Embracing The Lion (Gray Bears 6) by Natalie Kristen

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