Page 9 of Blood and Trouble

“Yes,” I said. “Two. A twin sister, Ren, and a younger sister, Channing.”

“You’re a twin?” Her answering smile lit up her entire face.

“I am,” I said. “I’m younger by thirteen minutes.”

“Me too,” she said. “Exactly thirteen minutes.”

“Do you get along with your siblings?” I steered the conversation toward lighter things, saving my most burning questions for when I beat her. Which I would. Playing poker was my specialty, and I could already read her. Even if I didn’t have my extra wolf senses to catch the rush of tangy adrenaline from a good hand or the undercurrent of delicious tension between us, she widened her eyes when she saw something she wanted. Or bit her lip when she was thinking too hard or trying to decipher her next move.

“Most of the time, yes,” she said. “Maeve is my best friend. Sol and Guin are closer to each other these days than they are to us, but I love them dearly. Galahad is a lot younger than us. He’s away at college most of the time. Liam is…well, he’s been cowed by the shift in leadership at the company, which has made him distant. And Percy…”

“Fucking Percy,” I muttered. That fucker was the reason Sol had been driving drunk the night she crashed on Bastard territory. He’d tried to marry her off to the president of the Bloody Scorpions MC in some twisted alliance contract. When she’d returned mated to Orion, her rotten brother ran off to join the fucking vampires, even allowing himself to be turned.

“Fucking Percy, indeed,” she said.

I wasted the card on the top of the deck before flipping the next one over. Ace of spades. I now had a pair. Not necessarily a winning hand, but nothing to sneer at.

“What about you?” She peeked at her cards and took another drink of scotch.

“Ren and I are complete opposites,” I said. “Yin and yang. We fight as much as we get along.”

Of the two of us, Larentia (Ren to me since childhood) had always been the more serious one. After our parents died, we raised Channing together. But even I could admit, I wasn’t much of a parental figure. I’d gotten into as much, if not more, trouble than Channing ever did, and often, it felt like Ren had to be the parent to us both. This had caused a complicated relationship between us. We were twins. We shared a connection few others could understand, made even more so by shifter magic. She was a lingering presence inside my chest, one that never fully went away. When we were little, our parents said we communicated in our own language, and sometimes, without even speaking.

Ava laughed. “Same here. Maeve is wild and carefree and reckless. And I’m…”

I drank while I waited for her to finish.

“Not.” Her features dropped like she was disappointed in herself for not living like her twin.

“How so?” I went through the motions of discarding the card on top of the deck before revealing the next one. Three of hearts. I had my two pair. I tried not to let my face show it, relaxing into a mask of indifference.

“I don’t know,” Ava said. “I can’t stop my racing thoughts. All the what-ifs. All the possible outcomes. Maeve doesn’t care about that. She lives in the moment. I can’t stop fretting about the future.”

I ignored the impulse that flared in my chest, begging me to order her to drop and crawl to me. I could shut her mind off with two simple commands. I could take that away from her, even if only for a moment. But no. This wasn’t that type of arrangement. We may have put on a show for her stupid ex and her obnoxious colleagues, but it ended there.

“What would you do if you could?” I asked.

“Hmm, now you’re asking for secrets you haven’t won yet.” She preened and gestured to my cards. “Moment of truth.”

I flipped over my hand and grinned when she revealed she had nothing.

“This game isn’t fair,” she said with a scoff. “We should be betting as we go. I would have folded.”

“Don’t deflect,” I said with a laugh.

“I’m not deflecting,” she replied. “Just pointing out a flaw in logic. What’s the point of this if it’s up to chance? I should at least be allowed to withdraw if I don’t like my odds.”

“Hmm, talk about overthinking.”

She scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest, leaning back in her seat. “Well, go on. What secret do you want to know?”

I debated the first five things that came to mind. What really happened with her and the Seventh Earl of Little Dick Energy? What would she do if she could clear her mind? What was her biggest regret? What did she hope for the future? None of those hit the mark.

I thought about the weeks I’d spent with her, how I’d seen her chew men up and spit them out, how I’d never seen her flirt or even entertain the possibility of a random hook-up. I’d come here expecting two nights off every month. One to shift on the full moon, the other to release pent-up energy with whoever I could find willing. But Ava? Nothing. It was like that side of her had been chained up and hidden deep in her soul. Like she never allowed it to breathe.

Somewhere along the way, she’d decided she didn’t need anyone. That she could only rely on herself. And fuck, I understood that far too well.

“When did you stop letting people get close to you?”