High Card: A Billionaire Shifter Novel (Lions of Las Vegas Book 1) (22 page)

This kiss is an admission.
 

It me and Summer saying yes. We mean something to one another.
 

Summer’s hands trail across my chest and the wind whips down and my lion feels Summer’s presence and finally quiets, and for the first time in longer than I can remember I feel something like peace.
 

When our lips finally part I run my finger’s through Summer’s hair, stroke her cheek. “You hit two-forty. Not bad.”

“I told you that was a shit idea,” Summer says, pretending to glare at me.
 

“You didn’t have fun?”

“Fun? I…” Summer smacks me on the chest. “We almost fucking
died
.”

“Nah. Wasn’t even close.”

Summer gives me a quick peck on the cheek. Then she says, “Is it safe to get near the car?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Want to show you something.”

She leads me by the hand to the driver’s side, leans in and points. The heavy-duty racing steering wheel’s been squeezed so hard it’s dented.

“How’d you do that, Landon?” Summer whispers.

“Weak metal. I’ll get the engineers to—”

“And what about stopping the wheel from spinning? With one hand? That car was totally out of control. It nearly ripped my arms off when I tried to steer.”

“I’m a lot bigger than you.”

“Don’t lie to me. I know you’re lying about something. Or at least not telling the whole truth. Look. I’ve lied and been lied to my whole life. It’s all I know. I’ve got…a damned good sense for it. The way you kiss me, hold me, look at me…I know you care about us. But you know what? Caring’s not enough. Good intentions aren’t enough. I need
truth
.”

I pull her away from the car.

“I’m afraid of losing you.”

“You don’t tell me the truth, you lose me for sure.”

I’m about to tell her. Really I am.
 

Then motion at the speedway entrance catches my eye. I turn and see three heavily-inked, gangster-looking dudes flanking the wide doors. Realize I won’t have to say a word. Summer’s gunna find out real quick what I am, and then we’ll see where she and I really stand—
 

I breath a quick sigh of relief.
 

The truth sets us free, right?

“You got your gun in that backpack?”

Summer gives me a hard look. “Yeah. Why?”

“Lead won’t kill Wildbloods. But it’ll slow them down.”

I HAVE NO idea what Landon means when he says lead won’t kill them, but when I see three of Don Luca’s Il Potere hit men strolling across the speedway pavement toward us I leap at the still-smoldering Bugatti, grab my backpack, tuck Layla in my belt and put the car between me and them.

Landon’s standing out in the open.
 

Staring them down.

Like a rich boy moron. Dumbass probably thinks he can talk the hit men into some sort of resolution. Come to a
sensible solution
.
 

That’s not how these guys work.
 

“Landon! Get behind the car!”

He ignores me. His black leather racing suit clings tight to his body, outlining the hard curves and bulges of his muscular build. The sun’s setting, lighting his blonde hair and for a second he looks like the mural in Caesars Palace of the ancient god Apollo driving the chariot of the sun across the heavens—

“Mr. Landon Stone!” the guy walking in front says. He’s a white guy, built like a tank, wearing white slacks and a black tank-top and sporting all kinds of jailhouse ink. “Don Luca has another message for you. Hand the human girl over to us and he’ll forgive your previous disrespect.”

Human
? What the fuck?
 

“You’re trespassing. This is a private event,” Landon says. “You got three seconds to fuck off.”

See? The idiot rich boy. Trying to talk them down—

The hit men laugh. The guy in front…I blink. Must’ve knocked my head during the crash. Cuz the guy in front…seems to be getting
larger
.

“She’s not worth it, Landon,” the guy flanking the first says. He’s tall and lean, with a face like a hatchet. “Let the bitch go.”

“Since when do Wildbloods do wet work for human crime bosses?” Landon asks. “There are laws.”

Okay, weird. They seem to be talking in some sort of fucked-up code. I’ve heard all I need to hear. Don Luca’s dickheads want me. Someone ratted me to Vito or even Don Luca himself. The take home is: I need to kill these motherfuckers and bamos or me and Landon are both dead.

