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.