Moonlit Mirage

Chapter One

The casino floor never slept, but by four in the morning, it dreamed in slow motion. Slot machines blinked through their idle loops, a few die-hard gamblers nursed drinks they'd stopped tasting hours ago, and Xena Silverfang counted down the last forty minutes of her shift by memorizing the cracks in the marble floor.

She'd worked the floor at the Mirage Royale for three years now, long enough to know every regular by their tells, long enough to spot trouble before it started. Tonight had been quiet. Tonight, she'd take it.

"You look like a woman who's seen the inside of her own eyelids one too many times," Joss said, sliding onto the stool beside her at the employee bar once Xena's shift ended. Joss had finished an hour earlier and clearly hadn't bothered going home, judging by the half eaten plate of fries in front of her.

"I look like a woman who needs eight hours of sleep and a different career," Xena said, stealing a fry without asking.

"Hey, get your own....." Joss swatted her hand, missed, and grinned anyway. "How was the floor tonight? Anyone interesting?"

"Define interesting."

"Tall, dangerous, makes terrible decisions look attractive."

Xena snorted. "It's Tuesday, Joss. Nobody dangerous gambles on a Tuesday."

She should have known better than to say it out loud.

It happened the way most things that change your life happen without warning, without ceremony, in a moment too small to notice until it's already too late to undo.

She felt it before she saw him. A pull low in her stomach, a prickling awareness crawling up the back of her neck like static before a storm. She turned, scanning the floor out of habit, and found him already looking at her.

He stood near the high limit tables, half in shadow, wearing a dark jacket that fit him like it had been built around his shoulders rather than bought off a rack. He wasn't doing anything remarkable. He wasn't even moving. But everything about him felt like a held breath, like the moment right before a storm breaks.

His eyes were the wrong color. Not brown, not hazel, something closer to amber gone molten, catching the casino lights in a way that made her stomach drop straight through the floor.

"Earth to Xena." Joss snapped her fingers. "You good?"

"Yeah." Xena didn't look away. Couldn't, actually, which was new and unsettling in a way she didn't have a name for. "Yeah, I'm fine."

She wasn't fine. Her heart was doing something erratic and embarrassing, and the man across the room hadn't so much as blinked.

Then he smiled small, knowing, like he could hear the stupid rhythm her pulse had decided to keep and turned, walking toward the exit without a backward glance.

Xena exhaled like she'd been holding her breath the entire time.

"Okay," Joss said slowly, following her line of sight to the now empty space by the high limit tables. "What was that?"

"Nothing." Xena grabbed her bag from under the bar, hands not quite steady. "I'm tired. I'm seeing things."

"You're seeing things that make your face do that?"

"My face isn't doing anything."

"Your face is doing several things right now, all of them suspicious."

Xena laughed despite herself, grateful for the deflection, grateful for Joss's relentless normalcy. "Walk me to my car?"

"Always."

The parking garage was nearly empty at this hour, fluorescent lights humming overhead, casting everything in a sickly, sterile glow. Xena's footsteps echoed against concrete, a familiar rhythm she'd walked a thousand times before. Tonight it felt different. Tonight the air felt charged, like the moments before lightning finds the ground.

"You're quiet," Joss said as they reached Xena's car.

"Just thinking."

"About tall, dangerous, and standing too still in the casino?"

"He wasn't standing too still."

"He didn't blink for like ninety seconds, Xena. I counted."

Xena rolled her eyes, unlocking her car door, the keys cold in her palm. "Goodnight, Joss."

"Text me when you're home."

"Always do."

Joss headed toward her own car, throwing a wave over her shoulder, and Xena slid into the driver's seat, finally letting herself breathe. She caught her own reflection in the rearview mirror, tired eyes, dark hair coming loose from its braid, nothing remarkable, nothing that should have caught the attention of a man who looked like he belonged on the cover of something dangerous.

She started the engine.

That was when she saw him in the mirror.

Standing at the far end of the garage, perfectly still, watching her car with an intensity that made the hair on her arms rise. He hadn't been there a second ago. She would have noticed. She would have felt it the way she felt everything else about him.

Xena turned around to look properly, certain her eyes were playing tricks born of exhaustion and too much casino lighting.

The garage was empty.

There was no one there at all.