Embracing The Lion (Gray Bears 6) (4 page)

Her eyes began to close at
the sheer pleasure and bliss. Her body was thrumming and heating up,
vibrating with life and lust. Without realizing it, she began
rubbing wantonly against him, loving the feel of his muscled body
against hers.

As she swallowed another
mouthful of his delicious blood, her mind cleared suddenly. With a
horrified gasp, she detached herself from him and jolted back.

“W-what…?”

What the hell was she doing?
What had she just done?

Her eyes flashed to his, and
she jerked violently as their gazes clashed. She shook her head as
she stared into his face.

“You...” she
whispered. “I...saw you...”
In my dream
.

Not a dream, she realized
with horror and dismay. A memory.

She had indeed taken his
blood. She hadn't died. She had been turned.

“Why?” she
hissed. “Who are you? Why did you save me? Why did you give
me your blood? Why didn't you let me die? You...you have turned
me—into a monster!”

“You are not a
monster,” he said quietly but firmly.

Tara's laughter was a
wrenching, painful sound. She hiccuped a sob as she listened to the
echo of her own hollow, bitter laugh.

The man reached out and took
her hand. Tara scowled at him but she didn't pull away.

“What is your name?”
he asked.

“Tara.”

“I'm Gareth Knight. I
found you in the woods, and I brought you home.”

“You should have left
me to die,” she said brokenly.

“I couldn't let you
die, Tara. I can't. I won't,” Gareth said simply but with
absolute conviction.

“Do you know what I am,
what I have become?” Tara snapped, her eyes blazing.

“You're a vampire. I
think.” He canted his head at her and went on softly, “Your
eyes were red before, but now...they're gray. The most lovely shade
of gray.”

“Yes, you're right. I
am a vampire now, a bloody, evil monster. Like him. He drank my
blood, and he forced me to take a drop of his vile vampire blood,”
Tara spat vehemently.

“Who? Who did this to
you, Tara?” His voice was low and dangerous, and she was
surprised at his quiet anger. She was nobody to him. Why should he
feel angry and outraged on her behalf? Why should he feel anything
for her?

Tara took a sharp breath,
trying to get her stormy emotions under control. “Phillip
Lancastle. He was a guest at my master's mansion, and he...”
She ground her teeth and flinched when she felt her own fangs
elongating.

But Gareth didn't even bat an
eyelash at the sight of her hideous fangs. He looked her right in
the eye and said, “You're not a slave now, Tara.”

“Yeah. Lord Hugo
released me. He erased his mark, and...gave me to Phillip.”
She sighed and lowered her head.

“I...I'm sorry,”
she whispered. “I'm sorry for...my outburst earlier. I lost
it, I guess. Thank you for, um, everything you've done for me. You
saved me...”
E
ven though I don't want to be saved.
I
will find another way to destroy myself.

Gareth glared at her, his
amber eyes flashing with heat and anger. He seemed to be able to
read her mind. Either that or she had inadvertently muttered her
thoughts out loud.

“I will not allow
anybody to hurt you. Not even yourself!” He grabbed her arms
and snarled, “You are not a monster. And you are not a fucking
coward, Tara! You will live, and you will fight!”

She gasped as his touch set
all her nerve endings alight. The heat from his fingers burned down
her arms and ignited an inferno in her core.

She began to tremble with
uncontrollable, maddening hunger. She had never ever been with a man
before. She was only a virgin maidservant, and no male had ever
taken her to his bed before.

Yet, she found herself
clinging to this handsome stranger and pressing feverishly against
his solid, broad body. Suddenly the coarse material of her servant
dress seemed too rough and heavy against her skin. She wanted to
shed all her clothes and feel their naked bodies rubbing and grinding
against each other.

Tara made a sound of
frustration and mortification. She tried to push Gareth away, but
her greedy, grasping hands disobeyed her brain and pulled him closer
instead.

