Last Immortal Dragon (Gray Back Bears #6)(14)

Pain, sharp and bright.

Clara squeezed her eyes closed, then opened them again as the ache in her head subsided. Where was she? She looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. Her crossed legs were covered with green silk that shone in the candlelight. She wore a dress, but none like she’d ever seen. It was full in the skirts and tight from her waist up. Her sleeves were nothing more than lace caps right at the tips of her collar bones. Her headache was probably because her hair was pulled too tight in the pins that were jabbing into her head. Baffled, she looked around. The room was dark, and the walls made of stone. It was dark, like a cave, and old-fashioned lanterns hung from the walls on rusty pegs. Above was a large, circular chandelier, but instead of lightbulbs, it housed hundreds of lit candles, dripping wax onto the large table beneath. And around that table stood tall, broad-shouldered men, talking low. They spoke in a language she shouldn’t understand, but did, and all of the men, warriors if their dress and manners were anything to go by, deferred to one man who stood closest to her, leaning over a set of maps. Arms locked and triceps bulging against the thin cotton cloth of his shirt.

“Amir, you know my answer already,” the man said, his voice pitched low and gravelly. “Marcus has urged a war for more than a century now, and we’ve always been able to avoid it. We’ll do it again.”

A Nordic-looking man slammed his open palm onto the table then gestured to her. “But if what the seer says is true, we’ll all burn in our beds if we don’t defend ourselves.”

“Even so,” the leader said in a more patient voice. “Even if she says the truth, we can’t risk our entire species by engaging with him. If the Blackwings get their war, half of the world could burn, and we would annihilate each other. There would be nothing left to protect, and our way of life would be through. We would be nothing but ash and dust. We move our females and offspring into hiding and try to negotiate.”

“You can’t put off the war forever,” the Nordic man said, his voice shaking in anger.

“If any of us want to live, I have to.”

Seven men filed out of the room, murmuring their discontent, while the dark-haired man in the middle stood still with his back to her. Muttering a curse, he sagged against his locked arms on the table and shook his head.

She loved him. She didn’t want him to hurt like this. She needed to touch him and reassure him everything would work out, just as it had for centuries. She stood and padded toward him, then reached her pale hand out to touch his shoulder. “My love?”



Clara gasped and sat up, then hunched into herself and grabbed her head to keep it from exploding. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes, and she gripped her hair in desperation to find relief. Slamming her face into the pillow, she bit the material and screamed into it, her hoarse voice agonized and muffled.

As the stabbing sensation eased from her head and she could see and think clearly again, she sat up and drew her knees up to her chest like a shield to protect her from the awful feeling that had come from that dream.

She hadn’t been worried about the war, or the Blackwings, though the name alone had brought on chills. The only feeling that remained was a stark and empty yearning. She missed the man she’d almost touched so deeply her heart felt as if it was being ripped from her chest. She adored and pined for the man in her dreams, and she knew now she was losing her mind.

This was the first dream that had ever made sense, and that was exactly how Grandma’s madness had begun.





Chapter Six




Clara couldn’t stop her hands from shaking as she made her way down the hallway in search of the kitchen. Without the smell of bacon as her beacon, she would’ve got lost six turns ago. She clutched the crumpled contract even harder as she turned the corner and saw Damon standing over a stove and cooking scrambled eggs.

“Good morning,” he said in a dead tone without turning around.

“I’ve decided I’ll have your baby.”

Damon spun around, his eyes wide and shocked. “Excuse me?”

“My answer is yes, but I have negotiations to your contract.”

He stood there frozen, egg-covered spatula in hand and his mouth hanging open. He was wearing only a pair of thin, baby blue pajama pants and no shirt. Clara pursed her lips, determined to hold his gaze, but holy shit, her eyes had a mind of their own, and now she was ogling his sculpted torso. Wide, cut shoulders and a straight, deep indentation between his pecs, drawn up nipples and eight perfect abs, flexing with every breath. And oh, the shadows adorned his torso well. He even had those defined muscles over his hips that she found so bitable. But the skin over his muscular physique wasn’t smooth as she’d imagined it to be. Instead, it was rough and uneven and darker on some parts than others. Scars, or perhaps old burns? Shit, stop staring.

A pungent scent hit her nostrils. “Your eggs are burning.”

“What?”

“Your eggs.”

“Shit!” Damon spun and yanked the pan off the overkill eight-burner stove. It was deeply satisfying to hear the man curse like a commoner.

With a dragon growl that rattled the room, he gritted his teeth until a muscle in his chiseled jaw bulged. He glared at the ruined food. “Everything else is ready, but you’ll have to wait on the eggs,” he muttered as he pulled a carton out of the fridge.