Sin City Collectors Boxed Set: Aces Wild, Ante Up, All in

by Amanda Carlson

  “Is she breathing?” Diesel called, trying hard to focus on staying in his human form. As much as he would welcome a full-moon change, as it would help him defeat Mason, he couldn’t risk it without knowing if Sofia was okay.

  “Yep, but barely.” Neve faced Diesel. “It’s up to you, but I vote we take him out and save her later. She’s strong. She can handle it.”

  “You don’t have the guts to kill me, beast,” Mason said as he began to struggle in earnest. “You’re just the same scared boy I remember.”

  “I was eight years old, you asshole. Of course I was scared. But I still came after you again and again.”

  “Yes, you did, and because of that, your father died.” He laughed. “You could’ve spared him if you’d only backed off like he begged you to do.”

  “You’re lying,” Diesel raged. “I saw what you did to my father. You weren’t going to let him live. You wanted my mother, and my father never would’ve let you take her. He was going to die, or you were.”

  “Ah, yes, your sweet, sweet mother. How is she these days? I plan to pay her a visit soon. She still has something I want very much. Plus, she’s still fertile, which is always perfect. I haven’t fathered a shifter yet, as you are all so resistant to new ideas.”

  “You’re not going to go near my mother.” A wash of red cascaded over his eyes. The only reason he hadn’t pulled Mason’s head from his body was Sofia. His beast seemed to know they had to make sure she was okay first. “My mother didn’t want you then, and she doesn’t want you now.” Diesel’s vocal cords were straining, the words becoming more and more garbled as the change took him. “You ruined my family, you bastard.”

  “Of course she didn’t want me. It never makes a difference.” Diesel put a stronger hold on Mason, but the incubus just smiled up at him. The asshole had to be toying with him. Diesel’s muscles began to slacken against his will. Mason was using his magic. It infuriated Diesel, but there was nothing he could do. “She has a unique strength, your mother. Do you know what that is? No? By the look on your face, I’m certain you do not. Your mother is a female alpha.” Mason chuckled at Diesel’s dumbfounded expression. “I know, shocking. She’s very powerful and very rare. She is one of very few known in the world. Simply stated, your mother is a prize.”

  “That’s not true,” Diesel said, shaking him hard enough to make his head rock forward and back. “I’d know if my mother was an alpha. We sense these things. We’re fucking werewolves.”

  Mason began to laugh uncontrollably. “Your mother has been very shrewd, I will grant her that. She’s done everything to protect you, and cloak herself, of course. It’s all been for the benefit of you and your dear brother. To give you ‘normal’ lives, I assume. But who knows, maybe she gets off on keeping the information to her—”

  “Enough talking, demon,” Diesel snarled. “If I can’t kill you yet, I can—”

  Mason laid one finger on Diesel’s chest, and Diesel exploded backward, feeling as though a battering ram had struck his chest. Damn it. He was getting sick of that trick.

  The incubus had been in control all along. But that wasn’t enough to deter Diesel. Nothing could. He’d just keep coming until the incubus finally went down. Diesel was up again in less than a second, a red haze covering his eyes so thickly he could barely see. He was in the process of a full shift. He heard Luke call his name, but he couldn’t make out what his brother was saying.

  Diesel had only one thing on his mind as he stalked forward. The incubus had the nerve to continue to laugh. Once he was close enough, the demon said, “Do you ever wonder why you have this affliction, wolf?”

  Diesel heard him but couldn’t form any coherent words to respond, but that didn’t slow his pace.

  “It’s because you’re a dual alpha.” Mason spread his hands wide. “Did you know that? That’s the reason it was so easy to tweak your genes when you were so young, to confound and confuse them. And I did it like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Both your alpha sides now battle each other each time the moon reaches its greatest gravitational pull. Having two alpha parents had made you incredibly strong, but I brought you to your knees with one spell. Your sides will always clash with each other, and they will eventually tear you apart. Your demise might be my greatest achievement to date.” Diesel plucked Mason up by the neck and lifted him off the floor. The incubus seemed unfazed. “I meted out the punishment your mother deserved for denying me and the one you deserved for interfering with my prize.” Mason hissed, his teeth gritted in anger. “If it hadn’t been for you, I would’ve had her for my own long ago.”