“What is happening to
me?” she whispered. “I've never felt like this before.
I think I'm going mad! Please...please help me, Gareth!”

CHAPTER
EIGHT

Gareth stared into Tara's
conflicted, tormented eyes and saw the rage, pain and fear in them.
The fierce hunger for his body and blood was driving her out of her
mind. She was frightened and confused by her own overpowering desire
and want, and she was trying her best to fight and control her body's
lust and appetite. She was trying to resist his blood and his body.

She gave a cry and forcefully
shoved him away. Curling into a ball, she buried her face in the
pillow and sobbed. “Go away. Please go away...I...I can't...”
She inched to the far corner of the bed, and whispered, “Please,
Gareth, please leave me...”

“Tara, I can help you.
Just let me...”

Before he could continue,
there was a furious, frantic pounding on his front door. It sounded
like someone was trying to break down his door.

He raced down the stairs and
heard his brother and sister-in-law's voices through the door.

“Gareth! Hey, you in
there?” Kaylee shouted.

“Open the door, Gareth!
Open the goddamn door, or I'll break it down!” Winston
hollered.

“What the…!”
Gareth cursed and yanked the front door wide open.

Kaylee and Winston spilled
into his house, and stared at him.

“What's all this
racket?” Gareth demanded. “What's with the shouting and
pounding?”

“Gareth, are you okay?”
Kaylee asked anxiously.

“Of course I'm okay.
Why shouldn't I be?”

“It's past noon. And
you haven't opened the pub,” Kaylee said as she peered
worriedly at him. “You've never not opened on time. Are you
sick? You look a little...”

“We called and called,
but you didn't pick up your phone,” Winston said. “What's
going on, Gareth? You...”

Gareth opened his mouth to
answer, but Winston jerked his head and said flatly, “Who is
she?”

His big brother had shifted
to cop mode in an instant, and was staring over his shoulder with the
sharp, skeptical eyes of a Sheriff.

Gareth turned and saw Tara
coming down the stairs very slowly. She glanced nervously at Winston
and Kaylee, then flicked her eyes to the golden sunlight streaming in
through the open door.

“That's Tara, and...oh
shit!” Gareth lurched towards the door and kicked it shut.
“The sunlight, shit shit shit!”

“Oh, you have a lady
friend in the house.” Kaylee blinked rapidly at Tara and
looked embarrassed. “We're really sorry for waking you up. We
thought...”

“I'm not his friend,”
Tara blurted out. “I...I'm a vampire!” Without warning,
Tara lurched towards the door. Gareth tried to haul her back but she
twisted away and wrenched the door open.

“No! Tara, don't...”

Gareth's entire world froze
as he watched Tara in stark terror and horror. He expected her to be
burned to ashes in an instant by the scorching midday sun.
But—nothing happened.

Tara spread her arms wide and
turned in a slow circle. She raised her face to the sun and closed
her eyes.

With a strange laugh, she
faced Gareth and said, “The sun doesn't destroy me. I'm not
even a proper vampire. I'm a freak! Ah, even death won't come easy
to me.”

“Oh, Tara...”
Kaylee pressed her hands to her mouth. “Why do you want to
destroy yourself? What...what happened to you?”

Tara didn't seem to hear her.
She turned her hands over and mumbled, “How do I decapitate
myself? Staking may be easier...”

“Go to her,”
Winston said. “Let's get her back in the house.”

Gareth took Tara's hand and
said, “Come on. We'll work this out, together.”

“Yeah,” she
smiled absently.

Winston locked the front door
behind them as they headed to the kitchen. Kaylee put the kettle to
boil and pulled out a few frozen pizzas from the fridge.

They sat down to coffee and
pizza, and Gareth put two large slices of pepperoni pizza in front of
Tara. “Eat. You need to keep your strength up.”

“I don't...” Tara
began.

“Oh yes you do. To
stake yourself, you need superhuman strength to make sure the stake
goes all the way in,” Gareth said drily. “So eat up!”

