Page 95 of Heir

I need to fold. I can’t afford to lose his money. He said he’d leave me if I kept coming to these games.

I narrowed my gaze in her direction. She caught me looking at her and went pink in the cheeks.

The man beside her was watching me. His features were wolfish. That was the best way to describe him. One eye was a pale blue, the other amber. His brows were bushy and low down over his eyes. He bared his straight, white teeth. “So this is how you win, huh?”

Now it was my turn to blink. “Excuse me?”

He sniffed. “Little demon playing mind games,” he whispered. “Manipulating the other players to fold.”

I swallowed. No. That wasn’t how I played at all.

He smiled diabolically with bared teeth; the canines extended down further, just enough to let me know he wasn’t of the human world.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I can smell you. Couldn’t smell you before tonight. Your spell must have worn off.”

I glanced around the table, hoping to God nobody was listening.

Nobody was.

He managed to keep his voice low enough and everyone was in their own little world, calling and betting. The woman with the gambling addiction folded, as did the nail biter. Then it was mustache’s turn, and he upped his bet, matching the last raise with another hundred.

My turn now. But I was frazzled by this shifter across from me and hadn’t had a chance to study all the other players. Okay, I needed to get my head back in the game. You played the players more than you played the cards, and right now the shifter was doing a damned good job playing me. Everyone knew that if you couldn’t spot the sucker at the table in the first thirty minutes, you were the sucker. And I sure as hell was not the fucking sucker here.

I had a nine of spades and the king of hearts. My only play at the moment was a pair of nines. And although people won with lesser hands than that one pair, my odds weren’t looking good.

I studied what everyone else bet. Three of the ten of us so far had already folded, which left seven in the game.

I pushed another two hundred “in” chips forward.

The man to my right folded. Now there were six left in the game.

The cigar-smoke smelling asshole pushed four hundred “in” chips forward.

The man beside him—the cut-off—bet four as well.

Then it was back to the dealer.

Cane burned another card and placed the fourth card face up in the community row. Eight of clubs.

This didn’t help my chances at all.

A few people around the table sighed in frustration. Including the ginger mustache beside me. The chip flipping man with the flaring nostrils smiled, but only for a second, before stowing that grin and slapping on a resting bitch face. But I could already feel that he had nothing. Would he continue bluffing? Risk more money? Or cut his loses and fold? How well did he play the other players?

The small blind—the player right after the dealer, which was another woman—folded. Which meant now the big blind—the person after her—had to start the bet based on the new card in play.

And that just happened to be the shifter. Refusing to take his eyes off me, he bet three hundred, which meant he probably had a pair of some kind—or two—or the makings of a flush with the two and three or the eight and nine.

Blinking lady had already folded, so it was up to nostrils to fold, call, or bet.

He folded.

Called it. He would have been a terrible bluffer anyway.

Nail biter had already folded, so then it was mustache’s turn.

He hummed and hawed, glanced at his cards three times before finally matching the shifter’s bet of three hundred.

---