by Dante King
“Thank you,” Carli purred, meaning it from the bottom of her heart. “I’m yours, Derek. You know that, right?”
“I know,” I told her, giving her pussy one more thrust before pulling out. “It’s making me seriously consider this crazy scheme you and Soojin have cooked up.”
Carli rolled back into her seat, smoothing down her dress. She licked her lips with satisfaction, giving me that ‘freshly fucked’ look that only a truly satisfied woman can make.
“We’ll see,” she purred. “Honestly, all I want is you, Derek.”
That made sense to me. I wanted her, as well. Whatever else happened, the two of us were bound now. Nothing was going to change that.
We had all of a minute to come down from the awesome high of backseat sex. As if she’d just been waiting for us to finish, the privacy partition slowly slid back down into the floor, revealing Soojin sitting pretty like nothing was going on.
At the last moment, I realized Carli’s ass prints were all over the glass. I felt bad for the person who’d have to clean that later—or maybe they’d enjoy it. The thought made me feel angry. Why should anyone else get to enjoy what was mine?
Huh? What was going on with me? Was this the Dragon’s influence? Being a shifter?
“Just wanted to let you know,” Soojin said cheerfully, “that we should be arriving at the Celesta in the next few minutes. You two having a nice drive?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, glancing over at Carli. She wasn’t even trying to hide what we’d been doing—she splayed across the seat, sipping her drink like a cat with an entire bowl of cream.
“Good. I want you two to be on your best behavior. The supernatural set don’t tolerate troublemakers.” Soojin gave me a wink
“Yes, ma’am,” Carli and I said as one. God, how had I gotten myself into this?
The limo roared down the highway, the Celesta Casino almost in sight. Where our destiny would begin.
Chapter 17
At first, I thought the Celesta had to be a mirage.
There was no way an attraction like this could be located just outside of my ordinary, sleepy city. Even though I’d seen commercials for the Celesta before, with a heavy emphasis on the luxury of its resort hotel and casino, I’d always pictured something a little on the rundown side.
As our limousine pulled up to the casino, all three of us pressed our faces to the one-way glass of the passenger-side windows, oohing and aahing appreciatively. It towered over the skyline like a miniature mountain range, a thirty-story tall steel behemoth. An array of colored lights blazed in a circle around it, lighting it up with all the colors of the rainbow. Next to the main bulk of the casino, a narrow tower of suites overlooked the city, the windows sparkling like stars in the darkening sky.
“Wow, this place is huge,” Carli whispered, nibbling her bottom lip. The shifter looked almost as excited as she had when she climbed in my lap a few minutes ago. “Does it always look like this?”
Huh? What did she mean, always?
“Only on special occasions,” Soojin said, giving both of us a secretive smile. I could tell she didn’t just mean that it was all lit up.
Seeing my confusion, the apothecary added: “The complex normally sports a more… subdued appearance. For the reasons that Carli is always mentioning, it just doesn’t do to have civilians bearing witness to supernatural creatures in their midst.”
“What she means,” Carli purred, “is that mages make the place look bland as fuck to appeal to the normies. Then, during a special event like a Council, they tear down the illusion and let it all hang out.” The catgirl brimmed with excitement, practically bouncing up and down in her seat. “Ohh, I can’t wait to take the tour! Walking around the Celesta in the middle of a Council is going to be so exciting!”
We didn’t pull up to the front gate, the way I’d expected. Instead, our driver took a side route around the casino and pulled into a low-ceilinged tunnel. Running lights ran along either side, giving the tunnel a futuristic look that made us feel like we were traveling to some fancy cyberpunk locale.
At the bottom of the ramp, the tunnel opened into a subterranean parking garage. The air was cool and damp, and the concrete walls faintly thrummed with the bassline of music playing somewhere inside the event plaza.
The limo came to a stop near a bank of elevators, along with a half-dozen other cars that were equally fancy. The faint whir of the driver’s compartment partition rang in my ears—our chauffeur was already turning around in his seat.
