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    On the Cards Book Three: On the Cards, #3
    On the Cards Book Three: On the Cards, #3
    On the Cards Book Three: On the Cards, #3
    Ebook186 pages2 hours

    On the Cards Book Three: On the Cards, #3

    By Odette C. Bell

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    About this ebook

    It's time to trust Tom. For now.

    Nadine is thrust back into a fight for Terra City and her life. And Tom won't let her stop.

    The Renewal Council won't stop either. They throw everything they can at Nadine. And what does that do? Why, that pushes her right into Tom's arms.

    But nothing's changed. Tom's still playing a game, and she's his only wildcard.

    ….

    On the Cards follows a snarky magical card shark and the lying detective she's indentured to as they fight to unify their broken city. If you love your urban fantasies with action, wit, and a splash of romance, grab On the Cards Book Three today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOdette C. Bell
    Release dateMar 18, 2019
    ISBN9781386929147
    On the Cards Book Three: On the Cards, #3

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      On the Cards Book Three - Odette C. Bell

      1

      I didn’t trust him. Not like a partner, not like a friend, and certainly not like a lover. I trusted him like an enemy who happened to be walking in the same direction as me.

      As a lump of pure emotion formed in my gut, I tightened my grip on my fists, and I nodded once at Tom. I won’t hand the city over to you, I said one last time, my voice gravelly with definitive determination. I put my all into my gaze, making sure it burnt behind my eyes as if someone had shoved a power station into my skull.

      This time Tom didn’t demand that he didn’t want the city. He pressed his lips together and looked at me with disappointment flooding through his features. He looked like I’d ruined his every impression of me. Whatever. Maybe he was disappointed by the fact that I couldn’t get behind his plot to claim the city – he’d get over it. He was a big boy. The one thing he would not get over, however, was his twisted past. Maybe I’d fooled myself into thinking Tom was more than a tortured rich boy – but now I understood him better than he would understand himself.

      Tom might think that when it came to it, he would reject controlling the city. He wouldn’t. All it would take was violence or unrest, and he would tighten his control. Then all it would take was the mere mention of trouble, and he would tighten his control yet again until the next thing he knew, Tom would rule Terra City through and through.

      I started to walk in the direction he’d been striding in before I’d left him. It took him several seconds before he bothered to push off behind me. Even then, he didn’t reach my side. He stayed several meters behind me as if he were a bodyguard ensuring I didn’t make a sudden break for it.

      He could see my hands as I rested them loosely by my sides. I let him watch as I clutched them into fists, let them go, and then curled them in again. I knew his gaze would pick up how tense they were. I knew his mind would be spinning as he tried to figure out if this was a ploy, or I’d truly decided to help him.

      You see, I knew Tom.

      Or at least, I thought I did.

      You’re forgetting your wrist is still injured, he said softly behind me. You’re bleeding again, Nadine.

      I blinked in surprise. Reluctantly, I brought my hand up and checked my wrist. Sure enough, slicks of blood were sliding down from the deep gash that cobwebs spell had given me.

      I’ll stem the bleeding, if you let me, he offered.

      My teeth immediately clenched together as if someone had wrapped them in wire. To do that, presumably he would have to touch me, and that was the last thing I’d be able to put up with now. If Tom’s memorable heat came in contact with my skin, maybe I’d start doubting myself. Maybe I’d thrust away the conclusion that Tom was just another broken soldier boy who wanted to destroy everything in his path so he would never have to see the horrors of war again.

      If Tom touched me, perhaps I’d give him one last chance.

      I dropped my wrist by my side and kept walking.

      We made it 10 more meters until he cleared his throat softly. Nadine, let me stem the bleeding.

      If you want to do it, do it from there. You still have control of my body. You can stop me at any moment. So you can heal me at any moment too. Do whatever you want, I said bitterly. You’re gonna do it anyway. Stop pretending to give me a choice.

      There was a sharp silence from behind me. It was the kind of silence that flowed in after a ringing slap. I might not have actually beaten Tom with my hand, but I kept putting him down with my words.

