Her bright green eyes scanned the smoke-filled room replete with table after table of card and dice games. Patrons desperate to make it rich threw away their last coins on a lark. The Wastes gambling hall was typically packed, but tonight, Kerrigan could barely move through the press of people. With one hand on her winnings, she finally meandered far enough in that she found her target, stopping before a packed card table playing a crowd favorite, Dragons Up.
The dealer was dressed in the typical red Wastes button-up, black vest and trousers. Her black hair framed her face, cut off severely at her chin, accentuating her brown complexion and wide dark-brown eyes. Her hands flew across the table, delivering green and gold cards.
She tapped her fingers twice as she waited for someone to make a move. But the tilt of her cherry red lips said she already knew they’d lost.
“Ah, dragons up,” she said, her smile turning into a frown. “Better luck next time.” She claimed the green and gold cards from the man in front of her. She pointed at the next man.
“Crows and scales.” He held his hand out flat.
The next man did the same, and on down the line, she pulled cards, added them, and laughed at their misfortune.
Because any loss went right back to the house. Right back to Dozan. And right back to Clover.
Clover looked up as she shuffled the cards by muscle memory. Her eyes lit up at the sight of Kerrigan. “You win?”
Kerrigan nodded, unable to hold back a smirk of triumph.
“All right, you heard the lady. One more hand, and then I’m on break.”
The crowd groaned as cards flew from her hands like magic. Which was amazing since Clover didn’t have a lick of magic. She was fully human. Not an ounce of the stuff in her veins. Not that it protected her from Fae hatred, but at least, she didn’t have to worry about accidentally revealing her magic in front of the wrong person like Kerrigan.
Half of the table won this round, and cheers went up all around. A few of those seated tipped Clover big. One man with a pointed wink. Clover just reshuffled the deck and nodded her head at the pit boss before hastening to Kerrigan’s side.
“Red!” Clover crushed her long, toned body against Kerrigan as she pulled her into a hug.
“Clove, are you feeling all right?”
Her brown skin was beginning to lose its pallor, and her big brown eyes were blood shot and red-rimmed.
Clover waved the questions away and fumbled in her pocket for a smoke she’d tinged with loch.
When Kerrigan had first met Clover a year earlier, she had been disgusted with the habit. Loch was an addictive drug on a good day, and she smoked too regularly to not be obsessed with the stuff. But then Clover had accidentally left the cigarettes behind and debilitating pain had wreaked havoc on her body. The disability had made Kerrigan see the smoking in a whole new light.
With the first puff, everything about Clover loosened. “So, how’d it go? You look like shite.”
“Thank you very much,” Kerrigan said sarcastically. She palmed the pouch Dozan had given her.
“Holy scales,” Clover said, snatching the bag out of Kerrigan’s hand. She pushed up the sleeve of her red button-up and weighed the bag in her hand. “Who’d you swipe this from?”
“Dozan came to see me.”
Clover rolled her eyes as she headed toward the bar on the other side of the room. “Of course he did. He has it so bad for you. You should just give in.”
Kerrigan rolled her eyes. “No, thank you. Dozan likes to own things, and I won’t be owned.”
“I’d let him own me,” Clover said. She dropped her smoke in a passing drink. Already, she looked so much better. Her skin more vibrant and her eyes somehow even wider. As if the smoke had breathed life back into her.
“He already does. You work as a dealer in his gambling ring.”
“Well, I meant, my body, Kerrigan.”
“Red,” she muttered. No one here was supposed to know who Kerrigan was. “If you please.”
“Right, Red. Sorry. But back to Dozan…”
“Let’s not.”
“You’re no fun.”
“You tell me constantly.”
Clover rolled her eyes. “Anyway, what are you going to do with your earnings?”
Kerrigan shrugged. “Get you drunk?”
“Get drunk with me,” Clover said, raising her eyebrows.
“You know I have to go back to the mountain. The tournament starts tomorrow.”
Clover sighed heavily and pulled out another smoke. “Fine.”
Kerrigan pulled out a few marks from the purse and dropped them on the bar for Clover. “Meet me tomorrow. I’ll get you a seat to watch.”
“Dragons up,” Clover said with a wink.
Kerrigan left her at the bar with her loch and watered-down ale. She headed up another level and out the back way onto the streets of Kinkadia. She breathed in the clean air from the valley and turned her head skyward to take in the twinkling night stars overhead. A dragon passed across the moon, briefly shadowing it. She missed flying. Gods, she seriously missed flying.
She trudged across the cobblestones through the Dregs of the city of Kinkadia. The old familiar walkways were notoriously the worst part of the city. Primarily humans and half-Fae lived in squalor on the north side of the valley where the city was located, bracketed on three sides by an impressively large mountain range and a winding river running diagonally along the southern border.
She should have headed straight for her home in Draco Mountain, but her heart wasn’t in it tonight. The mountain had been her home the last twelve years, after she’d been left at the base of the mountain with no note or any belongings. And while she remembered enough from her time before the mountain had swallowed her up, she hated nights like tonight where it all came to the surface.
Like her horrid father who had left her behind so that he didn’t have to be responsible for raising a half-Fae.
Her father—Lord Kivrin Argon, the High Fae royal party boy, who had equally destroyed and saved her life.
And she hated him for all of it.
Her heart thundered in her chest as she picked up her pace through her dark, dank streets, accessing her favorite shortcut. A noise sounded behind her and she stopped in her tracks. Something was wrong.
Then, a rock whizzed toward her face. Kerrigan dodged the blow with a gasp. Adrenaline flooded her sore muscles and revitalized her dwindling magic.
Scales, what was going on?
A figure stepped into the center of the alley—Bruiser.
“Hello, Red.”
“You again,” she grumbled. “Didn’t have enough fun the first time?”
Bruiser had cleaned up. He wore a bright white button-up and a fancy black jacket with gold thread. She never would have guessed he could afford that. Not when he was fighting in the Dragon Ring.
But now that her senses were awake, she saw him for the distraction he was. This was an ambush. Three more men slunk out of the shadows.
“You couldn’t beat me in the ring, Bruiser, so you brought friends?” Kerrigan placed her hand over her heart. “I’m flattered.”
“Shut up, leatha,” Bruiser spat.
Kerrigan stilled at that word. She didn’t flinch. She would never let someone see her flinch away from that word again. But anger—deep-rooted fury—settled into her veins and brought forth a fount of magic from the depths of her stores.