Aces Wild: A Sin City Collectors Novella Read online

  ACES WILD

  A Sin City Collectors Novella

  Amanda Carlson

  Welcome to Vegas. Home of the Sin City Collectors. The job description is easy: Bring the offending supernatural in to the Boss and don’t ask any questions.

  Nevada Hamilton has learned a few things since becoming a Sin City Collector, and staying away from vampires is one of them. After botching her first Collection, the vamp getting away after causing as much damage as possible, she hasn’t been assigned to another one since. But when she receives her next playing card, she’s in for a surprise. Not only is a vampire her next target, but they’ve paired her up to make sure she gets the job done right. Refusing a Collection is not an option, but when she discovers who she’s working with, making the mission as difficult as possible for her new partner becomes her top priority…

  Being a hellhound isn’t enough to protect Jake Troubadour from Nevada Hamilton, no matter how thick his skin is. Finding out he has to work with the beautiful dhampir, after not seeing her for three years, is a low blow—but Jake is a professional. He takes his Collections as seriously as he does running his bar. He’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done, but after that, he’s out. No more chances for the girl who wrecked his bike and scarred his soul so long ago. But even with his heart dead set against it, this hellhound quickly finds he’s not immune to love after all.

  “This fun, fresh series ups the ante and takes you on a wild ride you won’t forget! Clever, fast-paced, flirty—Viva Las Vegas!”

  ~ Gena Showalter, NYT Best Selling Author

  What’s Collected in Vegas, stays in Vegas…

  *All Sin City Collectors Novellas are stand alone paranormal romance novellas, each with their own set of characters and happy endings, and are all set within the world of the SCC. Our goal is for you to sit back and enjoy the ride as each author presents their unique story. Places and characters will overlap, so be sure to look for your favorites and stay tuned for more novellas!

  ACES WILD: A Sin City Collectors Novella

  Copyright © 2014 Amanda Carlson, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-9903928-0-4

  Email: [email protected]

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  This book is dedicated to:

  This is all for you, Kristen Painter. We wouldn’t be here without your big, beautiful brain.

  “What’s this supposed to mean?” Nevada Hamilton plucked the playing card off the table between the tips of two fingernails like it had a disease. Buddy Randle, her casino dealer, had the decency to look slightly abashed. “I don’t Collect vampires,” she said. “The Boss knows that.”

  Neve palmed the card and slapped it face-up in front of Buddy, right on the soft green baize cloth where the regular gamblers placed their bets. Once the card was back on the table, she glared at it, her lips pursed to hide her irritatingly sharp incisors.

  Her fangs were hardly noticeable, but that wasn’t the point.

  Neve didn’t Collect vampires. Period.

  Instead of numbers, this particular playing card had a tiny set of fangs in each corner. The body held a detailed picture of a nearby hotel with a single room number printed beneath it. The card had been made by someone in the back to be delivered specifically to Neve by her dealer.

  This was her assignment for the week.

  Nevada Hamilton was a Sin City Collector (SCC), and her job parameters were clear: Do what the playing card tells you and don’t ask any questions.

  Her only objective was to bring the offending supernatural in to the Boss. Once they were detained, the appropriate punishment was meted out. Jail time, banishment, or worse. The supes’ penalty usually fit the crime. But in the end, once her job was over, and the supe was Collected, it ceased to be Neve’s concern. There was no follow-up.

  That was it.

  But this time her intended Collection happened to be a vamp, and that wasn’t going to happen.

  Being a Collector hadn’t been Neve’s first choice in life, but it paid the bills. And, surprisingly, it’d turned out to be a job she was fairly good at. It was definitely a big step up from coaxing incredibly rich Vegas tourists out of some of their hard-earned cash, which had been her last gig. She’d hustled so skillfully her victims never had a clue until she was long gone. Neve wasn’t necessarily proud of her past, but limited education and nonexistent parental involvement throughout her life had tipped the scales so low they’d been dragging on the ground.

  She’d done what she had to do to survive. There weren’t a lot of job opportunities out there for a high school dropout with a delinquent attitude.

  But that had been her life before Louie had set her up, and now that she tread on the straight and narrow, life seemed to be going surprisingly well.

  Louie Fiore, a guardian of sorts, had brought her to the famed Blue Moon Casino on her twenty-first birthday three years ago, announcing that it was more than time. The Blue Moon was well known to almost every supernatural—and in her case every half-breed—across America, and possibly beyond, but she’d never been inside until Louie had walked her through the back door.

  So here she was.

  Staring at the infuriating playing card, which hadn’t had the decency to disappear. The fangs in the corners were detailed with a single drop of blood. That pissed her off. She curled her fingers into fists to refrain from punching the card through the table.

  “Neve, I know you’re upset, but the Boss knows what he’s doing.” Buddy finished shuffling a regular deck of playing cards and fanned them out on the table in front of her. There were a few humans scattered around the casino, but it was too early for a big crowd. Buddy’s table sat in a far corner on purpose. “Maybe it’s time to bury the vampire hang-up once and for all and move on, huh?” Buddy was from Jersey, and his accent was heavy on the long vowels.

