Page 49 of Roulette Rodeo
“Drugged?”
Bingo.
My veteran alpha pieces it together like a jigsaw puzzle begging to be completed.
Guilt coils the pit of my stomach as black stars bloom across my vision. I’d never envision what an Alpha would look like when the solid wall of emotionlessness comes undone, and yet I watch it in slow motion; that steely calm in Shiloh’s forest-green eyes shatter into raw terror.
He jerks forward, movement swift and desperate—an instinct to rescue burning in him.
That flash of vulnerability, that fierce urge to save her—it sears her craving.
Oddly enough, it’s all the strength she needs to let go, knowing that somehow she’d fall into the arms of a man she’s just met, and yet seemed to navigated this crazy unpredictable world to find her.
Could he save her from this impending doom was the real question she didn’t have time to wonder upon…
My eyes roll back; her limbs fold like spent paper and how the darkness unfurls at the edges of my sight.
All I can do is surrender to its inviting bliss.
In a world this brutal, sometimes winning means embracing the cost of losing…
HOUSE OF BROKEN CARDS
~RAFE~
The moment her speech shifts from that perfectly crafted taunt to something slow and confused, I know we've been played.
It's subtle at first—a slight drag on her consonants, a pause between thoughts that shouldn't require consideration. But I've spent too many years reading tells at poker tables and in boardrooms to miss the signs.
This omega—this Rowenna Vale who calls herself Red—is struggling to maintain consciousness while trying to pretend everything is fine.
Her garnet eyes, which had been locked on Shiloh with an intensity that made something ugly twist in my chest, suddenly dim. The spark that had lit them from within, that defiant fire that had made her strip down to lingerie and box on stage for a room full of alphas, flickers and dies like someone cut the power.
"What's wrong with her?" Talon asks, his usual barely-contained energy shifting into concern.
I huff, the sound sharp enough to cut glass.
"Don't tell me this douche sold us some defective omega or some shit."
The words are harsh, deliberately so.I need them to be.Because if I don't armor myself in cruelty, I might have to acknowledge the way my chest tightens watching her sway on her feet like a broken doll.
Six hours.
That's all it took for our carefully ordered world to tilt off its axis. Six hours since Shiloh had returned from his "reconnaissance" mission reeking of cherries and trouble. In that lotted time of him pacing like a caged animal, clutching those ridiculous red panties like they were made of gold instead of lace - and the mere scent of that fabric was driving us all wild despite us trying to ignore it.
One hundred million dollars.
We'd spent one hundred million dollars on a single omega. Not on property, not on investments that guaranteed returns, not on expanding our territory or securing our operations.On a woman.A virgin omega, apparently, who'd somehow burrowed under Shiloh's skin deep enough that he'd mobilized our entire network to infiltrate this gaudy excuse for a casino.
And now she looked like she was about to drop dead, proving our astronomical investment was about to swirl down the drain like everything else in this godforsaken city.
The only thing that stops me from complete revolt against this insanity is her scent.
Even from across the room, it calls to me.
Wild cherries and spiced honey, smoke and that aroma that’s uniquely feminine that makes my alpha instincts roar to life despite my best efforts to strangle them. It's the same scent that had clung to those panties Shiloh had been carrying around like a talisman. The ones we'd had to practically pry from his grip to understand why our most emotionless brother had suddenly gone into full mission mode over a stranger.
A storage closet, he'd said, like that explained everything.
