Flawed Creatures

Beatrix Hollow

FLAWED CREATURES

BEATRIX HOLLOW

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Character art by Alex Conkins

Map by Cartographybird

Created with Vellum

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Epilogue

Books by Beatrix Hollow

About the Author

PREFACE

For extensive content information please visit my website here:

https://www.beatrixhollow.com/copy-of-home

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Some creatures are fatally flawed. I'm a thrill-seeker, a gambler, and a thief--playing whim to my Greed. However, my sins aren't what I have to fight right now...it's theirs.

Three men deemed too powerful and wrong to let live by our Council. They're too devious, too strong, too evil. An unhinged crazy incubus, an obsessive shape shifting beast, and the Dullahan himself--scars, steed, and all.

Tricked, captured, captive. They plan to use my power, wield it as their own. I'm their golden ticket, their pot of gold. Kings, gods, and creatures have tried to use my kind and these three monsters are exactly the same. They know that when luck is on your side, the odds are never even.

There's an unstoppable hitman on their back and they need something that gives them the upper hand, a guarantee of success. And that something is me.

Author Notes: This is a stand-alone urban fantasy romance with lots of love all around.

1

My eyes scanned the cards in hand: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten. Five little black clovers winked back at me from the corner of each card. Oh boy, these men were decidedly not going to like these cards.

The pungent smell of cigar smoke was thick around the room, creating hazy clouds around our heads.

The tension was a palatable pressure caressing my skin.

The corners of my mouth tugged up, betraying my poker face for a shit-eating grin. My tongue darted out over my lips and my manicured nails tapped away quickly on the table.

Angry eyes latched on to my smile and fingers, taking in all the tells and not liking it one little bit. I bit my lower lip to hold back a chuckle. These poor bastards were about to lose the rest of their money.

I’d been cleaning the tables all night with the big bad guys of our island. Real trash—drug lords, blackmailers, maybe even human traffickers. I didn’t know the gritty and sordid details of their respective empires, but I knew they were horrible. Which enabled me an even greater pleasure in this brazen robbery.

I should have felt inclined to stay away from such nefariously powerful men. Or at the least, I should feel the need to avoid pissing them off. Of course, I felt none of that. Actually, I was drawn to it like a thirsty gazelle to a tiger’s watering hole.

This was more excitement than I’d had in a year. My thighs clenched and rubbed against each other as I relished an electric excitement building in me. The big round table was filled with a nasty assortment of gritty men with gray hair and pockmarked cheeks. Scars and tattoos peeked out from beneath shirt collars, while necks were draped with thick golden chains that lay over loosened silk shirts marked with sweat at the armpits. Their plump fingers gripped cards while sweat beaded on furrowed scrunched foreheads.

Their supply of freshly counted cash was fast approaching empty. It hadn’t even taken long. One hour for these dangerous men to go from chiding to snarling. I’d shown up with my bag of cash and they’d cast pretentious smiles at me, not even questioning how I knew about their private game.

“Come to gamble Daddy’s money, doll?”

“Looks like Princess wants some thrills,” another had grumbled in response. A deep chuckle had coughed up from his gut.

They weren’t joking around now. Sharp dressed men with suspicious bulges under their armpits lined the edges of the room–bored bodyguards eyeing their angry bosses. Everyone was feeling on edge.

Thirty hands in and I’d won every hand. Every. Single. One. The only thing slowing me down was how much these guys wanted to gamble each hand. No one had these odds. No one but me of course. It wasn’t logic, practice, reading tells, or gambling smart.

It was luck, pure and simple.

“Don’t,” one of the angry assholes growled at me. I raised an eyebrow and tossed him a smirk. Then I had to bite my lip again to keep from laughing because this was just too perfect of a scene—the big, bad, strong men of the city sweating in anger because of me. I could see their hate crinkled in their foreheads, along with their inability to accept this was really happening. Oh, the audacity I must have to steal their money right in front of them. Hah!