  Diesel shook him. “You lose now, demon.” Diesel’s voice was still rough, but miraculously his human side began to fight its way through. Diesel shook his head. The red began to ease and clarity came back. He was still in the middle of his shift, but for the first time in his life, he felt in control during a lunar lust. He smiled into the demon’s face. “You’re not going to win this one, Mason.”

  The leader of The Sumerians paled. Diesel immediately felt pressure on his chest. The incubus was trying to spell him. Diesel waited for a beat, but nothing happened. Instead, the magic energy raced along his forearms, but it wouldn’t penetrate his skin.

  Diesel smiled. This time, he flashed his fangs.

  The incubus’s eyes widened. “But that’s not possible,” Mason sputtered. “My magic is superior to your strength in all ways! You cannot best me. You are my playthings.”

  “We’re nobody’s playthings and we never have been.” Diesel glanced over and saw Sofia standing with her arms crossed. It was a blessed sight. She was okay, and better yet, she was extremely pissed off. “Demon, there’s nobody who can tweak genes better than I can. And guess what? I trump you in spellcrafting, too. I’m thinking you would’ve benefited from a little formal education. But now it’s too late.” She nodded once to Diesel. “End him.”

  Sofia watched as Diesel took Mason down. It wasn’t as gory as she thought it would be. The incubus’s magic would no longer work on Diesel, so it wasn’t really a fair fight, but it was justly deserved all the same. About four minutes after they’d arrived, Sofia had figured out the demon’s spell signature and had created a counterspell, mimicking the kind of thing Jake could do naturally.

  She’d known from the beginning Mason would spell her. She’d been the biggest threat in the room. And his spell had been a doozy—he hadn’t been lying about killing her—but she’d already set the net in place to collect his magic as it cascaded into her body. Witch Defense Tactics 101. It had worked like a charm. She’s wasn’t a master for nothing.

  What she had, that Mason had obliviously lacked, was training. A pureblood witch knew the tricks. Mason had been self-taught, but she couldn’t dismiss his unique power. He’d created something very potent between his supernatural sides, something she’d never seen before. She would have to be on the lookout for half-sex-demon half-witches in the future.

  Diesel turned to her immediately, Mason at his feet. Diesel was still huge, locked in his battle with the moon, but seemed to be shifting down on his own.

  He was breathtaking to her. She loved seeing him in his strongest form. Like that, Sofia wanted to believe that nothing could best him. He was her beautiful force of nature.

  He stalked straight toward her.

  Before she could get a word in, he had her in his grasp. His arms pulling her tightly to him, his mouth hungry. He didn’t seem to care about anyone else in the room, so Sofia decided she wouldn’t either. As his tongue delved inside her, seeking and claiming her mouth like he owned it, she did her best to match his intensity, pressing her body against his. He was warm, and she curled into his heat, her arms going around his torso.

  After a moment, a voice cleared behind them. “Um, yeah,” the dhampir said. “I guess we’ll just figure out what to do with all these dead demons ourselves. So, you know, don’t worry about it. Go ahead, take your time.”

  Diesel broke the kiss and turned toward
Neve, snarling at the intrusion. The dhampir put her hands up, and Sofia stifled a giggle as she peeked around Diesel’s massive shoulder.

  “No need to get noisy, wolf. We got it. Jake’s got a call in to Louie. A cleanup crew is on its way. But Louie’s going to want an explanation for all this.” Her hands swept the room, indicating the five dead incubi, including Mason, most of them with throwing stars in their heads.

  “He’ll get one when I’m good and ready,” Diesel growled. Without waiting for Neve to respond, Diesel took Sofia’s hand and tugged her along behind him. When they were out of the hangar, and Sofia was able to form a solid thought, she stopped walking, forcing Diesel to stop or drag her with him. He turned, his head bowed, his delicious blond hair covering an eye, waiting for her to speak.

