by T. S. Joyce
“Do you ever stop talking?”
Clara stifled the urge to trip him by his polished shoes, but just barely. “Not when I’m nervous.”
“A dominant grizzly like yourself? Nervous? I don’t believe that.”
“I’ve never met a sea cucumber shifter before. You intimidate me, Mason.”
The dark-haired man shook his head in annoyance, but didn’t respond. This place felt like a mausoleum, and not only that, but there was a weight here she didn’t understand. And the deeper she followed Mason into the home, the more it pressed upon her shoulders and made it hard to breathe. Maybe it was because she was traveling deeper into the side of the cliff. Even with a bear inside of her, she’d never been a fan of caves or tight places.
Mason reached a set of twenty-foot tall mahogany double doors and inhaled deeply before he pushed them open. Not wanting to be left alone, Clara looked back down the long, cold corridor from which they’d come and scurried in after Mason.
“Mr. Daye, I’d like to introduce you to Ms. Clara Sutterfield.”
Clara locked eyes on the man behind the desk and jerked to a stop. His raven-black hair was short on the sides and longer on top. Right at his temples, he’d gone slightly silver, but his maturity there didn’t match his smooth, wrinkle-less face. His sharp jaw clenched, and a muscle twitched there. His eyes went from the color of pitch to the silver of a knife blade in an instant. A spark of recognition in his gaze matched hers, though she couldn’t put her finger on where she’d seen him before.
He sat there behind the desk with a stack of papers in front of him and his pen tip resting on one like he’d been in the middle of signing. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t draw a single breath trapped in his gaze like this, and the hairs on the back of her neck lifted. A soft rumble filled the room, but it wasn’t the growl of a fellow grizzly. He was something bigger. Only something truly terrifying would make a warning sound like that. Inside, her bear screamed to run—run away from this place and never look back.
The man blinked slowly, and his pupils dilated and lengthened in that churning silver color to look like a snake’s. Holy shit. He was beautiful. Lethal, deadly, but with an angelic face.
When the man ripped his gaze away from her, she stumbled backward and gasped air. Mason was watching her with a confused expression, but dragged his attention to Mr. Daye as she took another step back. Her shoulder blades hit the wall, and she clenched her hands against the urge to flee.
She knew this man. Right? She knew him from somewhere. The first shooting pain of one of her debilitating headaches slashed through her mind, making her wince.
“Damon,” Mason said low.
“Damon,” she whispered. Something about that name…
The man’s reptilian eyes tightened, and he stood slowly, arms locked on the desk, muscles flexing against his white oxford shirt. “Please tell me she’s not who I think she is.”
All around him, the air wavered and darkened. Three shadows, no four, stood behind his desk, about the same height as Mr. Daye. She couldn’t tell if the apparitions were men or women. Only that he was, in fact, being haunted. The veil that stood between this world and the next made them look like nothing more than gray mist.
“You have,” she said, pointing a shaking finger, “g-g-g…” She tried again, digging deep to find her bravery that seemed to have left the freaking building. “You have…”
Mr. Daye gritted his teeth and leveled her with a brutal glare. “Spit it out.”
“G-g-ghosts.”
Damon looked behind him with a slit-eyed glare, and the rumble in his chest grew stronger. Now, the terrifying sound vibrated off her skin and made her wish she could disappear into the wall.
When he returned his inhuman gaze to her, he said, “Tell me, Mrs. Sutterfield. What is your occupation?”
This was usually where she embellished to hook customers, but with Mr. Daye, she couldn’t seem to fib. “I’m a shite psychic. Tarot cards and palm readings. And apparently ghosts, as of just now. I’m not very good. Terrible at it, in fact.”
“A psychic?”
“Mmm hmmm.”
“A seer?” Mr. Daye dragged his pissed attention to Mason, who had the good sense to be cowering against the other wall right along with her.
Mason dipped his chin once, his lightened gaze on the carpet. “She is of Feyadine’s line, ancestor to her brother, Nall, and a grizzly shifter.”
