Claimed By the Storm

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Playing for the Win

Ipulled at the hem of my dress; it was too short. They were always too short when he was playing. Ashford wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side.

“Stop that,” he commanded low as he smiled charmingly towards the doorman.

“Good evening, Mr. Blizzard. Are you feeling lucky tonight?” the doorman asked, like they were friends, the kind of familiarity that I had learned places like the Valmont Hotel liked to build.

Staff spoke as if they knew him personally, while never acknowledging me.

I was just the barely dressed, claimed omega at his side—property, like luggage.

We walked past the reception across polished white marble with gold veining, directly to the lifts, with a golden handrail, shiny, mirrored black walls and flooring, and silver buttons.

The concierge nodded to Ashford, selected our floor with his keycard, and stepped out of the lift.

Ashford released me from his hold once the doors had closed to run his hand through his brown hair.

He was paler than usual, his skin lacking any warmth; if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was ill.

But he wasn’t physically ill; he was sick with worry.

Ashford was in a hole. A hole that he needed to get out of and soon.

“How do I look?” he asked, turning away from his reflection towards me.

I swallowed my own nerves. I needed tonight to be a good night as well. A bad night for Ashford was a much worse night for me.

“You look good,” I told him and reached up to fix his messed-up hair.

He smiled in a way that could have been mistaken by an onlooker as tender.

“And so do you,” he replied and pulled me against him by my waist. I turned my face away, and he growled in frustration before gripping my chin and turning my face towards him.

“You act the part so well it’s almost believable,” he hissed, bending his large frame over me, his nostrils flaring.

“Three years and you still refuse to kiss me,” he whispered low in my ear.

“But I’ll put that mouth of yours to use later,” he warned.

I felt bile rise within my throat. It was a good thing I hadn’t eaten; it made throwing up less of a mess to clean.

The lift stopped, and the doors opened to the private corridor. Security waited outside the double suite doors. Two large men, in black suits, earpieces visible, watched as we walked towards them, Ashford’s arm like a leash around my waist, pulling me forward with his much longer strides.

“Name?” one of the security guards asked.

“You know who I am,” Ashford responded, and maybe it was true, but security here didn’t belong to the hotel; they belonged to the game runner, and they didn’t care about Ashford’s ego.

The second security guard stepped forward, almost menacingly. Neither of them responded; the silence was enough.

“Ashford Blizzard,” he answered, puffing out his chest, needing to show he was a big, bad wolf too.

The second security guard opened the suite doors into the antechamber, and Ashford dragged me forward.

A hostess, a tall, beautiful blonde woman, welcomed Ashford by name, and her red-bottomed heels clicked as she led us into the main salon.

She waved me towards the observer seating.

I was special, allowed to sit where only backers were usually permitted.

An omega couldn’t be placed too far away from her alpha.

What would happen if others couldn’t see the property, couldn't see the power, or were required to control themselves without the threat of pissing off her owner?

Gael acknowledged me with a nod as I sat in the armchair beside his.

He was human, but despite his comparatively small stature, he held himself with authority.

Ashford answered to him, and he currently owed Gael almost seven figures.

He was adamant that it was nothing, that it was a small loss, and his winnings would be much higher.

That Gael just needed to have patience; that poker was primarily a game of patience and skill, and it wouldn’t be long before he would be paying him back.

He had talked Gael into continuing his line of credit and had ignored the warning that came with it.

Tonight was critical.

Everyone knew what happened when you couldn’t pay your debts.

I didn’t care what happened to Ashford; I worried about what would happen to me.

I was viewed as his, an extension of his alphaness.

If Gael wanted to make a statement about what happens when you can’t pay your debts, that statement could easily be made through me.

I smiled politely in return and hoped that if it came to it, he might take pity on me.

Ashford sat at the poker table and smiled as chips were dealt to him.

“I thought these games were too high-end for you,” Ashford said as he turned his attention to Darren, an heir of Pack Sandstorm.

After a while, I had begun to recognise the regulars at these games, putting names to faces.

Nearly everyone was male and high-ranking, either in their pack or in the human business world, heirs with trust funds, and egos to match.

