AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hi,” Jenna whispered to Damon’s mate.
“You’re safe,” she told Jenna and Cadence as she rested her hands on the smalls of their backs. “It’ll be a bad night, not a bad life.”
Cadence arched back and tossed Jenna a what-the-fuck look behind Clara’s back, but the red-haired she-grizzly wasn’t letting them fall behind.
Gunner was following them at a distance, making the entire mansion feel like it was crushing them.
Between Gunner, Lucia, and Clara, Jenna felt like she was being herded into something big.
Chapter Sixteen
“What am I doing here?” Lucas ground out.
Damon sat across from him at the enormous meeting hall table. His dark hair only had a noble silver streak at the front, though Lucas had no idea how old the dragon truly was. He hadn’t changed much over the years. He still looked like he was in his mid-forties. He’d seen his blue dragon though, and he was massive. Even now, Damon thickened every molecule of air in this room. He wondered absently if Clara ever got used to the pressure that clung to the room around Damon.
“You have a wound,” Damon said simply.
Lucas leaned back into his chair and stretched his leg out. A wise shifter never showed weakness in front of a dragon. “I went to the fight barn the other night.”
“I know. I was there. That isn’t the wound I’m talking about.”
Lucas lowered his chin to his chest and waited, with no idea what Damon was talking about.
“You carved it into your animal when you were a young blackback, and no one realized how bad it was.”
Aaaah. Gunner. The chair creaked as Lucas leaned forward. He rested his elbows on the table and clenched his fists in front of his mouth. “I appreciate you giving me a way out back then, but the point of me leaving was to move forward. Since I’ve come back here, everyone keeps bringing up the past. Surely you can understand that I don’t want to live in the past.”
“And that was supposed to work. You had a way out, but you are the son of Kirk.” Damon’s lips ticked up in a fast smile. “Do you know, you remind me much of him? I sometimes think you took the best traits of the Boarlanders, and I have watched you with pride over the years. But as I’ve watched you handle the jobs that I’ve given you, over time, my heart has softened for you. At first I thought you were just wanting to be good at the jobs I was giving you, but then I paid attention. You did not revel in the shifters that couldn’t be saved. You were fueled by the ones you did save. The ones you couldn’t pierced your heart. I could see it. On those bad jobs, I could see you weren’t fighting the killers. You weren’t fighting the ones who had lost control.”
“Who was I fighting, then?” Lucas asked.
“Yourself.”
Lucas cracked his knuckles and exhaled a sigh, because it did feel like Damon saw too much. He’d paid too much attention.
“I have an apology to make to someone,” he murmured, standing.
“To Jenna?”
Lucas nodded once. “I’m a mess here. Perhaps next time I visit won’t be as difficult.”
“Sit down, Lucas.”
“All I need is the next job, Damon. The next job, and the next job, and the next job until there are no more jobs. I’m good. I’m steady when I work. I know my place outside of these mountains. You said you wanted a dinner with me, but Clara isn’t even here. I don’t want to talk about my past or my feelings or let you break down what kind of man I am. You’re my boss. Put me to work.”
“If you would’ve healed that wound you gave your animal all those years ago, we wouldn’t be here. You failed, Lucas.”
He curled his lips back over his teeth. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me.”
“You haven’t failed me, boy. You have failed you, and I’ve thought about it so much. Too much, perhaps. But I aided you in getting here, where you can’t even visit home without pain. You can’t cling to your pain forever.”
“I don’t cling to it at all. When I’m outside of here, I don’t think about the things that happened. Everyone has shit, Damon. Everyone here has made mistakes, or had something happen to them, or made a wrong move that affected their Crew-mates. Everyone. I picked a mate early, but my animal wasn’t ready.”
Damon’s dark eyebrow arched up. “And then she chose your friend.”
Rage was heating his blood. “Gunner wasn’t my friend.”
“Yes, he was.”
