by Zoe Chant
A moment later, and he began to change.
The transformation was so smooth and fluid that Annie almost didn’t notice it happening at first. One moment Beau was standing there before her – the next, two massive, white wings had filled the air above him, his skin becoming the feathers and fur of the hippogriff. A horse’s tail swished behind him, while his head became the proud, if slightly scary, visage of an eagle.
Not that Annie was scared of Beau herself, however. It was just that looking at him, she couldn’t help but feel a small thrill of pride.
A hippogriff. A fearsome mythical creature. And he’s my mate.
She knew she still had to get used to the idea of shifters and mates. But right now, she didn’t feel anything other than utter elation.
I can’t believe this is my actual life!
Beau let out a low, reassuring croon, the same kind as he’d made when he’d first shown her his shifted form by the ice skating lake. It seemed like years ago – Annie found it hard to believe it had only been earlier today!
“It’s okay, I’m not scared of you,” she said, walking toward him. “But I’ve never really, uh, ridden anything before, not even a horse. How do I –?”
Beau immediately lowered himself to the ground, tossing his head to indicate she should hop on his back.
Taking a deep breath, Annie put her hand out, steadying herself against Beau’s shoulder, before pulling herself up.
He was warm – so much so that she immediately forgot about the coldness of the night air around them. It was incredibly tempting to just lean forward and snuggle herself into the soft feathers of his neck, but she managed to restrain herself, settling herself firmly on his back, just behind his wings.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Beau apparently didn’t need to be told twice. Annie felt a powerful beat of his wings, and then, suddenly, they were airborne.
Annie gasped as the wind whipped past her face, the thought I’m going to have to re-do my hair flitting inanely through her head.
But mostly, she felt… light.
And secure. The heat of Beau’s body kept her warm in the cold air as they rose higher. Despite the fact Annie knew they were moving quickly, the beat of Beau’s wings sure and steady, and she wasn’t frightened of falling.
Annie cast a glance down, seeing the town of Bell’s Hollow spread out beneath them. It was in darkness, of course, except for the golden lines of street lamps – and, of course, the Christmas trees that were still lit up at various points of the town, such as at the edge of the lake and outside the small town hall.
Annie had never suspected that her heart would be warmed at the sight of a Christmas tree.
But if I can’t think of Christmas as a special time after everything that’s happened over this one, well… I may as well give up and declare myself the Grinch.
She felt oddly calm about the fact they were flying into the middle of an illegal gambling den full of criminal and probably dangerous shifters. If she’d had more time to think about it, Annie realized she’d probably be frightened, or at least nervous, but right now, it just wasn’t happening.
She swallowed.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t quite true, she thought, as a wave of nerves clenched her stomach.
All I have to do is go in, play poker for an hour or so, and leave. No problem.
Instead of focusing on that, Annie instead turned her head to look around her.
They were no longer flying over Bell’s Hollow or any of the other small surrounding towns. They were well out over the heavily forested mountains now, and the only light was the moon when it occasionally came out from behind the clouds. But despite the fact Annie could barely see a thing, she had no doubt at all Beau knew exactly where he was going.
Spreading out his wings, he soared, turning a slow loop. All at once, Annie caught sight of what they were heading toward.
She could hardly miss it: a blaze of light on the dark mountainside, embedded in its rocky face. She blinked as they got a little closer in a long, slow spiral, trying to make out more details.
Oh. Oh wow.
Wow was really the only way to describe it.
As they sailed lower, Annie could make out that the bright spot on the mountainside was actually a massive, architecturally impossible-seeming mansion.
It clung to the mountainside, a series of cubes made of glass and rock. Annie couldn’t begin to imagine how it might have been built – it seemed almost to be floating next to the mountain, and she couldn't see any kind of pillars holding it up to stop it collapsing under its own weight.
She could see that each of the massive glass cubes housed several rooms, all of them blazing with light and filled with people. She could make the partygoers out in a surprising amount of detail as Beau dipped closer – some of them were drinking, others were seated around gambling tables. There was a restaurant, and even an indoor pool.
This is… okay, you know what, this is pretty much exactly what I expected from a den of iniquity run by an über-wealthy criminal mastermind, Annie thought. It had exactly the correct amount of glamor and ridiculousness. It really would not have looked out of place in a James Bond movie.
Beau had definitely been right when he’d said that this place was in no way designed to be reached by car, or pretty much any other way than flying, or scaling the mountainside. But when your social circle were shifters, Annie supposed, this really wasn’t that much of a concern. Presumably even the non-flying ones could just hitch a lift, in much the same way she just had.
Beau circled lower, before coming in for a surprisingly gentle landing on the snow-strewn path leading up to the massive timber front doors. Annie slid down off his back, doing her best to swallow down her apprehension.
Okay, this is real. This is really happening, she thought, as Beau began his shift back into his human form.
He glanced down at her once he’d shifted, as if sensing her sudden tension.
“You okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I guess… it’s all just starting to hit me now. Before, it all just seemed kind of unreal, you know?”
