Deck of Destiny 1, page 18
Elsie slipped behind me, let her hand trail over the small of my back, and I had to stop myself from jumping up at her touch. She shot me a wicked grin and settled down at the other side of Mayce. She caught her with a hug from behind.
“We’re all in this together,” she said. “All of us.”
Mayce tolerated the hug for a moment, then pushed her arms away. “You’re getting sloppy, Tex. They didn’t teach you to drink down in the South? Too much bible study?”
Elsie’s grin widened. “You learn all kinds of fun things at bible study. Don’t knock it.”
“Like what? Existence of Cards? How to not die?” Mayce countered.
Elsie shrugged. “The little guy standing up against an unimaginable force. Using wit and faith to take on unachievable odds and win. That kinda thing.” She sipped her bourbon again. “Can’t say I’m a very good woman of God, though.”
My mind flashed back to the night before. “Amen.”
Elsie giggled, and Mayce rolled her eyes. “Get a room already.”
I shook my head. “Night’s young. I think. How long was I out?”
“Three hours or so,” Daine assured me. “It’s just pushing seven now.”
A thought occurred to me. “Why do you think they brought in the Arbiter?”
“To scare us,” Mayce said. “And to get past Daine.”
I shook my head. “I think there’s something more going on.”
“Usually is,” Daine said.
I spun around on my chair to face him. “These new Cards. Leviathans. Bess getting taken. And the Dragons coming after Mayce. Feels like something’s in the water.”
“Interesting observation from a greenhorn,” Daine replied, “but I have to agree.”
“What other words are dancing around on the street?” Elsie pried.
Daine made a face. “That’d be telling. You have to understand, I guard my customer’s privacy pretty seriously. One of the reasons they keep coming back.”
“They don’t have the same kind of honor,” I told him. “Wilson knew. Wilson knew that you were offering a price to get Bess back here.”
“That’s the problem with information,” Daine said. “Tends to get out in a hurry.”
“You didn’t mention she was a vampire,” I said.
“Didn’t think it was a problem,” he replied. “She’s not some crazed animal out of control. Some of them can be, but she’s solid enough.”
I thought back to the altercation in Wilson’s office. “She didn’t look in control.”
“She’s back, and that’s what matters,” Daine replied lightly. “I can’t thank you enough for taking up that contract. Things are going to get busy around here for the next couple of days. People are looking for you. Might be an idea to keep your heads down.”
There was a hint of finality to his tone, and I didn’t want to press the guy.
He’d backed us, given us a safe place to stay, and defended us in front of the Arbiter.
There were things I wanted to be angry with him about, but the sheer relief of not having to wake up with a knife in my neck was enough to push me to let it go.
“Can you ask around about the new Cards?” Elsie prodded. “I’m not saying Matt’s right about some huge conspiracy, but the more we know about it, the easier it’ll be to keep out of trouble.”
Daine grinned at her. “See what I can do. Enjoy your night.”
He stepped out from behind the bar, vanished upstairs, and left us alone again.
Mayce knocked back the last of her whisky and smacked her fist down on the bar. “Right. Debriefing, and then I’m going to bed. I’m fucking tired after today.”
“You’re gonna debrief us?” I chuckled.
“You wanted me to teach you, I’m teaching,” Mayce countered. “What’d you pick up from those lunatics in the Pit? I know you’re trying to be secretive, but you got hold of their Cards, didn’t you?”
Elsie and I exchanged a glance.
“Can’t access them,” I told her.
“Didn’t have much time to figure out whether or not to replace mine,” Elsie added.
“So you went with upgrades,” Mayce guessed. “What did you power up?”
Elsie’s face tightened in concentration for a moment, and she let out a giggle. “Right. No Cards in the Castledaine. I leveled up the Greatshield and the Greatsword. Little tramp had some kind of agility Card, but I broke it down into my Knightly Aura instead.”
“She was only carrying three?” Mayce asked.
Elsie nodded. “Is that weird?”