  “I don’t have a vampire hang-up,” Neve grumbled. “I am a vampire, remember?”

  Well, she was actually a dhampir—half-human, half-vampire—but it still counted as vamp. In the wide world of things that went bump in the night, a dhampir was right up there. She was a powerful creature of both day and night. Her vamp genes made her strong, quick, and deadly—and she had the small, aggravating incisors to prove it—but her humanness allowed her to pass as normal. Her skin wasn’t chalky, she could walk in the sun, and she could eat and drink anything she pleased.

  For a supe, she considered it the best of both worlds.

  “No hang-up, my ass. You haven’t touched a vamp Collection since your very first week here.” Buddy fed the deck into a plastic box, then picked up a new one and started the process all over again. “Even though it was noted that you failed that particular Collection, there’s no real rule on what jobs you can and can’t take. It’s for the big guns to decide. Collectors don’t ever have a say.”

  Neve fingered the offensive card again and stood it up on its end, flicking it with the tip of her nail. Distaste ran through her veins in a flood of unhappiness—the same veins that carried the necessary blood through her system that made her heart beat.


  Dhampirs had hearts that beat, vampires didn’t.

  Her one and only vampire Collection had gone so abysmally she wondered why they’d even kept her on the payroll at all. She’d found out the hard way that vamps knew how to push her buttons like no other supernatural ever had. They enjoyed toying with their prey and making them bleed. Her quarry had been arrogant and slippery, baiting her at every turn, until he’d ultimately got away.

  “Fine,” Neve said, swiping the card off the table and sliding it smoothly into her back pocket so fast she knew Buddy hadn’t tracked it. Then she pushed back from the table. “But I hope the Boss doesn’t expect results, because there’s a strong likelihood he won’t get any.”

  That Collection had been the only one she’d ever failed in three years.

  Neve considered that a pretty good track record, but she wasn’t looking forward to losing another one. Three strikes and you were out of the SCC. They didn’t mess around.

  She turned to leave when Buddy cleared his throat behind her. “There’s one more thing.” She heard the hesitation in his voice and stopped, knowing this wasn’t going to be welcome information. “They thought you may have a little trouble accepting this assignment…so they’ve decided to partner you up for this one.”

  Neve spun back so quickly her long hair whipped around, tangling in her necklace. She yanked her hair free of the leather cord and tossed it behind her. “What did you say? SCC’s don’t have partners.”

  Buddy took a step backward, his face suddenly ashen. Neve realized her eyes must be leaking a little silver from their ducts. That always freaked him out.

  “Hey, I don’t make the rules.” He waved his hands in front of him. “I just pass them on, remember?”

  Neve wiped her eyes and cursed, noticing her nails had become pointed as well. She willed the little daggers back to normal and ran both fingers across her thighs to clear them off. They left small streaks across the denim, but it would wash out.

  It wasn’t really silver.

  That would be nature playing a cruel joke on her.

  Vampires couldn’t handle silver. Dhampirs were less sensitive, but it still stung. The tears leaking from her eyes were actually filled with millions of microscopic mercury particles. It had taken her too many years to find someone who wasn’t human to analyze it. She’d had to barter to get it done. Neve had no idea if it was normal for dhampirs to have mercury in their tear ducts, because she’d never met another. But she wasn’t complaining since the droplets gave her unusually enhanced vision, as mercury was highly reflective. The only problem was, when she was emotional, the fluid concentrated quickly and leaked out without her permission, causing people like Buddy to take a step back.

  It was a good thing she didn’t get emotional often or she wouldn’t be able to leave the house.

  After her fingers were dry, Neve spread her palms carefully on the casino table and leaned forward, trying to contain her mounting anger. “Listen, Buddy, I’m not going to work with a partner, so you can go tell the Boss I politely decline. I can handle this Collection on my own. I don’t need a hand-hold and I don’t have vamp hang-ups. I will get the job done.”

  “I can’t do that and you know it. Orders are orders.” Buddy recovered from his aversion to her tears and moved in closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. “And I suggest you don’t argue, Neve. Not only do you already have one strike against you, but Shelia saw you approach that couple who caused all the fuss last week. They were out nearly thirty-seven hundred dollars, and we all know their money didn’t just get up and walk away.” He mimed walking with his two fingers across the tabletop.

  Neve’s anger moved to furious indignation. She lifted her hands and bunched them into fists, making sure her nails stayed nice and tight. “I didn’t steal anyone’s money. They asked me for directions. That was it.”

  Buddy cocked his head at her. “We all know you have the quickest sleight of hand anyone has ever seen, Neve. You could’ve cleaned those two out before they knew what hit them. We also know you move too fast to be seen on surveillance. So at this point it’s your word against Shelia’s.”

  Shelia Dundy was a cold-hearted snake of a floor manager, and she’d hated Nevada from the first moment she’d laid eyes on her.

