Chapter 5 Kara
IT WAS ONE THING to consider the idea of Octavius being in my house, but it was another thing entirely for him to actually be here. Not just here, but staying the night like some impromptu slumber party.
The minute he stepped through that door, I should have told him to leave, a demand that probably would have been ignored, but one I should have insisted on anyway.
Because him being here—a shifter in a very human home—would only raise alarm bells.
You know, the exact thing I was desperately trying to avoid.
Keeping my head down, blending in, not letting anyone see too much of me.
But when I saw it was Octavius bursting through my door, there had been a flicker of relief, because for a split second, I had been convinced it was Zavier or one of his goons coming to drag me back to that hellhole of a den.
The fear had come rushing back the moment I ever so gracefully began to free fall from the ladder, right up until Octavius caught me.
And just like that, there was relief again.
Not just from not cracking my head open on the floor, but from what he had taken from me, what his tentacles had clearly absorbed as they wrapped around my body, pulling that fear away.
Which meant he had to have felt it how bad that fear was. And I could only hope he had chalked it up to my near-fatal fall, not the past I was desperately trying to escape.
The way his tentacles had felt, though... magic or not, there had been something steady and grounding in the way they held me, strong enough to quiet everything else, even if only for a second.
I swallowed hard and pushed the thought away, refusing to linger on how that feeling had stayed with me, shifting into something that had nothing to do with fear anymore.
Instead, I handed him a bag of chips like that somehow made this normal. He took them without comment, settling in with that same quiet, controlled presence he seemed to carry everywhere.
I grabbed the fruit because I needed something to distract me, something that wasn’t retreating back into my fear of Zavier or my very obvious attraction to the shifter in my living room.
I couldn’t risk giving myself away by staring at him too long or noticing how the dampness from the rain clung to his shirt in a way that made it completely unfair to my ability to focus on literally anything else.
Thinking about him was a better option than thinking about Zavier though, and even better than addressing the anxiety creeping in as I held my poker face steady. I still needed to pass as a sea sprite with too much diluted blood in her veins, the perfect excuse for why I was the way I was.
Anything but the truth.
Even though I tried to stay calm, my mind wouldn’t settle. If I told myself I was fine, could he still feel the truth? The nerves under my skin? Or worse, could he feel where my thoughts kept drifting when it came to him? Or did that only happen when he touched me?
I shifted where I stood, biting into a slice of apple just to give myself something to do.
Outside, the storm picked up again, thunder cracking as rain slammed against the walls hard enough to make the whole place groan.
I flinched, but almost welcomed it, because at least this fear made sense.
I could only hope that if he sensed anything from me, he’d attribute it to the storm.
“Are you all right?” Octavius asked.
“Yeah,” I said quickly, a little too quickly. “I just... I don’t do well in storms.”
Which wasn’t exactly a lie, and honestly, another reason why my late-night, very questionable home repair attempt had been a blessing in disguise.
It had been a distraction, something to focus on that kept the fear at bay.
But now there was nothing to distract me except the handsome shifter in my home, and that was the sort of distraction and tension I absolutely did not need.
“What do you usually do?” he asked. “To get through it.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out, because the answer was...
nothing. Before this, I hadn’t been allowed the luxury of showing fear unless it served a purpose.
Zavier hadn’t liked it when I showed weakness, not unless it entertained him, not unless it was something he could control, shape, and use.
I had been afraid every day back in the gambling den.
Afraid of what he might do if I displeased him.
Afraid of the way his attention could shift without warning, of the way he could hand me off like I was nothing more than something he owned, which, in his eyes and a fucking detailed contract, I was.
The memory rose uninvited, the way his voice would change, the way he would watch me like fear was something to be cultivated, something to be drawn out and consumed, and my stomach twisted at the thought.
“Um,” I said, forcing my voice into something lighter, not wanting to invite questions as my mind drifted somewhere dark. “Distractions help.”
“Like what?”
“Well, home improvement had been helping,” I said with a nervous laugh, though Octavius didn’t look even a little amused, “but that ship has clearly sailed for the night.” I tapped a finger against my chin, grasping for the first thing that came to mind.
