Aces Wild: A Sin City Collectors Novella Read online

  Jake physically shook himself as he eased the bike around the block for the second time. He knew Neve was busy searching the crowd. They’d passed the entrance to the Cosmopolitan twice. He hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. Except for the traffic. It was a busy night on the Strip. The vampire they were hunting shouldn’t be expecting a Collection, because if they were, they wouldn’t be living it up at the Cosmopolitan. They’d be underground in some remote area out of the way, hoping not to be discovered.

  A supe could be Collected anywhere in the world.

  Vegas wasn’t the only Collection Agency, but it was one of the biggest. Vegas, with its nightlife, action, and constant heartbeat, had become a Mecca for supernaturals over the years. It was an easy place to blend in, and supes had migrated here in droves, especially in the last fifty years.

  Jake turned the corner and pulled into the parking ramp attached to the casino. Four levels up he found a parking spot on the roof, well away from any other vehicle. Parking at the casinos was free. They wanted your business, so they made it easy.

  He eased in and shut off the bike. Then he leaned over and opened a small, concealed compartment under the seat and drew something out.

  “Is that a gun?” Neve asked as she slid off the back. “Why in the hell would a hellhound need a firearm?”

  “Vamps are slippery,” Jake replied, shrugging his shoulders, unabashed. “A silver bullet to the brain drops them. Why would I choose to fight a vamp hand-to-hand if I didn’t have to? This works just fine.” He checked the sights and holstered it behind his back as he dismounted.

  Nevada chortled. “You’re not going to fight the bastard. I am, remember? And maybe that tactic might work on a fledgling who gets a tad too rambunctious in your bar, but if this vampire is any older than fifty, silver to the brain won’t drop it for long—if at all. Just like in the heart, silver has to be lodged in there to do any damage. Vamps can regenerate faster than the blink of an eye.” She snapped her fingers, grinning. “A bullet passes in and out in less than a second. Using a gun is like taking a placebo. You think it’s going to work, so it makes you feel better.” Neve began to unbutton her leather jacket, and Jake’s gaze riveted to her body without his permission.

  She scowled and turned her back as she slid the formfitting jacket off to reveal a tight leather vest underneath. He knew she had all her weapons concealed somewhere under there, but only gods knew where. That vest hugged every curve of her body perfectly. When she was done, she folded her jacket into a neat square and set it on the back of Jake’s bike seat.

  “Somebody will likely swipe that if you leave it there,” Jake pointed out, reluctantly tugging his gun out of his jeans. He’d be stupid not to trust Neve on a vampire issue, since she knew more than he did about them, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. He placed the gun back into the small, secure compartment under the seat.

  Neve shrugged. “I have four or five more of these at home, and I need more movement tonight. I brought it just for the ride.” Jake was dressed in his standard black T-shirt and jeans, and as she eyed his getup skeptically, he felt himself bristle. “Nice hunting outfit,” she quipped. “You’re going to blend in nicely with all the tourists, but if the vamp attacks, you may wish for some thicker skin.”

  “Babe, no vamp is getting through this skin. My hide is almost impenetrable, even in this form.” To prove his point, he pulled a knife out of a concealed holster and, with a satisfied grin, sliced his forearm.

  Nothing happened.

  Neve showed no expression as she turned and started for the door. “That was super impressive,” she called over her shoulder, “but don’t ever call me babe again if you want to live.”

  “That won’t be a problem. It was a minor slip,” Jake grumbled, heading in after her. Under his breath, he muttered, “Because you are so not a babe.”

  Neve smiled as they walked into the casino. She knew Jake’s term of endearment had caught him off guard, and she had thoroughly enjoyed ruffling his feathers. Maybe this assignment wouldn’t be too bad after all. She just had to make sure she made it fun. Neve grabbed on to the inner door handle and pulled it open. Once they were through, she batted a hand in front of her face as cigarette waste blew directly into her nose. Neve’s scenting abilities were sensitive, but she knew the hellhound’s were even more so. Casinos were one of the last places in the States you could still smoke a cigarette indoors. But that wasn’t a surprise, since casinos would do anything to get your money.

