Last Immortal Dragon (Gray Back Bears #6)(33)

His lip twitched, and he tilted his chin upward as Mason approached with his head lowered and his gaze on the ground. “She’s forgiven me. I misspoke. Please, may I see it?”

Silence descended on the room for the span of three slow breaths, and then Damon nodded his head once and offered his palm, unfurling his fingers slowly from the mangled flesh. It was still open and raw. Skinless. The pain he’d shown her earlier was no longer there. He’d gone cold again, and his eyes hollow.

Clara looked away to save her insides from being shredded. The empty look didn’t belong on her warm dragon’s face.

Mason studied it carefully and murmured a curse. “I need to call Diem.”

“I’ll call her,” Clara rushed out, desperate for a way to help.

“Tell her what’s happened and ask if Danielle has anything made up for burns. And I need water and clean cloths. Lots of them.”

“Okay,” she huffed out, relieved for a job to do. After snatching her phone off the nightstand, she ran back down the hall toward the kitchen and dialed the number off the it was so nice to meet you text Diem had sent her after they’d met.

“Hello?” Diem asked on the second ring. Sleep filled her voice.

“Diem, it’s Clara. It’s late, and I’m so sorry for calling you right now, but your father has been burned badly by dragon’s fire, and Mason said Danielle might have something made up for it.”

“Dragon’s fire? What do you mean? No, no time. Explain it to me when I get there. I’ll wake Danielle. If she doesn’t have anything made up, I’ll help her. I’ll text you on how long it will be. Clara?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Clara slowed and slammed her shoulder blades against the wall as a wave of emotion took her. “I almost wasn’t. Damon saved me. He protected me.”

Diem let off a stressed out sigh and said, “Clara, I’ll be there as soon as I can to help.”

“Thank you,” she squeaked out right before the call ended.

Thank God for Mason and Diem being so close. Clara was in over her head and had no idea what to do for Damon, but he’d built a family and friends around him who could help. With a sniffle, Clara wiped her damp lashes with her shaking knuckles and made her way into the kitchen. Supplies gathered, she bolted for Damon’s room as fast as the giant bowl of water allowed without sloshing out the sides. When she returned, Mason had been banished to a corner chair, and Damon was pacing in front of the window panels he’d opened. Outside, the starry sky stretched on forever. The forest in front of them was bathed in hues of purple under the half moon.

“I don’t understand why he’s waited all this time,” Mason murmured.

“Because he was waiting for her,” Damon gritted out, more growl than words. “He’s been waiting for Feyadine’s line to produce a doppelganger. And not just any doppelganger. There could have been tens of them, but I wasn’t interested. He could’ve put a kill switch in all of them for all we know. From birth! All he needed for me to do was to find her, so he could rip her away. And he almost succeeded!” he yelled in a booming voice. “I could’ve lost her!” Damon spun around, and his gaze collided with Clara’s. His voice dipped lower. “I could’ve lost you. If I wasn’t sleeping right beside you—”

“But you were, and I’m okay because of you.”

Damon shook his head, back and forth, back and forth, and something flashed through his eyes for just a moment before it was replaced by fury again. Fear?

“You don’t understand,” he whispered. “When I lose you, it will be the middle ages all over again. The earth will burn, and I won’t be able to stop myself. It’s the only way my dragon knows how to mourn.”

“Damon,” she said on a breath.

“Dangerous Clara,” he said. “You weren’t ever just a danger to me.” He gestured toward the open window with his good hand. “You were a danger to them as well. I’m not ready to lose you.” His dark eyebrow arched, and his voice turned to steel. “I won’t.”

She believed him.

Oh, Marcus was coming, and he was going to bring hell with him.

Her intended death by dragon’s fire was meant to let Damon know he was still alive.

Running was pointless.

Hiding wouldn’t work.

But if the death-bringer look in her mate’s eyes was anything to go by, Marcus had just called Damon’s animal to war.

And if Damon failed to rid the world of Marcus once and for all, it didn’t matter whether Clara lived or died.

The earth would burn, anyway.





Chapter Thirteen




A booming knock sounded down the hallway. Clara looked up from the floor outside Damon’s office where she’d been throwing tarot cards and frowned, waiting. Mason was in the office with Damon, but would get it, surely. He got frustrated if she stepped on his duties, so she’d learned to just let him do his running-of-the-household gig and steer clear.

With a sigh, she looked back down at the three cards she’d just drawn for Damon. He hadn’t shuffled them like she usually did with paying clients, but she’d perched outside the office he was working in and focused on him when she’d shuffled and cut the deck into three piles.