“Poker,” I answered, and there was truth in that.
Even though I was running from a gambling hellhole, it was the people I hated, not the game.
I was actually pretty damn good at poker, mostly Texas Hold’em.
I had spent years in Zavier’s gambling den, whether it was serving his clients, sitting at his side like some decorative prize, or simply existing there as entertainment.
And somewhere in all of that, I had learned the game.
Not just the rules, but the rhythm of it, the way people thought they were in control when really, they weren’t.
Poker was strategy, sure, but luck always had the final say, and that was what made it feel fair in a way nothing else ever had.
Unless you were playing against someone like Zavier of course. Unless the stakes weren’t money, but people’s choices and freedom.
I pushed the thought away before it could settle too deep because I needed a distraction, and right now, poker was it.
“Are you any good?” I asked, hoping he was at least decent enough to actually play, but not so good he’d completely destroy me.
“I’ve never played,” he said.
“You’re kidding!” I burst out, maybe a little too loud before I dialed it back.
“You’ve never played poker?” I leaned forward slightly, like I must have misheard him over the storm.
I could have sworn poker was a big deal in Japan.
Even if you couldn’t win money legally, there were always prizes instead, an incentive Zavier used plenty of times.
“No,” he said dryly, like he didn’t understand why I was shocked.
“And you don’t know the rules?” I asked slowly, already realizing this was my chance to shine at something he didn’t know.
“Not at all.”
Slowly, a smile spread across my face. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Why does it sound like it’s going to be anything but?”
“You’ll be fine,” I said, already moving and clearing off the small table that had somehow survived the structural chaos of the rest of the house. “I’ll teach you.”
“That sounds even worse.”
“It’s easy.” I insisted. “You’ll pick it up quickly, I promise.”
He said nothing, which I chose to interpret as agreement.
I dug through one of the drawers until I found a slightly worn deck of cards, the edges soft from use but still intact enough to function, and shuffled them with a familiarity that calmed me more than I expected.
“Okay,” I said, dealing two cards to each of us. “We’re going to play Texas Hold’em. It’s the simplest version, and honestly, the most fun.”
“Define simple.”
“You get two cards,” I said, tapping his. “Those are yours. No one else sees them. Then we build five shared cards in the middle, and you make the best five-card hand you can using any combination of yours and those.”
He glanced at his cards, then back at me. “And the objective?”
“Win, duh,” I said simply. “Best hand takes the round.”
“Define best.”
I grinned. “Okay, so highest is a royal flush, which you’ll probably never get, so don’t worry about it. Then straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pairs, one pair, high card.”
He was quiet for a moment before letting out an audible sigh. “I thought you said this was simple.”
“It is simple,” I said defensively. “You’ll get it. Trust me.”
“Trusting you sounds like a bad idea.”
“Probably,” I said, and there was a hint of honesty in that. I flipped three cards into the center, taking in each number and suit. “This is the flop. Then we bet.”
“With what?”
I paused. Right. No money. So much for taking him for everything he was worth, which, based on his whole yogi vibe, didn’t seem like much anyway. He probably lived in a tent on the beach like some kind of minimalist. “We’ll just play for pride, I suppose. Or fun, if you will.”
“I’m unfamiliar with the value of that.” His face remained stoic, and I couldn’t tell if he hated this or just had an extremely good poker face.
“Wow,” I muttered. “You’re really fun at parties, aren’t you?”
“I don’t attend parties.”
“Yeah, that tracks.” I laughed and continued explaining the rest, filling in the details as we went, and before I knew it, we were actually playing. Or, more accurately, I was playing and he was learning.
At first, he was cautious, watching everything too closely, like he was trying to calculate every possible outcome before committing to anything. He folded early and often, clearly not trusting what he didn’t understand yet.
“You’re allowed to take risks, you know,” I told him.
“I prefer not to lose.”
“That’s not how poker works. Besides, every time you fold, I’m basically winning, so grow a pair and play,” I said with a laugh, shaking my head as I revealed my hand. “See? Pair of eights. You could’ve beaten that with anything decent.”