Gambling on Trouble Read online

  Gambling on Trouble

  by

  Anna Lowe

  The Prequel to Shifters in Vegas

  Gambling on Trouble

  Copyright 2016 by Anna Lowe

  [email protected]

  Editing by Lisa A. Hollett

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental.

  Books in this Series

  Shifters in Vegas

  Paranormal romance with a zany twist

  Gambling on Trouble

  Gambling on Her Dragon

  Gambling on Her Bear

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  Desert Wolf: Friend or Foe (Book 1.1 in the Twin Moon Ranch series)

  Off the Charts (the prequel to the Serendipity Adventure series)

  Perfection (the prequel to the Blue Moon Saloon series)

  Contents

  Books in this Series

  Free books

  Gambling on Trouble

  Chapter One: Karen

  Chapter Two: Tanner

  Sneak Peek I: Gambling on Her Bear

  Sneak Peek II: Gambling on Her Bear

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  Books by Anna Lowe

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  Gambling on Trouble

  A she-dragon with a heist to plan.

  A bear shifter with a casino to protect.

  A dangerous combination, even in Las Vegas.

  (A steamy short story prequel to Gambling on Her Bear and the Shifters in Vegas series)

  Chapter One: Karen

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  * * *

  “Hey, watch it,” Karen called as a bison shifter nearly trampled her.

  Man, oh man, were the crowds in Vegas always this bad? The sidewalk was a seething mass of humanity — and shifters, too.

  The bison lumbered out of her way and carried on with a herd of his friends, and Karen shot them all the evil eye. Bisons on a stag party. Go figure.

  Not that the men showed their animal sides as they lumbered down the sidewalk. They all remained in human form, but she could smell the shifter in them. Besides, guys that big, blocky, and shaggy could only be bison shifters.

  She should have known better than to come to Vegas when Sin City was gearing up for a major movie premiere, a rodeo, and a record-breaking diamond auction all at the same time. The city was a beehive of activity, and she could barely make it down the street.

  Her inner dragon whispered in her mind. We could clear the sidewalk with a single puff of fire. That would be fun.

  She grinned, picturing the crowd scattering to safety and the stories that would ensue. Humans had no idea shifters existed and came up with the wildest stories to explain the few glimpses they caught.

  But no, she couldn’t breathe fire in public. She had to keep a low profile in Vegas and focus on what she’d come to accomplish.

  Keep your eyes on the prize, she told her inner dragon.

  Want my claws on that prize, the beast shot back.

  Her fingers flexed around an imaginary diamond, and her pulse skipped. She’d snuck into the auction preview today to see the piece she was after, and damn, even behind glass, she could feel its power.

  The Blood Diamond. A legend among all dragons.

  She wanted that diamond. Needed that diamond. And she’d get it, too. One way or another, she had to reclaim the gemstone stolen from her dragon kin long ago.

  The question was how. Should she steal it or try to win enough money in the casinos to buy the diamond outright?

  “Boo!” a ghost yelled from a storefront, jolting her attention back to the street.

  A real ghost. Not see-through as humans often imagined them to be, just faint and shimmery.

  “You’re kidding me,” she murmured, checking him out. Vegas was full of ghosts, but this one was covered in a sheet. A ghost dressed up as a ghost, in other words.

  Vegas, her inner dragon muttered. What a crazy place.

  “Come on in,” the ghost called, handing her a flyer and gesturing to the restaurant behind him. “Tuesday night special! Low, low price!”

  She’d heard that line a dozen times in the past ten minutes. Plus, the place looked hokey as hell.

  “The Headless Horseman?” she asked, reading the sign over the door. It was set up like an English pub with a Sleepy Hollow/Halloween-theme twist. She shook her head and walked on.

  “Aw, come on. Give it a try,” the ghost called. “Great beer and delicious burgers, too.”

  She strode on, wondering what kind of commission a ghost might earn. Free drinks? Food and board? The chance to redeem his soul?

  Two steps later, her dragon made her stop short and sniff.

  The ghost chuckled. “Don’t those burgers smell good?”

  It wasn’t the burgers she smelled. It was something else. A very faint something hidden among all the other scents of the place.

  Something masculine. Something dangerous yet promising at the same time. Something awfully tempting. But what?

  What? She wanted to yell at her dragon. What?

  Want that, her dragon rumbled inside. Need that.

  Want what?

  Her dragon licked its lips and hummed. Mine.

  “Come on. You know you want one,” the ghost said, coaxing her toward the door.

  It was the feeling she sometimes got back home in the mountains, when she’d go prospecting in riverbeds for precious stones. That sixth sense telling her, Hang on! Back up and take a closer look. You missed something there.

  But what the hell could she have missed in an offbeat Vegas pub?

  Whatever it was, it drew her in like a pulsing, powerful magnet that held total power over her bones and blood.

  Mine, her dragon insisted again and again as she walked to the door.

  She entered and blinked hard, both to adjust to the dim interior and to make sure her dragon wasn’t glowing too obviously in her eyes. Then she scanned the room. Who or what was in there, affecting her like that? Had her sister somehow found out about her plans to visit Vegas and snuck down to play a trick on her? Was there a witch inside casting a spell to attract shifters?

