Embracing The Lion (Gray Bears 6)

EMBRACING
THE LION

By

Natalie Kristen

BEAR HEAT series

Bear's Bride (Book 1)

Bear's Kiss (Book 2)

Bear's Claim (Book 3)

Bear's Baby (Book 4)

Bear's Heart (Book 5)

GRAY BEARS series

Marrying The Bear (Book 1)

Loving The Bear (Book 2)

Mating The Bear (Book 3)

Tempting The Bear (Book 4)

Taming The Lion (Book 5)

Embracing The Lion (Book 6)

Copyright
© 201
5
Natalie Kristen

ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED

No
part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without the author's written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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

About
this Book

Sold
to a vampire when she was a girl, Tara Score never thought she'd ever
experience happiness, let alone a happily-ever-after.

After
she is viciously assaulted by one of her master's guests, Tara flees
into the woods. She would rather die than be turned into a cold,
blood-sucking monster. Alone and dying, Tara makes a wish…

Tara
wakes to find herself in the bed of a handsome lion shifter. Gareth
Knight saved her life by giving her his blood. She is alive, but not
fully human and not fully vampire. Horrified, angry and confused,
Tara is determined to destroy herself.

But
Gareth, his family and townsfolk show Tara that she is not alone, and
there are good people who will stand with her and fight for her.

When
ancient, evil forces descend on the town, the whole town bands
together to defend and protect one of their own.

In
the wise words of Gramma and Ne-ma:

“
You
messed with the wrong town!”

*
* * * *

CHAPTER
ONE

Tara Score kept her head down
as she poured the crimson liquid into the wine glasses. She was
careful not to spill a single drop. This stuff was vintage.
Exquisite champagne with just the right mix of human and shifter
blood. Her master, Lord Hugo, was just boasting about the price of a
bottle of Blood Bouquet to his dinner guests.

Tara and the rest of the
servants slipped silently between the guests seated at the long
table, serving them food and drink. All the guests were vampires,
and all of them were dressed in fancy tuxedos and lavish ballroom
gowns. Lord Hugo's mansion reflected the ancient vampire's love of
Gothic architecture. Stone gargoyles leered down at them from
pointed arches, and candles flickered from the huge chandeliers,
throwing distorted, writhing shadows along the walls.

Some of the servants were
human, like Tara, but there were some shifters, witches and
half-vamps. All of them had been branded with Lord Hugo's sigil at
the back of their necks. The sigil marked them as Lord Hugo's
property, and kept them confined to the vampire's sprawling, shadowy
mansion. They couldn't so much as take a step outside the premises
without Lord Hugo knowing. They were slaves, servants, property of
their vampire lord and master.

Tara pressed her back against
the wall and squinted at the other servants who were all hidden in
the shadows like her. Most of them had been sold into slavery, but
there were a few who were given to Lord Hugo as gifts. Two werewolf
twin sisters had been given to Lord Hugo for his pleasure and
entertainment, but instead of taking them to his bed, he had
dismissed them to the kitchen. Amira had tried to escape once. She
had changed into wolf form and leaped across the high wall one night.
She made it across the wall, but when she landed on the other side,
she found herself at the feet of Lord Hugo. Amira wasn't punished.
Instead, her sister, Anita, was chained up and starved for three
days.

Tara went to the head of the
long table and filled Lord Hugo's glass. He was nodding and talking
animatedly to the guest on his right as he chewed on a piece of raw,
bloody steak.

Tara replaced the bottle of
blood wine in the ice bucket and retreated to her position against
the wall. The servants all stood in the shadows. They had to be
alert, but unseen. Once summoned, they had to appear without delay.
They were there to attend to the vampires, not to be seen or heard.
They were just property, and were treated as such.

Tara leaned back against the
wall and gazed up at the flickering candles on the large chandeliers.
An image surfaced from her long-buried memories. She saw a cake
with ten glowing candles on it. It was her birthday cake, and it was
the last present from her mom. Her mother died barely two months
after her tenth birthday.

When her mother died, Tara
lost not just her mom, but her dad as well. In less than a year, her
father deteriorated into a drunk and a gambling addict. He incurred
a mountain load of gambling debts and lived only for his next drink.
He didn't seem to recognize Tara when he saw her in the mornings.
Her father had morphed into a foul-mouthed, foul-tempered stranger.
Tara would cower under her bed as things smashed against her room
door. She feared her father, and she feared for him. He had lost
control, of his gambling addiction, of himself and their lives.

But on her eleventh birthday,
when she came home from school, she saw her father sitting at the
kitchen table in a long-sleeved shirt. He was clean-shaven, with his
hair neatly combed back. His eyes looked clear and he was sober and
smiling.

“Go get dressed, Tara.
Wear your best dress,” he told her.

Her heart leaping with joy,
she'd raced upstairs and dragged her favorite dress out from the
cupboard.
He remembered
, she thought happily.
Daddy
remembered my birthday! We're going out for
ice-cream! We'll
have ice-cream and waffles
and cheesy fries, just like when
Mummy was around.

