Last Immortal Dragon (Gray Back Bears #6)(31)

He’d never believed in magic. A legendary shifter like him knew the truth. People looked to creatures like him to believe in something more than the black and white, but for him…there was no magic. He’d hatched and was raised in a rocky cave by his father. He blew fire because he could make gasses in his lungs when he was angry, and he’d honed the use of his firestarter. He could eat ash because that’s what his animal required, and he could live forever simply because that was his chemical make-up. He was a prehistoric monster that had refused to go extinct with the rest of its kind.

No, he’d never believed in magic, but when Clara had looked up into his eyes as they’d finished with those tears of happiness streaming down the sides of her face, his way of thinking had shifted. When he’d felt that blinding sensation as the bond strengthened between them and had experienced the feeling of utter belonging with her, when he could see the make-up of her soul because his had suddenly awoken after so long being dead, for that instant, magic had existed.

He was going to love her every second for the rest of her life. And when she went gray, and her beauty faded in her own eyes, she would only become lovelier to him because he would know her time on earth was fading and his time with her even more precious.

And when she, his tragically mortal Clara, passed to the next world, he would spend eternity paying homage to her with his heart.

She would be his last mate.

She would be the only one who was real.

She would be everything.





Chapter Twelve




The ink of Clara’s tattoo moved and morphed until the ring of fire dissolved into the tiny black dragon, and the little creature moved as if the drawing was twitching to life just under her skin. Her gasp echoed loud at first, then grew softer. The drip drip of the cave wall was constant, but she couldn’t see anything other than the tiny dragon who reached forward and stretched its miniature claws. There was a prickle of pain, as if the nails were needles in her flesh. Slowly, the dragon dragged itself across her skin to the tip of her collarbone, then over the slight swell of her bicep. Clara froze in fear as it circled her arm in the blink of an eye, then slowed again. It’s tiny tongue flicked out of its mouth, scenting her skin, or perhaps tasting it. She wanted to rip it from her body. She wanted to claw and slash until the ink was gone, but she was helpless to move as it turned its spiked head toward her. The scent of smoke filled her nostrils, and the flash of a man’s face ricocheted off her mind.

His skin was gruesome and gray, sagging as if he’d been left in the desert to dry out and die in the sun. His eyes were black and soulless, and the smile that twisted his lips was so terrifying, her gasp echoed again, though she wasn’t breathing now.

“You can’t hide from me, seer.” His dry, cracked lips moved a moment too late to match his words.

This wasn’t real. Wake up!

His face faded to reveal the dragon tattoo again, poised over the middle of her forearm.

The man’s hollow voice whispered out, “We’re bound, you and I.”

And then the little tattooed dragon dove into the tender center of her arm. Black tendrils of ink unfurled from where it had disappeared, the darkness snaking up her arm like poison polluted streams. Pain grew brighter and harsher as the rivers of black stretched up her neck and through her chest. And just where the dragon had disappeared, in the darkest part of her body now, her skin turned to stone and cracked with the deafening sound of fault lines shifting.

Terror clogged her throat as her arm began to turn to ash, and she screamed the only name she wanted on her lips at the end. “Damon!”



Clara sat up with his name clawing its way out of her throat, and Damon was there on the bed beside her. A lantern was lit on the wall, casting a flickering candlelight glow across the worry etched into the sharp angles of his face. He had her forearm turned over in his hand, his fingertips digging deeply into her arm where he gripped it. Underneath her skin was a tiny, green light.

Damon reached behind him and pulled something from the bedside table drawer as she panted and tried to make sense of the horrifying green glow.

“Don’t look,” he demanded.

But she couldn’t take her eyes from the light glowing beneath her skin. The flick of a knife blade was loud and clashed against the gentle dripping of the cave wall behind them. Before she had time to jerk away, he cut a skilled slit into her arm and dug something out of her arm.

Pain registered an instant later, but he already had the thing in his palm and was rushing away from her.

“Fuck!” he yelled, hunching into himself and flinging his hand. Something thick and sticky lobbed from his fingertips and made a splat sound against the stone floor.

Clara gasped out, “Oh, my gosh,” as the spatters of liquid caught fire around the edges and burned through the stone until she couldn’t see them anymore.

Damon clutched his hand to his middle and snarled out a pained sound.

Clara bolted for him. “Let me see it.”

“No,” he growled, shaking his head hard. “It’s best if you don’t.”

“Let me see it, Damon!”

Damon’s shoulders heaved with his panting breath as he stared at her, but at last, he slowly unclenched his fist from his middle and exposed his palm. Clara’s heart sank to her toes, and her eyes burned with tears. “Oh, love.”