Gambling on Her Bear (Shifters in Vegas) Read Online Free PDF Page A

peace and rightness, just like he got when snoozing in the springtime sun back home, when the world around him was all warmth and freshness and promise.
    God, she was so close. Her minty breath warmed his neck. Her green eyes locked on his. Her hands felt so small in his and yet they fit together just right. The way she would fit tucked up against his chest.
    But a dozen questioning eyes burned into his back, and he had to pull away. Everything hung in the balance. His duty to his clan. Karen’s safety. The success of the plan he’d been working on for months.
    “The boss will want her untouched,” he said, trying to cover up his too-gentle hold on her arms.
    And just like that, the brilliant green eyes that had gazed at him with hope and wonder slipped right over to fury again.
    The guards snickered, and his heart plummeted through his shoes. He’d just implied that he’d hand Karen over to Schiller like a prize, and the possibilities made his gut lurch. Like Schiller, sucking Karen’s blood. Schiller, touching Karen’s body. Schiller—
    He dragged his thoughts away from those horrors and locked eyes with Karen, trying to make her understand.
    I will never let him harm you. I will never let anything happen to you.
    But the eyes that gazed back were stony. Cold. Loathing. And shit, could he really blame her?
    It broke his heart, but he had to keep up the charade. He was the security chief here; she was the intruder. He’d have to find a way to help her escape later. Maybe on the way to the holding rooms. Maybe later that night. Maybe…
    Another guard stepped up and motioned to Karen. “Hand over the diamond, lady.”
    “Over my dead body,” she hissed just as near-silent footsteps edged up from behind.
    The guards around him stiffened and gulped, and Tanner didn’t have to look to know who it was. Only vampires moved with a powerful silence that knifed every other sound out of existence. Only vampires turned the air in a room cold. And only one vampire had that ice-edged voice that made the blood shiver in his veins.
    Igor Schiller, owner of the Scarlet Palace, stepped right up to Karen and looked at her with his cobra eyes.
    “That, my dear, can be arranged.”



Chapter Four
    Karen found herself rooted to the spot for a moment, like everyone else in the room. Then she summoned every ounce of dragon willpower she had and held her chin high. Let Schiller stare. Let Schiller threaten. She wasn’t scared of him.
    But hell, her unsteady knees sure were.
    Igor Schiller stood scowling with his arms crossed over his chest. Apart from his pale, alabaster skin, he looked like an Armani model with his black, slicked-back hair and perfectly tailored suit. His eyes were dark, cold, and piercing.
    She forced herself to stare right back. “You’re recycling old lines, Igor. Kind of takes the punch out of them, don’t you think?”
    Everything around her seemed to have been put on pause, with everyone frozen in place. The guards, the whirring noise of the air conditioner, the electric hum behind the walls — all of it died away. Even Tanner — big, burly Tanner, who only ever regarded the world with calm, quiet eyes — seemed stuck between the thump of one heartbeat and the next. It was just her and Schiller, staring each other down.
    His gaze burned into her, and she could feel the blood in her veins lurch forward, as if the vampire were summoning it closer. Her body wanted to lean closer, too, in some sick answer to his unspoken command. To step closer, tilt her head to one side, and let him bite—
    She ground her teeth together, turned up the voltage on her killer stare, and watched Schiller’s eyes register surprise.
    That’s right, asshole. You’re not the only one with power here,
she wanted to say. But for once in her life, she kept her mouth shut. Schiller had all the power, while all she had was determination. An uneven match, but damn it, she’d go down fighting.
    “And you are as trying as ever, my