She tied her hair with the
big, satin ribbon that her mother had given her and ran downstairs.

“Where are we going?”

But her father didn't answer
her.

He wants to surprise me!
Beaming, she took his hand and walked out of the house for the
last time.

They took the bus to a part
of town she had never been to before. Staring out the window at the
never-ending stretch of deserted road, Tara soon fell asleep. She
didn't know how long she slept, but by the time her father shook her
awake, it was full dark outside. The bus hissed and wheezed, and
spat them out in front of an isolated bus stop in the middle of
nowhere.

“Where are we? Are we
lost?”

Her father simply grunted and
told her to keep walking. He turned and went down a narrow side
road. Tara looked around in fear and trepidation and hurried after
him. Where were the shops and eateries and ice-cream parlors?

But her father wasn't taking
her out for ice-cream. He was taking her to Lord Hugo.

As he walked her up the front
steps of the forbidding, shadowy mansion, her father told her, “You
belong to Lord Hugo now. Be a good girl. Do as you're told.”

“B-belong…?”
she stammered, not quite comprehending the meaning of his words.

“Goodbye, Tara.”

She stared at her father's
hunched back as he departed. The tall black gates closed behind him
and he kept walking away from her. Not once did he look back at her.

“Daddy...” A sob
finally burst from her.

“He's not your Daddy.
He's the man who sold you to me,” Lord Hugo said, not unkindly.

She stared up at the rotund,
ruddy vampire and swallowed her pain and sorrow. Swiping away her
tears, she gave a sharp nod.

“Yes, sir,” she
said without any inflection or quaver in her voice.

With that, she squared her
shoulders and erased all her memories, hopes and dreams from her
heart. She had no family now, just a new master.

She didn't expect kindness or
compassion from her master. She was just a slave, a nameless,
faceless servant girl. She was grateful as long as he treated her
fairly and didn't abuse her. She would work for her master, and earn
her freedom.

Did she dare hope that her
father would come back for her?

That small flickering hope
refused to die in her heart, and she hated that she still cried in
her sleep sometimes. The tears came unbidden, and they reminded her
of all that she had lost and hoped to find again.

Hopefully someday, she would
be free again. And maybe, just maybe, she would love and be loved
again.

CHAPTER
TWO

Roused from her reverie by
the guests' laughter, Tara saw Lord Hugo pick up his wine glass and
drain the contents in one gulp. Tara detached herself from the
shadows and hurried forward to pick up the bottle from the ice
bucket.

As she stood at the corner of
the table and refilled Lord Hugo's glass, she heard the guest next to
Lord Hugo lean in and say, “So...how is Ryan Kline doing?”

Tara recognized the guest.
His name was Phillip Lancastle, and she'd heard rumors about his
savagery and sexual proclivities from the other servants.

Tara saw the slight quiver of
Lord Hugo's fork, and she was sure that Phillip Lancastle noticed it
too.

Ryan Kline was Lord Hugo's
lover, but no one except the servants in Lord Hugo's mansion knew of
their relationship. Ryan Kline was the Alpha of the Kingston wolf
pack. He was betrothed to a she-wolf from another prominent wolf
pack. The marriage would cement their alliance and consolidate the
power and standing of the two packs. Hugo and Ryan managed to keep
their relationship secret all these years. The servants gossiped
among themselves, but they kept their heads down and their mouths
shut when there were guests and visitors around.

Tara lowered her head as she
poured the wine, but she slanted a glance at Lord Hugo. The color
seemed to have drained from her master's usually ruddy cheeks.

“Why do you ask,
Phillip? You have more dealings with the Kingston pack than I do. I
expect you would have seen Ryan recently,” Lord Hugo answered
with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

Phillip smiled back. “Ah
yes, I do have some business dealings with the Kingston wolves.
But...I believe you are more personally and intimately acquainted
with their Alpha.”

“Ryan and I are
friends,” Lord Hugo said tightly.

Phillip smirked. “Hmm,
more than friends I think.” He raised his glass to Lord Hugo.
“I am no fool, Hugo. You are frank and open, Hugo. That's
what I like about you. And I greatly enjoy doing business with you.
You never renege on your promises.”

Phillip swirled the wine in
his glass and took a long, slow sip. “What would happen, I
wonder, if the Arrow pack finds out that the Kingston Alpha, who is
to marry Janet Lyons, the second-in-command of the Arrow wolves, is
actually sleeping with an old, aristocratic vampire?” Phillip
clucked his tongue. “I think Ryan Kline would be a dead wolf.
You know how seriously those wolves take their marriage contracts.”

Lord Hugo put down his fork
and said very quietly, “What do you want, Phillip?”

Tara stepped slowly and
discreetly away from the table. This conversation was not meant for
her ears.

But a hand shot out and
caught her around the waist.