High Card: A Billionaire Shifter Novel (Lions of Las Vegas Book 1) (28 page)

One step above street trash.
 

If I’m going to get saved, it’s going to be my own doing.
 

There’s a cold pool of foreboding in my belly and a hardwired instinct thrumming through my mind. Fight or flight. Except you don’t fight these things. Not unless you’re one of them. When a Wildblood’s hunting a human, there’s only one thing to do.

Run.

I hear a woman’s voice. Higher pitched. She sounds upset. She’s demanding whoever’s coming down the hall to stop. Then a loud smack and a muffled scream and a thud as the therapist’s head hits the wall—

I’m at my backpack now. Tossing it over my shoulder. No way out except the round window. But it doesn’t open. No need. The hotel’s air temperature control system probably adjusts automatically. No way out. Except the door and the hall and that leads straight to Blake—
 

What a fucking fool I am.
 

Walking into the lion’s den, believing Landon could protect me. Something’s gone wrong. He might be—

 
I stop the thought short.
 

Dead?
 

No way.

But why not? He said they were after him. I kinda brushed him off. Didn’t take him seriously. Wasn’t paying attention. Too caught up in the shock of what happened—

Now I’m
really
afraid. Goosebumps rise on my skin. My heart thuds against my ribcage so violently it feels like I’m having a heart attack.
 

But it’s the only thing that makes sense.
 

Otherwise he’d be here.

I’m on my own. I always was.

Then another sound makes me dig in the backpack, trying to find Layla. Whoever’s coming down the hall is whistling…and there’s something else. A high-pitched scratching sound, harsher than a fingernail on a chalkboard.
 

Blake’s dragging his claw along the tiled wall.
 

An image of my shitty motel-apartment flashes in my mind. My moms sitting in front of the TV, mind empty, zoned out on daytime talk shows while the cancer eats her alive. I need to see her. Just for a minute or two. Say goodbye. Give her some cash.
 

Then I’m gone.

I lift my Ruger from my backpack in the same instant the door explodes inward.

You missed five of six.

Landon’s words.

But this time? I up the count by three.

***

Layla bucks in my hands, the saucy bitch dropping bullets like a blackjack dealer drops cards. Eight blinding flashes of light. Booms concuss through my skull, reverberate around the small room, make my ears ring. I choke on the stink of ignited powder.
 

Blake—or the thing that was Blake—gets a chestful of nasty.
 

The stupid shit.
 

Thought I was going to be a good girl, lie down and take it?

He staggers back through the door, smashes into the wall on the opposite side of the hall, leaving a trail of blood. I keep shooting until the cartridge clicks empty. Blake’s animal is half out. His muscles are ripped and sinewy; his head’s swollen twice its human size to make space for his massive jaws. His hair’s mottled black and gold. His eyes burn bright yellow. He moans and spits a mouthful of blood, and for a half second I’m frozen, a deer in the headlights, my mind scrambling to catch up to what just happened—

Then he sees me.
 

“There she is. My whore grifter girl.”

His words snap me out of my trance and then I’m running at him, hoping to catch him off guard, jumping out of the room and into the hallway. For a spilt second I’m in arm’s reach. All he has to do is grab my ankle—

Something sharp digs into my calf, making me scream.

Claws.

“You fucking bitch,” Blake snarls. “Run, little grifter girl. I love it when my prey runs!”

Momentum carries out of Blake’s grasp, but I’m knocked off balance. Careen into a wall. Stumble sideways, trip over the unconscious or dead body of the massage therapist, nearly smash into a gilded gold statue of a cherub.
 

Then I’m in the spa’s lobby.
 

Gasping for breath. There’s no one around.
 

Blake’s screaming at me, saying he’s gunna fuck me and kill me and fuck me and feed on me, and then I push open a side door, sprint down a narrow corridor, see a red exit sign above a steel door. I race down the hall and slam full-speed against the bar to open the door—

Rocket backward, fall flat on my ass, blinking against the flashing light behind my eyes. The door’s locked.
 

An ear-piercing roar echoes down the hall.
 