  She bit her lip. “We can’t just leave the scene like this,” she said lamely.

  “We’ll come back in a minute.”

  “Ginger is missing.” She’d noticed that Ginger had left right after she’d shaken the incubus’s spell.

  “So is my brother.”

  “Did they go after Damien?”

  “That’s my guess.” He leaned down and took her in his arms again, drawing her close and kissing her thoroughly, almost making her forget they were in the middle of a complicated mess.

  She managed to pull away, but it took supreme effort. Sofia placed her forehead on his chest, leaning in. “I know we agreed to let Luke go with Ginger, but you believe she’s innocent, right? She’s just trying to do what’s best for her brother. You’d do the same for Luke. We have to run interference with the agency.”

  “We’ll figure it out.” Diesel bent down to nip at her earlobe. “Just not right this minute. I believe in Louie, and the organization, or I wouldn’t be trying to become a Collector. They do great things for the supernatural race. The agency plays fair, they keep us in check. We have to trust in that.” Before she could object, he tilted her chin up with a single finger and placed a kiss on her nose. “Jake is in our corner. He’s Louie’s nephew, and he’ll make him listen to us.” Before she could figure out how to respond, he turned and began to tug her along again.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, her legs working double time to keep up.

  “To my truck.”

  “And what’s the plan when we get there?”

  “To do all the things you told me earlier would take too long to describe. It’s time to ante up.”

  Chills raced up her spine and heat pooled between her legs. His voice held possession, and it made her heart sing. She let him lead her toward the truck, because that’s what she wanted, too. They’d parked it a few miles away in a remote area, and as they walked, she turned over what she’d heard Mason tell Diesel back at the hangar.

  Even though she’d been hit by Mason’s magic, she had feigned being out cold to try to give Diesel an edge. She finally asked, “Mason insinuated you got in the way of him kidnapping your mother. The way he phrased it made it seem like you saved her.”

  Diesel shook his head as he glanced over his shoulder. “All I did was become a thorn in his side until help arrived. I kept at him. I was relentless, but I didn’t save anyone. My father died right in front of me.”

  “What help came?”

  “The Vegas pack. All the wolves who live within a few hours’ radius of Vegas are my packmates. It doesn’t matter if we’re not related by blood, we’re still pack. They’d refused to believe an incubus could be a real threat when my father told them my mother was being stalked. But once Mason came into our home and attacked us, Luke was the one to sound the alarm.”

  “Luke?”

  “Yep, he’s the tenacious one in the family. He never gives up.” Diesel chuckled. “He was only six, but he called every number in that phone book, and he must’ve been pretty persuasive, because they came. All of them. It was enough to drive the incubi, not only out of Vegas, but out of Nevada.”

  “How did you manage to keep coming at Mason?” Sofia asked. “Why didn’t he just knock you out? You were just a kid, and he was full of magic.”

  Diesel shrugged as they passed a huge boulder. The truck was tucked behind it. “I have no idea. Maybe he tried. I can’t remember exactly—”

  Sofia yanked Diesel’s arm back, surprising him into turning quickly, and brought him flat up against her chest. He looked down on her with the goofy grin on his face she loved. She could totally get used to that look. “You know what I think?”

  “No, what?” His mouth went up at the side.

  “I believe that before Mason tweaked your genes, you were immune to his spells outright. If you are truly a dual alpha, that’s a very powerful creature. And very rare. It would be along the lines of what Jake can do. Many powerful creatures have, or can build up, an immunity to witch’s spells. Mason knew you were a threat at eight years old, and likely he didn’t want to come up against you again, especially if your mother was still a target. So he did the only thing he could do: He changed a single piece of you.”

  Diesel shrugged. “That makes some sense, but now we’ll never know for sure. What concerns me more”—he grinned down on her—“is how I managed to stay fully coherent while I was in the middle of a moonstruck rage.”

