Page 24 of Roulette Rodeo
"This is such a naughty Vegas thing to do," I said to the empty closet, already reaching for the waistband of my shorts. "But hell, why the fuck not?"
Vegas was built on bad decisions and unlikely odds. On betting everything on a single hand and sometimes, against all probability, winning. This alpha had found me in a city of threemillion people, in a gym that separated our kinds, in a storage closet that should have been locked.
If that wasn't fate laughing at statistics, I didn't know what was.
I carefully folded what I was leaving behind, placed it precisely where he couldn't miss it, and weighed it down with the defunct pen. On the sticky note, I’d wrote the only other thing I could think of before the ink ran out, but now it worked in my favor because it wasn’t my name, but something better.
Something that would tell him exactly who I was if he was smart enough to figure it out.
A clue. A puzzle. A game.
Vegas was all about games, after all.
And I'd just decided to play my first hand.
Would he figure it out?
Would he understand the message in what I'd left?
I smiled to myself, already heading for the door on legs that had finally remembered how to work.
This was insane. Reckless. Completely against every rule I'd built for my survival.
But as I slipped out of the closet, his scent still clinging to my skin like a promise, I couldn't bring myself to care.
He said all he needed was my name.
And maybe he’ll figure it out and keep his word.
Find me, Daddy Alpha.
LUCKY HAND
~SHILOH~
The alpha's head made a satisfying crack against the concrete wall, leaving a smear of blood that would be a bitch for maintenance to clean. Not my problem.
He slid down like a marionette with cut strings, joining his two packmates in various states of consciousness on the gym floor. The leader—if you could call someone who pissed himself at the first real threat a leader—was the only one still fully awake, hands up in the universal gesture of 'please don't kill me.'
I cracked my neck, the vertebrae popping in sequence like dominoes falling. It was a habit from the sandbox—Afghanistan, not the playground kind, though both had their share of bullies who needed educational beatings.
"Please," the leader whimpered, scrambling backward until his back hit the wall. The puddle of piss spread beneath him, and the acrid smell made my nose wrinkle. "Please, I can give you anything."
I took a step forward, letting my full height and build fill his vision.
Special forces had taught me that intimidation was fifty percent size, fifty percent intent.
Right now, my intent was radiating off me like heat from desert sand.
"What could you possibly have," I said, voice low and controlled, "that would be worthy of my mercy?"
His hands shook as he fumbled in his pocket.
For a second, I tensed, ready for a weapon.
But what he pulled out was worse—a gambling chip.
Not just any chip.
