Last Immortal Dragon (Gray Back Bears #6)(13)

“My grandma went crazy with what she called the sight. Dreams and headaches and visions of awful things. She was stark raving mad by the time she passed. Clawing at the walls of a padded room and screaming about monsters that had eaten each other up. I’m the same as her. I’ll have the same fate. I already feel myself slipping into these visions. They feel so real I think I have some kind of connection to a different dimension or something. That’s how it starts, you know? Thinking your hallucinations are real. I even bought into my own hype so much that I sank all of my savings into a crappy store in a shopping center where I read palms and tarot cards. I even have a crystal ball. Pretty lame, huh?”

“Mmm,” he said noncommittally. If she didn’t know her own power, he wasn’t going to enlighten her on how dangerous she could be.

His response had been wrong because Clara’s shoulders slumped, and she leaned against the door, far away from him. Before he could change his mind, he asked, “Why did you hug me?”

“Because it felt right.” Her answer was quick and honest.

“Why?”

“Because you feel safe. Stupid, right? More proof I’m broken and so are my instincts. You’re a dragon, and yet I haven’t felt so comfortable since…”

“Since what? Finish it. Please.”

“Since my crew.” When she looked at him, her eyes were filled with such sadness, he had to look away. He’d read her file and knew the bare bones of what she’d been through. She’d been an alpha once.

Damon wanted to hold her hand. He wanted to touch her. Kiss her until she forgot all about the sadness. He knew about losing someone. He knew all about insides being ripped up. He couldn’t do anything to save the people he had loved over the centuries. With just a despairing look at him, she’d reminded him how heavy the burden of loneliness could be. Dangerous Clara. Clenching his hands against the urge to pull her against his side, he did the only thing he knew how. He pushed her away. “You’re right, Ms. Sutterfield. Your instincts are broken.”

****

Clara sat there stunned. The smile had faded from Damon’s face, and his eyes glinted dangerously in the dark. His expression had morphed into the stoic mask where she couldn’t tell if he liked or loathed her. It was the face he wore the most, and she hated it.

When Mason pulled the car to a stop in front of Damon’s house, the dragon dropped his gaze and shoved out of the car. “Mason,” he barked out, “see her to her room.” And then he disappeared inside.

Numbly, Clara followed the now quiet driver through the front doors. She followed him down the cold marble hallway that seemed to stretch for miles. She followed him past statues and fountains, past winding staircases and what looked like an old-fashioned ballroom. Sconces and chandeliers and wooden doors stretched to three times her height, and it all combined to give her a single feeling—frigid emptiness. Damon had decorated this place without any warmth at all.

Perhaps it was he who was broken.

Mason adjusted the strap of her duffle bag on his shoulder and shoved open a heavy wooden door that had been painted a cream color. The paint was worn and chipped, and it looked as if it had been taken from some ancient castle. Inside, the guestroom was bigger than her entire apartment in Florida. There was white wainscoting along the walls, and intricate crown molding around every window and along the entirety of the ceiling. Above the wainscoting was wallpaper in a mauve floral print that should’ve felt outdated and dull, but paired with the four poster bed with the gauze curtains, the room looked quite elegant and comfortable. There was a sitting area, and a set of French doors were open to a sprawling balcony that overlooked the waterfall she’d seen earlier.

It was a room fit for a queen, and Clara was definitely trailing trailer-park dirt all over the pristine dark wood floors.

Surprised by the contrast to the sterile white corridors, she murmured, “This room is so different than the rest of the house.”

Mason nodded and smiled, then pointed to a room off the main and said, “The bathroom is through there. Sleep as late as you like.” He hovered at the doorway where he’d set her bag down as if he wanted to say more, but turned abruptly instead and closed the door behind him, leaving her alone in the enormous room.

The shower was roughly the size of her bedroom at home, and when she finally figured out how to turn on the hot tap, water fell like rain from the ceiling. She washed the travel dirt from her skin and towel dried her hair, then readied for bed in a daze. Her mind circled around Damon, from the contract to him breaking the glass in his office, from his agonized roar to the Grayland Mobile Park, and then back—always back—to that stunning dimple-smile he’d given over and over again tonight. He was the most interesting, yet confounding man she’d ever met. And even more terrifying than her interest in a cold man was the bone-deep desire that unfurled in her belly anytime he was around. She was giving him the power to hurt her, and for what? She hadn’t known him long enough to care about what made him tick.

Clara closed the terrace doors, turned off the lights, and buried herself under the plush covers of the bed. With a frown, she looked over at the wall beside her. What if he was there on the other side? She didn’t know for sure, but she could almost sense him, almost picture him, restless in his own bed, as she was in hers.

She scooted to the side of the bed she imagined was closest to him and relaxed. It was there that she drifted off, as close to the cold dragon as she would ever sleep.