  Now it was Sofia’s time to smile. “Once I probed you during your change, I learned that I couldn’t undo what Mason did to you without altering your genes. Doing that would’ve been too risky and unpredictable, especially since your system hasn’t been functioning normally for all these years. But what I did figure out is, I can make your brain sharp as a tack, no matter what happens, by amplifying the synapses in your brain.”

  “So now I get to be intelligent while I’m hulking out?” Diesel chuckled.

  She threaded her hands through his hair. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  He leaned down and slanted his mouth over hers, groaning as he did. He always kissed her with passion and intensity, and it was something that made her heart race every time.

  “You drive me absolutely insane, you know that?” He moved down the column of her neck, “The very first time I saw you walk into the bar, I knew I wanted you. But when Mason struck you down, my heart warred with my beast. The wolf wanted to kill Mason instantly, but my heart had to make sure you were okay. It wasn’t until I heard your voice that I was able to kill Mason. Now that I know you’re okay and the threat is gone, I need you.” His eyes sparked with clear intensity. “More than I’ve ever needed anyone. I want to feel every part of you, claim you.”

  “I need you, too,” she admitted, suddenly feeling shy. “The very first time I saw you, I nearly fell over. I’ve never been drawn to another man the way I am to you. It’s made my mind a jumble from the start. It’s hard for me to think straight around you.”

  Diesel bent down and scooped her up, heading straight for the back of the truck. “You have no idea, witch. You have no idea.”

  Diesel pressed Sofia close to him as he carried her to the back of his pickup. He couldn’t adequately express his need for her in words, so instead he planned to show her. His animal side was driving him with reckless intent to mate with her, to claim her as his own. Seeing her struck down and thinking, even for a second, that her life had been in serious danger had shaken him to the core. His feelings for her were something he’d never experienced with another before.

  He used one hand to lower the tailgate, and then set her gently on the edge.

  “We’re really going to do this in the back of the truck like teenagers after all?” Sofia asked, laughter in her voice.

  “Hey, at least it’s not in the front seat. They don’t call this the ‘bed’ of the truck for nothing,” he joked as he walked around the side and pulled open a plastic storage box. Everything he needed in case of an emergency was in there, including a quilted work blanket he used when hauling heavy equipment so it wouldn’t scratch up his pride and joy. The blanket was relatively clean, since he rarely did any hauling. He shook it out and laid it down.


  That’s when his chivalry ran out.

  Diesel strode up to her and lifted her back into his arms. She wrapped her legs around his middle as he stepped easily into the back of the truck, his long legs no match for the height. His mouth was on hers before her back hit the blanket. He tried to control himself, but it was going to be tough.

  He broke the kiss to see if she was okay with the level of intensity.

  “I’m fine,” Sofia panted. “I want this as much as you do. I’m ready to ante up, and I’m more than good with it being hard and fast.” To prove her point, she laced her hands behind his head and brought him back down on top of her with more strength than he’d thought possible.

  He groaned, rubbing his hardness into her sexy leathers. They were both still dressed, but that was about to change. He kissed her deeply then knelt astride as her as he ripped the T-shirt he’d borrowed from Jake in two, tossing the sides away in an instant. “I suppose I have to keep my jeans in one piece,” he said as he stood, his legs splayed over her as he grinned down at her. “I might need them when we’re done.”

  Sofia began to unbutton her leather vest beneath him, and he was suddenly riveted in place, one hand on his fly, the other thumb tucked into his waistband.

  He couldn’t move as he watched.

  She smiled up at him, knowing exactly what she was doing. She bit her lip as she ran her fingertips down her front, easing the vest open. “Do you like what you see?”

  As she revealed her perfect breasts, his intake of air was so sharp it whistled through his teeth. They were perfect. High, round, and firm. Her skin was beautiful, especially in the early-morning light. It was a flawless, and her breasts were peaked with beautiful, inviting pink tips.

  He licked his lips and discarded his jeans in the next instant.

  But before he could join her back on the blanket, she began to shimmy out of her leather pants. She laughed as she tugged them down, her dark hair fanning out around her, a halo of soft waves.