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I step out of his embrace and go to the bag. I need… I just need the distraction tonight. It’s Vegas, after all. He came here because of me.

My fingers brush the wallet my mother had shoved into the bag so long ago, and I hold it up for him to see. “How about we try our hand at gambling?”

Chapter 34

Astra

“You’ve got twenty-one, young lady,” the man beside me crows.

The dealer pushes another stack of chips my way, and I laugh. I’ve quadrupled my money, and the old man sitting to my left seems to get more and more delighted with every deal of the cards.

He’s not faring so poorly himself.

Kian sat beside me for a while, but he quickly ran out of chips. He wordlessly got up from the table and took a walk, but I sense him returning to me.

The tether between us is getting more intense. Like the more time we spend together, intimate or not, the more it solidifies.

“Ms. Somnium,” someone says on my right.

I glance back and come face-to-face with a devastatingly handsome man. He wears a suit and tie. His short brown hair is perfectly styled into place, although it’s the cut that gives him away. It’s a little outdated. Militant, even.

My skin prickles.

I sense Kian moving faster now, but then I spot the security the suited man brought with him.

“I need you to come with me,” the man continues, as if there wasn’t some dramatic pause between us.

“It’s just luck, sir,” my new friend says. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m not accusing her of wrongdoing,” the suit man says smoothly. He produces a hundred-dollar chip from his pocket and flips it to the player.

My stomach twists.

“Come along, Ms. Somnium.”

He points to my chips, and one of his security comes forward and reaches past me. He collects them all in fast, easy movements. He puts them in a fabric bag, then straightens. His face remains blank, passive. Waiting for me to make a choice.

Well, I suppose I don’t really have one.

I slide off the stool and follow him toward the elevators. I glance around, but I don’t spot the hulking wolf shifter. I resist the urge to tug on the bond. I’m not in trouble, not yet. We step into the elevator with one security guard. The rest stay below, their backs to the elevators. I don’t sense Kian’s frustrated worry until the doors slide shut, trapping me inside.

Maybe it’s not a good idea to get in the elevator with strange men, Astra.

The man beside me ignores me completely until we reach the P floor, whatever that is. The doors open, and he steps out first. I’ve got no choice but to follow him.

We’re high up. Way higher than our hotel room. The walls are made completely of glass, letting in a considerable amount of light. To my left is a collection of cubicles filled with people. They wear headsets and ignore our arrival. To the right are offices, and they seem to have the only actual walls on this floor separating them. Never mind that the fronts of their offices are glass.

He leads me past them all, though, to the far corner of the building.

Beaumont Sanders, the engraving on the glass door reads. No job title, so he must be high up enough to not need one. Which is a little worrying.

Why bother with me?

“Are you Beaumont?” I ask.

He inclines his chin. “You can call me Beau.”

I nod slowly and walk into his office. I run my fingers over the back of the white leather couch, bypassing his giant glass desk and going to the windows.