  The pub was lined with booths and tables festooned with fake spider webs and tiny linen ghosts. Others had jack-o`-lanterns complete with candles that made their grimaces flicker with life. Framed prints decorated the walls, showing scenes from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow — a gulping Ichabod Crane, a coy Katrina Van Tassel, and a galloping horse with a headless rider wearing a huge cape. Even the slot machines set up in one corner and the Keno board on one wall — this was Vegas, after all — had bewitched, Sleepy Hollow themes.

  The bartender wore a black cape, too, as did the waitresses. They were all human, as far as Karen could tell, but there was definitely a shifter somewhere in the room. She looked from one table to the next, trying to trace the telltale scent. It wasn’t coming from the family eating at a table by the door, and it sure didn’t come from the bleary-eyed gamblers hanging out with their eyes glued to the Keno board.

  She scanned a little farther, and then she stopped, zeroing in on the scent at last.

  Over there. Him.

  A man sat with his back to her, quietly nursing a drink, watching the ba
seball game on an overhead screen. His shoulders were as wide as the bison’s she’d passed earlier, stretching the fabric of his black shirt. But unlike the bison’s, they tapered down to a trim waist.

  That was the shifter. A bear. She could tell from his smoky, aged-hickory scent. Like the scent of the air just outside a log cabin somewhere deep in the mountains set beside a clear, cool stream.

  My bear, her dragon murmured.

  Holy shit. Her what?

  My mate, it rumbled deep inside.

  Her jaw hung open. Mate?

  Wolf and bear shifters were hopeless believers in the notion of destined mates, but most dragons had given up on the idea generations ago. Who wanted fate playing matchmaker for you?

  Don’t need fate to tell me anything, her dragon rumbled. I just know.

  She tried stepping backward, but her body rebelled.

  Need him closer. Closer, her dragon murmured.

  Not closer. Far, far away. She didn’t want or need a mate. Especially now. Jesus, not now, when she had to focus on the diamond. Her pride and honor were at stake, damn it. She couldn’t afford to get sidetracked.

  Not even by him? her dragon cried, sniffing deeply.

  She wobbled a little. God, did he smell good. And geez, was there a lot to get sidetracked by. The chiseled strips of muscle lining his forearms. The shadow of stubble on his jaw. The neatly cropped brown hair that was just begging for her to come over and muss it out of place. Heck, just the way he tapped his boots under the bar counter mesmerized her.

  She gulped hard and threw on her mental brakes. No, she would not allow herself to be sidetracked. Not even by him.

  So okay, he was built like a god. And okay, under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t hold back from spending an hour — or a night — at his side. But she’d fooled around plenty in the past, and she had more important things to do now.

  She forced herself to back up toward the door, but then he turned and looked at her, and her muscles went on strike again.

  Not going anywhere, her dragon pouted. Not leaving my mate.

  Not my mate— she started to insist, but then her eyes locked on his.

  Deep, dark, chocolate-brown eyes that were earnest and surprised. Like a lost puppy’s, desperate to love and be loved. Which was crazy, because the man was all muscle and raw power.

  She cleared her throat sharply, trying to snap back to her senses. That man was no puppy. He was a goddamn bear. A grizzly, if she guessed right. A beast that stood high, high up in the food chain. The kind who could tear right through the solid oak of the bar.

  Bear shifters were notorious for three things: loyalty, ferocity, and their overly cautious ways. And she didn’t have a cautious bone in her body.

  So why are you being so damn flighty now? her dragon complained. Why are you bothered by a bear?

  The bear part didn’t bother her. Not one bit. The notion of a mate, though… That was terrifying.

  Back up to the door and get away, she ordered her legs, but they didn’t even twitch. They forced her to stay there, meeting those soft, bewildered eyes.

  If he’d looked at her and ogled, it would have been so, so easy to brush him off. If he’d murmured a lousy pickup line or started boasting about how many Super Bowls or World Series or Olympic wrestling medals he’d won, she’d have been out of there in a flash. But he didn’t do any of those things. He just looked at her with the same flabbergasted, oh-shit expression she had to have been wearing just then.

  Mine, those eyes said. Mate.

  Butterflies fluttered through her stomach, and her cheeks heated.

  His lips quirked, and suddenly all she could think of was getting close enough to run her fingers through his hair. To find out if his lips tasted as good as they looked, and to touch him. Everywhere.

  Her lungs heaved for a fresh breath of air, and whoa, she had the scary feeling he was thinking along the same lines. Of kissing her. Touching her. Peeling back her clothes along with his own and letting nature lead them through what their bodies were already screaming for.

  “Tanner! There you are!” A high-pitched voice cracked like a whip, and both their heads snapped toward the door.

  Tanner! her dragon sang, like that was the discovery of the century. His name is Tanner!

  Given half a chance, the stupid beast would have batted its oversized eyelids at him and made her introduce herself. But when she spotted the woman calling to the bear, all she felt was rage.

