Lost to the Gray by Amanda Bonilla Page A

restaurant. “Through your various contacts, you’ve all proven you’re good for the money. I’ve issued everyone one million dollars in credit for tonight’s game. Freya will distribute your chips.”
    In the center of the table sat a large golden contraption that looked very much like a roulette wheel. Humans had no problem bypassing the wheel for a partially loaded revolver cylinder when playing with their lives. Supernaturals, on the other hand, weren’t quite as fragile. The roulette wheel seemed innocent enough, but it was just as good as a revolver when the stakes were this high. A Smith & Wesson had nothing on a death marker. At least with the gun, it was over quickly.
    “Tyler?” Kadambari said with amusement, pulling me out of my reverie. I shook my head as if that would clear my muddled thoughts. I caught movement from the corner of my eye, a shadow slinking along the wall. My mind reeled as I squinted into the dark, convinced Darian watched me from the shadows.
Impossible. Just an illusion
. My eyes once again wandered to the Sylph, who was now leaning against the table for support, head bowed between her slight shoulders. “Perhaps you’ve found something more worthy of your attention?”
    Was it simply a side effect of the Ambrosia, a figment o S, a wof my imagination that Mithandra reminded me so much of Darian? And why, at this moment when I needed a clear head, was she all I could think about? “Let’s get started,” I said as Freya approached me with a tray of chips. “I’m not interested in wasting any more time.”
    Taking the tray into my hands, I stepped up to the table. The wheel glowed like the morning sun, marked with interspersed black and white notches. I noted that there were far more black notches than white. Great. The odds definitely tipped in favor of our deaths—not that Kadambari would have it otherwise. As if of its own accord, the wheel began to spin, rising up off the table until it was almost level with my torso. Sam let out a sort of half-whimper, half-scream. I didn’t have time to waste on him right now, though he’d secured a moment of our hostess’s attention. His fear must have smelled like a tray of fresh baked bread to Kadambari. An appetizer to the main course she’d consume once the game concluded.
    “Your bet?” she asked as politely as if she were inquiring as to my health.
    No need for an actual wager board for tonight’s game. We didn’t need a board with numbered squares to mark our bets. There were simply two options: life or death. And only a fool would bet against his life. I plucked five ten-thousand-dollar chips out of the tray and winced as one of the razor-sharp disks bit into my skin. With a flick of my wrist, I tossed the blood-smeared chips onto the table. So that was how the ghoul bound the gamblers to their life debt. Blood magic. Gods, how I hated it. “Fifty thousand.”
    Freya dropped a golden sphere, not much bigger than a marble, over the game board. Anxiety knotted my stomach as I watched the bead roll counter-clockwise to the wheel. I wondered with every turn if my luck would hold tonight, or if I was simply digging myself a grave beside Levi’s. The
click, clack
of Kadambari’s stiletto heels mingled with the bounce of the ball, barely registering in my brain as she walked behind me. Her breath tickled my ear in a pleasant, intimate way. “I hear you’re after a king’s ransom tonight.” Her voice was like a caress and my spine wasn’t the only thing that stiffened. “To think of your lover in another’s arms . . . must be torture.”
    My vision clouded as images of Darian lying beneath Xander, her body writhing in pleasure, appeared before me. The bar, my one safe haven, had officially become my personal hell as the illusion came to life: Xander holding her, caressing her, tasting her. Darian screaming
his
name as she rode him. Gods, my worst fears and insecurities I’d had about our relationship over the past few