      In my head, it didn’t matter. In my head, I was still dealing with the hardened agent I’d met four days ago. That man didn’t have a heart. He’d had it beaten out of him by the time I’d met him, so I didn’t need to be careful with his emotions.

      So why did my back creep with regret and my stomach curdle with guilt?

      I’m not a monster, you know, he said quietly. His voice was so whispered, I couldn’t pick up its emotion.

      Or maybe you don’t want to pick up its emotion, I told myself. Maybe you’re the cold monster here. Maybe you’re too pigheaded to listen, because once you make a decision, you never let anything get in your way, even facts.

      I clenched my teeth against that mutinous voice. As tension rose through my body, I naturally curled my hands into fists again.

      Tom took a step forward. Screw it, he muttered under his breath. He reached me, shifted a hand out, and went to grab my wrist.

      I stopped and locked my eyes on him.

      He froze beside me.

      I was close enough that I could see his face properly, even in the gloom. And there, on his cheek, was something that shouldn’t be there.

      A tear.

      I doubted it was a bead of sweat. It had become pretty cold down here.

      My heart felt like it opened. I’d tightly closed it from Tom the second I’d learned his true desires. Now that single tear was like a key that would stop it from ever closing again.

      I pulled my lips in hard and drove my teeth into them to stop compassion from rising through my chest like an unstoppable tidal wave.

      Tom held my gaze, but when my expression unavoidably softened and I didn’t push him away, tentatively, he reached out. He grabbed my hand.

      And there it was – that heat. Much worse than that, I could feel that tiny grain of power that had remained in Tom after he died in my arms. That same faint flicker like a dying candle. The one I’d pushed my magic into in the hopes it would draw him back to me.

      It felt so small and fragile that it didn’t belong in the chest of the hardened, unstoppable Tom Walker.

      Tom held my wrist, turning it this way and that. With his other hand, he curled his index finger in and started writing body magic on his skin. His eyes? Yeah, they never moved off mine. I swear they were like a hand. Maybe he was too arrogant or scared to actually reach a hand out to me, but his gaze was doing what his body could not.

      I think I’d already told you that I always fell for the wrong guys. I liked danger, see. I didn’t want stability – I wanted adventure. Tom offered that in spades. But he also offered the kind of danger I had never experienced before. I’m not even talking about the fact that together we were trying to stop a war while every single rich magical bastard in this city attempted to kill us. I was talking about the fact that if I fell for Tom Walker, I would fall in a way where I would never get up again.

      If I actually allowed my feelings for him to grow, I’d get to a stage where I would want to protect him. And if I ever reached that point, it would be lights out for my reason. I’d fight off the whole frigging city to keep him safe, and I’d freely kiss away all his fear and sorrow.

      Tom continued to scribble symbols on his hand. Magic shifted from his palm, up his arm, across his shoulders, then down into his other hand. It flowed into me. It was like standing in a freezing cold ocean only to have a warming current slowly trickle around you. My whole body needed it – wanted it in a way I wasn’t ready for.

      Nadine, I don’t know what will happen in the future, he said in a croaky voice.

      I had no clue what he was talking about – us, if there was an us, or the war. Or both.

      I doubt we’ll ever get to the stage where I can control all of the rich families of the North. They’ll probably kill me before then. All I know is that if I don’t try, I’ll become my father. And I can’t do that. Tom’s voice didn’t just trail off into a whisper – it disappeared as if someone were trying to erase it from reality.

      This right here felt like it was the deepest wish of his soul. For some people – for most people – their greatest dream is a positive thing. They want to create something, build a family, save people – make a difference. For Tom, he just couldn’t turn into his old man.

      I’m sorry it had to be you, he added genuinely.

      What does that mean? My voice was just as quiet and distant as his. You see, I knew the answer – I just had to let myself believe it. Tom was trying to tell me that he would have preferred any other card shark over me. Not because he hated me, but because—

      You’re a smart girl, Nadine. Always were and always will be. You’ll live through this. And you’ll get over it.