“This is it,” the driver said courteously, hopping out to open the door for us.
“He’ll wait in the parking deck,” Soojin said, gesturing to the rows and rows of spaces with her chin. “Once we’re ready to leave, we’ll just signal a valet, and they’ll summon our ride.”
“Not that we’ll want to leave!” Carli purred, her face as bright and eager as Christmas morning. “I’ve been looking forward to getting out for so long! I’m not like you, Soojin—I don’t have a network of shifters supporting me. I’m a lone wolf.”
“Or lone catgirl,” I said with cheeky smile.
Carli turned around and glared. “Raiju,” she purred, the words so low in her throat they almost came out as a growl. “Which means I’m a legendary-class shifter, Derek. Like you. It’s a lonely life being a shifter without a clan. Normally I have to lay low—which means I don’t ever get invited to parties like this one.”
Soojin gave Carli a long, searching look. “I didn’t realize that,” the raven-haired beauty said, smoothing down her red dress.
“It’s dangerous to be around this many shifters and mages,” Carli said with a shrug. “Well, normally at least. The Council of Wand & Claw is so safe, no one would dare try anything.”
“You look like it’s your birthday,” I said, sliding an arm around Carli’s waist. The slit in her dress ran all the way up to her hip with the motion, making it clear to anyone looking that the shifter wasn’t wearing panties. Even having just been inside her, the sight sent a surge of lust through me.
“I feel like it,” Carli said, grinning from ear-to-ear. “Best birthday present ever!”
“When is your birthday?” I asked, leaning over and murmuring into her ear. As I did, my hand strayed to her ass, squeezing it through the thin fabric. “I’ll have to give you something special.”
Carli giggled. “As long as you treat me the way you did in the back of the limo,” she whispered huskily. “You make me feel like the most special girl in the world, Derek. I feel so glamorous on your arm…”
Soojin stuck out an elbow. With a gorgeous woman on either side of me, I escorted my dates into the elevator. The driver gave us a studious nod then retreated as the door closed.
“Swanky,” I said, checking out our reflection in the green marble.
Gold fixtures filled the elevator, which rose rapidly as soon as the door closed. I’d just started to think about using the privacy to fool around with Soojin and Carli when the door opened, emptying us on the main event floor.
Instantly, all other thoughts left my head.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, guiding my girls out of the elevator. “They really do give this place a makeover, don’t they?”
As it turned out, the old-school look of mine and my date’s outfits matched the decorations perfectly. The interior of the Celesta was art deco as hell, like the lavish parties of The Great Gatsby brought into the twenty-first century.
Crowds of well-dressed mages and shifters crowded around table games, throwing craps and playing roulette while elegant women in dresses just as revealing and fancy as Carli’s and Soojin’s watched on expectantly. A great glass chandelier hung above the gambling floor, shining with a thousand points of light.
“I don’t think I’ve got enough net worth to hang out here,” I said with a laugh. “Soojin, you haven’t been hiding your double life as a secret millionaire from us, have you?”
Soojin tittered through her fingers. “I do well enough f
or myself,” she said, her eyes shining, “but no. I wouldn’t worry about that, Derek. The Council will take care of us, I’m sure.”
Even as she spoke, a slender man in a black suit hastened to the elevator. “Mr. Sinclair,” he said, a sickly smile spreading across his pale face. “Ms. Weber. Ms. Lee. Welcome to the Celesta. As you can see, gaming has begun. Refreshments are being served all throughout the hotel.”
I gave Carli a little swat on her ass. “We’re here for the Council,” I said, raising my voice enough that nearby shifters and mages turned their heads. “If there’s an afterparty, though, my women and I will most certainly make a showing.”
The man lowered his head. “Very good, sir. Allow me to present this to you.”
He held a black plastic card in his hand, covered in silver numbers. A credit card?
