Last Immortal Dragon (Gray Back Bears #6)(22)

She couldn’t stomach seeing the betrayal etched into his beautiful face again.

I’ll love you always.

You won’t.

You can’t.

****

The remnants of that awful dream and the headache that had come along with it had Clara stumbling down the hallway. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep in Damon’s lair, but she’d woken all alone and cold to the drip drip of water falling from the stone wall.

The dream had broken her heart.

“Feyadine,” Dream Damon had called her. It was the same name Mason had uttered the first time she’d met Damon. The hallways were dark, even when she reached the pristine white marble ones, but Clara knew where he was. She was drawn to him, as if they were tethered with an invisible string. She turned this way and that in a haze until she reached the top of an old stone spiraling staircase that led down to oblivion for all she knew. There was the soft glow of candlelight, or perhaps torchlight, below, and there he waited for her.

The rounded stone wall was cold and unforgiving under her palm as she descended the stairs. When she finally reached the bottom, she froze, unable to comprehend what was before her.

Damon was on his knees in the middle of a cavernous room, staring at a collage of painted canvases, stacked in layers of disarray and covered heavily with dust. Every painting was of the same subject.

Her.

Clara stumbled forward and drew to a halt right beside him, staring in bafflement at the pictures. There were hundreds of them, all of her face. It was slimmer, and her eyes looked more gray than green. Her freckles were lighter, and her hair was perhaps a shade darker, more auburn than fiery red, but they were of her, no doubt.

“Did you paint these?”

“Yes,” Damon said, his voice sounding as hollow as a well without water. “Clara, I heard you.”

“Heard me what?”

Damon stood beside her and dusted the seat of his dress pants. He turned an angry silver glare on her and said, “I watched you while you slept, and you said, ‘I am a Blackwing. What can I do other than to obey Marcus’s rule?’” Damon took a slow, dangerous step toward her. “I saw you. You died in my arms. He’d cut your eggs from you and burned you with dragon’s fire, and then he left you in front of that cave full of my murdered people so that I could find you on your dying breath. You. Died. Tell me you died, Feyadine!”

“Don’t you dare call my by her name,” Clara gritted out. “Don’t you dare. It was a dream. I’ve been having her memories for years, only I didn’t know what they were. They didn’t make any sense until I met you. I’m not Feyadine, and I don’t answer to Marcus. I am no Blackwing. I’m Clara Sutterfield, alpha of the late Red Claws and proud grizzly shifter. I would never hurt you like she did.”

“You have the f*cking Blackwing crest tattooed into your shoulder!”

Damon’s middle made a clicking sound, and an instant too late, she realized what it was. Damon hunched into himself and exploded into a massive dragon. She stared in horror as his gigantic body filled most of the cavernous room, felling all of those canvases under his shifting weight. His blue scales shimmered in the candlelight. She would’ve thought him beautiful if she didn’t see the danger of his glare. Chest heaving, she raced away from his clawed feet that pounded on the stone floor. Rocks and dust rained down from the ceiling, and a heavy boulder struck her in the shoulder as she struggled to escape. She cried out in pain as she gripped her arm, pinning it to her side to keep it from hurting worse as she ran for the stairs. A wall of fire sprayed in front of her, and she skidded to a stop, barely able to avoid the flames.

A low, menacing rumble filled the room and shook the walls. The paintings around him toppled and fell, but Damon’s silver, serpentine eyes were focused on her.

“You. Asshole,” she said through clenched teeth. If she was going out in the dungeon of the last immortal dragon, she was going out fighting, and she was going out furred. With a battle scream, she let her raging grizzly have her body. Red fury pounded through her veins as she charged, but Damon had gone still, and the clicking sound in his throat had stopped. With a roar, she leapt at him and clung to his neck, biting and slashing against his stony scales.

The dragon under her claws disappeared like magic, slamming her onto the floor.

Damon stood, human and naked, thirty feet away by the paintings, crouched down with his eyes gone round. He looked so shocked, she would’ve found it funny if she wasn’t about to murder his ass.

She charged again, ignoring the pain from the injury caused by the falling rock. Stupid f*cker dragon calling her by another woman’s name and then blasting fire at her. He’d singed her!

“Clara, stop. Stop!” Damon yelled, his hands out.

She skidded across the dusty rock floor and came to a sliding halt right before her snout touched his outstretched hands. But just for good measure, she reached out and bit the shit out of his arm. Or at least she meant to bite the shit out of him, but munching on Damon’s skin was a lot like taking a bite out of a thick sheet of granite. She was pretty sure she nearly broke a tooth, which pissed her off more.

She bunched her muscles to attack again, but he said, “Clara, I’m sorry.”

His unexpected apology and the regret that swam in his eyes drew her up short. Huffing in pain, she took her weight off her bad leg and limped back away from him slowly. With one last lingering look, she turned and made her way toward the stairs. And by the time she’d made her way to the top of the spiral case, she was groaning in pain. Her shoulder was dislocated and healing out of place. She Changed back in the hallway with a cry of agony and ran for the guest bedroom with her arm clutched to her side.