  “Tanner!” the woman squeaked, entering the pub with what looked like a flock of oversized peacocks at her heels. Sequins flashed. Little red tassels jingled on her skin-toned bodysuit—

  Whoa. Karen’s jaw dropped. That wasn’t a bodysuit. That was really the woman’s skin, and those tassels barely covered the woman’s nipples, let alone her breasts.

  “Hi, Amber,” he murmured, turning just in time to take the woman’s kiss on the cheek, not the lips. And a damn good thing, too, because Karen’s dragon claws ached under her fingernails, begging to be unsheathed. He knew that woman?

  It sure looked like it, given the way Amber ran a hand down his chest. Karen’s dragon huffed, and her mouth filled with the taste of ash, the way it did whenever rage fueled her inner fire.

  “Hey, baby,” Amber said, looking like she was about to slide into his lap.

  Tanner leaped to his feet just in the nick of time.

  Karen clenched her fists at her sides. Who was that bitch hitting on her guy?

  “Hi, Tanner,” one of the woman’s flock said.

  “Heya, baby. Looking good,” another called.

  Showgirls. They had to be showgirls from one of the casinos. They were that scantily clad, that casual about flashing tits and ass. Whoever designed their costumes had put the giant feathers in all the wrong places — like high over their heads instead of over their cleavage and skimpy thongs. On heels, they were nearly as tall as Tanner, and Karen could barely see him behind the forest of plumage in the way. He leaned right, keeping eye contact with her instead of with the women crowded all around him.

  Mate, her dragon purred in approval. He doesn’t want them. He wants us. And I want him.

  But the showgirls descended over him like a horde of locusts. They smooched him and fondled his ears. One even patted him on the butt, for Christ’s sake. He stood amidst a halo of feathers and glitter, looking like a deer in headlights — definitely a country mouse in the big city, even if he was a giant mass of a bear — as the showgirls ran their fingers along far too much of his chiseled body.

  A rumble built in Karen’s chest.

  Not amused, her dragon growled. Get your hands off my mate.

  One of the showgirls must have noticed her staring, and the woman had the nerve to smirk. Yes, we know this man, and you don’t. He’s ours.

  Mine, her dragon growled back.

  Karen ground her teeth and repeated a little mantra in her head. Will not incinerate an innocent human. Will not incinerate an innocent human…

  “Gonna help us celebrate Ginger’s birthday?” the one named Amber asked Tanner.

  “Well…” Tanner hemmed and hawed. Damn those bear manners! Why didn’t he just shove the women back and shout, Hell no? “I was just…um…getting ready to…”

  Without thinking, Karen called out from across the room. “He was getting ready to meet me.”

  The place went quiet. Quiet as a Wild West town where two gunslingers faced each other down. People backed away, leaving a narrow lane of a firing range.

  Amber’s eyes narrowed on Karen, but there was no staring down a dragon. Karen glared until the woman blinked and went pink.

  “And you are?” the showgirl demanded.

  Karen wouldn’t have answered, except Tanner’s eyes asked the same thing. Practically pleaded, in fact. Who are you? And why do you make me feel this way?

  “Karen Proulx. An old friend of Tanner’s from Wyoming.”

  “I thought you said you’re from Idaho,” Amber said, turning t
o Tanner with suspicious eyes.

  A pair of shoes clicked over the tile floor, and Karen was shocked to realize it was her, striding forward. Whatever resistance she had to the idea of a mate vanished the second she saw her bear with another woman. Now he was all hers. Hers and nobody else’s. It was all she could do not to bare a row of giant dragon teeth at the women crowded around him like an all-too-willing harem.

  She wrapped her arm around Tanner’s before Amber got any farther.

  “Hey, Tanner,” she bluffed, reaching up to kiss his cheek. “It’s been too long.”

  A moment later, her eyes went wide because the same way he’d dodged Amber’s kiss, he turned in to Karen’s, and there they were, meeting in an openmouthed kiss.

  His eyes went wide, too, telling her he was as shocked as she was, but a second later, they glazed over. Hers did, too, as her mind finally processed the kiss.

  Soft. His mouth was so soft. And sweet, like honey sucked from a comb. His lips were so gentle in the way they clung to hers, though his whole body radiated raw male power.

  “Karen,” he whispered, trying out her name like a tasty new dessert.

  “An old friend?” Amber screeched as her flock chattered in alarm.

  Karen grabbed Tanner’s hand and pulled him toward the back door. “Yep. Old friend. And we have to go, quick.”

  Quick as in, before I turn you into a tiny pile of ash, lady, her dragon snarled.

  Tanner, meanwhile, shot her a look that said, Thank you for rescuing me and Where the hell are you taking me?

  She had no clue where she was taking him. Just somewhere she could have her mate to herself. She hustled him down a hallway, past the bathrooms, and into a quiet back room.

  To her surprise, he followed without a peep. And to her even greater surprise, he didn’t wiggle away when she backed him against a wall and leaned in. Closer and closer, she breathed him in, sniffing his intoxicating scent. Until — whoa! — her whole body was pressed up against his.