The octimar tangles its tentacles around a mountain of gold that absolutely weighs more than I do, sliding it toward me.
A smoking pipe goes sailing across the table, scattering my latest winning play in all its glory. The male who threw it shoves to a stand, snarling as he stalks from the chamber in a flutter of black and gold.
“Keep practicing!” I holler after him, straightening my piles, flashing the three remaining males another smile that does little to sponge their antagonistic leers. “Another round? I’ll accept favors owed if you’re not carrying more gold. Or your masks. They look hefty.”
Not to mention how much I’d delight in seeing the faces of the pricks I forced into submission with a few lucky hands, earning enough gold to not only pay Pyrok back immediately —with interest—but also purchase a small village. Or perhaps the patronage of a charmed Moltenmaw for the rest of eternity. Certainly long enough to hunt Rekk Zharos until I get the chance to feed him his own entrails.
“Unless you want time to reinforce your crumbling egos?” I ask, batting my lashes.
The air tightens.
Heats.
The males about the table stand so abruptly their chairs go skidding across the ice, all three of them turning toward the exit and bowing at the hip, holding the stance for a long, tense moment.
Long enough that I surmise we have a visitor.
Looking left, I see the exit shadowed by the imposing male my body immediately responds to—heart racing, a flock of those fluttery things taking flight within my belly.
Kaan’s an image of muscle and poise in brown pants and a leather tunic embellished with bronze Sabersythe scales accentuating his broad shoulders. His bare arms are crossed, his pale scars standing out in stark contrast against his tawny skin.
His mouth cuts a harsh line, a plain bronze mask casting the top half of his face in mystery, the pierce of his cinder stare catching me despite it.
Snagging my breath.
He’s crowned in bronze, the metal wreath perhaps once reaching skyward in eight points now melted in places, folded down, like it got caught in a blaze of dragonflame that almost turned it molten. His mask almost melds with it.
Accentuates it.
He moves, his muscular thighs tensing with each powerful shift forward, the thump of his boots pounding in rhythm to my galloping heart. He holds my stare every step of the way, and I picture Rygun clawing through the cavern like a shifting mountain range. All the muscles in my body clench, primed to buffer his vast presence that crushes against me.
Finally breaking our eye contact, Kaan sweeps his stifling attention across the highfliers. “Out,” he growls, his voice a violent slash.
The remaining three males scurry toward the exit with empty hands and even emptier pockets, another dip of their heads toward the Burn King.
Ripping my gaze away, I look to where Pyrok was standing, surprised to find him already gone.
Damn.
He must’ve dipped out during that last round while I was slapping down my Moonplume, Moltenmaw, and Sabersythe to the tune of disgruntled mutterings. Too bad, considering I drew most of my delight from the fact that those assholes had somehow wronged him in the past.
The last male disappears down the frail pathway, leaving only myself, Kaan, and the octimar still seated in the dealer’s throne—apparently exempt from the King’s ferocious order.
Kaan moves around the table, gripping the back of the seat opposite mine, knuckles so blanched I imagine the piece of furniture seconds from shattering. Everything about him is immense, like a shadow that eclipses every light source, swaying my ability to see anything other than him.
My small stint alone with the memories of us gulped me into his gravity. Now I’m falling—too heavy.
Too fast.
The sort of plummet that ends with a crater large enough to swallow half the world.
“This is not what I meant when I asked you to dance,” he says, stare dropping to my pile of gold.
I draw my lungs full of his drugging scent, flashes of memory carving into my chest like razor blades:
Me, planting a constellation of kisses upon the scars on his back and arms, pretending I could mend them with my lips, while he chopped vegetables for our soup.
Him, teaching me how to shape clay into bowls, mugs, and plates, his hands and arms smothered in so much of it that eventually made its way onto me.
Us, moving together beneath a shaft of silver light, my chest pitted with a noxious seed of fear. Like every touch, every kiss, every whisper of breath on my skin brought us one step closer to an unknown end.
“I was someone to you,” I whisper. “Someone important.”