“Depends,” Mayce replied. “Normally, yeah. Some people just push all their points into what they’re good with, though. Doesn’t make much sense for a Leviathan fighter.” She frowned. “Unless she was new. Matt, what did you get hold of?”
I recalled the Cards I’d seen after I’d taken out the shooter.
“Sniper Rifle, and something else called Hidden Knowledge,” I explained. “Can’t access them, can’t equip them, can’t do anything with them. May as well be dead weight.”
Mayce looked stunned. “Then how the hell are people getting these?”
I shrugged. “You’re the expert here.”
“I’ve never heard of Players taking other Cards that they can’t immediately use.” Her brow furrowed as she thought about it. “Or about a Divinity Card that lets you carry around spares, either. There’s a chance that you could equip them into your Deck, surely.”
“Couldn’t tell you,” I said. “At least not until we’re out of the Castledaine.”
“Speaking of,” Elsie chimed in. “What exactly is your plan with the Dragons?”
“Exactly what I said. Get a meeting and make sure they can’t kill me while they’re at it. Find out what’s going on in their ranks, and see if there’s a weakness I can exploit.”
“They’ll want you to join,” Mayce warned me.
“They can go fuck themselves,” I said. “There’s another way, I’m sure of it.”
“Like?”
“I’m just thinking out loud here,” I said, “but I’ve got a feeling that these new Cards are fucking with the Guilds. Leviathans have at least a couple of people with them, right? Or they have their own Sharks who are getting new Cards from somewhere. It’s shifting the balance of power. Why would the Dragons be going so damn hard on trying to get you back?”
“Bad for business if one of their people leaves,” Mayce told me.
“Because you’ll inspire the others?” Elsie asked.
“Could be,” she hedged, “but I’ve been around long enough to be valuable to them.”
I nodded. “Disposable cannon fodder aside, they need good people. Still doesn’t explain why they’d send one of their inner circle here with an Arbiter to try and pick you up.”
“You think they’re on the back foot,” Mayce said.
“Makes sense, doesn’t it? Guns hitting the Game. Leviathans fucking with Switzerland. I can’t pin down exactly what it is, but there’s a shift happening. And after they missed out on their Divinity Card—”
“They’re really hurting,” Mayce agreed. “Alright, I’ll accept that. You’re still walking into a trap. Contract or no Contract, they’re going to do everything they can to either make you stay with them or finish you off before you can get any steam.”
I raised my glass of beer. “That’s what friends are for.”
Glass clinked against glass, and each of us drained our drinks. I sucked in a deep breath and glanced over at Elsie. Her brows pulled down into a thoughtful frown as she watched Mayce push up off her seat and make her way up to the staircase.
“Did you get our room keys?” I asked. “And the rest of our stuff?”
“Sure did,” she assured me. “The room’s incredible, by the way.”
“Jenna patch you up, too?”
“Wasn’t much she had to do,” Elsie said.
I peered closer at her face. All the insanity of the Dragon Guild appearing had distracted me from her injuries. A thin, white scar crossed down from under her eye, but it didn’t do anything to distract from her features. She gave me a hopeful look for a moment, and I suppressed a laugh.
“You look hardcore,” I said.
“Yeah, but—”
“Else,” I said firmly, “you look incredible. I’m so proud of you.”
She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide the smile on her face. “Thanks, dad.”
“Look, if that’s how the roleplay is going to go-”
Elsie pushed off her chair. “Come on. Let me show you our new digs.”
I followed her across the floor and up the handsome staircase. Carpet muffled our footfalls as we headed up past the carved balustrade. More oil paintings hung from the walls, and we hit a landing that forked up and left.
The Castledaine was a gorgeous old building, and the longer that I spent in it, the more it grew on me. We reached a huge hallway with a stone floor and fresh carpet, and I had the sudden feeling that I really was inside some kind of medieval castle. Tapestries hung off the walls, and crystal chandeliers spun warm light down over us as we stepped past a series of wooden doors. Numbers were burned into each of them, and Elsie halted at Number 7. She pressed her hand up against the door, and a small shimmer of white runes flared up around her hand.