“You don’t have to go through with it,” Beau said. “I can take you back right now if you want.”
Annie shook her head. “No. I said I wanted to help, and I still do. Come on. Let’s go.”
Beau took a moment to look into her eyes, and then he nodded. “Okay.”
Annie neatened her hair as they walked, trying not to stare as a pair of moose appeared on the path ahead of them, before trotting up the front steps of the mansion. She guessed in the world of shifters, that kind of thing was completely normal.
“It won’t be a problem, will it? Me being human?” she asked.
Beau shook his head. “No. Shifters with human mates – well, it’s not common, but it’s not as rare as you’d think. Two of my colleagues, Garrett and Rowan, have human mates.”
“Really?” Annie asked. “Do you think I could meet them one day?”
“I’m sure of it,” Beau answered. “I’ll definitely be introducing to everyone just as soon as I can – and as soon as you feel ready for it. So you can meet them whenever you like. I’m sure you’ll have some questions for them that they can probably answer better than I can. I grew up as a shifter after all, while they only found out about us later, so you’ll have that in common.”
The thought warmed Annie’s heart. If nothing else, she decided, she’d get through this simply so she could have some of her more pressing questions answered.
“Other shifters will be able to sense you’re my mate, just like Declan could,” Beau continued as they approached the doors. “So we shouldn’t have any questions. But if we do, just let me handle it. Some shifters can be… well, let’s just say they tend to think of shifters as being a bit superior to humans. Try not to let it bother you.” He shot her an apologetic glance.
Annie nodded, understanding what he meant. It wouldn’t be a smart move to d
raw any more attention to themselves now than was absolutely necessary.
As they got close to the door, a massive security guard materialized out of the shadows that surrounded it. Annie could barely hold back a gasp as she looked at him – she’d never seen such a massive man before. He wasn’t only tall, but he was broad as well, his neck thick with muscles and his chest looked wider across than she was tall.
Despite his size, Annie noticed there was a holster by his side, a gun inside it. It seemed unlikely a man like him could need something like that, but, Annie supposed, if this place was really all that it seemed, security couldn’t be too careful.
“Here for the event?” the security guard asked, his voice a deep bass rumble.
Beau nodded, and Annie tried not to hold her breath.
Pete had told them that there was no password – just knowing about the event was enough to get you inside. But now that they were here, Annie wasn’t sure how far they should trust him.
The security guard’s inscrutable gaze flicked from Beau to Annie, as if assessing them – or sizing them up. Not that Annie would have been able to do much even against this guy’s little toe, and she thought even Beau, for all his height and brawn, would probably have trouble with him.
But after a moment, he simply nodded his head, stepping aside.
“Well, go on in then.”
Annie swallowed, before forcing herself to smile. “Thanks.”
Just act like you belong here, she told herself as the massive doors swung open. Ninety-nine percent of anything is just confidence.
That was what her foster father – the one who’d taught her to play poker – had once said, but Annie hadn’t really remembered it until now. But she recalled the way he’d told her he’d talked his way into any number of tournaments simply by having the confidence to believe he belonged there. Sure, Annie suspected that he had been a conman beyond his issues with the IRS, but that didn’t mean that everything he’d told her had been bullshit, did it?!
Squaring her shoulders, Annie raised her chin and stepped through the doors, into the most opulent entryway she’d ever seen in her life.
The glass ceiling seemed somehow to float above them, buttressed only with one or two dark stone supports hung with crystal chandeliers so delicate they looked like a mass of water droplets suspended in midair. The hardwood floors were covered with dark, expensive-looking rugs, and the sound of refined laughter could be heard from the vast room ahead of them.
“Can I take your coat, Madame?”
Annie had been too busy glancing around her and trying not to stare in open-mouthed amazement at the vast wealth on display that she hadn’t noticed the woman arrive by her side until her voice sounded in her ear.
“Yes, please,” she managed to get out, slipping the coat from her shoulders with as much elegance as she could muster, the woman taking it from her hands as she did so.
Annie glanced at Beau, but he didn’t seem fazed at all – maybe seeing this was something he was used to, or else he was professional enough that it was simply impossible to tell. Either way, he looked like he belonged here: he carried himself with a kind of quiet strength and confidence that would have looked at home literally anywhere. It was one of the things she’d first noticed about him and been attracted to. Beau was tall, muscular, and broad, but he didn’t carry himself with the kind of over-the-top machismo a lot of those kinds of men did. Instead, he seemed simply effortlessly masculine in a way that came with true confidence, rather than trying to compensate for something.
“Welcome to ladies’ night,” the woman continued smoothly as she made her way behind a dark wooden counter by the door, hanging Annie’s coat up on a rail on the wall. “Of course, you’ll already be familiar with the rules we run these evenings by. Can I ask what you’re playing?”
“Poker,” Beau replied, just as smoothly.
The woman’s eyes flicked over him in obvious appreciation as she nodded, before they moved back to Annie. Annie had never thought of herself as the possessive type – not that she’d ever had much chance to find out – but now, she found herself pressing a little closer to Beau’s side, her hand wrapping around his arm.
