Last Immortal Dragon: Dragon Shifter Romance (7 page)

Pain, jagged like broken glass, sliced through her head.

Clara buckled into herself with a whimper as a screaming sound pounded against her ears. She convulsed, then opened her eyes as the ache behind them lessened. That steady current of sound wasn’t screaming at all. It was the wind.

Looking down, she had to be a mile above the ground. She wanted to gasp, wanted to panic. Wanted to scream, but she couldn’t do anything other than observe.

This was a dream. One of those nightmares that felt so real, like the ones Grandma used to have. A wave of sorrow washed over her as she thought about how fast the insanity was happening. She’d wanted to experience motherhood before she went. She wanted to raise a child before the end of her life. Before the end of her clarity. Selfish.

She couldn’t speak and couldn’t move, but beside her, something enormous beat the air currents. Wings the color of fire flapped on either side of her, and when she looked down, four giant red claws were tucked close to her cream-colored belly scales.

She was a dragon.

Below, rocky crags and wilderness stretched as far as she could see. There weren’t homes or farmland or landing strips. The world was just…empty.

A deafening roar sounded from her throat as she tucked her wings and dove for the trees. Faster and faster she fell, and just as she thought she would hit the ground, a clicking sounded in her throat and she opened her mouth, releasing hellfire onto a clearing. She scooped up the burning ash, swallowed it down, and immediately she felt energized. Flapping her wings, she angled herself toward the setting sun and pushed her body harder, faster. The sense of urgency never left until she stretched her claws out and lowered herself to the ledge of a cliff face.

He was there waiting, her Damon, but his face was haggard. His eyes were dull and the color of pitch, tired and worried, and he looked as though he hadn’t slept in days.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in that strange language.

Her claws hit the rock, and she shattered inward, shrinking until she was on two bare feet again. Agony ripped at her heart because she was about to break his.

“I had to see you one last time.”

“One last time? What are you talking about?”

“Damon, he knows. Marcus knows about us, and he’s threatened to never rest until you and all of your clan are charred and dead.”

“Feyadine, how did he find out about us?” His voice cracked with power as he glared at her.

“Because I uttered your name,” she admitted, cheeks burning with shame.

He’d told her once, “I’ll love you always.”

She’d told him then, and she meant it, “You won’t. You can’t. You love me now only because you haven’t seen the monster I am yet.” Now he would see her for how weak she really was.

“You uttered my name?” he said low, suspicion filling his eyes and sparking them to the bright silver color she was used to. “When, Feyadine?”

“When I was with him.”

Damon shook his head and backed away a step, and then another, the betrayal in his eyes like a lash against her soul.

“I’ve been his all along. It wasn’t my choice—”

“No.”

“Listen to me, please,” she said, sobbing as warm tears trailed down her face. Monster, monster, monster. “I didn’t choose him, Damon. You have to believe me.”

“Yet you’ve visited my bed all this time. You’ve endangered my people. You’ve endangered me!”

“I am a Blackwing! What can I do other than to obey Marcus’s rule?”

“You’re a fucking fire-breather, Feyadine! A powerful seer and a fire-breather and you can’t convince me that the choice wasn’t yours. You aren’t some weak female.”

“I’m pregnant!”

Damon drew back as if he’d been slapped. His face crumpled, and he shook his head in denial. “No, Feya. No. You have another century before you’re ready to bear offspring. You’re too young.”

“It’s early still, but I’ll have to stop Changing soon to protect my offspring. I’m pregnant, Damon, and I don’t know if my eggs belong to you or to…”

“Marcus,” he gritted out, eyes blazing. “Did he force you?”

Her voice was nothing but a whispered admission of how utterly she’d failed and betrayed him. “No.” She wished her answer was different, but she was the vilest of monsters. “I came to tell you goodbye. It isn’t safe to see you anymore. Marcus watches me now, and I don’t want him finding you or your people.” She wiped her damp cheeks with the back of her hand and tried to hide the depth of her heartbreak. She’d failed her people and herself, but worst of all, she’d failed Damon. He was too good, too caring. He’d fought for hundreds of years to keep his people safe, but the mighty Damon Daye, alpha of the Bloodrunners, had fallen for someone beneath him. He’d fallen for her.

“Was it all a lie?” he asked, voice bleak.

“No. I love you. If I’d had a choice, it would’ve been you.”

Disgusted, he closed his eyes and angled his face away from her. “I never want to see you again.”

His words cut through her middle, and she cried out in pain. She wished she could die now. She wished her death wasn’t meant for when she would bear offspring she would never see hatch. She wished she could jump off these cliffs and end her suffering. He would be better off if she’d never existed, but that wasn’t her fate. Her fate was to fly away from the man she loved and endure the continuing wrath of a mate who had many conquests just like her.

“What if the eggs are yours?”

Damon slid her a dangerous glare. “You’re one of the mates of Marcus, Feyadine. Do you think he would let me take offspring from him? You’ve taken my chance at fathering young with you, no matter if they’re mine or not. Your eggs and your death will help build Marcus’s army.”

“Damon,” she said in a broken whisper, tears dripping from her cheeks.

“Leave.” He wouldn’t look at her anymore, and the muscles in his jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth harder. “I said leave!”

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, then turned and jumped from the cliff. For a moment, she spread her arms and let the wind catch her, but the rocks below wouldn’t kill her. Her skin was hard as stone. She Changed and spread her wings at the last moment, then flew away from Damon without a single look behind her.

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 fucking 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 fucker 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.

Stupid man. She was so pissed off at him she couldn’t see straight. Couldn’t think straight. She rushed down the winding hallways and through the guest bedroom door, where she slammed it as best she could behind her, then made her way into the bathroom and ran the shower water as hot as she could stand it. She needed her muscles as loose as possible if she was going to set her shoulder back into its socket on her own. Stupid, stupid man. And why was she crying? The combination of adrenaline, anger, and pain were making her light-headed.

She pressed her back against the shower wall and slid down, her shoulders shaking with her sobbing.

And then Damon was there, looking at her with his dark eyes gone soft. He stepped into the oversize shower and knelt down beside her. “Shhh,” he cooed, wiping her wet tresses from her face. “I’ll fix it.” He felt her shoulder, dug into the muscle with an expert touch, and snapped it back into place.

She screamed and huddled into herself at the blast of pain, but he’d done well. The bone was back in its socket, and she could use her arm again. It ached something fierce, but at least it wasn’t the blinding, excruciating pain anymore.

Damon sat beside her and dragged her into his lap under the rain shower. “Clara, I’m so sorry. I thought you were her for a minute. I thought I’d been tricked all this time. You said her words in your sleep, and I thought I hadn’t remembered her death right. Like maybe she’d lived and was back to torture me again.”