CHAPTER
NINE

To Gareth's surprise and
amazement, Tara snorted out a hearty laugh.

“You're right. But I
think I prefer decapitation. That would be quite a challenge, don't
you think? I may have to practice hacking off my own head a couple
of times before I do it for real,” she said brightly.

Gareth and Winston exchanged
a look. Was she serious or was she joking?

Tara's fangs retracted as she
bit into the pizza. She ate with relish, licking her fingers and
smacking her lips. “Oh, this is so delicious! Yum! I haven't
had pizza in such a long time. More than a decade, actually.”
Tara smiled and asked shyly, “May I have another slice?”

“Of course.”
Gareth loaded up her plate with three more slices. He saw Kaylee and
Winston staring at Tara with a mixture of sadness and sympathy. Why
would a young woman not have the chance to eat pizza in more than a
decade?

“Ahh.” Tara took
a big gulp of her coffee and sighed. “So good!
Mmm...coffee...”

“This is just instant
coffee,” Kaylee said softly.

“It's the best!”
Tara declared enthusiastically, draining her cup.

“Tara...” Kaylee
began tentatively.

Tara swallowed the mouthful
of pizza and looked up at Kaylee and Winston. She saw their
quizzical, worried looks and read the silent question in their eyes.

Straightening up, she pushed
her unruly red hair to the side to expose the ugly, jagged scar at
the back of her neck. “My father sold me to a vampire when I
was eleven,” she said matter-of-factly. “I was the slave
of Lord Hugo for twelve years.”

“But he has recently
erased his mark,” Winston said, staring at the fresh scar on
her nape.

“Yes. He...gave me to
Phillip Lancastle, another vampire. It was Phillip who...”
Her voice quavered and she looked down.

“Phillip Lancastle
drained you and turned you against your will. Is that correct?”
Winston asked sternly. “That is a crime...”

Tara nodded and shook her
head simultaneously. “Phillip Lancastle drank my blood,
but...he didn't turn me. Not completely. He only gave me a drop of
his blood. But I escaped, before...before he...”

Winston frowned. “Then
how...”

“I gave her my blood,”
Gareth spoke up. “I found her last night in the woods, more
dead than alive. I brought her home and I made sure she took enough
blood to survive, and...turn.”

“I'm a vampire now,
right?” Tara whispered.

Winston rubbed his chin.
“Honestly, I don't know. You seem to be totally unaffected by
sunlight. Even the half-vamps cannot walk in direct sunlight. But
I'm no expert.”

“I can ask Olivia,”
Kaylee suggested.

“Olivia is a born
vampire, not a turned vampire. Both her parents are vampires,”
Gareth said. “She won't know much about turning.”

They fell silent for a while.
Gareth and Winston both jerked their heads up at the same time.

“Gramma and Ne-ma!”
they said together.

“They'll know,”
Gareth said. “They know everything, and everyone!”

CHAPTER
TEN

Gareth drove Tara and Kaylee
straight to Broomstick Inn. Winston had to rush back to the station
after receiving a call from one of his deputies, but he told Gareth
to let him know what Gramma and Ne-ma had to say about Tara's
situation.

Gramma and Ne-ma were the
grandmothers of Tristan, Aidan, Mason and Jackson Gray. The four
Gray brothers were strapping, sturdy bear shifters. Winston was the
godfather to Jackson Gray's young son, Jeremy, who was a little lion
shifter.

And since Winston was
Jeremy's godpa, Gramma and Ne-ma had kind of adopted Winston and
Gareth into the Gray family. The two kindly but meddlesome witches
would nag at Winston and Gareth, play pranks and cast spells on them,
as they did to their grandsons.

“I'm sure we can help
her,” Gramma said immediately when Gareth called them to tell
them about Tara.

“Bring her to the inn,”
Ne-ma said. “We'd love to meet her!”