Courts and Cabals 2 G.S. D'Moore (the little red hen read aloud .txt) 📖

the convention floor. A brave shifter distracted him for a second, and that was our opportunity.

“Run! The casino!” Dani pointed down an alley to an open door filled with light and sound.

We got the hell out of there and let the troll, baddies, and security duke it out. If we could lose them in the chaos, that was fine with me. The troll’s very-inhuman roar ripped through the hall and told me we weren’t going to be so lucky. Still, we escaped down the alley and sprinted toward the casino door. The only problem was that everyone was heading for the exits. The whole hall was clearing out.

Gorgeous women with barely anything on mingled with the basement dwellers as they tried to squeeze through the door and into the perceived safety of the next room.

I felt a tingle on my skin as the hotel’s wards activated. The cops, mages, and whatever other surprises Vegas casinos kept up their sleeve to deal with shit like this were en route, and a lot more scrutiny was about to fall all over this place. As a wanted man, I wanted to be anywhere but here.

“For fuck’s sake,” I pushed at the back of the clusterfuck; forcing people forward. Everyone cried out in protest, but I didn’t care as I spread my arms and lowered my shoulder.

Dani added her strength to the equation, and together, we were able to conquer the bottleneck with naked force. People spilled out of the convention hall and into the casino. More security was waiting and started rounding up people to take them to safety, while keeping an eye out for the people that started the fight.

Dani and I were the last to emerge, and slid behind some large, decorative ferns. We didn’t know if the hotel’s people were out to get us as well, but we needed to get out of here. The troll’s roar had faded to eerie silence behind us; which didn’t feel like a good thing.

Dani’s eyes scanned for an opening. “Follow me,” she said after a second.

I got up to do just that, but was pulled up short. The ferns branches stretched out and wrapped around my feet. I would have toppled to the floor, like someone tied my shoelaces together, but the tree wrapped branches around my throat and squeezed. I didn’t know much about trees, but I did know I shouldn’t be able to feel a heartbeat in the branches. Even more important to my current predicament, I should have been able to tear those branches up with my enhanced strength. Instead, they bent with the force of my yanks, far past what was possible for a normal plant. Even worse, it seemed to be growing at an exponential rate, and those new branches grabbed at me. I tore one branch free and two more took its place.

“What the fuck is going on?” I gagged as a leafy extension of the demon plant tried to crush my Adam’s apple. “Fuck this shit!” I drew on the power inside me.

I didn’t know many glamours, but Lark wasn’t going to send me out into the world without at least one offensive object down pat. With will and power I manifested a familiar short sword. It looked exactly like the one Dani had given me back at St. Vincent’s; minus the cold iron and silverbane. I could have used the real thing right about now, but as far as I knew, I couldn’t create those interdimensional pockets like Lilith could.

Still, something sharp was something sharp, and I pushed a lot of power into the blade. It glowed like a floodlight by the time I was done and took my first swing. Where the branches were able to warp to counter my strength, they fell to my sword. I swept it in great arcs, cutting down huge swaths of fern. I hadn’t even noticed the plant now blocked the entire doorway. All around me, branches died, and the parts I cut shriveled and turned to ash. If I didn’t already know something fishy was up, that confirmed it.

Of course, the plant didn’t make it easy. It tried to grab my arms, hands, and wrench the blade from my grasp. It attacked with an intelligence I hadn’t expected, and I almost lost the blade the first time it feinted to draw me off guard and snatched my wrist. If Dani hadn’t dived into the madness, and chewed through it with her fucking teeth, we would have been screwed.

“Stay close!” I yelled as I hacked a way through the mass of writhing branches like a man possessed.

I was covered in sweat by the time we finally broke free, and my chest heaved from the exertion. I’d put a good chunk of power into creating the blade, but it was worth every bit.

Security had pushed people back away from the out-of-control plants, so there was an open space we had to cross. People looked at us wide-eyed and fearful, but that was a pretty human reaction to a guy wielding a fucking glowing sword.

“Hello . . . lovely day we’re having . . . nice dress . . .” I threw compliments to the people gaping at me, and took my eye off the ball. Something hard hit me in the side and tossed me headfirst into a nearby slot machine.

“Ow,” my head slammed through the section where the things spun around to tell you if you were a winner. Again, my glamour held, and more importantly, I held onto my sword. I pulled myself out of the guts of the machine, and turned to face my attacker.

“Wait, I know you.” It was the girl with the nice ass who’d been looking for room 212.

She was facing off with Dani as the ferns subsided behind her. “Some type of plant Fae,” I thought. There was nothing else I could