  She came to a stop a few paces inside to assess the area. Jake stood directly behind her, his heat prickling her back. Neve was trying to be a big girl about it, but all she wanted to do was punch him in the balls and toss him in the coat-check closet until she was done with her assignment. She casually glanced at him and gauged her odds of winning. If she pulled a few moves, she may get him down, but she had no idea how quickly he could heal.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he growled, assessing her intent. “I will hit a girl if she hits me first, and you won’t like the aftereffects of my punches. They hurt for days.”

  “Please,” Neve scoffed, throwing a hand up in dismissal. “Your fist would actually have to make contact with me to cause any pain, which you wouldn’t be able to do.”

  “You’re that fast, huh? Didn’t seem like it three years ago when that fire demon split your face wide open on the first round.”

  “Yeah, well”—Neve shrugged—“that’s what happens when you’ve ingested enough alcohol to kill four humans in three hours. Unfortunately, my binge drinking severely affected my reaction time on that particular occasion. But if you remember correctly, by the time you broke us apart, he was on the ground with a salt shaker lodged in his trachea.”

  Jake shook his head and tried to hide a grin, but she saw the corners of it anyway. “Yes, yes, he did indeed have one of my condiments in his throat.”

  “That was his repayment for trying to grab my ass,” she said with some pride. It had been a hell of a fight. “And he deserved the pepper shaker, too, but I never had a chance to give it to him, because you so unceremoniously kicked me out.”

  Without waiting for Jake to reply, Neve started into the casino, happy to see the lights dimmed more than usual. That would likely be Louie trying to give his Collectors an edge.

  She glanced around. “Let’s split up and cover the gaming floor first,” she addressed Jake. “We can see what supes are lingering and formulate a plan on the other side. Then we go up to the room. I didn’t get any ID on this guy, did you?” Sometimes the cards held little helpful hints. But details were hard to come by when most supernaturals spent years making sure they went undetected.

  “No. The card was clean. Let’s meet by the front desk in ten. I can see it on the other side,” Jake answered. “And if you go upstairs without me, I will come after you with a vengeance.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Neve chuckled as she slipped away, quicker than she knew he could track. She heard him curse and grinned.

  That never got old.

  Jake paused by a row of slot machines in the middle of the floor. He’d counted seven supes so far. It was a fairly high number for a casino that primarily catered to humans. Supes were allowed to come and go as they pleased throughout Vegas, but there usually were only one or two at most in a human-centered casino.

  He’d spotted three shifters by a roulette table. He couldn’t tell what they were exactly, but they smelled like cats. There was an elemental playing slots with what looked to be the same quarter over and over again. There was an attractive witch with long brunette hair busying herself at a low table playing Texas Hold’em with a group of human men who were clearly enchanted, all of them staring intently at her while she easily stripped them of their winnings. But the most surprising had been the two nymphs at a blackjack table. As he had passed, they’d both stuck their noses in the air and purred. Nymphs were tricky. You never knew what kind of magic they had, but if you turned your
back for a second they were on you, and it was damn hard to peel them off.

  No vamps that he could detect.

  He’d started toward the front desk to meet up with Neve when an inkling of otherness crept along his senses. Most supernaturals had an innate sixth sense when it came to detecting supes. It was a necessary adaptation built in for survival, but it made sneaking up on them harder to do. Though, some supes had a natural ability to cloak themselves, and older vamps were one of them.

  When it came time for Jake to engage this Collection, if the vamp was old, besting it would require both luck and skill, which was why he’d brought out the gun Neve had chided him about. He never felt shame taking whatever edge possible. Jake was a guardsman at heart. It was what he’d been born and bred for. He was a soldier who used whatever it took to get the job done. Period.

  As his skin tingled, letting him know another powerful supe was near, Jake tuned and slipped into the middle of a group of people who were walking back the way he’d just come. He focused on the dark restaurant to his left. Something was definitely concealed inside, not visible to his eye.