My eyes widened in excitement and my breath hitched as I smacked the table with my cards. My fingers fanned the cards out in a beautiful display of a royal flush, making sure all could see. This was going to push them over the edge and I was giddy with anticipation.

My fingers shook slightly from the intensity of the moment. My eyes raised from the table to the men. Their disbelief made me poorly hide a chuckle behind my hand.

“No way. No fucking way,” one of them spat the words, spittle dribbling down his chin while his words slurred. I’d lost count of how many scotches he’d consumed over the past hour.

“Looks like someone had a few too many,” I teased. Probably a horrible time to joke. No one else smiled. Actually, a few faces turned an even darker shade of red.

“How do you do it?” Another man hissed. They were all convinced I was cheating. It was the only explanation that made sense to them. I gave a wide smile to each one of them. A storm of frantic intensity was exploding inside me. Fear, nerves, anxiety—my mind chewed them up and swallowed them whole because I was a thrill-seeker to the extreme. The tingling spine, the shaking fingers, the flipping stomach—I loved it.

Predatory eyes all faced me, hungry for savagery. My heart beat wildly in my chest, spurring me on. A taste of mania tickled my brain. I wanted to savor every second of this brewing storm. It made me feel electric.

Sweat blossomed on my forehead. The room was getting hot despite the AC rumbling loudly, trying to keep pace with the desert heat. We were in the back room of a small liquor store that was likely a front for money laundering. The room was nothing fancy but they’d made it comfortable enough with nice chairs, an expensive poker table, and top-shelf liquors splashing around in stout whiskey glasses.

One could almost forget we were in a shitty storage closet with the scent of pricey cigar smoke and all the gold jewelry on these men. It was upsetting they hadn’t felt the need to start gambling that gold away but these types of men didn’t get that desperate.

“How do I do what?” I asked with fake confusion. I smirked as I leaned over the table, ignoring my body’s protest to run, back away, and never come back to this den of human monsters. Crisp bills in neat stacks caressed my hand as I shoveled them into my duffel bag. Grumbling broke out around the table and I knew I had mere moments before anticipated danger made good on its promise.

My hand shot out faster, frantically grabbing the last of the money. It felt like dipping my hand into a basket of snakes, waiting for one to strike.

“You really think we’re letting you take that?” A smooth, teasing voice questioned in entertainment. My grip tightened on my heavy duffel and I looked at the speaker. My eyebrows pinched when I saw he wasn’t angry but delighted. His dark gray hair was slicked back and not a drop of sweat darkened his face. His clean jaw was angular, his cheekbones a little high–the bone structure reminiscent of someone with Eastern European heritage.

His hands were laced together on his knee as he sat comfortably back in his chair, shoulders straight and wide. Nice suit, nice watch, and one pinky ring. The guy had both class and money whereas most in here only had the latter. Dark sunglasses sat perched on his nose while a sly smile graced his face.

A psychopath if I’d ever seen one—an attractive one. Just my type. Too bad the situation insisted I leave or I’d ask this big, bad man for a ride on his pogo stick. I liked them rough, dangerous, and with the same emotional range as an inanimate object.

I flipped the bag up and around, threading my arms through the handles to wear it like a backpack. It probably weighed a good forty pounds. My mind raced to figure what forty pounds of hundred dollar bills would be. The numbers spun in my head like a roulette wheel and before slowly settling on 1.6 million. Not bad. Well, not bad assuming I lived through the next five minutes that is.

I shot a glance around the room. The rest of the men were glaring at me in hate. The bodyguards lining the walls narrowed their eyes at me.

The rain cloud was about to burst. Fair to say, I had worn out my welcome awhile back.

“Viktor’s right,” a man grumbled and my eyebrows rose. These men weren’t letting me take their money? It shocked me a little, even though I expected things might go this way. Usually, people didn’t fight. I’d clean the table in a blink of an eye, dancing my winnings back to the treasure room in my condo. They were left with their mouths hanging open and their minds slowly processing what just happened—mad, confused, but begrudgingly accepting that I’d taken their money.

