Page 31 of Roulette Rodeo
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
High tides. The ultimate game.
Where alphas didn't just gamble money—they gambled for ownership.Winner takes an omega, contract and all. It was legal,technically. The contracts we'd signed gave Marnay the right to transfer our "employment" to approved buyers.
By the end of tonight, one of us would be gone.
And once you’re in their hands…all bets are off.
"Fuck," someone whispered.
"Who?" Tanya's voice was sharp with fear. "Did they request anyone specific?"
"I didn't hear much," Madison admitted. "But Marnay is losing his shit. He's changing the entire theme for tonight."
"To what?" Nicole asked, though I could see her mentally calculating her chances. She was pretty enough, young and could be a spark of wildness than the usual submissive Omega, but her scent was ordinary.
Vanilla and cotton, pleasant but forgettable.
Alpha want more than that.
What she’s discovered since playing these games is they enjoy being able to flaunt their Omega like a grand prize, which meant uniqueness in scent was a lot more powerful than the average Omega would think.
"Red," Madison began, and suddenly every eye in the room turned to me.
I rolled my eyes.
"Guys, it's not centered on me."
Tanya huffed, flicking her perfectly styled hair over her shoulder. "You wish a pack would revolve around you. Billions? Please. You're valuable, but you're not that valuable."
The others laughed, that sharp, mean-girl cackle that was meant to cut. Three years ago, it would have. Now it just sounded like scared girls whistling in the dark.
"Aw," Briar's voice was sugar over arsenic. "Is someone jealous that their vanilla-pudding scent can't compete with actual complexity? Don't worry, sweetie. I'm sure someone with no taste will want you eventually."
Tanya's face went red, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. The others looked scandalized.
"So the theme is just... red?" Another girl asked, trying to defuse the tension.
Madison shook her head.
"Red lace and cherries."
My heart stopped.
Red lace.
Cherries.
It couldn't be...right?
The odds were astronomical. Vegas was a city of three million people. The chances that the alpha from the storage closet would walk into the Crimson Roulette on the same night, with enough money to play high tides...
But he'd smelled like power, and to have authority in this crazed world of high stacks, you had to have money. A quality that didn't need to announce itself. The kind of controlled power that came from knowing you could buy your way out of any problem.
And I'd left him red lace panties.
"Red lace, huh?" Briar's voice was carefully neutral, but I could see the wheels turning behind her eyes.
