Embracing The Lion (Gray Bears 6) (2 page)

She gasped and jerked, almost
dropping the precious bottle of vintage blood wine.

Phillip's arm tightened
around her body. “I want her.”

Tara froze, her eyes wide
with shock and terror. She had been sold into slavery, and she
resented her status as a slave and property of her master, but there
were worse masters than Lord Hugo. Some of the other slaves had come
to Lord Hugo from other masters, and Tara had been horrified at their
treatment under their old masters. Some of them had been used as sex
slaves, and they had been abused, tortured and maimed. She had heard
whispers that Phillip Lancastle kept a stable of female slaves to
feed his depraved sexual appetite.

Tara stared at Lord Hugo,
imploring him silently with her eyes. But Lord Hugo didn't even look
at her. He leaned back and steepled his fingers, holding Phillip's
calculating, gleaming gaze steadily.

“Give me the slave
girl, and your secret is safe with me,” Phillip smiled. “You
have so many slaves anyway, Hugo. One less won't make any difference
to you. But—should the wolves find out about you and Ryan...”
Phillip let out a low chuckle.

Lord Hugo's eyes flicked to
her, and Tara saw a trace of regret in them. She opened her mouth to
beg, but Lord Hugo said in a hard voice, “Kneel, Tara.”

Tara lowered herself shakily
to her knees, her eyes burning with tears. Lord Hugo pressed his
sharp pointed nails into the back of her neck and swiped across his
sigil that had been burned into her skin. Tara bit down hard on her
lower lip but still a strangled cry of anguish escaped.

Blood trickled down her
collar bone as Lord Hugo clawed away the top layer of her skin. He
leaned forward and spat into her wound as he spoke the words of
release.

The blood stopped flowing,
but the stinging, excruciating pain remained. Tara stood up shakily,
pressing her hand to the back of her neck.

As she swayed on her feet,
Phillip Lancastle stood up and circled her slowly. She flinched and
almost screamed when he pressed his mouth to her neck. She could
feel the scrape of his fangs, and she whimpered in fear and revulsion
when he laved his tongue down the column of her throat.

Phillip laughed and took his
seat, raising his glass in a toast. The other guests all raised
their glasses and congratulated Phillip on his newest acquisition.

Tara dropped to her knees
beside Lord Hugo and choked out a plea. She begged him to let her
stay but Lord Hugo dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

“I have removed my mark
from you,” he said, turning away. “You belong to Phillip
Lancastle now. He is your new master. Serve him well.”

CHAPTER
THREE

Tara pressed her hand to the
punctures at the side of her neck and slid down the wall. There were
large black spots swimming in front of her eyes. Her throat was sore
from screaming, and her face felt numb from the stinging slap that
Phillip Lancastle has just given her.

She blinked hard and saw
Phillip's cruel face coming closer and closer to her. Tara whimpered
and tried to scrabble away but she felt too weak, dizzy and nauseous
from blood loss.

Phillip had dragged her away
from the dining hall as soon as Lord Hugo declared that she was no
longer his property. He had excused himself by declaring that he
needed to break in the new slave. The other guests had nodded and
chuckled politely as Phillip pulled Tara to her feet and out of the
hall.

He pushed her roughly into a
dark room and locked the door behind him. Then he grabbed her and
sank his fangs deep into her neck.

Tara tried to fight him, but
the vampire was too strong. He drank her blood, and laughed as Tara
sobbed and struggled.

“Your fear makes your
blood taste even sweeter,” Phillip said, drinking his fill of
her. “I am going to drain you, and turn you, Tara. A newly
turned female vampire is an exquisite creature, so full of lust and
hunger. I am going to enjoy having you in my bed, Tara.”

“No!”

Tara finally managed to
stumble away, but even as she clawed desperately at the locked door,
she realized that everything was dimming and fading away from her.
Phillip had taken too much blood from her. She was dying, and she
felt a spike of horror and dread. She wasn't afraid of death. In
fact, a true death would be a privilege. She was terrified of what
she would become. She didn't want to be turned into an undead
monster, a bloodsucking, sex-crazed vampire.

“Please...just kill
me,” she wheezed. “Please let me die...”

“No, you will not die,
Tara,” Phillip said, slicing his finger open with his fang.
“My blood will keep you alive. Just one drop for now. When I
have you in my bed, I will complete your turning. And you will be
perfect, Tara.”

She tried to twist away, but
Phillip forced her mouth open and squeezed a single drop of his blood
into her mouth. She tried to spit the blood out, but Phillip forced
her nose and mouth closed, and held her down until she swallowed.

“There, that wasn't so
hard.” He tut-tutted. “You aren't naturally submissive,
are you, Tara? But I believe you can be trained. You have so much
potential in you. So much...fire in your blood.”

Phillip hauled Tara over his
shoulder like a sack of potatoes and strode out of the room. Tara
could hardly see or hear anything. It was like she had been drugged
by that drop of vampire blood. She forced her eyes open and saw
stairs and flickering candles. She heard voices and echoes and tried
to call out, but her voice wouldn't work.

Finally, Tara felt the hard,
cold floor against her cheek. She felt thick, coarse ropes cutting
into her wrists and ankles. She could hear Phillip giving his
imperious orders to the servants. “Leave her here. Once
dinner is over, I'll come and collect her. No one is to touch her,”
he ordered.

Tara raised her head weakly
and saw Phillip marching up the stone steps. She recognized those
steps. She scurried up and down those steps a hundred times every
day. Lord Hugo had his kitchen built in the basement of his mansion,
and the servants were always rushing up from the kitchen to serve
Lord Hugo when he rang for them.

With her hands and feet
tightly bound, Tara could only writhe feebly on the kitchen floor.