“Complements of the house,” he explained, nodding at my women as well as me. “For you and yours. Chips can be disbursed at any of the table games.”
Ah. So everyone here was playing with house money. That explained the extravagant bets and carefree atmosphere. It was a lot easier to play-act as 1940’s socialites when you weren’t risking your own wealth.
“Sounds fun,” I said, taking the card. The man nodded and moved away as quickly as he came. “Do either of you ladies gamble?”
Soojin nodded. “I could be convinced. Is that a roulette table over there?”
“How glamorous!” Carli’s eyes lit up. “I’ve always wanted to have some cute dame blow on my dice before I roll them for luck, just like in the movies!” She snuggled up against me. “Will you teach me how to play, Derek?”
I grinned. Sometimes growing up in a family of degenerate gamblers had its benefits.
“Sure thing, babe,” I said, grabbing a flute of champagne from a passing waiter. “Soojin, you coming?”
With Soojin and Carli both in hand, I escorted my two dates across the floor. One main thoroughfare cut through the center of the marble floor, with table games on either side. A row of slot machines dominated one far wall, which had been taken over completely by mages in dashing blue robes. They must have been working some magic on the machinery—every three or four pulls, one of the machines exploded in a burst of electronic fanfare, spilling chips across the floor.
“Oh wow,” Carli said, movement from the far end of the room catching her eye. “Looks like we’re not the only legendary shifters in town…”
Sitting at the roulette table in an elegant cream-colored suit with tails was a man with a basilisk’s head. His scales glittered in the light from the chandelier—it took several moments for me to realize that glitter was painted on, a kind of shifter makeup. His forked tongue shot from the slit of his mouth as he sized up the table, then moved two short stacks of chips onto several black numbers.
Several women wearing very revealing dresses surrounded the shifter—along with a half-dozen beefy guys in ill-fitting suits. Security, for sure.
“That’s Rococo Basilisk,” Soojin said, her eyes widening in surprise. She looked at the shifter like she’d just seen an old sports star or an aging movie director sitting at the table. “He’s a legend among the shifter set. A feared assassin of supernatural creatures, fond of petrification as a signature method.”
“He’s made more statues than Michaelangelo,” Carli added with a snicker. “No surprise he’s on the guest list. I am shocked to see her, though.”
I followed Carli’s gaze to the craps table which was our destination. A large group of shifters had coalesced around a central figure—one who’d clearly been holding the dice for much longer than an ordinary roller. After a look at her, I could see why. This woman was striking.
Her skin was burnished bronze, set to an achingly beautiful contrast with the tight leather outfit stretched skin-tight over her curves. Unlike everyone else at the Council of Wand & Claw, this shifter hadn’t gotten the memo about the dress code—but not a person present would dare correct her. She wore runes traced in dark paint over her arms, shoulders, and forehead, and wore a headdress that looked like Zeus himself were raining down hell on her hairline. This woman looked beautiful, so much so that half the men present were more focused on her than the money they were winning or losing—but she also looked intimidating as all hell.
“Who on Earth is that?” I asked, nudging Soojin. As if she’d heard me across the crowded room, the woman looked up from her toss of the dice and locked eyes with me, seeing me for the first time. She gave an almost imperceptible nod, then turned her attention back to the dice.
“Red seven,” the man in charge of the table called out. “That’s a winner!”
Over the cheers, Soojin drew close. “The fact that you don’t recognize Tallulah Binesi,” the apothecary whispered with a smirk, “is the clearest sign that you haven’t been a shifter very long.”
“She’s my idol,” Carli said, frozen in her tracks. A deep sense of awe stole over the Raiju’s features. “Her shifter form is the Thunderbird! Forget our little casino—she could power all of Las Vegas with the amount of voltage she’s capable of putting out!”
Interesting.
“And you’re about to play craps with her,” I told Carli, putting an arm around her waist. “Aren’t you glad you’ve got me to help you understand the game?”