These men tonight were not accepting shit. They weren’t used to being losers. Too bad for them it was practically my duty to teach people the bitter taste of being cheated.

I brushed off my leather jacket. They weren’t getting jack shit back from me. The money was mine now—another shovel onto the ever-growing hoard of treasure. Lacey Flanagan didn’t give out money, she collected it, and this fat bag weighing me down was mine the moment I decided to come to this poker game.

Greed was a powerful thing, especially when it was supernaturally embedded into your DNA. I’d rather get captured and fight to the death for what I saw as mine. My pretty shiny treasure.

I was capable of fear but it never quite hit the same when you could cheat death. Which explained all my vices—the gambling, the thievery, the hard men like Mr. Viktor over there.

I eyed each of the men at the table before looking at their bodyguards. Their eyes were sharp and unwavering. Energy was coursing wildly through my veins, demanding action. This was it, the precarious moment before all hell broke loose. We were teetering near the edge.

Viktor leaned forward, tugging his sunglasses down as his eyes ate me up. Shining golden eyes dragged over every inch of my body.

His eyes weren’t natural and they were gold of all things--a mesmerizing color to a leprechaun. I couldn’t look away for a moment, enthralled by the shiny color. Sadistic excitement flared brightly in his gaze. Shit.

I ran. I was a gazelle making a beeline straight for the door, even as the mad tigers were starting to rage.

Sound exploded behind me—a cacophony of snarled orders, furious shouts, chairs being knocked over, mechanical snicks as slides slid over actions and bullets were chambered. Someone barked for more guns and more men.

Suddenly it grew pitch black, like a light switched off, and darkness enshrouded the room. A lucky break just in time. My muscles burned as I ran towards the back door by memory.

Just a few more steps. I reached out with my hand—

A bullet ricocheted off the wall in front of me. Fear splashed like ice water up my spine. Calm down, I growled in my head, you’re fine! I pushed my legs harder, my feet slamming into the ground with each swift step.

My fingers feathered over the doorknob briefly before the door swung open without my help. A blast of hot air from outside hit me in the face. A breeze had blown the door open. Which was unlikely as hell and lucky as fuck. Just my calling card.

A manic smile spread over my face. Luck would get me out of here like it always did. I laughed as I leapt through the door, landing on my riding boots. The dark sky glowed with the city’s lights. The smell of gasoline and frying oil lingered in the air. Another bullet shot past me, zinging as it passed, and my smile grew wider as my heart pounded in panic.

The street corner to my left was littered with late night street vendors selling illegal movies and a hodgepodge of ethnic foods from Mexican street corn to Nigerian suya. Their heads disappeared behind their carts as the pop of bullets sounded. None moved their carts, choosing to wait out another short shooting instead of losing their place on the pavement. Their customers fled quickly down alleys and into whatever building was close. A few just crouched down, unimpressed and desensitized to this sort of thing.

“Catch me if you can, boys!” I taunted over my shoulder with a manic laugh, having the time of my life. I raced across the loose gravel parking lot and dug my fingers in my jeans’ pocket, fishing out a small set of keys.

I gulped in the warm air and enjoyed the overwhelming sensation of being alive while gangsters shot at me. This right here was a feeling I could become addicted to, that I was addicted to already. Sometimes I only felt alive when the threat of death was riding my heels, baying like hounds from Hell.

I skidded to a stop beside my Ducati motorcycle, smoothly swung my leg over, and jammed in the key. The engine roared to life. Vibrations hummed pleasantly between my legs. The duffel of cash was a heavy presence on my back.

I took a brief moment to look at my attackers. Furious bosses were streaming out of the building like a mad gaggle of fire ants from a disturbed nest; guns in hand. Their overexerted faces were bulging and red as they futilely tried to catch up, their guns firing wildly. One man ran into the parking lot, slipped, and kissed the gravel. I laughed. The rest slowed down to avoid the same fate.

Flawed Creatures