  “That may be true, but I didn’t do it,” Neve said.

  Buddy busied himself transferring the newly shuffled deck of cards in to the container and dismissed her with a nod. “Take my advice. You’ve only been here a short time in the scope of things. Take this job. Accept the company, and don’t make any waves. Waves get you in trouble. And you don’t want trouble from the Boss. Believe me. That’s a flaming barrel of shit you do not want to fall into.”

  That couldn’t be right.

  Jake Troubadour examined the playing card he held in his hand.

  Nevada Hamilton?

  “This has to be a joke,” he murmured as he studied the card once again. It’d been delivered to the bar via casino messenger not even five minutes ago, so he knew there hadn’t been a mistake.

  The playing card had a pair of fangs in each corner, a picture of a hotel, a room number, and then, surprisingly, the name Nevada Hamilton hastily scrawled across the bottom, almost as an afterthought. Under her name was a small icon, which looked like a pair of handcuffs, but he was pretty sure it was just two circles joined.

  That meant together.

  He and Nevada Hamilton were working on this assignment as a team.

  “You say something, Jake?” Diesel Jones, his bouncer and all-around heavyweight, was mopping the bar behind him. The guy did it all: served drinks, bounced, ordered liquor and supplies, and made sure everything stayed on track.

  Jake wouldn’t have been able to run his establishment without him, Diesel was his right hand.

  He glanced over at his friend and employee as he pushed away from the bar, tucking the card in his shirt pocket as he crossed his arms. “It’s nothing. Just a job I have to do, but this one looks like it’s going to be a little more…complicated than usual.”

  Complicated was a nice way to phrase it.

  Dealing with that woman was like diving into a bucket of nails headfirst. He’d never met a woman more infuriating than Nevada Hamilton.

  “What job you talking about? Here at the bar?” Diesel asked as he tossed the rag he’d been using into the sink.

  “Nope, something on the side for Louie,” Jake answered as he made his way around the bar.

  Louie Fiore was Jake’s uncle. Louie worked directly for the Boss. He was one of the most highly regarded supes in the area, and even though Diesel was on his way to becoming a proud member of the SCC, Jake couldn’t discuss the details of a Collection assignment with anyone.

  It was strictly against the rules.

  Except, apparently, now he’d be discussing it with Nevada Hamilton.

  “Gotcha,” Diesel said. “I’m done prepping the bar and I’m takin’ off. I’ll be back just before midnight, right before the doors open.”

  “Sounds good.” Jake nodded. “I may not be in tonight, depending on how this goes. Do you have backup? The moon goes full in two days.” Diesel was a shifter who had control issues with the moon. It was a condition that had kept him out of the Sin City Collectors thus far, but Louie was close to pulling the final strings to get him in. Once he was inducted, Jake had no doubt he’d make one hell of a Collector.

  “I’ll bring Luke with me.” Diesel headed for the door. “My little brother will be enough of a moon blocker for the evening. I’m also trying some new herbal thing my mom concocted.” He turned, a single eyebrow rising, and then he winked at Jake. “I’m sure it’ll work like a charm.”

  Once he was gone, Jake picked up a few errant glasses, stacking them along the mirrored ledge behind him. He’d owned and operated Hellhounds for the last ten years, but it was actually his second bar in Vegas. His first bar, Hound Dog, had been closer to the airport, but it had burned down five years ago—set ablaze by a jealous girlf
riend who happened to be a real-life harpy. He’d settled on naming this one Hellhounds once he’d rebuilt because everyone had called the last one that anyway.

  It made sense, since Jake and Louie were the last two hellhounds on earth.

  At least, that they knew about.

  There had been talk a few years ago about a pack being spotted across the sea somewhere in the Eastern Europe bloc, but nothing had come of it since. It would’ve been nice to have met some long-lost family, but those were the breaks when you belonged to an ancient race.

  Louie was Jake’s mother’s brother. Jake had received a rare recessive gene pairing, which meant his human father had hellhound genes in his family line somewhere, unbeknownst to his mother at the time. That lucky break had made Jake twice as strong as an average hound. When he morphed, it was into a massive animal—sleek, powerful and built for war, with a hide so thick nothing could penetrate it. Hellhounds had been bred to defend and had done so for supernatural kings and queens for eons, and they’d been paid a king’s ransom to do so. But now there were few royalty who needed guarding, so hellhounds, along with most other supernaturals, had to make a living another way.

  But even the most powerful supes didn’t mess lightly with hellhounds.

  No one but jealous harpies and one angsty female Collector, who went by the name of Nevada Hamilton.

  Jake scrubbed a hand over his tired face. “This is going to be majorly messed up.” Nobody was there to hear his plea, but maybe somehow the universe would help him out anyway. “Please, please, let that woman be somehow changed.”

  “No way!” Neve slammed the door in Jake Troubadour’s face. “This is so not happening. I refuse to believe they would pair us up.”