Werewolf in Las Vegas

PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF VICKI LEWIS THOMPSON

THE WILD ABOUT YOU NOVELS

Werewolf in Denver

“A clever, lighthearted tale. . . . The story line is fast-paced as the lead couple fights each other and their respective hearts.”

—
Midwest Book Review

Werewolf in Seattle

“A fun frolic starring two likable protagonists . . . witty.”

—
Midwest Book Review

“I really love this book. Vicki Lewis Thompson did it again. She can't write fast enough for me! This is another keeper for my very full bookshelf. It will have you reading long past bedtime and still wanting more.”

—Night Owl Reviews

“A fun, lighthearted romance, as are the previous books in this series. It's a feel-good read that will brighten any bad mood or reading slump. If you're not sure what to read next, try this one. It's time for some fun!”

—The Good, the Bad and the Unread

“A sweet romance that has humor and love throughout the entire book. . . . I love werewolves, love, and humor mixed together, and this series seems to have it all.”

—TwoLips Reviews

Werewolf in the North Woods

“Perfect for when you need to add some romantic comedy to the daily grind. Thompson does her werewolves justice. . . . Sparks and fur do indeed fly.”

—
USA Today

“A great read.”

—Bitten by Books

“Sizzling as well as howlingly funny.”

—Fresh Fiction

Werewolf in Manhattan

“A humorous and romantic comedy.”

—
USA Today

“Enough heated sex scenes to satisfy any werewolf romance fan.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Readers will enjoy Vicki Lewis Thompson taking a bite . . . out of the Big Apple.”

—Genre Go Round Reviews

“I loved this book and I can't wait for the next one. . . . A definite keeper and will be on my shelf for a lifetime.”

—Night Owl Reviews (top pick)

THE BABES ON BROOMS NOVELS

Chick with a Charm

“Thompson again gives readers a charming, warm, humorous, sexually charged romance with likable characters, a magical dog, and a feel-good ending.”

—
Booklist

Blonde with a Wand

“Extremely readable . . . terrific writing and great character development. . . . Readers will fully enjoy this confection.”

—
Romantic Times
(4 stars)

FURTHER PRAISE FOR VICKI LEWIS THOMPSON AND HER NOVELS

“Snappy, funny, romantic.”

—
New York Times
bestselling author Carly Phillips

“A trademark blend of comedy and heart.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Count on Vicki Lewis Thompson for a sharp, sassy, sexy read. Stranded on a desert island? I hope you've got this book in your beach bag.”

—Jayne Ann Krentz

“Wildly sexy . . . a full complement of oddball characters and sparkles with sassy humor.”

—
Library Journal

“A riotous cast of colorful characters . . . fills the pages with hilarious situations and hot, creative sex.”

—
Booklist

“[A] lighthearted and frisky tale of discovery between two engaging people.”

—
The Oakland Press
(MI)

“A funny and thrilling ride!”

—Romance Reviews Today

“Extremely sexy . . . over-the-top . . . sparkling.”

—
Rendezvous

“A whole new dimension in laughter. A big . . . bravo!”

—A Romance Review

Also by Vicki Lewis Thompson

Werewolf in Alaska

Werewolf in Denver

Werewolf in Seattle

Werewolf in Greenwich Village

(A Penguin Special)

Werewolf in the North Woods

A Werewolf in Manhattan

Chick with a Charm

Blonde with a Wand

Over Hexed

Wild & Hexy

Casual Hex

Werewolf in Las Vegas

A WILD ABOUT YOU NOVEL

Vicki Lewis Thompson

SIGNET ECLIPSE

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014

USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

penguin.com

A Penguin Random House Company

First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

Copyright © Vicki Lewis Thompson, 2014

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

SIGNET ECLIPSE and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

ISBN 978-0-698-13745-5

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To those whose dedicated study of wolves has given us a better understanding of these magnificent creatures.

ACKNOWL
EDGMENTS

As always, I'm grateful for the cheerful encouragement and editorial skill of Claire Zion and the invaluable support of my assistant, Audrey Sharpe. I'm also blessed with three amazing plotting partners—Rhonda Nelson, Andrea Laurence, and Kira Sinclair—who've turned out to be extraordinary travel partners, too. Now I can finally say . . . We'll always have Paris!