The door clicked open.
I stared at it for a second. “How does that even work?”
“It’s amazing, right?” Elsie said. “I asked Daine the same thing. He said something about ‘trade secrets’, and left it at that.” She pushed through the door and gave me a cute little bow as I started to follow her. “Your chambers, my liege.”
My jaw just about hit the floor when I stepped into my new digs.
Daine had fitted the rooms of the Castledaine with the very best of old-fashioned style and modern comfort. A four-poster bed took up a good chunk of the main space, and dark curtains fluttered in a breeze from an open window. The old-world furniture from downstairs was present here. Dark mahogany furniture with Chesterfield stitch and thick pile carpets spread themselves out around us. A round, felt-topped table sat to my immediate right, and a built-in wardrobe spanned out on my left. Light streamed down from yet another crystal chandelier, and a door at the far end of the space led off to a bathroom loaded with marble surfaces and frosted glass.
I’d never stayed in a place like this. I’d only ever seen it in movies.
Elsie closed the door behind us with a soft click, and I drifted through the room in a slight daze. The window was flanked by the same curtains on the bed, and a rush of cool air washed over me as I paused at the sill. The lights of the neighborhood twinkled in the street below us. I couldn’t tell what time it was, but the events of the day had finally caught up with me. The biting pain of the shots I’d taken had faded into a dull throb, and I remembered Jenna’s advice to me about sleep. Beer, vodka, and a touch of whisky had blended together into a fantastic buzz. The added elation of outmaneuvering the Dragons just added to it, and I sucked in a deep breath of the night air.
Elsie stopped beside me and rested her head on my bare shoulder.
“We made it,” she breathed.
“We sure did,” I agreed.
She snorted. “Thought you were going to say ‘for now’, all ominous-like.”
“Resisting the urge.” I chuckled.
“Hit the showers, player.” She grinned. “You smell like an entire football team.”
I detached myself from her, paced back across the room, and slid into the luxurious marble sanctum of cleanliness. A well-stocked shelf of lotions, soaps, and razors sat under a huge mirror at the center of the space. An honest-to-god spa bath sat off to the right, and a shower big enough to fit a sports team sat across from it. I squirmed my way out of my bloodstained jeans and glanced over myself in the mirror for a second. The claw marks on my forearm had already healed over and left a gnarly trio of angry scars behind. My shoulder had taken two bullets, and I was amazed that the joint still worked after that kind of trauma.
The sniper round had left a perfectly-straight line across my ribs.
An inch to the right and I would’ve lost a lung.
I pushed the thoughts out of my mind and stepped into the shower. Multiple nozzles blasted me with steaming water from different directions, and I bit down on a yelp of surprise. Elsie had already left behind a bar of soap for me, and I got busy scrubbing myself down. I relaxed into the water a minute later and let the steaming heat chase away the last of the tension and hurt from my body.
I found a fluffy white towel near to hand on a gleaming golden rack and wrapped it around my waist as I took a moment to shave and get as much grit and blood out from under my fingernails as I could. I didn’t know the exact level of invulnerability that Players had against the elements, but I wasn’t going to be the guy that went down because of an infection or some bullshit disease I’d picked up from my fights.
I stepped back out into the bedroom, mostly dry, and found my girlfriend waiting on the bed. Her pleasing black dinner dress had vanished in favor of a simple set of lingerie, and she offered me a wicked grin as I stopped short in the bathroom doorway.
“Got anything left in the tank?” she asked.
I made a show of rolling my head around my shoulders to loosen up my neck.
“Pretty sure I could find something,” I told her.
The towel hit the carpet, and I crossed the room in three big strides to join her on the bed. Soft silk shifted around us as I pushed her onto her back, pinned her hips to the bedspread, and kissed her. Elsie moaned up into my mouth in reply, bucked a little under me, and her fingernails stung my skin as she pulled me down into her. We might’ve stayed like that for about all of three seconds until her hand found my shaft. I tore her out of her bra as a pulse of pure pleasure rolled through my body. Elsie’s strong hands had magic in them, and she swept my legs out from under me as I finally got her bra down over her arms.