Horror like I’ve never known makes my lugs limp. I lose the will to fight. To live. I can’t outrun him. He’s a fucking…monster. Superhuman. I’m wailing, moaning without even realizing it, tears streaming down my cheeks—

The I remember my moms.
 

I need to see her. Just once.

Blake roars out of the lobby and into the exit corridor. The corridor’s lit bright with harsh fluorescent lights. What I see makes me smash my shoulder into the door again, hoping I can break it open.

Blake pauses at threshold of the corridor.
 

He’s on all fours.
 

A huge male lion, mane wild and bristly, skin pocked with old scars, fangs longer than my fingers. He’s larger than a Harley. Easily three, maybe four hundred pounds. And worst of all…there’s a stinking smell to him. Grisly and powerful. He smells of death. Of corpses. Then the lion raises his head and roars, pink-tinged spittle spraying from his black lips—

My world narrows to focus on opening the door. It’s like my mind’s blanked out the true horror of what’s hunting me. The horizontal bar that serves as the door’s handle is painted bright red.
 

That means something.

It’s a fire door.

The lion’s only thirty feet away. He sees I’m trapped. He’s loping down the hall. Head bent low. Eyes bright—

There’s a fire alarm on the wall beside me. For a second I smile, thinking of the fire alarm that saved my ass once already, back when the Savannah scam went haywire and I was forced to run from this goddamned hellhole of a casino the first time—

I pull the fire alarm handle.
 

The corridor erupts with tremendous ringing.
 

The door clicks unlocked.
 

I jump against the door and it flings open and then I’m outside, running for my life, my breath hammering in my lungs, exhaustion already slowing me and I dare a glance back. It’s dark outside, but the streets are lit bright.

The lion leaps from the casino exit. Sees me.
 

Whirls and takes off in my direction, his strides eating up ten feet of ground at a time—

Another scream bursts from my lips.

I round a corner and then I’m on the Strip. It’s only eleven or so at night, peak hour for tourons and partiers, millionaires and drunks and all the glam wildness of Vegas nightlife. The street’s packed. Finally something’s going right for me. I plough into the crowd, shouldering through families and frat-boys and giggling bachelorette parties, shrieking at everyone to get out of my way. Vegas lights sparkle down, casting wild shadows beneath me. The new Tropicana is right beside Savannah’s, it’s 1950’s style facade gleaming white. I hop over a planter box, step over a sleeping drunk and duck around some palm trees, hoping to throw Blake off—
 

I’m slightly elevated over the crowd. I look back.
 

I can see where the lion is by how the crowd’s reacting. Screams and panic as they see the freed animal and bolt in all directions.
 

A few gunshots. A massive roar.

He’s still on me.

I run into traffic, not caring if I get run over. A black SUV hits the brakes, swerves to avoid me, crashes over the curb and smashes into a water fountain outside the Tropicana, its horn blaring. A cabbie rear-ends a white sedan. Everyone’s losing their shit, cursing at me, running every direction, and now I’m almost across the road. I see motion in the corner of my eye and then feel a sickening thump as a red sports car hits me, knocking my legs out from under me and slamming into the windshield—

My world goes black, then explodes in colors brighter than a Cirque show.
 

“You fucking crazy bitch—”

The driver’s yelling at me. Pissed about his car.
 

I roll off the hood, shaking my head while the driver steps out. My vision’s blurry. Blood watery and warm in my mouth. The driver gets his hand on my shoulder, his face twisted in fury. I try and swat him away, knowing he’s in danger, and then something roars and smashes into him, carrying him hard to the street.

I scream, and the crowd joins me.

Blake’s eating the driver alive.

More gunshots as a few cowboy wannabe’s break out their guns. I stumble onto the sidewalk, the sound of Blake’s massive jaws crunching through bone loud in my ears.
 

There’s a feeling building in me. No, a command.
 

Just sit down. Rest. It’ll be quick.
 

I can’t outrun him.
 