Ever
yone in Vegas who'd heard about tonight's poker game said Luke Dalton was crazy. As he sat across the table from Benedict Cartwright in a staged venue that provided room for two hundred paid spectators, Luke briefly questioned his own sanity. But regardless of the game's outcome, the status quo would change, and that was all he cared about.

He'd challenged Benedict to this winner-takes-all poker game—the deed to Luke's Silver Crescent Casino against the deed to Cartwright's neighboring bar, Howlin' at the Moon. The casino was worth twenty times more than the bar, but the Moon was a Cartwright family treasure, a Vegas landmark built thirty years ago by Harrison Cartwright, Benedict's late father.

Luke lived in the Silver Crescent's penthouse, which meant he had to lay eyes on that damned bar every single day and be reminded that Harrison Cartwright had driven Luke's dad, Angus, to his grave at the young age of fifty-six. Angus had died on Christmas Day, thrusting Luke abruptly into the position of CEO of Dalton Industries.

The feud between Angus and Harrison must have taken its toll on both men, because Harrison had died a week later, on New Year's Eve. For three long months Luke had struggled with the pain of living next to a Cartwright property. Tonight he'd either win it—and then maybe even bulldoze the building—or he'd lose the Silver Crescent and change his place of residence. Either way worked for him, but he'd prefer to win.

They'd been at it for almost two hours, with the piles of chips shifting back and forth across the table. Cartwright, whose blond good looks made him a favorite with the ladies, had just won a hand that put him up a little. But he looked tired.

Luke experienced an unwelcome flash of empathy for the guy who'd also just lost his dad. Benedict's twin brother, Vaughn, older by two minutes and a born leader, had inherited the bulk of the Cartwright holdings, which had surprised no one. Benedict, the happy-go-lucky brother, had been given the bar, which also had surprised no one.

Benedict was a natural at bar ownership, and business was booming. But he'd also eagerly accepted Luke's challenge, which made Luke wonder if Benedict was sick of looking at the Silver Crescent and being reminded of the feud that had likely hastened his own father's death.

It hadn't always been this way between the two families. Angus Dalton and Harrison Cartwright had once been best friends who'd enjoyed weekly poker games. Their fortunes had grown and so had the stakes. They'd started betting real estate.

They'd regularly traded Vegas properties, and neither had seemed to worry about it much. The families had socialized. As a teenager, Luke had shot hoops with Benedict and Vaughn.

But one night, Angus and Harrison must have become bored with their usual wagers. That's all anyone could figure, since Harrison had taken a dare and bet his premier holding, the Silver Crescent. He'd lost.

Harrison Cartwright had loved that casino more than any of his establishments except for Howlin' at the Moon. For the first time in their long history, Harrison had accused Angus of cheating. Enraged by the accusation, Angus had vowed never to play with his old rival again, which meant Harrison couldn't win back his beloved casino.

What followed had become Vegas legend. Harrison had tried every trick in the book to avoid turning over the deed. The legal battle had been long and costly on both sides. In the end, Angus had been awarded the casino and had asked the judge to throw in the bar, too, as compensation for his pain and suffering. The judge had refused.

As the dealer shuffled the cards in preparation for the next hand, Luke glanced toward the group of onlookers who supported him, which represented about half the crowd. His little sister, Cynthia, had shown up. Although he appreciated the support, he couldn't look at his brilliant, beautiful sister without gnashing his teeth. She should be finishing her final semester at Yale right now.

He understood that grief over their dad's death had sidelined her, but he couldn't even get her to promise she'd go back in the fall. She was on track to graduate magna cum laude, for crying out loud.

Yet she was determined to abandon her studies and become a showgirl. On top of that, for the past month she'd been hanging out with Bryce Landry, a high-stakes gambler from 'Frisco. Landry was with her now, in fact. Whenever Luke thought about his little sister throwing away a promising future, he felt sick to his stomach.

He had no clue how to convince her to finish school, either. His mother was no help. Her grief had been so profound she couldn't bear to stay in Vegas, or even in the States, so she was currently living in Provence.