Mr. Daye’s eyes tightened at the corners as he sat slowly into his chair. “Leave us.”
Okie dokie then. Clara went to high-knee her ass out of the office, but Mason beat her to the door. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, looking regretful as he pulled the door closed. From the other side, the click of a lock sound. She gave the handles a stout yank to no avail. “Son of mother-fluffin’—”
“Ms. Sutterfield, please have a seat.”
“Polite decline,” she said in a mousey voice, afraid to turn around and face him. His furious expression was so much worse than the ghosts standing patiently behind him.
“I won’t hurt you.”
She exhaled a shaky breath and turned around with her eyes squeezed closed. When she popped one open, Mr. Daye was studying her with his head cocked and a frown marring his features.
Somehow he’d grown even more handsome in the time she’d tried to escape.
“Do you know why Mason has brought you here?”
“To exorcise your ghosts?” Please lawd, let it not be to serve as dinner for this monster shifter.
“I’m afraid not. Apparitions don’t bother men like me.”
She pointed. “There’s one right there and another right there—”
“Didn’t say they weren’t there, Ms. Sutterfield. Only that they don’t bother me.”
“Are they people you’ve…”
Damon’s eyes narrowed to slits. “People I’ve what? Say what’s on your mind.”
“Are they people you’ve killed?”
Damon cast another quick glance over his shoulder, then rested his elbows on the desk and clasped his hands in front of his mouth. With a challenging look in his eyes, he smiled coldly and said, “Perhaps.”
She cleared her throat so her voice wouldn’t come out all pitchy and terrified. “You don’t have to call me Ms. Sutterfield. Please call me Clara.” Yes, that’s right. Make him realize she was an actual person and maybe he wouldn’t serial kill her.
“Clara, you can call me Damon. Now, please have a seat.”
She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “Thank you, Damon, but I’d rather stand.” Over here where the man couldn’t reach her.
He angled his head, never taking those bright silver eyes from her. “As you wish.” He sighed and pulled a stapled stack of paperwork from a drawer in his sprawling desk. “Mason brought you here to see if you would be agreeable to breeding with me.”
Clara’s mouth flopped open. “Say what now?”
“I would pay you a substantial amount of money in return for bearing my offspring.”
“Sex?” Really? That was the only word she could push past her tightening vocal chords right now?
“No sex. I like it less personal than that. We would let the doctors help us get you pregnant.”
“Less personal. Right.” She was floating. With a frown, she looked down at her neon pink flip flops, but nope, they were still embedded in the thick carpet. “This looks expensive.”
“The carpet?”
“Yeah.” The word came out breathy and meek. What an impressive dominant grizzly shifter she made.
Damon blinked slowly, then shook his head and dragged his attention back to the papers in his hand. “I can see you aren’t up for the contract, so I’ll bid you ado.”
Her legs felt like bouncy springs as she stumbled toward the chair and plopped down into it. “Obviously my answer is ‘no’ to bearing your…offspring. Gross word. But I’m curious about your pitch. Am I the first woman you’ve proposed this to?”
“Males of my species traditionally raise the offspring—”
“Why is that?”
A blaze of emotion struck through Damon’s eyes like a flash of lightning, there and gone before his face was a mask of passive indifference again. “Because the females all die during childbirth.”
“Oh. Well, that sounds hellish. What kind of shifter are you?”
Another soft, growling rumble vibrated against her skin, so she clamped her mouth shut and reached her hand out.
His eyes narrowed, but he stood and leaned over his desk, then set the paperwork gently into her palm. Across the top, it read Binding Contract.
“Do you usually let Mason choose your conquests?”
Damon was quiet for a long time as he studied her face before he said, “No. He’s never brought me a female before. I usually choose who to interview.”
“Why did he start with me?”
Damon shook his head slowly, apparently unwilling to answer.
“Fine, who’s Feyadine?”
“Ms. Sutterfield, I think it’s best if you go now.” The use of her formal name hurt in ways she couldn’t explain. “I’ll pay you double whatever Mason offered you for your trouble, but this won’t work.”
