Embracing The Lion (Gray Bears 6) Read Online Free PDF Page A

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