The only good news was that Cynthia had set her heart on being a showgirl at the Silver Crescent. Specifically, she wanted to dance with the Moonbeams, an ensemble created by Luke and Cynthia's mother years ago. Cynthia's sentimental streak was a mile wide, apparently.

In any case, he'd be the one to hire her. She wasn't happy that he'd refused, but at this point, it was his only line of defense. If he lost the Crescent tonight, the Cartwrights might discontinue the Moonbeams show, but even if they kept it, chances were slim they'd hire a Dalton.

Taking a slow, even breath, he scooped up his hand and glanced at it. He kept his expression blank as the betting began. Nothing in his behavior indicated that the hand he had been waiting for had finally arrived. He had aces over kings. Even better, the cards in his hand denied Cartwright the possibility of a royal flush.

He reeled his line out slowly, raising the bets at a steady pace. Finally Luke shoved all his chips to the center of the table. “All in.” Benedict Cartwright was going down. The sharp pang of empathy struck again. He forced himself to ignore it.

Only a slight twitch in Benedict's right eyelid betrayed his nervousness as he pushed his chips forward. “Call.” He laid out three queens and two kings.

Not bad. But not enough. Luke laid his cards on the table. Howlin' at the Moon now belonged to the Dalton family.

For one long, agonizing moment, his gaze collided with Benedict's. The shock and pain in his adversary's eyes was tough to see, and Luke looked away again. He didn't want to know how bad this was for the guy. But he was afraid that look of devastation would haunt him, at least for a while.

After a collective gasp from the crowd, the mood shifted. Some cheered and others cursed and called for a rematch. Luke shook his head. He had what he wanted, a change in the status quo.

In the midst of the chaotic scene, he heard something odd—a distinct and very canine snarl. Maybe someone had brought a service dog into the room, but he couldn't see an animal anywhere. Yeah, maybe he was going crazy, after all.

•   •   •

After her flight from San Francisco landed at McCarran, Giselle Landry hopped the trolley for an open-air ride to the Illusions Hotel and Casino at the far end of the Strip. The werewolf-exclusive establishment had been the Cartwright pack's flagship property ever since Harrison Cartwright had lost the Silver Crescent to a human named Angus Dalton in a poker game.

A hotel for werewolves in the heart of Vegas had been a daring idea when Harrison had built the Silver Crescent years ago. The other two establishments in the country that catered exclusively to Weres were in more remote areas. One was a resort on an island in Puget Sound, and the other was outside of Denver, a sprawling lodge where Giselle had attended WereCon2012.

Everyone in the werewolf world had understood the significance of losing this urban hotel, but the humans hadn't realized that major panic had ensued. The hotel had been designed for Weres, complete with werewolf-friendly entrances and exits that would make no sense to a human guest. When Harrison Cartwright had owned the Silver Crescent, humans who tried to book a room had been told the hotel was full. Humans could gamble in the casino, but only registered guests could enter the hotel lobby.

While Harrison had fought the deed transfer in court, werewolf crews had reconfigured the rooms, doors, and elevators so that human guests would never dream it had been anything other than a normal Vegas hotel. Humans had no idea that werewolves lived and worked among them and had vast financial holdings in all major cities in the world. Giselle didn't believe they ever should know, although a faction in the Were community was pushing for a full reveal.

With help from a team of lawyers, Harrison had stalled long enough that the renovations had been completed by the time the court awarded the Silver Crescent to Angus Dalton. Most important of all, the underground tunnel to Howlin' at the Moon had been blocked off.

Giselle had been in touch with Angus's son Vaughn for the past several weeks as she'd debated whether to come to Vegas. Once she'd made the decision, he'd offered to send a limo to the airport to pick her up, but she'd opted for the trolley. Between the open car and the overcast sky, maybe she could pretend she was still in her City by the Bay instead of in Vegas looking for her AWOL brother, Bryce.