She huffed a laugh and nodded, then stood. “Just as well. I’ve already tried the doctors, and they couldn’t do anything for me.”
“You want a child?” he asked abruptly.
“Don’t worry about paying me double,” she said, biting back stinging tears as she strode for the door. “I don’t want your money.”
“Ms. Sutterfield. Clara!”
She turned, lip trembling as she allowed him to see the anger in her eyes.
“What is the tattoo on your shoulder?”
“A dragon.” Tortured, she swallowed hard and then admitted in a whisper, “I dream of them.” Then she turned and pulled on the door handle, and this time, it opened easily. She shut the door behind her and jogged down the echoing hallway toward Mason, who waited by the suit of armor. His expression was bleak and sad.
Shattering glass echoed from the office, and the house rattled with a deafening roar. The noise filled her head, so Clara covered her ears to save her sensitive eardrums as she ran.
That sound held such pain. More pain than any man ought to hold.
Damon Daye said ghosts didn’t bother men like him.
Damon Daye had lied.
Chapter Three
Damon gripped his stomach and willed his dragon to stay inside of him. His office was no place to Change. And yet the rage that unfurled within him, the loss, devastation, hope, longing, and crippling loneliness were too much to bear. Was this what it was like to die?
He’d imagined it so many times over the eons. Passing from this world to the next, meeting his family and friends in the beyond was a dream he would never realize. Not him, the last immortal dragon. And yet there she’d stood, his Feyadine in the form of a quirky young woman with an exact tattoo of her people’s crest. Down to her blood and bone, Clara was a Blackwing. She was ancestor to his enemies and the exact physical replica of his beloved Feyadine, seer to the last of the Blackwings.
“Fuck,” he gritted out as he glared at the priceless vase he’d shattered against the wall. Emotion was a poison to dragons like him. Mortal dragons could afford to feel. They only had one life to suffer through, but him? Feeling cut like blades against his insides for eternity.
Breathing heavy, he stared at the door. She wanted a baby, had visited doctors for a baby. Mason would’ve kept her profile with the other potential breeding females. Damon stood and ran for the filing cabinets in a hidden panel of the wall. He slammed his palm against the lever and waited impatiently for the barrier to slide open. His heart hammered double-time against his sternum as he rifled through the potential breeders. There. He yanked Clara Sutterfield’s file from a section marked Feyadine’s line. Never contact.
It was right there in her lineage. A long genealogy dating back to a hybrid shifter fathered by Feyadine’s brother, Nall. There was a reason he’d made the rule never to search for Feyadine’s ancestors. One that kept his heart safe from what was happening to him now. He’d spiraled for centuries after he’d lost her, and now it was happening all over again. He rested his back against the wall as he read Clara’s file.
Clara wasn’t just a risk to him.
She was a risk to the whole damned world. The last time he’d suffered the loss of a Blackwing mate, Damon had annihilated the remainder of his species and blackened the earth with dragon’s fire.
“I’ll find you again,” Feyadine had promised.
Perhaps she had.
****
“You let me walk in there thinking I was going to evict ghosts!” she yelled at Mason. “How could you do that? How could you let me go into that mess unprepared?”
“I’m so sorry. I just didn’t know what else to tell you to get you here.”
“What is he, Mason?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Clara slammed her palms against the Towncar and shook her head, so angry she could spit nails. Preferably at Mason’s head.
She wanted to rage and cry all at once, and for what? She didn’t know Damon.
“Take me back to the airport.”
“Clara, if you’ll just give him time—”
“To what? Put a monster baby in me?”
“But you want a child anyway!”
“How do you know? How do you know anything about me?”
“Because I’ve been tracking you for years. I know about your crew. I know about the doctors. I know everything! Now is the time, and I was right, wasn’t I? You felt something when you laid eyes on him for the first time. I saw it on your face. There was something there, hanging in the air between you.”
“Why the fuck does it matter to you?”
