Gambling on Her Bear (Shifters in Vegas) (9 page)

He kept his thumb on his shirt and said, “The diamond.”

“Oh, that diamond,” she answered, snapping back to the subject. Her words came out barked and bitter as she pictured her precious family heirloom stuck between Elvira’s fake boobs.

Tanner stuck his hands up, signaling something like,
Whoa. Just asking.
Either she was as transparent as the broth of her soup or the man had a knack for reading her like a book.

“You said it belonged to your family,” he prompted.

She stared down at her bowl, studying the scallion floating in the soup. Wondering if she dared explain. Wondering if she could keep herself together if she did.

He reached over, tipped her chin up gently, and offered her a crooked smile that said,
It’ll be okay. It will be all right.
Like he really, truly understood all her worries, her insecurities, her fears.

God, the man’s gaze was magic. And his touch… She could float away on it. Float away into the kind of dream she’d never, ever want to end.

“It’s not really dragon soup, is it?” he joked, breaking the tension in the room.

She shook her head and pulled herself together. “Nah. Just hot and sour soup.”

He tilted his head at her. “Do you know the people who run this place?”

An easier topic than everything else they had to cover, thank goodness.

“Distant cousins on my mother’s side.” She said between sips of soup. The dragons of old Europe and those of the Orient had stayed separate for thousands of years, but there’d been occasional mixing, too.

“Your dragon side?” he asked quietly, and she froze with the spoon halfway to her mouth.

Shit, had he figured out what her other half was? She studied the eyes that studied her, dark and deep and, yes, a little wary. The world was full of shifter species, and though some developed rivalries, most accepted one another. Witches, though, were seen as outsiders — as different, the way vampires were.

Her chin dipped. Did he really want to hear her family history? Shit, it looked like he did. She decided on the short version and resolved to keep emotion out of it.

“My mother is a dragon. Her first mate was a dragon, too, and they had my sister, Kaya.”

Tanner nodded but didn’t say a word. Barely breathed, it seemed.

“But he was killed in a battle, and a few years later, my mom, well… She hooked up with a warlock for a little while. My father.”

Tanner’s inscrutability terrified her, but she plunged on. Surely he wouldn’t reject her for parentage she couldn’t control?

“The dragon half of the family refused to accept him, and eventually, he left.” She forced her voice to be steady as she tried to skip over the bitterest memories. Her mother’s tears, her father’s angry glare when he’d left. The loneliness she’d felt as an outsider in her own family. The only one who’d loved her unconditionally was her mother’s father, the wisest, kindest dragon who’d ever lived. He was the one who’d encouraged summer visits to her father, saying,
Family is family
and,
Who knows? You might learn a thing or two.

And she had learned. A hell of a lot, in fact, though she’d never had the propensity for magic her witchfolk cousins had. Just as she’d never had the full powers of her dragon kin.

Jack of all trades.
Her grandfather would smile and pat her head.

She used to tack a few bitter words on under her breath.
Master of none.
She couldn’t fly, and she was only a second-rate witch. What good was that?

The spoon shook in her hand, so she put it down. Slammed it down, practically, and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the voices that taunted her in her head.

You can’t even fly.

You can’t even do a proper spell.

You’re a mutt, you know that?

Then something warm and strong closed over her hand, and all those thoughts turned tail and fled.

“Hey,” Tanner whispered, stroking her skin with his thumb, looking at her in a completely different way.

She blinked until the scratchy sensation in her eyes went away. Then she rattled on with the story like an out of control train, because words were better than tears, right?

“I spent some time with my grandfather before he died, and he told me all the old dragon stories.” There were hundreds of them, stretching back over eons, back to the beginning of time. Tales of knights and castles and battles fought and won. Tales of great prizes and brave deeds. She fought to stay focused as she spoke because it was all too easy to picture long winter nights in a cabin with Tanner and a crackling fire, where she could recount all of the stories from beginning to end.

“My grandfather had only seen the Blood Diamond once — as a child, before it was stolen by vampires in World War II. He said his only regret was that he’d never been able to track it down.”

“Blood Diamond?” Tanner’s eyebrows went up. “I thought that was a vampire thing.”

She snorted. “They wish. The name comes from the story that the dragon who found it originally washed it with a drop of her own blood. That’s what gave it that special tint, that shine.” She nearly squinted, picturing the gem when she’d held it up to the moonlight in the penthouse she’d broken into. The brightest, clearest, most precious diamond she’d ever seen.

“I spent a long time researching the Blood Diamond, trying to track it down. And for ages, I came up with nothing.” She leaned forward on her elbows. “Until one day, out of nowhere, I came across an ad for an auction.”

Tanner pointed at her as if he knew exactly what she was talking about. “The auction here in Vegas a month ago?”

“Exactly. An auction advertising incredible riches brought to light for the first time.”

“Including the Blood Diamond,” he said.

“Including the Blood Diamond.” She nodded. “So I came out here, trying to see it. To verify it. I even snuck into the auction viewing—”

“Of course, you did.” He sighed.

“And God, when I saw it…” She trailed off, stirring her hands in the air as if the diamond were right there, pulsing with power only a dragon could sense. “I knew that was really it.”

She didn’t say,
And I knew I had to have it,
because it wasn’t about greed. It was about family pride. About righting a wrong. About proving herself.

“I didn’t want it for me. I wanted to bring it back to dragonkind. To give them its power instead of letting vampires strut it around like just another expensive toy. I was going to give it to the dragon elders, not keep it for myself.”

“Why?”