But Vegas would never pass for 'Frisco. Instantly she was immersed in the jaw-dropping excess that had produced a giant black pyramid, replicas of the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower, and a sprawling Roman palace. The trolley rolled by the forty-story Silver Crescent, a glittering tower of reflective glass with hundreds of quarter-moon windows lining the facade and giant chrome quarter- moons on either side of the gleaming entrance.

The hotel dwarfed the one-story, rustic bar sitting next to it. But Howlin' at the Moon had a worldwide reputation among Weres. The legendary watering hole had served drinks and bar food to world-famous shape-shifters for more than thirty years.

But the bar wasn't famous because of its refreshments, excellent though they were. Howlin' at the Moon sat above a top secret Were playground, Harrison Cartwright's proudest achievement. He'd claimed to be excavating the site four stories deep so that he could put in a foundation that would support a hotel someday if he took the notion to build one there. Instead, werewolf-only crews had created a subterranean, climate-controlled world that included evergreens, steep trails, rocky outcroppings, waterfalls, bubbling streams, and a moon that cycled through phases in sync with the real one. Powerful lights kept the plants and trees growing, and heavy-duty pumps moved the water in an endless loop.

Harrison had been hailed as a genius for creating a secure place for werewolves to run in the heart of Sin City. The stark landscape surrounding Vegas offered precious little cover for a wolf. Anyone spotting one or more of the large animals would most likely alert wildlife experts, destroying any hope of secrecy. Besides, the playground was climate controlled, a real plus for a discriminating wolf wearing a thick fur coat.

Giselle had seen the place once. She and two of her female Were friends had gone on a road trip that included one night at the Silver Crescent in Vegas. After checking into their room, they'd all shifted and used the special paw controls on the elevators to access a tunnel connecting the hotel with the bar.

They'd arrived in an anteroom one level below the bar. Lockers lined the walls, which had puzzled Giselle at first until she realized that bar patrons who wanted to use the playground would need a place to shift and store their clothes. Harrison had thought of everything.

She and her friends had pushed through a revolving door at the far end of the locker room and had stared in amazement. They'd entered another world, one bathed in moonlight, scented with evergreen, and filled with the sounds of rushing water and the hoots of an owl.

Once they'd recovered from their sense of awe, they'd romped through that pretend forest, howling and yipping like teenagers. She smiled at the memory of it and wondered if she'd have time to go while she was here. What a great way to release some of the tension created by her brother's dereliction of duty.

The trolley moved on, gliding past rippling neon and flashing billboards promising riches beyond compare. A river of pedestrians seeking those treasures eddied in and out of the elaborate pleasure domes lining the busy thoroughfare.

Giselle searched their faces, as if she might spot Bryce in the crowd. His hair, dark red like hers, made him fairly easy to see, especially because he was tall. He was here somewhere. He'd said so, and although he could be a royal pain, he didn't lie. He'd texted every few days to let the family know he was okay, but he'd ignored all requests, or demands in the case of her father, to return home.

She'd decided not to let him know she'd flown down. Not yet, anyway. He wouldn't be happy that she'd come to drag him back, and ideally, she'd like to make her plea in person rather than over the phone. Maybe she could arrange to run into him and catch him off guard.

Whenever she thought of Bryce, she alternated between being worried and being royally pissed. Although she was familiar with his pattern of going along with the program until something hit him wrong and he bolted, this particular incident had lasted way too long—more than seven months, in fact.

He had to know how severely his juvenile stunt had impacted her and the rest of his pack. He was slated to be the next Landry alpha and had duties as a result. Giselle had ended up covering for him in addition to handling her job as the pack's chief financial officer. She wanted him home, preferably before he did something terminally stupid.

She wasn't terribly surprised that he'd left. At first the plan to mate with Miranda Randolph, heir to the Randolph winery fortune, had been his idea. But the two packs, especially the two sets of parents, had jumped in and taken over. Whenever Bryce felt pushed, he simply abandoned the field.

Giselle had to figure out a way to coax him back, even if the Miranda situation was ruined forever. Members of the Landry pack, including their parents, were talking about making Giselle the next alpha, and she didn't want it. The political maneuvering required of an alpha didn't appeal to her at all. She'd much rather crunch numbers than settle pack disputes, which meant she had to find Bryce.