Page 123 of Cursed Lifeline

Felix

song: I will wait | 2cellos

My mouth waters rememberingher taste as I stand silently in the shadows. Her head falls back; she lets out an exaggerated laugh at the fool sitting beside her before her blue eyes search mine out in the darkness.

She’s called to you just as much as you’re destined to find her.

Dimitri’s words fuel a jealous anger that’s been building since I left my office and found her flirting with a group of men in the high-stakes poker room.

Meeting her like this is unsettling, not to mention terrifyingly suspicious, seeing as our destined paths crossed for the first time under similar circumstances.

One of the men sitting across from her folds his hand. She glances up at him and raises a condescending brow before looking to her left and intimidating the other player to almost do the same. The pressure and tension silently build before he tosses another two grand onto the center of the table.

Reading your opponent is an asset everyone would be smart to learn and benefit from. For her, it’s essential and a trick she never mastered well in her previous lives.

I study her closely, and my heart settles as she doesn’t flinch when the man finishes pushing his pile of cash into the center of the table. She doesn’t take her eyes off her opponent, either. She merely reaches to her side and matches his bet.

Good girl.

Perhaps luck might be on our side this time.

The poor idiot across from her starts to sweat and almost does the unthinkable by reaching underneath the table to wipe his clammy palms on his slacks, but he stops himself just in time as the dealer snaps, “Hands where we can see them. " Growing irritated, he then growls, “Call it.”

The fool gives the man a terrified look and nods.

Esme has gotten him to bet the entire stack of cash he walked in with. Five hundred thousand, to be exact. However, something tells me that isn’t the worst of his worries as my senses are alerted when an elder of the notorious Revenant Coven enters the far side of the room. Flanked by two others of our kind, he gives me a nod of respect, hinting that he came in peace, and then focuses back on the man sweating at the table. A man who quickly glances over his shoulder and starts to tremble from the elder’s evil stare.

It would seem our friend here got into business with the wrong kinds of loan sharks. An unfortunate fate I believe he is just now realizing as he turns back around and faces his beautiful opponent.

Flipping over his cards, he attempts to sit up tall and smiles.

“Four of a kind,” he stammers. “King high.”

His confidence is almost alarming.

Esme’s focus is sharp. Trained. Harnessed to kill. A trait she’s seemed to have finally perfected throughout the centuries we’ve spent chasing each other. Even though I haven’t seen the watchers in over a hundred years, my heart settles a little as hope floods me, seeing they may have finally got something right.

She releases a deep sigh, feigns annoyance, and slowly turns over her hand. I glance behind her as the coven approaches and reads her cards and the minds of the men at the table with ease. Their vengeance on this poor man’s soul is addictive as it floats through the room and I catch wind of what they plan to do to the bastard now that he’s lost.

“Straight flush,” she says confidently, telling the room what us predators of the night already knew.

“You cheat,” the mortal yells.

Glancing around frantically, his panicked mind attempts to figure a way out of his fate. Esme’s eyes lock with the elder’s stare. He gives her an eerie smile, bows, and gestures with an outstretched hand his thanks.

He's not here for her. Neither is she here for them.

As intriguing and unsettling as the thought is, I push it away and focus on her safety all while I simultaneously attempt to read her mind and figure out if maybe she’s working with the coven in exchange for something I am too blind to see. But the loser’s thoughts roar too loudly to focus as the elder puts a hand on his shoulder and slowly pulls himtoward his doomed fate. The scrape of his chair grating upon metal increases the tension in the room as the man pleads, “Please, I can win it back. Just give me another chance. I promise I…,” but the dealers of death have already decided.

They pull him from the room as the minds of those in attendance are instantly cleared of anything that’s happened in the last five minutes.

Everyone’s mind, that is - but hers.

The room vacates quickly, except for Esme and myself. As she sits and delicately rolls a chip from her winnings across her knuckles, I stick to the shadows and yearn for her touch in silence.

Goosebumps prickle her skin. After a moment, a telltale shiver rushes up her spine.

She senses she’s not alone.

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