The irony was that Darren was the son of the Alpha of Pack Sandstorm; he was probably the richest in the room.

I doubted he ever needed someone like Gael.

Sandstorm Credit House financed nearly everything except Pack Blizzard.

I had sat in, quiet and as unassuming as the furniture, on so many games and so many inner Pack Blizzard meetings over the last few years, and before that, my father had advised Alpha Julian on such matters.

Did no one think I was ever listening? Or was I so inconsequential that it didn’t matter what an omega like me knew or didn’t know?

Alpha Julian had made it clear that he didn’t want Sandstorm Credit House to bankroll the pack. He had dreams for Pack Blizzard that were “bigger than pack politics”, he had said repeatedly, but I had never heard him explain what he meant.

Ashford had made a point of goading Darren at every opportunity.

He called it gameplay. Ashford was an alpha with a claimed omega; he thought that made him superior to Darren, a beta.

But Darren had the bigger bank account and a name that opened doors without his money.

He should just follow him to the bathroom, compare sizes, and put an end to the constant taunts that Darren, for his part, was never hooked by.

Darren smiled and sipped his drink.

“This is the first time I’ve been free to play,” he replied casually.

“And when can we get this game going?” asked Malik. He was a high-ranking beta of Pack Thunder. Malik was good-natured. He never seemed to be rattled, regardless of how games played out. I had seen him win and lose big, and he seemed equally pleased, or rather unconcerned, by each outcome.

“Always the last chair to be filled and hold us up,” Andrew said to Ashford. He was a human businessman or banker. I wasn’t sure what he did exactly, only that he was at every game, big or small.

He was right. Ashford was always the last to sit down.

He wasn’t late. No. He never actually made anyone wait for him, probably because he knew they wouldn’t.

He didn’t have any real power. Not in this room, with these people.

If it weren’t for the fact that Pack Blizzard had been growing and becoming a rising name in construction over the last few years, he wouldn’t have a seat at any table.

I still remembered vividly how he had screamed in anger the moment we were in the car heading home, barely able to contain his rage until the door had shut after Andrew had referred to him as new money during one of his first games.

Being the last to sit made him feel important.

Tonight’s game was a $250,000 buy-in, $1,000/$2,000 blinds, the largest game Ashford had played in.

There were nine players total, a mix of werewolves and humans.

Money was the great equaliser; there was no anti-werewolf/human rhetoric when everyone was rich.

Bias—I had learned while watching how the elite operated and learning the game of poker—was a tool of manipulation.

Keep your cards close, keep the uninitiated and ill-informed guessing while you use probability and the rules of the game to your advantage and aim to walk away with the pot.

Ashford was playing wisely, folding before the flop for ten straight hands. The men at the table were talking, goading, laughing like losing or winning tens of thousands was no big deal.

I watched Gael, glancing in his direction occasionally; his attention was utterly on the game.

Waitresses in dresses as tight and short as mine brought drinks between hands. The game runner, Samar, an older man, human, bald, always impeccably dressed in pinstriped three-piece suits, sat in the cash room off to the side. I saw him glance up from his computer screen occasionally.

As much as those at the table seemed unencumbered by the numbers at play, it was clear that everyone else was paying close attention. Samar would get his 3% rake, and Gael his money plus interest, one way or another.

Ashford won a hand, a pot of over $40,000. I wasn’t sure of the exact amount, but I saw how his back relaxed, his easy smile, and the large celebratory gulp he took of his drink.

The game continued, and Ashford lost—again and again.

“Rebuy,” he said, his voice hoarse and his drink quickly empty.

No one at the table commented as the dealer glanced behind Ashford to Gael. Gael nodded, and the dealer dealt another $250,000 in chips to Ashford.

“Rebuy,” he stated again in half the time.

I felt dread trickle slowly down my spine as I watched Gael for his reaction. A small nod of approval, and the dealer dealt more chips.

“Got a money tree we don’t know about?” Andrew joked.

“That’s not a tree. It’s a line,” Malik replied.

“Everyone wants to back a winner,” Ashford said.