Last Immortal Dragon (Gray Back Bears #6)(32)

His skin was mangled and raw. There wasn’t any blood to get in the way of his exposed meat, as if the gel in that capsule had burned him so quickly, it had cauterized his veins. There was no skin left to cover his exposed musculature.

Where he’d cut that thing out of her arm, she was already healing and the blood easily wiped away, but Damon’s hand was repairing itself much slower, just along the edges of the injury. The pain must be excruciating.

“You saved me from that…that…what was that? How did it get in my arm?”

Damon blinked slowly, and the change in his eyes was instant. Shock turned to dark comprehension. “It was put in there a long time ago, Clara, when you weren’t paying attention or perhaps when you weren’t conscious.”

“By who?”

“By someone who’d planned your death for a very long time. By someone who has planned my torture accordingly.”

“I don’t understand. Is it acid? Why would anyone want to kill me?”

“It’s not acid, no.” He looked down at his ruined hand and sighed. “This is the work of the chemical equivalent of dragon’s fire. Impossible to make unless you have the real thing on hand to start with.”

“Damon,” she whispered brokenly. “What’s happening?”

Damon dragged his blazing, inhuman gaze to hers. “I’m not the last immortal dragon after all.”

Clara couldn’t catch her breath. It felt as if someone was standing on her chest, forcing all the air from her. “Marcus,” she whispered. “My dream. Black eyes, skin sloughed off. Not like your scars. Worse. He said I can’t hide from him.” God, why couldn’t she breathe? That capsule of dragon’s fire had been meant for her. Meant to kill her, but Damon had taken the pain out of her and onto himself to protect her.

Tears streamed down her face as he clenched his hand and hid the injury from her again. More protection. She snatched the robe from the end of the bed. “I’m going to get help.”

“Clara, there’s nothing anyone can do.”

“I’ll be back,” she called behind her as she bolted across the cold stones toward the door, pulling the soft robe around her shoulders as she ran.

She couldn’t just stand there while her mate’s body tried to repair itself from something so horrific. She couldn’t just watch the pain in his eyes and not try to help. She loved him. Damon’s pain was her pain.

Mason would know what to do.

Her robe flapped around her legs as she sprinted down the hallway toward the stairwell. There was an elevator that would take her to Mason’s wing on the next floor, but damned if she was going to wait as the small cage carried her slowly upward. No, right now, she needed to run. She took the curving stairs two at a time, heart pounding as she screamed, “Mason!”

Reaching for the double door handles of his bedroom, she screamed at the same moment he flung open the door, dark hair disheveled and nothing but a pair of navy plaid boxers clinging to his hips. “What’s happened?”

“It’s Damon! He—”

“Where?” he demanded.

“His bedroom.”

Mason pushed past her and flew down the stairs so fast she struggled to keep up. “I had a dream about something awful in my arm, and when I woke up, my arm was glowing.”

“Glowing?”

“Yeah, glowing green. It was a capsule of something that had turned on. It was like it was preparing to detonate. Damon cut it out of my arm, but it ruptured in his hand, and he said it was like dragon’s fire.”

“How’d it get in your arm, Clara?” he called over his shoulder as he jumped over the last three stairs and ran toward Damon’s room.

“I don’t know.”

Mason spun and gripped her shoulders so hard, she swore his fingers hit bone. “Who the f*ck put it in you?”

“Marcus,” she said on a breath.

Mason yanked his hands away as if she’d burned him. “What?”

Now the tears were back, blurring her vision as she rushed out, “Mason, I don’t know how he put it in my arm. I don’t remember it ever hurting or—”

“Swear to me you didn’t do this, Clara. Swear it!”

“I swear I had nothing to do with hurting him, Mason! I never would! I love him! I love him more than my own f*cking life. He’s the air—” Her voice cracked, so she swallowed hard and continued in a ragged whisper. “He’s the air I breathe. I don’t know how Marcus did it. I have no memory of it.”

A long, low rumble sounded from the other side of Damon’s bedroom doors, and Mason gave her one last questioning look before his gaze fell to her bare feet. He turned his head, exposing his neck. “I beg your apology. He’s my best friend.”

“I understand,” she said, her voice nothing more than a wisp of air with her throat so tight. “You care for him, too. You’re the first person I thought of when I wanted to get him help. Please help him.”

Mason nodded once and strode into Damon’s room. Clara followed.

Damon was sitting on the edge of his bed, hand clenched in his lap and a dangerous growl emanating from his chest. His eyes looked like swirling mercury, and his long pupils were so contracted, they were nothing but slivers of dark in all of that brilliant color. Her bear begged her to run from the power that emanated from him. Her skin prickled with the urge to defend herself, but Damon wasn’t posing any threat to her. He was sitting on the bed, his focus on Mason.