Vicki Thompson: Werewolf in Las Vegas

As always, I’m grateful for the cheerful encouragement and editorial skill of Claire Zion and the invaluable support of my assistant, Audrey Sharpe. I’m also blessed with three amazing plotting partners—Rhonda Nelson, Andrea Laurence, and Kira Sinclair—who’ve turned out to be extraordinary travel partners, too. Now I can finally say . . . We’ll always have Paris!

Everyone in Vegas who’d heard about tonight’s poker game said Luke Dalton was crazy. As he sat across the table from Benedict Cartwright in a staged venue that provided room for two hundred paid spectators, Luke briefly questioned his own sanity. But regardless of the game’s outcome, the status quo would change, and that was all he cared about.

He’d challenged Benedict to this winner-takes-all poker game—the deed to Luke’s Silver Crescent Casino against the deed to Cartwright’s neighboring bar, Howlin’ at the Moon. The casino was worth twenty times more than the bar, but the Moon was a Cartwright family treasure, a Vegas landmark built thirty years ago by Harrison Cartwright, Benedict’s late father.

Luke lived in the Silver Crescent’s penthouse, which meant he had to lay eyes on that damned bar every single day and be reminded that Harrison Cartwright had driven Luke’s dad, Angus, to his grave at the young age of fifty-six. Angus had died on Christmas Day, thrusting Luke abruptly into the position of CEO of Dalton Industries.

The feud between Angus and Harrison must have taken its toll on both men, because Harrison had died a week later, on New Year’s Eve. For three long months Luke had struggled with the pain of living next to a Cartwright property. Tonight he’d either win it—and then maybe even bulldoze the building—or he’d lose the Silver Crescent and change his place of residence. Either way worked for him, but he’d prefer to win.

They’d been at it for almost two hours, with the piles of chips shifting back and forth across the table. Cartwright, whose blond good looks made him a favorite with the ladies, had just won a hand that put him up a little. But he looked tired.

Luke experienced an unwelcome flash of empathy for the guy who’d also just lost his dad. Benedict’s twin brother, Vaughn, older by two minutes and a born leader, had inherited the bulk of the Cartwright holdings, which had surprised no one. Benedict, the happy-go-lucky brother, had been given the bar, which also had surprised no one.

Benedict was a natural at bar ownership, and business was booming. But he’d also eagerly accepted Luke’s challenge, which made Luke wonder if Benedict was sick of looking at the Silver Crescent and being reminded of the feud that had likely hastened his own father’s death.

It hadn’t always been this way between the two families. Angus Dalton and Harrison Cartwright had once been best friends who’d enjoyed weekly poker games. Their fortunes had grown and so had the stakes. They’d started betting real estate.

They’d regularly traded Vegas properties, and neither had seemed to worry about it much. The families had socialized. As a teenager, Luke had shot hoops with Benedict and Vaughn.

But one night, Angus and Harrison must have become bored with their usual wagers. That’s all anyone could figure, since Harrison had taken a dare and bet his premier holding, the Silver Crescent. He’d lost.

Harrison Cartwright had loved that casino more than any of his establishments except for Howlin’ at the Moon. For the first time in their long history, Harrison had accused Angus of cheating. Enraged by the accusation, Angus had vowed never to play with his old rival again, which meant Harrison couldn’t win back his beloved casino.

What followed had become Vegas legend. Harrison had tried every trick in the book to avoid turning over the deed. The legal battle had been long and costly on both sides. In the end, Angus had been awarded the casino and had asked the judge to throw in the bar, too, as compensation for his pain and suffering. The judge had refused.

As the dealer shuffled the cards in preparation for the next hand, Luke glanced toward the group of onlookers who supported him, which represented about half the crowd. His little sister, Cynthia, had shown up. Although he appreciated the support, he couldn’t look at his brilliant, beautiful sister without gnashing his teeth. She should be finishing her final semester at Yale right now.

He understood that grief over their dad’s death had sidelined her, but he couldn’t even get her to promise she’d go back in the fall. She was on track to graduate magna cum laude, for crying out loud.

Yet she was determined to abandon her studies and become a showgirl. On top of that, for the past month she’d been hanging out with Bryce Landry, a high-stakes gambler from ’Frisco. Landry was with her now, in fact. Whenever Luke thought about his little sister throwing away a promising future, he felt sick to his stomach.

He had no clue how to convince her to finish school, either. His mother was no help. Her grief had been so profound she couldn’t bear to stay in Vegas, or even in the States, so she was currently living in Provence.

The only good news was that Cynthia had set her heart on being a showgirl at the Silver Crescent. Specifically, she wanted to dance with the Moonbeams, an ensemble created by Luke and Cynthia’s mother years ago. Cynthia’s sentimental streak was a mile wide, apparently.

In any case, he’d be the one to hire her. She wasn’t happy that he’d refused, but at this point, it was his only line of defense. If he lost the Crescent tonight, the Cartwrights might discontinue the Moonbeams show, but even if they kept it, chances were slim they’d hire a Dalton.

Taking a slow, even breath, he scooped up his hand and glanced at it. He kept his expression blank as the betting began. Nothing in his behavior indicated that the hand he had been waiting for had finally arrived. He had aces over kings. Even better, the cards in his hand denied Cartwright the possibility of a royal flush.

He reeled his line out slowly, raising the bets at a steady pace. Finally Luke shoved all his chips to the center of the table. “All in.” Benedict Cartwright was going down. The sharp pang of empathy struck again. He forced himself to ignore it.

Only a slight twitch in Benedict’s right eyelid betrayed his nervousness as he pushed his chips forward. “Call.” He laid out three queens and two kings.

Not bad. But not enough. Luke laid his cards on the table. Howlin’ at the Moon now belonged to the Dalton family.

For one long, agonizing moment, his gaze collided with Benedict’s. The shock and pain in his adversary’s eyes was tough to see, and Luke looked away again. He didn’t want to know how bad this was for the guy. But he was afraid that look of devastation would haunt him, at least for a while.

After a collective gasp from the crowd, the mood shifted. Some cheered and others cursed and called for a rematch. Luke shook his head. He had what he wanted, a change in the status quo.

In the midst of the chaotic scene, he heard something odd—a distinct and very canine snarl. Maybe someone had brought a service dog into the room, but he couldn’t see an animal anywhere. Yeah, maybe he was going crazy, after all.

After her flight from San Francisco landed at McCarran, Giselle Landry hopped the trolley for an open-air ride to the Illusions Hotel and Casino at the far end of the Strip. The werewolf-exclusive establishment had been the Cartwright pack’s flagship property ever since Harrison Cartwright had lost the Silver Crescent to a human named Angus Dalton in a poker game.