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

undoing. She’d tripped one of the invisible threads and set off an alarm. Seconds later, she was surrounded by guards.
    Guards — and Tanner. What the hell was up with that bear?
    “I’d really hate to hold you up,” she said to Schiller, faking nonchalance. A tough act, because half her nerves fluttered with fear, and the other half fluttered with desire — the first, aimed at Schiller, and the second, melting for Tanner.
    “My diamond!” a shrill voice sliced through the tension in the narrow space.
    Karen rolled her eyes. Tanner winced. Even Schiller flashed a pained look before turning to the woman trotting up on high heels.
    “It’s my diamond,” Karen snapped, holding it away from Elvira.
    “Mine,” the vampiress snapped, curling back thick lips to show her fangs. It was startling, the contrast of that ivory against the black line of her lipstick.
    Karen snarled right back. Elvira was a conniving leech of a woman who wasn’t good at anything but sucking blood — and possibly Igor’s dick. An image Karen really, really didn’t need right now.
    “You could use a new interior decorator for this place,” she sniffed at Elvira. “Black and red is so passé.”
    “You really could use some manners.” Elvira left out the
bitch
at the end, but Karen could see it on her lips.
    “And you really need to get your Transylvanian accent down,” she shot back. “I can hear Brooklyn come through, loud and clear.”
    Elvira threw a hand over her mouth, looking horrified, and Karen knew she’d hit the nail on the coffin. Wait, wrong expression. Shit, these vampires were getting her all mixed up.
    “Kill her,” Elvira screeched at Igor. “Drain her of every last drop of dragon blood.”
    “Hey!” Karen snapped as a guard pried the diamond out of her hand.
    The bison handed the stone to Elvira, who pinned Karen with a haughty gaze as Schiller strung the diamond around the creamy white flesh of her neck.
    My diamond, bitch,
Elvira’s eyes said. She held the diamond up, kissed it, and tucked it between her fleshy breasts.
    Disgusting
, Karen’s inner dragon snarled, letting half an inch of her dragon fangs slide out of her gums. No way was she giving up on the diamond. No way was she letting Elvira have the last word.
    “Kill her,” Elvira ordered. “Drain her dragon blood.”
    “Sure,” Karen said, holding her wrist under Elvira’s nose. “Go for it.”
    Elvira recoiled, and Karen all but crowed in triumph. Her blood was her ace, and she knew it. Vampire legend held that dragon blood was the richest of all — so rich, it could only be consumed by the most powerful vampires.
    “All that mercury, coursing through my veins,” she snickered, and all the vampires fell back a step.
    Schiller’s eyes shone in anger and greed. Oh, he wanted her blood, all right. But even he wasn’t powerful enough to dare a sip.
    She stared the vampire down for another long minute then pulled her hand back. Maybe it was smarter not to dare a hungry vampire. Especially one who ran a casino and might be able to sense a bluff. So far, nobody had called her on it, but if anyone found out she was only half dragon…
    Then the dangerous game she was playing would be up. Permanently.



Chapter Five
    “Take her away.”
    Tanner let out a long, slow breath as Schiller gestured to the guards. Christ, he’d never stopped breathing for that long before. An eternity had stretched from the moment Karen stuck out her wrist in open defiance to the moment Igor snapped his fingers, and Tanner had nearly jumped forward and throttled Karen in the intervening time. Was she crazy, provoking a vampire like that?
    Crazy.
His bear nodded.
In the best possible way.
    Well, he’d been a hair away from shifting into bear form and ripping into the vampire. Damn, that would that have felt good. Even if the others eventually tore him to pieces and sucked out his blood, it would have been worth it to save Karen.
    But one impulsive act wouldn’t have