Excalibur casino is behind me. Its fairytale turrets lit up garish red and blue. Further down I see New York New York’s replica Statue of Liberty standing guard over the Strip, her robes bathed in white light. The lights lose focus, blur into one another. Everything feels dream-like. Hallucinatory. I wonder if I’ve lost my mind. Is any of this happening? Or am I locked in a padded cell somewhere? Screaming out my nightmare?

A screech of tires makes me look back. An SUV slams into the lion. He’s knocked off his kill, tossed twenty feet through the air. Lands on a car roof, flattening it. For an instant he’s motionless. Hope floods into me.

Then he raises his head and roars.

The sound drills deep into my mind. Reminds me of something.

The wildwolves.

I can’t keep running.
 

But if I am what everyone seems to think I am—

I take a slow step into the street. Toward the Wildblood lion. My arms hang limp at my sides. The lion sees me and leaps off the car, his tail waving in the air behind him. He jaws are slick with blood.

“You ugly bastard,” I whisper.
 

I try and reach my mind into his. But my terror’s blocking me somehow. Weakening me. I force a slow breath. Then the screams and car horns and sirens fade. The world becomes silent. Calm.
 

The lion slows. Shakes his head.

A whistling wail echoes through my skull. I’m not screaming. There’s no true sound. But it’s there nonetheless. High-pitched and maddening.
 

The lion swats his face with a paw.
 

My body goes rigid. Bolts of energy surge through my veins. I focus my fear and hatred into the keening sound. It intensifies, becomes so loud I have to grit my teeth to keep from screaming. I don’t know what I’m doing or how I’m doing it. All I know is that Blake’s in pain. The lion’s scratching at himself, opening deep gouges along his snout—

And then, as quickly as it began, the noise stops.
 

The lion rears up to his full height.

“Oh god no,” I whisper.
 

The lion looks at me with triumph, and for the first time it really hits me. A realization so terrible it makes me whimper.

I’m going to die.

Violently. Brutally.

I sink back onto the curb. I can’t fight him. I’m not who or what they thought I am. I can’t even control the lion, nevermind kill him.

“Summer!”

Someone’s shouting my name. I must be imagining things.

“Summer! This way!”

I turn and look over my shoulder. There, hidden behind a cluster of palm trees, is a geeky-looking Latino dude in a beater black Porsche convertible. I don’t recognize him. Don’t know how he knows my name. Don’t care.
 

“Summer get in the car!”

Then it hits me.
 

Alfie?

The lion prowls across the street. He’s limping badly from where the SUV crashed into him, but he’s healing. In a minute or two he’ll be whole.

“Sweetie get in dis car vrrright now!”

“Oh my god, Maya?”

“Run, Summer!”

“Maya!”

Then I’m on my feet, racing through the palm trees.

The lion roars.
 

I see Alfie and Maya and my heart leaps and then I’m hopping into the back seat, screaming at Alfie to punch it. He does, weaving through stalled traffic, steering the Porsche on the sidewalk to get around the car wrecks while Maya hangs halfway out the passenger’s seat, screaming in Russian at the pedestrians blocking our path—

I risk a glance back.
 

The lion’s gone.

The tears come, deep, wracking sobs that don’t quiet until Alfie hits the interstate and the car picks up speed and I allow myself to believe, only for a second, that I might live through the night.

“How’d you find me?” I ask when I have the wits to speak.

Maya hands me a bottle of cheap wine. “Alfie saw you on security cameras. And zat billionaire hotness? Looks like Miss Palmer hooked a whale…”

He’s more of a lion.

“Alfie? Man. Thank you so much I owe you—”

I cut myself short. Alfie was watching. He saw Blake change.

I take a long swig of the warm wine.

Alfie glances at me in the rearview. Hands me a phone.

There’s an image on the screen.

I don’t want to look. But I do.

It’s a crime scene photo. Likely pulled from a police file. A man’s body. Dumped on the side of the road in the desert somewhere. Terribly mutilated.
 

No.
Mauled
.

“Jay,” I whisper.
 

Alfie nods.
 

“This was Blake Stone,” I say through gritted teeth.

“You wish to think,” Maya says. “Look at other picture.”