The woman cocked her head and then blinked as if realizing something, and Annie recalled what Beau had told her about other shifters being able to sense that he was her mate. Either way, the woman’s smile became purely professional once more.
“Poker is on the first floor, up the stairway and to your left. You have your buy-in, of course?”
Annie nodded. “Of course.”
“Then have a pleasant evening,” the woman said, with a smile and a nod.
“This place is slick,” Annie murmured to Beau as they made their way across the room toward the sweeping, split staircase, one side of which curved up in a tight arc to a mezzanine level above the foyer.
Beau nodded. “I’d like to know who this ‘boss’ is,” he replied, his voice so soft Annie could barely hear it. “Since that was one thing Pete was definitely very keen to keep quiet about.”
“Whoever he is, he knows how to throw a party, obviously,” Annie said as they passed a room with a fully-stocked bar running the full length of the back wall, packed with more kinds of alcohol than Annie had even been aware existed.
“Pity it all seems to be funded with illegal gambling,” Beau said. Annie watched his eyes roving about the people that wandered in and out of the rooms, dressed to the nines and holding drinks, chatting as if they didn’t have a care in the world. It took Annie a moment to realize he was counting security guards, noting where they stood and where their patrols seemed to take them. They weren’t hard to spot – all of them were just as huge as the man they’d met outside the front door.
They entered the room the woman at the front desk had indicated, filled with long, oblong tables around which the poker players in the evening’s games were seated.
Just as Pete had said, all of them were women. Some men stood by, sipping their drinks and watching the games, but none of them were playing.
“Would you like to join a game, Madame?” Another smiling woman stretched out her arm in welcome as Beau and Annie stepped into the room.
“Yes, certainly,” Annie said, returning her smile.
Just remember – act like you belong here.
“If I can have your buy-in, I’ll get your chips for you and show you to a table.”
Annie almost hesitated before she reached into her purse for the five thousand dollars Beau had given her to cover the buy-in. It seemed impossible she was just about to hand over that amount of money for a game of poker, but she knew that showing any sign of hesitance or nerves might be seen as suspicious.
So she forced herself not to pause as she took out the pocketbook she’d put the money inside, before handing it over.
Beau’s hand came to rest on the small of her back as the woman counted the money and then the chips.
“Will it make you nervous if I watch?” he asked her. “Or would it be okay if I wandered in and out and got myself a drink?”
Annie smiled at him – she knew getting himself a drink would more likely be finding a way to search for Scott.
“No, do whatever you like,” she said. “I don’t know how well I’ll go – it’s just a bit of fun, after all.”
She laughed lightly as the woman pushed her chips across the counter to her.
“If you’ll follow me, Madame, your table is right this way.”
Okay, well, this is… different, Annie thought as the dealer declared her the winner of the hand – again.
The game was a straightforward Texas Hold ’Em, nice and simple for recreational players, which she was pretty sure most of the other women at the table were. And rich, too, if the cavalier attitude toward their repeated losses was anything to go by.
What wasn’t straightforward was the pile of winnings in the pot that was now getting pushed Annie’s way.
Okay, so it’s… kind of a lot of chips, Annie
thought as she sorted through them. But what the hell is this? And this?
It was clear that shifter poker – or at least, this shifter poker – allowed people to bet with things other than chips when they started running low.
“Oh, a manticore claw, that’ll come in handy,” the woman sitting next to Annie said with a grin as Annie held up a long, curving talon to the light, wondering if it was an actual biological substance, or if it were some kind of modern art or something that she just couldn’t appreciate.
“Oh – yeah, you’re right there,” she said, doing her best to join in the woman’s light laughter.
I have absolutely no idea what a manticore’s claw does, she thought to herself. I barely have any idea of what a manticore even is.
She sifted through the rest of the items and random curios that she’d won in the last hand, barely daring to speculate on what some of them were.
Is… is this a vial of blood?! Ew, no, that would be weird. No one plays for vials of blood!
“Ugh, that’s it, I’m out.” The woman seated across from Annie slammed her hands down on the table. “Bad enough to lose, but to lose to a human…!”
Annie dropped her eyes, keeping her face neutral. Beau had warned her this might happen, after all.
The woman – tall and impressive – slammed her hands down on the table once more as if to emphasize her disgust, before standing and storming away from the table.
Annie took a deep breath, licking her lips.
“Don’t worry about Dorie,” the woman next to her said cheerfully. “She’s a terrible player, but she always insists on playing for high stakes. It’s very silly. She’s just mad because you got her last vial of griffin blood.”
“Oh. I – I see,” Annie managed to stammer out, staring down at the vial in her hand and trying not to grimace in disgust.
I guess it really is blood, then?
Griffin blood, apparently, but Annie wasn’t sure what difference exactly that made.
As the dealer shuffled the cards, Annie turned her head, looking for Beau. She felt a little ashamed of just how caught up she’d gotten in the last hand – and how secretly pleased she felt at how often she’d been winning.