“Because he has a chance to be good!” Mason chucked his driver’s hat, and it sailed across the perfectly manicured front lawn. “Godammit, woman. He has a chance to be good. You’re his chance. He’s ready. And don’t ask me how I know. I just do.”
“Take me away from here,” she gritted out, voice quavering. She yanked open the back door and crawled in, then waited for him to finally unhook his hands from his hips and get behind the wheel.
“You’re making a mistake,” he murmured, holding her gaze in the rearview mirror.
“You don’t know me, Mason, and it’s become abundantly clear that no matter what you think, you don’t really know that man in there either. I’m nobody’s chance to be good.”
Clara forced herself not to look out the back window as Mason drove her away. She’d learned long ago that looking back was weakness. To survive, she needed to look ahead. Always. Regret, revisiting the past, pondering what-ifs was a waste of time reserved for people who had lost a lot less than her.
When a flash of the smiling hazel-eyed child from the plane rippled across her mind, she slammed her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. What a cruel twist of fate that she would have a child dangled in front of her, yet again. She pulled her floral duffle to her stomach and clutched it like the comfort blanket she’d had as a kid. Mason kept looking at her in the rearview with an unfathomable expression. Let him. What did she care? Clara looked out the window as the pristine cobblestone driveway morphed into a dirt road beneath the tires.
“This isn’t the way we came up here,” she growled out.
“It’s shorter this way, and besides, I think it would be good for you to see Damon isn’t a monster. He’s done a lot of good for these mountains and the people in them.”
She sighed a put-upon sound and narrowed her eyes at a break in the trees. Through the opening, she could see miles of rolling pine forest. None of this would change her mind, but she was exhausted from whatever had happened between her and Damon, the headache was still lingering, and frankly, she didn’t care how Mason got her out of these mountains and back to the airport, so long as he did. And she definitely wasn’t up
for another row with the pig-headed man quietly driving her down a switchback.
The scenery really was breathtaking. Clara leaned against the glass and pressed both hands on the window, just to leave smudges and feel as though she’d won a tiny battle. Outside, evergreens, ferns, wild grasses, brambles, and wildflowers painted a wilderness canvas full of colors too vibrant to be real. It was springtime, and apparently the rains that had been coasting across the country had done this place good.
Mason drove her past a flat cliff ledge where curious, giant machines stood still and abandoned, the arm of one stuck in the air as if its operator had stopped mid-chore when they cut out for the workday.
“Damon owns these mountains,” Mason said.
“Of course he does.”
A muscle twitched in Mason’s jaw. Good. She hoped she was as annoying to him as he was to her.
“Several years ago, pine beetles started killing off the trees. Mostly the weak and old ones at first, but that’s what happened to all the dead ones you see.”
Outside, there was a mash-up of brown interspersed in the green. Dead trees, and all because of a bug. Huh.
“Mr. Daye has a protective nature, so he began gathering in these mountains shifters he respected to cut down the dead lumber and replant as they went along. There are three crews that live here. The Ashe Crew, the Gray Backs, and the Boarlanders. They clear the land in sections and deliver the lumber to the Lowlander Crew, who own the sawmill down in Saratoga. Gorilla shifters, and real hard workers. It helps Damon keep his land healthy, and in turn, he gives these folks who don’t fit anywhere else jobs and homes.”
It was then that she saw the sign over the road. Grayland Mobile Park. Mason slowed and came to a stop in front of a high, bricked fire pit where several people were gathered around a grill, talking and laughing. Behind them was a semi-circle of singlewide trailers. Clara couldn’t guess their age since they’d been covered in cedar shingles and fixed up with screened-in porches. All but the one on the end. That one had a new porch built off the side, but the trailer itself looked less cared for than the others. Chipped cream paint and green shudders, a splintered front door that looked as if some sort of rodent had tried to chew its way through, and the numbers beside the doorframe were barely hanging on by a rusty, bent-up nail. 1010. Chills blasted up her arms, and she rubbed them to bring warmth back into her skin.