  He kept moving and looped around the casino, taking the long way. When he finally made it to the front desk, he was relieved to see Neve was still there, currently in an animated conversation with the clerk.

  “You see, my dad is always forgetting things. He’s such a space case,” he overheard her say as she chuckled playfully with the front desk attendant. “He usually gets two key cards when he visits, so I can keep one for him. It’s such a waste of time and energy to lose your room key while you’re on vacation.”

  Jake sidled up to them soundlessly, but Neve turned immediately, gracing him with a huge double-watt smile. His breath caught for the briefest second, because it was so like the one he remembered, and his uncooperative heart pulsed erratically for at least two beats before he could rein it in.

  Damn it, he had to keep those reactions under a firmer control.

  “Oh, hi, honey,” Neve said sweetly, patting his chest affectionately, drumming her fingertips against him. If she noticed his reaction, she didn’t show it, and he was relieved. “I was just telling this nice clerk we’re here a little early to surprise Dad.”

  Without missing a beat, Jake looped his arm around Neve’s waist, pulling her in tight as he answered, “Yep, it’s his annual visit, and he always manages to lose his card key. Always a good thing to have a second one handy.”

  The clerk glanced up and appeared a little startled to suddenly see Jake standing there. Her mouth fell open. She couldn’t have been more than twenty and was terrible at hiding her emotions. “Um, ah…ah,” she stuttered, “I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t—”

  Jake let go of Neve and bent over the reception desk. Using what he had, he crossed his arms, making his biceps jump, and directed a sizzling smile at her, which he knew from experience would work on this human. “It’s okay, really, don’t worry about it. Even though we live here in Vegas, this year we’ve decided to surprise my father-in-law and stay in the hotel with him. That will make our visit so much easier, since he loves to stay put and gamble. Do you have any rooms on his floor available”—he forced his voice not to sound too eager—“possibly the one next door?”

  The clerk tore her eyes off him and forced herself to look down at her computer as she tapped something on the keyboard. “Actually, we do. We have a Terrace Suite available. It’s actually the only vacancy in the entire hotel. It’s right next to the West End Penthouse your father-in-law is staying in.” She glanced up, smiling sweetly. “It runs eight hundred and twenty-five dollars a night on a weekend.”

  Neve opened her mouth to protest, which Jake had anticipated. He cut her off with a, “We’ll take it!”

  The clerk busied herself completing the reservation as Neve leaned in close to Jake, wrapping one arm casually around his back as the other found its way into his solar plexus.

  Hard.

  Damn, that girl packed a mean punch.

  She’d managed to take some of the wind out of him, so to cover it up, he stretched, effecting a cough as he placed a firm hand around her shoulders, rocking her tightly against him until there was no space separating them. Then he brought his mouth down to the top of her head, nuzzling her. “Aw, honey, no need to worry. This is my special treat—” This time, she hit him in the kidney. Jake took a step backward, but before he let her go, he murmured, “We’re being watched.”

  Neve dropped her fist to her side, which was already primed and ready to clock Jake again for making such a stupid decision to get a suite, and immediately scanned the lobby. Jake had covered half the casino, and if he’d sensed something, she didn’t doubt it for a second.

  He’d also said they were being watched, and that meant the supe was concealed, trying to fly under the radar. It could definitely be their target. Mature vamps had the ability to glamour themselves against detection from other supernaturals, which wasn’t a norm in their world. A supe could usually be seen for what they were. But in the case of vampires, it was more of a mind trick than actual glamour, and it didn’t matter, because it wouldn’t work on Neve.

  Vampire tricks didn’t work on other vamps as a rule—even halflings—which was an advantage Jake didn’t have. Neve would’ve been able to see whoever it was, if it was a vamp.

  She took a few steps to investigate while Jake booked the ridiculous room that she wasn’t paying a dime for. But as she tried to walk away, Jake reached out and grasped her wrist. She was about to shake him off when the clerk said, “Here you go, Mr. and Mrs. Troubadour. The elevators are straight out and to your right.”