“There
were
laws, Landon,” the first guy sneers. “But change has arrived. Haven’t you scented it on her?”

Landon stiffens. “Scented what?”

“He doesn’t know,” the second guy says. “The stupid fuck.”

“You issued an alpha challenge to Thorsa,” the first guy says, “because you feel the growing power in your animal. Feel like you can finally control him. That’s because of her. The Whisperer. She’s surfaced in that thieving whore of yours—”

Whisperer? Thieving whore I can get behind. I know what I am, although that doesn’t mean I like having it thrown in my face. But the other thing? Landon’s looking at me with an odd mixture of worry and understanding in his eyes—
 

Landon squares his shoulders at the thug again. “The Council—”

The first guy smiles. “Has become weak. You know this. Tell me you haven’t thought of taking them down.”

“The pact,” Landon says. “The law. The united animals—”

“None of that matters now. The Wildbloods are free.”

“A bloodbath.”
 

The tattooed guy rolls his head, cracking his neck with an audible pop. “A
pleasure
.”

I stand up from behind the Bugatti, lay my arms flat across the roof, grip the Colt in both hands, careful not to bump my broken pinkie, and draw a steady bead on the first guy. “You move you’re fucking dead,” I yell. Then to Landon: “C’mon, pretty boy. Let’s get out of here.”

Landon gives me a sad smile. “I should have told you,” he says in a way that makes me shiver. “I just…didn’t want to frighten you off.”

“Frighten me off…Landon? What the hell—”

I look back at the tank-top wearing thug, and what I see makes me squeeze off six quick rounds as fast as I can, and over the sound of the gunfire I hear an animal roaring—

***

The guy’s a monster. An honest-to-god living monster. His frame bulks up so thick he splits through his tank top. Coarse black hair sprouts along his arms and hands and shoulders. His head bulges and a blunt snout protrudes and in a second or two I’m staring at something that looks like a cross between a tattooed thug and a raging black bear—

Guess my hands weren’t as steady as I hoped. Only one of my bullets hits. The rest ricochet off the pavement. The bullet catches the freak right in the thigh, blowing a good-sized hole in him. He raises his head and roars, the muscle and sinew in his oversized neck stretching taut.
 

Layla slips from my numb fingers. I’m muttering oh shit oh shit oh shit over and over. My knees are rubber. It’s a struggle simply to stay standing.
 

“Run, Summer!” Landon screams.

His voice sounds different. Deeper. Raspy.
 

Oh hell no—

Landon’s shoulders, already broad and cut, are swelling up beneath his leather racing suit. The suit splits down the spine and I see fine blonde hair—

Then I’m on my knees. Hiding. My mind just…gone. Rational thought wiped clean by stark terror. Covering my face in my hands, sobbing while the sounds of animal-monsters murdering one another rises in my ears. Bloodthirsty snarls and growls and pained yelps and the sickening wet thwack of fists smashing down, aiming to end a life.

I scramble for my backpack. Landon—or whatever he is—told me to run. Seems like a damn fine plan. I gather my strength and stand up to grab Layla, which I foolishly left on top of the Bugatti. When my head rises above the car roof I take a quick glance at the…things.

What I see makes my breath freeze.
 

Something that could be Landon is standing over the mutilated body of the bear creature. He’s holding a second creature in the air. The thing looks like another black bear, only smaller and heavier than the first. Landon has his massive, clawed hand around his enemy’s throat, and as I watch he ducks his head forward. At first I think he’s going to head-butt the guy. But instead he sinks his teeth into the bear-monster’s throat and bites deep. Blood floods from the monster’s neck. Landon flings the guy to the side and takes a step at the third and final guy—

A low moan of terror escapes my lips.
 

Landon whirls. There’s a creature straight out of a hellish nightmare glaring at me. Something wild and feral, that clawed its way up from the darkest depths of my subconscious mind—
 

But it’s him. I
know
it’s him.
 