I expected Carli to be over the moon at the idea of meeting such a celebrity. Yet something hesitant filled her stance. “Maybe… maybe I better work my way up to that,” she whispered, clearly comparing herself to the elegant shifter. “Get a few drinks in me first, too—a little liquid courage, you know?”
“Yeah, I can understand that,” I said, my gaze traveling from Tallulah to her entourage. Like the basilisk neck-deep in his roulette winnings, this shifter had a number of heavyset men in shiny suits surrounding her, all of them wearing earpieces.
“Have you noticed that everyone seems to be keeping to their own?” Soojin asked, leaning in close as a shifter in fox makeup pushed past us toward a table advertising baccarat. “This Council’s supposed to be about harmony, but it feels more like a wedding where the bride and groom are from different religions—mages on one side, shifters on the other.”
At her prompting, I glanced around the room. In what seemed to be a trend, Soojin’s powers of observation were more astute than the rest of us: the room was indeed segregated between the two main camps. The mages clustered around the slot machines and the games involving cards like blackjack and Texas hold ‘em—the shifters, on the other hand, favored roulette, craps, and keno.
Of course, I thought, slowly scanning the room with my gaze. Even in the halls of power, high school clique bullshit won the day.
Well. Maybe someone should shake things up a bit.
“Let’s find out how much money the Celesta put on these cards,” I said with a grin, leading Carli and Soojin across the room. Their stances changed when they realized we’d left the shifter side of things behind—I’d waded deep into mage territory, heading for the card tables.
“Uh, Derek?” Soojin whispered. Heads were already beginning to turn to regard our little breakaway group. “We’re kind of out on our own here…”
“I want to play some blackjack,” I said loudly—loud enough for all the mages around us to hear. “It’s my favorite game. Did you know blackjack is the only major game at a casino where a well-informed player has better odds than the house?”
I had no idea if that was true or not—I’d heard it in a movie once. It just felt good to say it, and then watch the eyes of mages around us narrow.
In short order, we made our way to the tables near the slot machines. The tables didn’t have the ordinary markers I was used to seeing to show bets: $5, $10, etc. Instead, each sported a card with a different rune written on it, almost like the ones adorning Tallulah Binesi’s arms. Nearly all the tables were full, save for a few with a more intricate rune than the rest.
It was at one of these tables that I parked myself. A waiter appeared at my side instantly,
as if by magic—in this place, maybe teleportation really was involved.
“May I get you something, sir?” the waiter asked. “Or your guests?”
Both Soojin and Carli ordered more champagne. As for me, I decided to stay sober for the moment—I needed my wits about me.
Three mages sat at the blackjack table, each dressed more flamboyantly than the last. Though the mage side of the equation had stuck rigorously to the event’s dress code, each had put their own flair on the restrictions: one wore a pair of ridiculous-looking goggles, while the woman next to me had a shawl wrapped around her neck covered in constellations.
As I sat down, all the mages rose as one and left.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, then,” I said, turning to the dealer.
From the telltale residue of spell energy surrounding this dealer, I surmised that they were a mage as well. Either that, or they’d had a sorcery placed on them by the mages running the casino, that would erase their memories of anything supernatural after the Council was over. For this woman, she’d probably just remember another boring night working at a corporate event a week from now.
More mages stopped what they were doing to stare as the dealer dealt me my cards. Neither Soojin nor Carli tried to join the table—their attention was on the growing group of people startled by my presence outside of the shifter clique.
Two aces lay on my side of the table. The dealer drew a seven, with the other card face-down.
“I’d like to split these,” I told the dealer, giving Carli a little nod. “And double down on them both.” Suddenly, I realized I’d gotten ahead of myself. “How much is the bet at this table, anyhow?”
“One thousand dollars per hand,” the dealer replied blandly, glancing at my card in the slot. “If this is the first time you’ve used that card tonight, there’ll be five thousand dollars of Celesta chips on it, gratis.”
I swallowed hard. I’d just wagered four thousand dollars on this hand!?
