Wild Card

A Raine Benares Novella

My name is Raine Benares. I'm a seeker, a finder of things lost and people missing. I've never had to do both in one day, or had this many lives at stake--including mine.

The search for a missing ring leads me to the abduction of eight magically gifted children. Their souls were stolen while they slept, and unless I find those souls by sunrise, their bodies will die.

Both cases have one thing in common--they're linked to a goblin secret society high-stakes poker game, whose members are practitioners of the blackest of black magic. As a seeker, I can track those captured children's souls, but to spring them will take magic I haven't got.

That's where Tamnais Nathrach comes in. He's the seductive embodiment of sin itself. He's also a goblin dark mage with an even darker past, the owner of the city's most notorious casino--and the only person with magic enough to reach the kids in time.

Why are the most dangerous predators the most beautiful?

The stakes are high; the odds of success are low. And I'm betting with my life--a life I'll have to trust to a darkly tempting goblin mage I just met.