Cress

Chapter 31

            "The cat has caught the bird, and she
      will scratch out your eyes as well.
              You will never see your Rapunzel again."

  The girl  returned  from  her   trip to  the bar,  setting  a drink  against
Thorne's  wrist so he would know where it was.
  He tilted his head toward her and lifted the cards. "What do you
   think?"
         Her braids  brushed  his  shoulder. "I think..." She tugged at two cards in
     his hand. "These two."
            Precisely  the  two  I   was   thinking,"  he  said,  taking  hold  of  the  two
      cards. "Our luck is changing, right about now ... now."       "Two to the blind  man,"  said  the  dealer,  and Thorne heard the cards
    slapping down the table. He slid them up into his hand.
   The woman clicked her   tongue. "That's not  what   we   wanted,"  she 
     said,  and he could hear the pout in her voice.
        "Ah, well," said Thorne. "We can't win them all. Or, apparently, any
    of them."  He  waited until  the   bidding   came around  before folding. The
   woman   leaned closer from behind him   and   nuzzled his neck. "The next
    hand will be yours."
           Thorne grinned. "I am feeling lucky."
    He  listened  as  the  bidding   went   twice   around the  table  and the  winner
   claimed the pot  with  jesters  and sevens. From   the  man's   gruff    voice, 
  Thorne pictured a scraggly beard and   an  excessive belly. He'd drank    up 
    detailed  mental images of all the players at  the table. The dealer was  a
  tall  and  skinny  man  with a  fine  mustache. The  lady  beside   him  was  elderly 
    and   something    kept jangling    when   she   took  her    cards,    so   Thorne
  pictured  an abundance of gaudy  jewelry.   He judged the man to his right 
   to  be  scrawny  with bad  skin,  but  that  was  probably because he was winning
  the most.
         Of course, the woman who had draped herself over  Thorne  was  viciously  hot.
         And not at all lucky, it turned out.
         The dealer dealt out another  hand  and  Thorne raised  his  cards. Behind 
      him, the girl let out a sad whistle. "So sorry, love," she whispered.
         He pouted. "No hope? What a shame."
        The bidding opened, moving around the table. Check. Bet. Raise.
           Thorne  tapped  his  fingers against   his   cards and  sighed. They  were
      useless, judging from the woman's sad infection.
           Naturally,  he  put  his  palm  against  his chips  and   slid the   entire  stack 
     toward the center of  the  table, listening  to  the  happy  clatter  of chips   falling
     against  one   another. Not that  he had a lot of   them. "All   in," he   said.
           The  woman  behind  him   was   silent. The  hand   on   his    shoulder   didn't
    even  twitch. Nothing to acknowledge that he'd gone against her suggestion.
         Poker face, indeed.
           "You're a fool," said the scrawny player, but he folded.
         Then the bearded  man  snorted  with a sound  that made Thorne's 
      spine  tingle—not from concern, but expectation. This was his man.
      "I'd raise  if  I   thought  you  had  anything  left  to  bet," he  said,  followed  by
      the clicking and clacking of chips.
             The last two players   folded. The  dealer  passed  out  cards  to  replace  the
     throwaways—two to Thorne's opponent.
              He kept all   his  cards. If his lady   disapproved,  her  statuesque  hands
    hinted  at nothing.
           They  didn't  bother  to  bid  for  the second   round, knowing  that   Thorne 
    was maxed  out. Thorne fanned  his   cards  out    on  the  table.  The dealer 
     called   them out,  his  finger  thumping against  his opponent's   hand. "Doubles." 
      Then—"Royal triplets win!"