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“I’ll take da blow. And if he’s mad about dat? C’est la vie.” He pats the bouncer, who steps aside for us, and when he jerks his head at me and says, “Allons,” I follow behind Luc down the dark hallway. “You an’ Thierry … you a t’ing, chère?”

“A thing? No. Not even close. He stole something of mine, and I want it back.”

Snorting a laugh, Luc shakes his head. “My cousin’s always been canaille like dat.”

“Canaille?”

“Mischievous, you’d say. Always Rougarouin’. ‘S’how he got dat nickname, Rougarou.” Instead of heading toward the crowd, Luc hangs a left, through a door I didn’t notice the last time I was here, which opens to a stairwell.

“Rougarou. That’s a werewolf, right?”

“A wolf, like a werewolf, oui.”

It isn’t that much of a stretch with that wolfish grin and those eat you for breakfast eyes of his. “He was bitten by a wolf, right?”

“Das the story he told. Not too many wolves here, though. We got woods, but nothin’ like da north. Lotta swampland ‘round here.”

“So, you don’t believe him, then?”

“I didn’ say dat. I just haven’ personally seen any black wolves myself.”

“It was a black wolf that bit him?”

“’S’what he claimed. ‘Course, nobody believed it. Folks on dis island think he’s cursed by a voodoo queen.”

I snort a laugh. “Voodoo queen, huh?”

“Yeah, momma of some fille he dated a long time ago. Broke up wit’ her for another. She didn’ like dat too much, her. Put some kind of gris-gris on him.”

We descend two levels, and when we round a landing, he gives me a onceover, shaking his head. “Bon Dieu, you’re a pretty sight, you.” He holds another door open for me, gesturing me inside. “My cousin gives you a hard time? Come see me, yeah?”

Cousin? I wonder why he doesn’t speak with as strong a Valir accent as Luc, unless he grew up somewhere else.

Like me.

I step inside a cramped smoky room, where seven men sit around a large, circular table, playing cards. It reminds me of another era, back during Prohibition, as every man looks like a criminal with tattoos peeking out from their fancy-looking shirt and ties.

And directly across from me sits Mr. Bedroom Eyes himself, examining his hand with the intensity of a man who won’t be distracted by a woman looking for her knife.

I lean toward Luc beside me. “What are they playing?”

“Bourré.”

The man closest to us twists around, his bright blue eyes checking me out, before they flit to Luc. “You come back to lose your ass, Luc?”

“Came back to kick yours, if you don’ keep dem flappin’ lips shut.”

It’s then that chestnut gaze lifts to mine, and something seems to flicker in them, a hint of dark amusement, even though his lips aren’t smiling.

Probably rightly so, given his stack of chips is the smallest around the table.

“Luc decided to up the ante by adding some chatte to the pot,” one of the other men says, inviting a round of laughter. At my expense, I’m guessing, based on whatever chatte means.

Luc lurches toward him, hands balled into fists at his side, and Thierry shakes his head, his eyes casting a warning. It reminds me of the day I had my sights set on that black wolf in the woods, the way it almost dared me to shoot it.

“You know the rules about bringing outsiders down here, Luc,” Thierry says, tossing a card off.

Good Lord, I wish the man’s voice didn’t send a twitch to my thighs, especially now, when I have to be sharp and serious.