Her mouth found mine again in a hungry rush.
I couldn’t get enough of her. Her smooth skin brushed against me as she dropped her chest down against mine. She kissed my neck, then my jawline and ground herself against me. A soft series of rolling moans rippled out of her chest, and her nipples hardened as I grabbed her ass to control the pace. There was something primal and feral about us, but Elsie softened it with passionate kisses and slow movements. She smacked my hands away from her panties with a playful giggle and paused atop me for a moment.
“Always in a rush, aren’t you?” she drawled.
I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Far be it from me to rush a lady.”
“Mm, better,” she growled and attacked my mouth with hers again.
The swell of her breasts drove me insane as she rolled her hips over mine. Her perfume blended with some kind of rose-oil scent in the air, and I forced myself to slow down and take in all the little details. Her hair tickled my cheek as she kissed me. Her panties were already soaking, and I could feel just how much she wanted me. Her fingertips rolled down over my newly-scarred shoulder, over my biceps, and found my palms. We laced fingers for a moment, and I couldn’t believe how soft and comfortable the bed underneath us was.
It felt like I was making love on a cloud.
We stayed like that for a moment. Elsie rocked back and forth, kissing and nipping and growling playfully in my ear. I caught her under the ass, pulled her up onto my stomach, and my tongue found her breasts a second later.
My girlfriend arced up as I tickled her nipples with my teeth and lips, and her fingers curled up in my hair. She arced herself up a little as I kissed and sucked her. She straightened up a moment later, half-slid off my chest, and met my eyes.
Red-brown irises smoldered with sheer need as she touched my face.
“Now I’m ready,” she panted.
I grinned at her. “Well, that just makes me want to tease you more.”
She hooked a finger into the elastic of her underwear, tore them down, and kicked them off onto the floor beside my towel. She grabbed my hip, half-twisted, and tried to pull me on top of her. I went willingly, felt her thighs clamp around my waist, and found her eyes on mine again. I did take a moment to tease her, to gently slide the head of my cock against her dripping slit.
Elsie squeaked into my ear as her arms tightened around my neck. I slid into her, growled as the sheer sensation of her enveloped me, and slowly rocked my way in and out of her body. Elsie’s eyes rolled up in her head, and her body tightened backward into an arch to take me, deeper and harder. I lost track of time as I pushed in and out and kept my rhythm as consistent as I could.
Her skin, her hair, and her smell became my world, and her nails dug into my back as she climbed up toward her peak. I didn’t go faster. I just kept sliding in and out of her, focusing on the lightning sensation of pleasure carving its way through my body.
“Matt,” she breathed. “Matt, I’m going to-”
She caught hold of me in a death grip, and a thunderstorm of pleasure blasted through her body. Trembling shudders overtook her, and she let out a raw, long moan that must’ve echoed the whole way out through the hallway. I held her close as she spasmed around me, drove the pleasure deeper and deeper into her, and managed to pull out at the very last second. I let out a snarl as I came and covered her thighs in thick whiteness.
Elsie finally released me, and I dropped onto the covers beside her a moment later.
She stared up at the ceiling of the four-poster with wide eyes.
“Sweet Lord in heaven,” she whispered. “What was that?”
“I think they call it sex,” I said. “Weird for young Texan ladies, but—”
She kissed me to shut me up and curled up against my chest.
The two of us passed out together, wrapped up in a cocoon of safety and warmth.
We’d fucking earned it.
Chapter 19
I hadn’t exactly known what to expect on my first morning staying at Castledaine.
The owner knocking on the door wasn’t one of them. Daine’s fist cracked off the wood, shocked me out of sleep, and I rolled out of Elsie’s arm with a sudden rush of new energy. She stirred as I came off the edge of the bed, hit the carpet, and rolled up into a crouch.
