How to Tame a Beast in Seven Days (The Embraced #1)

Nevis sniffed the air. “I smell dinner. I’ll see you later.” He dashed down the hill toward the commissary.

Leo smiled. Nevis never missed a meal. Nevis’s father, General Harden, was almost finished setting up camp. After losing both his parents at the age of eight, Leo considered the general a second father. A harsh father, since the general had always known Leo would have to excel as a soldier if he wanted to survive. The general had pushed him and Nevis so hard that by the age of nine, they were calling him General Hard-Ass in private.

The years had been rough on the general, too. He walked with a limp, thanks to an ax that had badly gashed one leg in battle. A jagged red scar ran the length of his face, bisecting an eyebrow and puckering the skin of his cheek before disappearing into his thick gray beard.

Once, at the cocky age of thirteen, Leo had boasted that they could track a foe at night if the general would only remove his helmet, for his shiny, bald head glowed in the moonlight. Most soldiers were afraid to touch Leo, but General Hard-Ass had not hesitated to box his ears.

Good times, Leo thought, then shifted his gaze to the ever-growing dark strip at the horizon. Already, the wind from the west was picking up. He could see the flags flapping briskly from the tops of tents where the army had set up camp. Above him, the clouds were filling up the sky, hiding the sun and making the fields appear a darker, more emerald green.

He would need to be alone when the lightning came. Over the years, he’d learned that many times when the lightning struck him, it splintered, shooting off jagged shards in all directions. It was how Nevis had received his scar. Most who came too close were killed.

Those deaths had been attributed to him. The Beast.

The hair on the back of his neck rose, and his scalp tingled. There would be lightning with this storm. He could already feel it, the sizzle of energy in the air. Damn, he was a monster. He knew the power would cause him pain, but as much as he hated it, he also craved it.

The blast of a horn drew his attention, and he spotted a small band of armed soldiers on horseback entering the camp. They were dressed in the uniforms of the royal guard, and the lead soldier was carrying the royal banner. The entourage for an envoy from the king.

With a groan, Leo started toward his tent. On the way, a large black-and-white-spotted dog loped up to him.

“Brody!” Leo smiled at the dog, and he could swear that the dog grinned back. His face was mostly white, except for a black nose and a black patch of fur around his left eye. His legs were caked with mud and his fur still damp. “You had to travel through the rain? Did you tag along with the royal envoy?”

When the dog nodded, Leo continued, “Go wash up and get dressed. I want to hear your news.”

The dog trotted off to Nevis’s tent. Everyone assumed he was Nevis’s pet, but in truth, Nevis merely kept Brody’s clothes for him, so the dog had a private place to change back to human form.

As a dog shifter, Brody was Leo’s best spy. In canine form, he could join other dogs in any castle keep in the country. Then, while he pretended to be napping, he heard all sorts of secret agreements and negotiations.

Leo reached his tent at the same time as the envoy and his entourage. Their clothes were all wet, and the sodden feathers in their caps drooped. The envoy dismounted and bowed just as General Harden arrived. Leo invited them both inside and found his squire busily polishing his sword. Edmund already had the inside of the tent in order. Two candles burned brightly on his desk.

“Good work, Ed.” Leo stepped behind his desk and faced the envoy. “You have news?”

“Greetings from His Most Royal Majesty, King Frederic the Great,” the envoy began in a high-pitched, whiny voice. “May the Light shine upon his magnificence forever.”

Leo bit his lip to keep from laughing. Behind the envoy, the general was making a rude gesture. “The news?”

With a grand bow, the envoy handed Leo a rolled piece of parchment, sealed with a glob of wax imprinted with the royal insignia. “His Royal Majesty has gifted you with a few words of his glorious wisdom. Surely you are blessed.”

Leo broke the seal and unrolled the parchment.

Dear nephew,

You bastard. Your failure to come to Ebton has been noted and added to your list of transgressions. Luckily for you, your betrothed is also late to make an appearance. Your new orders: Go directly to Vindalyn. Find the damned duke and his daughter and escort them to the royal palace in Ebton. You have two months. Failure means death.

And with a grand flourish, Frederic had taken up the bottom half of the page with his signature.

Leo set the parchment on his desk and dipped a quill into a bottle of ink. In the small margin at the bottom of the page, he wrote:

Dear Uncle,

Your order has been noted and added to your list of commandments. See you in two months. By the way, I’m harder to kill than my father. Assassins will not succeed. Failure means death.

There was only room enough left to sign a simple Leo.

He rummaged through the drawers of his desk till he found his insignia ring. He didn’t normally wear it since he had to wear thick gloves. By then the ink had dried, so he rolled the parchment back up, drizzled some candle wax on the seam, and stamped it with his ring.

“Here.” He handed the message back to the envoy, then turned to his squire. “Edmund, take them to the commissary so they can have a meal before they leave.”

“You expect us to leave today?” The envoy’s voice grew even more highly pitched and whiny. “But, my lord, the—”

“Today,” Leo interrupted. “His Most Royal Majesty deserves an answer as soon as possible, don’t you think?”

“But the storm…”

“You would let a little rain dampen your loyalty to the king? I would hate for my uncle to hear about that.”