sudden shift.
He held up the damning card between us. Then with a curl of his fingers and a flick of his wrist, it disappeared instantly.
Panic crept into my voice. “Why can’t I see anything?” I wasn’t talking about my baby blues.
He smirked, looking like everything transpiring was going exactly according to whatever plan he had. “Because I don’t want you to. I’m enjoying watching each emotion scamper across your pretty little face.”
For the first time in a long time, fear struck me in the gut with a cold dread that burned straight through to the fabric of my soul.
I needed to get the hell out of here. Fuck the money, he could keep it. I’d work the smaller casinos day in and day out if I had to.
Before my first step of an attempted escape even hit the floor, Ace’s hand thrust out and grabbed my face. His grip clamped down so hard on my jaw that I wondered if he intended to break it or just bruise it.
Never had I ever lost so spectacularly. I couldn’t even begin to fathom where things had gone wrong. My power of foresight never faltered, and yet I found myself staring into the blankness of an uncertain future.
Was he my future? No, it couldn’t be that. I created my own destiny; nobody else was capable of bringing me to my knees.
Those entrancing green eyes filled with black flames as his gaze almost felt like it prepared to penetrate into my body’s most intimate places.
“Well, Little Spade, seeing as your luck has finally run out, do you know what that means?” he asked with a taunting edge of condescension.
I tried to shake my head but his grasp continued to prohibit any movement.
“No…” The word sounded foreign to me when it carried less than its typical confident tone.
His mouth came to my ear, the heat of his breath tickling my skin. He uttered words I never thought I’d hear, instilling a chaotic mess of emotions inside me.
“You’re mine now,” he whispered the damning cost of my lost hand, the cost of my pride.
My eyes widened as I struggled to understand what he just declared.
To further emphasize his point, he deliberately drew out the next few words. “I. Own. You.”
Fuck. I actually was his Little Spade now.