Page 22 of Taken By the Vampires
He looked as devastatingly handsome as ever. He wore his seriousness well, just like his impeccable clothing and the confident, assessing attention that was wholly focused on me.
I looked at the middle of his chest, needing to break the eye contact. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” Surely if I told myself that enough I’d start the believe it. Fake it till you make it, right? “I was just coming for find you, actually.”
“Were you really?” Davon’s warm voice had me looking up to see a genuinely happy smile on his face, as though I’d done him some great favor. I couldn’t help my smile in response.
“Well, yes, but you’ve saved me the effort. Would you like to come in?” They crowded the doorway as though this wasn’t their room, but mine.
“We’ve come to alleviate your boredom.” Cassius was the first to brush past Xander’s shoulder.
“H…how?”
“Not in the way you’d like us to deep down,” Xander said
“Enough, Xander. He needs to lighten up sometimes. We’ve brought cards.” Davon waved a pack in his hand and stepped through the doorway.
All three men seemed to crowd the room, which was really quite spacious. Not at all like our dinky little farmhouse. Not like it at all. I stepped way, suddenly feeling more than a little overwhelmed. And overheated.
“So, what game did you have in mind?”
“Do you know Bouillotte?” Davon asked.
“Bouill – what?”
Cassius slapped Davon on his shoulder. “Davon likes to live in the past, but it is a good game. Would you like to try it?”
“The far distant past,” Xander muttered before seating himself in one of the great winged back chairs in front of the fire. I wasn’t sure if he thought I would hear him. It also seemed like something was bothering him.
I stayed mute.
Cassius and Davon arranged a table and chairs around Xander, the other winged back chair and the fireplace, where it was warmest. The flames danced as high as ever and I vaguely wondered where they kept the wood, or if it was a gas fireplace, before Davon grasped my elbow and led me to the comfortable chair next to the warmth.
I settled into it, not quite comfortable and not quite – not. They quickly arranged themselves around me and then Davon filtered through the cards, removing some and then dealing the others.
“You’re supposed to take out the queens as well,” Cassius said.
“Only if there are three of us. There arefournow,” Davon said.
Cassius looked a little shocked before a smile stole over his face. “So there are. Carry on, then.”
This looked like a bit of a screwball game. “I might not have played card in ages, but don’t we need them all?” It had been literallyyears. Since life had become a series of hard decisions and too much work.
“This is a game of the revolution, played by gaming houses around the world,” Davon said.
“Except the British countries,” Cassius said.
“But we need not worry about them,” Davon said. “We haven’t for quite some time now.”
I picked up my cards, not quite understanding either what was happening or what they were talking about. “Don’t you guys game on PlayStation, like everyone else?”
Davon’s dark brows rose over blue eyes. “We don’t have those games here. Haven’t for quite some time, in fact.”
Xander pushed a stack of coins over the table in front of me, his hand staying splayed over the table. His pointer finger twitched. “Sometimes the old games are the best, Ella. They’re the most fun.”
I managed to stifle the shiver that went through me at the sound of his voice. “But I don’t know how to play this one.”
Xander smiled, a flash of white. “I think you’re playing it very well.”
I swallowed down a dry throat, my whole attention riveted on him. “We haven’t started playing yet.’