She was half drained, half
dead, and half turned. She didn't want to be turned into a monster
like Phillip Lancastle. She had to try to escape.

Using what little strength
she had left, Tara struggled to a sitting position and blinked
rapidly. She saw a small group of servants clustered in a corner of
the kitchen. They averted their eyes as soon as they saw her staring
at them.

Tara twisted round and saw
the werewolf twins stealing glances at her as they washed the dishes.

“Amira, Anita...help
me, please...” she pleaded hoarsely and desperately. “Don't
let him turn me, I'm begging you!”

The other servants all
scurried away, leaving her alone in the kitchen with the two werewolf
sisters.

Amira held Tara's tearful
gaze for a moment, and took a step towards her.

“Leave her alone,”
Anita hissed, pulling her sister back.

“Please...h-he's going
to turn me...I have to get away...tonight. Please, help me die,”
Tara cried. “Just cut the ropes. I'll run...I'll
leave...don't let Phillip Lancastle take me away...”

Amira stared at her, her eyes
flashing with sympathy and defiance. She too had tried to run away
but she had been caught and her sister had been punished for it.

Amira shook Anita's hand away
and came to Tara. Using a kitchen knife, she cut the ropes around
Tara's ankles and wrists and stepped away quickly.

“T-thank you.”
Tara pushed herself up and staggered to the back door. “Thank
you, I...”

“Just go,” Amira
said, her voice trembling. “Now!”

CHAPTER
FOUR

Tara stumbled through the
back door of the kitchen and into a long, dark tunnel. The tunnel
led to the store house at the back of the mansion. Tara scrambled to
the end of the tunnel as fast as she could. She could see
surprisingly well in the dark. Maybe that drop of vampire blood in
her body was already changing her, turning her into a blood-sucking
fiend.

Tara made a sound of
determination and disgust. She would destroy herself before that
happened.

Wheezing loudly, she
staggered to the end of the tunnel and scrambled up a short flight of
stairs. She emerged in the large store house and lurched past the
two hulking, industrial-sized refrigerators against the wall. Stacks
of pots and pans, plates, cutlery filled the metal shelves. There
were cleaning supplies and equipment near the door.

Tara reached the door and
tugged at the lever. To her amazement and relief, the door opened
with a groan. It was usually electronically locked, but Tara didn't
stop to think why it was unlocked tonight.

She stepped out into the
backyard and pressed her back against the brick wall. Keeping to the
shadows, she ran through the sprawling garden and reached the front
gate.

The tall metal gate loomed
before her, imposing and intimidating. Stone gargoyles snarled at
her from the top of the pillars, and Tara shrank back from their
baleful gaze. The red light in their eyes blinked, and Tara gulped
down her dread. There were security cameras hidden in those hideous
stone faces.

Tara approached the side gate
tentatively. She frowned when the gargoyles' eyes changed from red
to green, and there was an unmistakable click.

Shivering, Tara put her hand
against the narrow side gate and pushed. The gate swung open
silently and Tara hurried out. The gate closed and locked
soundlessly behind her.

Without a backward glance,
Tara veered towards the woods at the side of the mansion. Lord
Hugo's rambling, Gothic mansion was well hidden by the woods and was
situated somewhere in the middle of two small towns. Only a long,
lonely road led up to the mansion, but hardly anyone traveled along
that road.

Lord Hugo was eccentric and
temperamental and he didn't keep up with the times. He preferred
sticking to his outdated, aristocratic customs and way of dressing.
He was strict with his servants, and he regarded them as property not
people, but he wasn't a cruel master. He wasn't like Phillip
Lancastle. He never assaulted his servants or fed from them.

And he had given Tara the
chance to run.

Tara didn't blame Lord Hugo
for giving her to Phillip. Every man looked out for himself. She
had learned that at the tender age of eleven. Her father had looked
out for himself, not her. He had heartlessly and remorselessly sold
her to the wealthy, ancient vampire to settle his gambling debts.

Lord Hugo had to give her to
Phillip to save his lover's reputation and possibly, his life. Of
course Lord Hugo would choose Ryan Kline over her.

She was just a servant girl,
a dispensable, replaceable slave. She was nothing to her master.

Still, Lord Hugo had unlocked
the store house door and the front gate for her.

Lord Hugo was the only one in
the mansion who could unlock the gate, and he could do it with just a
twist of his ring.

Tara forced herself to keep
moving through the woods, even though what she really wanted to do
was just lie down and sleep forever. She couldn't let Phillip find
her. She had to get as far away from him as possible before the sun
came up.

As long as it was still
night, Phillip could travel freely. He could still capture her and
turn her. Her torture would never end if she landed in Phillip's
clutches.

Tara hoped that the sun would
destroy her but she wasn't sure. She had only taken a single drop of
vampire blood. She wasn't fully vampire yet.

And if she could help it, she
would never become a vampire.

She would die a human.

Looking over her shoulder,
muttering deliriously and fumbling blindly between the trees, Tara
kept moving, following the pools of moonlight on the forest floor.

But her strength was ebbing
away. She could hardly feel her legs. She picked herself up when
she fell and stared at her bleeding hands. She had cut her palms
open on stones and thorns but she felt no pain.

She tried to keep running,
but the trees didn't look like trees anymore. They kept changing
shape and position, and honestly, she wasn't even sure which way was
up any more.

Tara tripped and crashed to
the ground. And she didn't get up. She couldn't. Her body felt
numb and stiff, and her mind was fast shutting down. Her thoughts,
when she was aware of them, were jumbled and abstract.

As she stared at a blade of
grass swaying in the wind just inches from her face, she let out a
strange laugh that sounded more like a sob.

I've never known true
love
, she mused.

“I miss you, Mom,”
she whispered. “I wish...I can remember what it feels like to
be loved.”