Only…he’s changed. He’s a foot or so taller and much heavier. His fingers end in inch-long black claws. His shaggy blonde surfer-hair has grown longer, making him look like he has a wild mane—

But it’s his face that makes me raise the Ruger and aim it at him. His brow has deepened. His jaw protrudes out a wide snout and inside his jaws I see two long rows of wicked incisors. And his eyes…they’re not just handsome now. They’re
fearsome
, glowing bright gold—

Awesome. My hot billionaire boyfriend is some kind of animal-beast.
 

A lion, from the look of him.
 

Just my luck.

Then I spot the third guy running—

“Landon look out!”
 

Landon turns just in time for the third attacker to slam into him. They hit the ground hard, spinning and rolling, moving so fast they become a blur. It’s like a vicious dogfight. I can’t tell who’s who. The sounds they make send chills down my spine. Pained screeches and roars and shrieks.
 

Without knowing what I’m doing I step out from behind the Bugatti. The bear-thing has Landon on the ground, slicing its claws into Landon’s chest. Landon’s trying to keep the bear’s maw from ripping out his throat while also trying to stop the bear from slicing open his ribcage.
 

Rage tightens my throat.
 

I’m only ten yards away.
 

Landon sees me standing with Layla raised, gets his feet under the bear’s belly and kicks him off. The bear-thing sails through the air, hits the ground, rolls, springs up, and as soon as he does I unload the entire fucking clip in his chest so fast I lose count. Bullet’s tear into him, shredding his chest to ribbons. The monster stagger’s back, wounded but still standing.
 

I keep pulling at the trigger, screaming all sorts of nasty shit, desperate for the bear to go down.
 

But he doesn’t. Instead he looks at the wounds in his chest, then lifts his head to face me. He’s hideous. His eyes black as death. Then he takes a leap at me—

Landon catches him midair. The two fall to the ground and this time Landon has the advantage; I watch in horror as he wraps a powerful arm around the bear’s head. The muscles in Landon’s arm bulge, and then he makes a quick jerking movement and snaps his enemy’s neck—

Except for the sound of my own panicked breathing in my ears, the silence is sudden and totally complete. The monster that I called Landon Stone flops off his dead adversary. His fine golden fur is matted in blood. There’s a criss-crossed set of vicious gouges running down his chest, but as I watch the skin around the wounds begins to lift and tremble—

“You’re fucking
healing
,” I say. “Like after the wolves attacked you.”

Landon lifts his head. Whatever he is…the monster…it’s leaving him, and it looks painful as hell. Landon’s back arcs and he screams and there’s a sickening ripping sound, like tendons being stretched past the breaking point, and then I’m running to the Bugatti and throwing my backpack on while glancing for the exit out of the speedway. The interstate’s only a few blocks away. I can run there.
 

Flag down a car if I’m lucky—

By the time I make it back around the car Landon’s standing. He looks like he did when I found him in the desert: pale, sickly, feverish. His race suit’s ripped and punctured. His hair’s a blood-matted mess and his usually sharp eyes are flat and dulled with the aftereffects of a pain I can only begin to imagine.

But it’s him.
 

He’s looking at me with that odd sadness I’ve sensed in him since day one. He stares at his hands. Black claws slip back into his skin. In moments he’ll look like a normal man.

But he isn’t a man at all. He’s a monster.

And I…oh my god. I think about the night at the desert retreat, then raise the gun at his chest.

“Stay the fuck away from me.”

“Summer I—”

“I said stay the fuck away!” I’m biting my lip, trying to keep the tears down. The gun’s shaking in my hands. “I
knew
you were lying about something. Shit! I knew there was more—”

“I tried to tell you—”

“What? Tell me this? What is
this
, Landon? I thought maybe you were married. Ha! Or had, I dunno, a brood of snot-nosed brats spread across the globe. Or herpes! But this? Oh shit. Oh shit. What
are
you?”

Landon’s face hardens. He looks…stunning. Strong. Capable. Commanding. Even worse, there’s something in me…that feeling I’ve been trying to ignore since we first met…that feeling that says my place is at his side. That we belong together. That this is
right
. Which is waaay beyond fucked, because none of this is anywhere near right—