      … Get over what?

      He dropped my hand. He finished the spell. And he walked away.

      I opened my mouth to ask what it was I was going to get over, but he waved me on. We have to get to the next station. We have to get out of the subway, and we have to figure out what’s going on and what our next move will be.

      He was standing several meters away. He might be covered in magic, but I wasn’t. I felt like he was under a spotlight and someone had shoved me to the side. Which was exactly what he’d just done.

      Had Tom admitted that he knew I was into him? Yeah, he had. And if the soft smile he’d given was anything to go by, he wasn’t rejecting my feelings – just stating the obvious. Feelings were one thing, but inevitability another. One of us would probably die by the end of today. Tom was sure that would be him, but I wasn’t so certain. As I stood there and stared at the back of his head, I felt my heart.

      A few minutes ago, I’d given it a challenge. I’d forced it to decide whether I should join Tom or walk away.

      Now it spat out a conclusion I wasn’t ready for. I wasn’t just falling for Tom, I’d already fallen.

      And if I had, it was time to protect him, body, heart, and soul.

      2

      We walked in silence. What was there left to say?

      Yeah, okay, there was a lot left to say. I knew there was a whole wealth of information that Tom was still keeping from me. I still didn’t understand who was on the Renewal Council, I had no clue how long they’d been planning this, and I had a bevy of questions about Tom’s past.

      The time for questions was over, though. We were coming up on another station.

      We could hear sirens, footfall, and angry shouts.

      I could tell that Tom was itching to push into a run to close the last 200 meters between us and the station platform. Either he didn’t because he’d died less than an hour ago, and the unstoppable brute was finally accepting he was badly injured, or he didn’t think I’d be able to keep up.

      Lights cut across the walls, dancing over the subway infrastructure and sending lurching shadows slicing over the tracks. I wasn’t the kind to get the heebie-jeebies from shadows, but my gut clenched and my back tingled with nerves. Something told me that the second we jumped up on that platform, the race would begin again.

      Once we were 20 meters away from it, Tom chucked his head back and shouted. We’ve got two federal agents down here.

      It took all of several seconds for two burly army officers to jump down off the platform. I was so tuned into the quaking ground, considering how often the floor had fallen from my feet today, I felt the pound of their footfall from here.

      Both of them reached us quickly. They had lights on their helmets, and as they sliced across the tracks and walls, I saw there were cracks in the ground and ceiling even this far out from the explosion.

      That made no sense.

      Only one other thing did.

      I brought up a hand and clasped my lips just as one of the soldiers confirmed my horrid suspicion. Which explosion did you come from? The East or West Station?

      Tom ground to a halt. He’d already been standing still, but now it looked as if someone hit pause on his every muscle. There were two explosions? His voice was so croaky, it sounded like someone was in the process of wrapping a noose around his throat.

      You didn’t know? Yeah, the worst was from the East Station. Took out the entire thing. The West was bad, but at least a bit of the station is still standing. Casualties were half, too.

      As soon as the guy mentioned casualties, I shut down. Horror gripped me, flowing into my heart like freezing cold water and turning my whole chest into an immovable glacier.

      If Tom was horrified, he didn’t show it.

      Wait, he did. I had to stop pretending that I couldn’t see his emotion. It was there – it was just buried behind a stony expression. I watched as his shoulders tightened and rose high toward his ears. There was a quiet crunch as his feet jolted slightly to the side. And while he kept one hand loose, the other which the soldier could not see twitched as he dragged his nails over his shredded chinos. How many casualties are we talking about here?

      50 confirmed from the West Station, and only 20 at the moment from the South. A lot of injuries, though. These bastards weren’t just going for the stations themselves – they had magical bombs rigged up under the roads. A lot of the worst casualties were drivers who had their cars pulled down into the subway. It’s gonna take a long time to sift through everything. The casualty numbers will rise.

      I felt cold, so damn cold – every memory of Tom’s heat

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