  Jake pocketed the key card and swung them both around, tugging Neve to his side again. Before she could protest, he leaned down and whispered, “Before you go storming around the casino, let’s head upstairs to our suite and do some legwork first, especially if our assignment is occupied in the restaurant at the moment. We can’t barrel in there and take him now anyway. There are too many human witnesses.”

  “I don’t storm around,” Neve said indignantly.

  “Wanna bet?” He guided her toward the elevators, and she let him.

  “How can you be sure it’s our Collection in the restaurant?” Neve asked. “It could’ve been a griffin. They can glamour themselves too.”

  “It felt old and powerful, and it gave off that vampy vibe—the one that tells everyone around them to fuck off,” Jake answered confidently. “I’m not usually wrong when it comes to identifying supernaturals, even the glamoured ones. I have bloodhound scent glands, and I run a bar. Almost everything you can think of has walked through my doors. And come to think of it, when you were chatting with the desk clerk, how did you know our Collection was male? Or for that matter, old enough to be your dad?” Vampires aged extremely slowly, and if a vamp appeared old by human standards, they were very, very old.

  “Vampires are wealthy,” Neve replied as they came to a stop in front of a bank of elevators, flashing their key card at the attendant as they passed. “And they demand the best of everything. Our playing card had a room number on the sixty-first floor, but I already knew it would be a top-floor penthouse. I coaxed our pal into checking on the particular room number we had, and when she pulled it up, I used the mirror behind the desk, and I saw the reservation was under the name Mr. Laurent. Check-in was a day ago at two in the morning, so I went with the dad angle like the good little investigator I am. Odds were this clerk hadn’t been the one to check him in, since she’s on the early shift tonight.”

  “French?” Jake asked.

  “Sounds like it to me.”

  Jake leaned across her and punched the elevator button. “Well, that’s enough for me to mark our restaurant lurker as our Collection. And if Mr. Laurent is expecting us, this isn’t going to be an easy grab. From what I just sensed, he knows I’m here—and even if he doesn’t know why, vamps love to play games. So if he has an inkling he’s up for a Collection, it’s going to be a long night.”
/>   Neve crossed her arms and stifled a shiver. Yes, vampires did love to play with their prey. She knew that firsthand. The elevator chimed, and the doors opened. Two couples and one man exited, and Neve and Jake stepped in. At the last minute, a young couple joined them, so there was no more talking about vampires and glamour on the ride up.

  The couple, who hadn’t given them a second glance, got out two floors before the top. Once the elevator doors slid closed for the second time, Jake braced an arm above the buttons and turned a hard stare on Neve.

  Why did he have to do that? She had already successfully hidden her last shiver, now she shivered internally for a much different reason. Jake Troubadour was starting to get under her skin, and she wasn’t going to allow that to happen. Not again.

  “Neve, are you listening to me?” Jake asked.

  “Yes,” she snapped, meeting his icy gray stare for the first time. The man had great eyes. Damn him. “You said you’ll take the balcony, and I’m going to take the floor and stairs, but that’s not going to happen. I’m more skilled at climbing than you are, and before you argue, I’m half your size and weight, and you know I’m right. You could easily break the balcony railing with your bulkiness. The bottom half is glass. And you’re much more likely to be spotted from the outside by a human bystander”—Neve held up her hand as a complaint formed on Jake’s full lips—“and if the vamp’s balcony door is unlocked, I can sneak in with the least amount of issues.”

  She was right on all counts, of course, but she saw his internal struggle with not being in charge of this Collection. Curiously, she wondered how he was going to handle it. He was becoming quite entertaining with all his befuddled expressions. He had no idea how to handle her.

  And she liked it that way.

  “Fine,” he finally ground out, “you take the balcony, and I’ll take the rest of the floor. But first we check out our room.” The elevator doors slid open. They immediately entered a very modern and tastefully decorated hallway with blue walls and crisp white trim. Jake dug the key card out of his jeans. “Looks like it’s to the left, the second one from the end.”