“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.