The Strip by Heather Killough-Walden, Gildart Jackson Read Free Book Online Page B

No boys tonight. I’m sorry, M.J., but I seriously need to spend a few hours without being surrounded by overprotective testosterone. It’s girl’s night. Deal?” The elevators dinged open once more and Claire stepped out onto M.J.’s floor. She glanced at each door number as she went down the aisle, noticing that this floor had a lot more rooms on it than hers did.
    “All right.” Mary Jane took a deep breath on the other end of the line. “It’s a deal. But if you want to let loose and have fun for once, then you have to do everything I tell you to do. No ifs, ands, or buts. Deal?”
    “Yes, it’s a deal.” Charlie found the right door and stood before it, waiting.
    “Okay, how long before you’re ready?” M.J. asked.
    Claire smiled a beautiful smile and knocked on the door.
    * * * *
    “She’s headed out.”
    A man with amber eyes watched as Claire and Mary Jane moved through the multiple security screens before him. As the women made their way past the casino tables and slot machines and headed toward the exit, he turned to look over his shoulder at the men standing behind him. There were four other men in the room, their unnaturally stark eyes riveted to the screens. The tallest of them, a silver-haired gentleman dressed in a very expensive suit, pressed some sort of communication device beside his ear. When it cleared for sound, he spoke.
    “I need Mitch and his team to shadow Miss St.James and her female companion.”
    “Understood,” came the static reply.
    The man lowered his arm and drew a deep, slow breath. “Vince, you follow them too. Stick to Claire no matter what the others do. See that she’s back in her room before day break.”
    A man with long, straight black hair and a goatee nodded beside the older gentleman. His gold eyes flashed as he took one last look at Charlie before she disappeared from the casino’s inside cameras and reappeared on outdoor cameras that led down the sidewalks in front of The August hotel. Then he turned and left the room.
    * * * *
    There were five of them, total. Three of Phelan’s men seemed to move around a heavily built werewolf with buzz-cut brown hair. If Cole had heard them right, his name was Mitch. The fifth werewolf moved alone, separate from the others.
    All werewolves were tall, to a certain extent. Cole had never met one under six feet. However, amongst werewolves, just as some were stronger and faster or possessed powers that others did not, some were definitely taller than others.
    This fifth of Phelan’s men was very tall. He wore solid black and the material blended with the inky color of his hair. Cole could smell the strangeness coming off of him. It was the same scent that Eva Black had possessed, though not as tinged with darkness. It was magic. And whether the werewolf was a witch or a warlock, Cole would have no way of knowing for certain until the man began to cast one of his spells.
    Since their arrival a few hours earlier, Cole’s men had fanned out across the city; he’d brought them all. He wasn’t taking chances. More than a dozen werewolves under his command had begun to close in on the Strip like red radar blips, their circle shrinking around the epicenter created by Claire St.James. At the moment, they outnumbered Phelan’s men three to one.
    Cole suspected that Gabriel Phelan’s absence had much to do with that faux pas on their part. It was nearly impossible for a pack to organize itself efficiently while its leader was away. There was something about an alpha’s proximity that had an effect on his pack. It drew it together, made it more cohesive and stronger.
    Phelan wouldn’t be back from New York until the following night. The billionaire real-estate mogul was counting on two things at that moment. He was counting on his pack’s ability to keep Charlie safe in what he undoubtedly considered his territory: Las Vegas. He was also counting on no other alpha being aware that Claire St.James existed.
    And he was wrong on