Last Immortal Dragon (Gray Back Bears #6)(12)

But for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out if it was good to fall for a man like Damon Daye, or epically bad.





Chapter Five




A smile lingered on Damon’s lips as he looked out the window of the Towncar. It was dark outside, but his night vision was impeccable. Every branch and every pine needle, every set of reflective animal eyes and every blade of wild grass was as crisp and clear as it would be in the daytime.

Turning his head slightly, he snuck a glance at Clara, but she was watching him, too. Busted. Her answering smile turned shy, and she dropped her gaze to the hem of her shirt, which she was fiddling with.

Mason suddenly had nothing to say and, sure as anything, Damon was going to deal with him tomorrow, but right now, he had this tiny tangle of giddiness in his gut. Shotgunning a beer. Truly? Damon shook his head and tried to get a grip on the stupid smile tugging at his lips. What was the woman doing to him? Daring him to step out of his comfort zone with that beautiful challenge in her dancing green eyes, and like a lovesick adolescent, he’d risen to the dare just to see that smile on her full lips. Hers was a smile he would fell entire mountains for.

She was nothing like Feyadine.

Feyadine had been shy and had trouble speaking her mind, while this wild creature could look him directly in the eyes and tell him exactly what she was thinking. And her hair. Red like his flames and curled into little corkscrews. Feyadine’s had been a darker auburn, and she’d kept hers pulled tightly back in pins, as was the style at the time. Her eyes were also gray instead of the clear mossy green of Clara’s. And if those differences weren’t enough, the second Clara opened her mouth, there was no mistaking her with Feyadine.

And yet Damon had that same kind of pulse-pounding, dick-hardening response he’d had to Feyadine all those centuries ago. This was all confusing, and though he’d never admit it aloud, terrifying.

It would be best for everyone when she left in the morning.

The thought of losing her before he got to know more about her made his dragon unfurl uncomfortably in his middle. A single click cracked inside his chest. A warning from his firestarter that he needed to settle down or this car would go up in flames, and its inhabitants along with it. And as much as Damon wanted to pretend Mason and Clara meant nothing to him, he’d been trying to change since his mistakes with Diem. When he’d hurt his daughter, his son-in-law, Bruiser, had given him a verbal beat-down that opened his eyes to so much. And from that day forward, he’d begun to feel for the people who worked in his mountains.

Feeling and caring were agony for a shifter like him because like all the rest, his friends would age, wither, and die. And he would bury them one by one and break all over again. Weak. He was weak to let mortals affect him, and yet he couldn’t tame his attachment to them. Not anymore.

“Can I tell you something and you forget it in the morning?” Clara asked so low he almost missed it.

He nodded once, curiosity piqued.

“I like your smile. You seem like a man who doesn’t give it often, and I felt special tonight that you gave it to me.”

Damon inhaled deeply. Fuck.

“I’m not a good man to get attached to, Ms. Sutterfield.” God he hated uttering her surname. He had to distance himself, but really he wanted to put his mouth around her real name. Clara. Beautiful, wild, strong Clara. Dangerous Clara.

Her face fell, and she looked out her window, hiding those vivid eyes from him. Pain slashed through his middle. He would have to hurt her a lot more if she didn’t stop knocking on the stony walls of his heart. The game she played could kill everything he’d built.

“Do you know what the tattoo on your shoulder blade symbolizes?” Of course, she did. It was the perfect replica of the Blackwing’s crest, down to the most minute detail and line work. She’d researched her lineage.

“No. It’s just a picture I get in my head.” She was still hiding her gaze, staring at the passing evergreens as they bumped and bounced up the dirt road toward his home.

Damon frowned. “Where have you seen it before?” Perhaps there were scrolls from her genealogy that she’d found.

She swung her gaze to him, and he could see it now. Honesty pooling deep in her eyes. “I told you I see it in my head. I get these headaches, and then I get these flashes of…something.” Her voice dipped to a wisp of breath. “Teeth and fire and wings.”

A seer then. A true seer, not the untalented psychic she fancied herself. Clara was housing great power to draw on images that far past.

“What do you see?”

“I-I can’t say.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Why wouldn’t she tell him? What was she hiding?

“Can’t. I don’t understand the images. They’re just these insane pictures that make no sense. Like a mash-up. A collage of unrelated instances that don’t tell any story. I’m going mad.” Clara gasped. “I didn’t mean to say that last part.”

“Explain it now.”

“Do you always get what you want? A simple please would get you a long way.”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I always get what I want. And please, explain it now.”

When Clara narrowed her eyes to dangerous-looking slits, chills blasted up his arms. Little mortal hellion. She would’ve made an intimidating adversary in the dragon wars.