“Why? To prove what I could do instead of demonstrating what I couldn’t do. To finally have them accept me and value what I could do. To…to…” She stammered, and her shoulders shook until his hand closed over hers and anchored her again.

She inhaled sharply and stared into her soup. Wow. Had she ever rammed as many sentiments into one breath? Had she ever admitted as much to herself?

Tanner let a minute tick by without saying anything. His fingers caressed hers while the candle on the table flickered, sending shadows over their hands.

“I swear I would have given it to the elders,” she whispered.

“Of course, you would.” He said it with such conviction, such unwavering faith, like it was self-evident and not a minor miracle.

Bears had honor, she knew. Bears like him, she could trust. The question was, would he trust her?

“Then Schiller bought it,” Tanner said, gesturing for her to continue.

She shook her head. “He
faked
buying it when, in fact, he was the owner the whole time. That part was hidden, of course, so he could pose as a buyer. It was all a publicity stunt to draw attention to the casino.” It had cost her a couple of hundred bucks to bribe the truth out of a snake shifter who worked for the auctioneer.

Tanner nodded, disgust written all over his face. “That fits Schiller perfectly. The bastard.”

“His family stole the diamond from mine, and the auction was all a front. The high price he paid drove up the prices on all the other diamonds in the auction and brought a lot of new customers to the casino. It allowed him to take the diamond out of whatever vault he had it locked away in and show it without being asked too many questions about where he obtained it. And then the bastard had the nerve to stick my family heirloom between Elvira’s tits.”

Tanner scowled as if the image disturbed him as much as it disturbed her.

“So you decided to steal it?” He sounded doubtful.

“Okay, okay, that might not have been the best plan. But I had to do something. And it’s not like I could outbid the Count of fucking Transylvania at his own game. Nineteen million, he paid for it.”

Tanner scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Nineteen point two.”

“You were there?” she almost yelped.

He nodded, and she nearly shoved the table. “You were at the auction? You stood by and let Count Fangula buy what rightfully belongs to me?”

He put up his hands in that,
Hey, I’m a good guy move
he did so well. “I didn’t know it was yours. I didn’t know you.”

They stared at each other for a second while a thousand emotions collided in her heart and mind. Anger. Lust. Betrayal. Love. Hope. Bitter defeat.

“What are you doing working for those jerks, anyway?” she managed to shoot out.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, then looked at his soup. “It’s a long story.”

“Summarize,” she shot back.

He looked at her, and for the first time ever, he looked doubtful, even ashamed.

“I’ll tell you,” he said, sounding a little hoarse as his gaze studied everything in the room but her. “While you eat. I have the feeling this is going to be a long night.”

Tanner puffed out his cheeks, then forced down some soup. His appetite had pretty much disappeared the second Karen brought up Schiller. His boss. His goddamned vampire boss. Jesus, how did he ever agree to this gig?

He paused, tripping up on his own words. He was a bear working for a vampire. Christ, what did that make him look like?

And right there, he realized he should know better than to jump to hasty conclusions about a person. Maybe Karen being half witch didn’t matter that much. The heart was what mattered, right?

The heart.
His bear nodded.
The soul.

He looked deep into her eyes and nearly drifted away there. It took a mental shake to force himself back to her question. Why was he working for bloodsuckers, again?

“Schiller’s holding company—” he started, but Karen cut him off with a snort.

“Scarlet fucking Enterprises?”

He nodded. “They’re expanding, even as far as Idaho. My bear clan caught wind of their latest project up there.”

The elderly waitress cut into the conversation, swapping their soup bowls for food platters and trundling out again.

“Let me guess,” Karen said as he took a bite of beef. “Another casino?”

“Yep. One they wanted to put smack in the middle of a stretch of pristine woods that borders our land. We saw the plans. They want to market it as some kind of get-in-touch with nature place.”

“Sure,” Karen snorted. “In touch with nature, like Vegas is? You can’t even tell if it’s day or night here, much less breathe fresh air.”

Don’t I know it,
his bear sighed.

“We thought that land was an untouchable reserve but it turns out the deed is being disputed by a Native group.” He put air quotes around the last two words.

“How Native?”

He shook his head. “About as Native as Schiller is.”

“So what’s the connection?”

“Schiller’s men found some guy who’s one-thirty-second Native — just enough to count — paid him off, and bankrolled the campaign to win the rights to the land.”

“How about you buy off this guy instead?”

“We tried, but we can’t match Schiller’s offer.”

“Which is?”

“Six million dollars.”

Karen whistled while he ground his teeth. His clan was rich in things that really counted — fresh air, clean water, and thick woods. Cash reserves, on the other hand, were pretty slim. And the last thing they needed was a group of vampires running a casino next door. The forest that buffered theirs would be cut down, and there would be outsiders all over the place. Outsider humans and, worse, vampires, who seemed to bring their own brand of organized crime everywhere they went.

“Isn’t there some other way around it?”

He nodded. Thank God for that. “There’s another guy — an owl shifter who’s a genuine Native — who’s been trying to protect that land for years as a preserve. If he finds enough money to take the case to court, we know he’ll beat Schiller’s guy. The land will stay wild, and the vampires will stay the hell away.”

“So what’s the problem?” she asked.

He scoffed. “Do you have a million dollars to spare?”

Karen leaned back in her chair, and his bear moaned a little, seeing the space between them open up again.

“Wow. Okay. Maybe not.” She leaned forward again, and his bear rejoiced. “So you came to Vegas to…?”

He forked a piece of beef a little more viciously than he meant to. “My clan sent me. The elders had this idea of somehow winning enough of Schiller’s money to undermine him at his own game.”