She had seen in her dreams, and in the things he showed to her, that her actions tormented him—her betrayal and the knowledge that the clock was constantly ticking for him. He lived his life waiting for the inevitable day when he would become incorporeal—a phantom male. He wasn’t alone. It hung over her too.
Her freedom was about to be snatched from her and she was starting to feel there was nothing she could do about it. She didn’t want to go back to being a ghost.
She didn’t want that life for Grave either.
She held her hands out in front of her and stared at them.
“Isla.” Melia’s soft voice had gone dark, a thunderclap in her mind that warned her sister knew something was wrong, something terrible.
She looked up into her sister’s eyes, found love and despair in them, and forced the words out.
“My hands faded on the battlefield.”
Melia shook her head and stepped closer, seized both of her shoulders and held her so tightly that it hurt. She savoured the pain, because it made her feel whole, solid, as if she wasn’t about to disappear from this world others enjoyed without appreciating what they had been given by the gods and drift back into the cold world of the phantoms, denied the pleasures others took for granted.
Her sister’s expression turned grave.
It only worsened when Isla gave herself another push.
“I am not the only one this will be happening to,” she whispered and her sister closed her eyes, lowered her head and sighed.
“What have you done?” Melia lifted her head again, canting it to her right, and looked back into her eyes, her eyebrows furrowed and blue gaze filled with a mixture of sympathy and anger.
“Valador… I saw him fall… I saw the male who claimed his life and I-I… I took vengeance on him.” She wasn’t sure she could say any more, not when Melia’s pretty face was shifting towards horrified.
“I told you of the phantom mage who had made me corporeal because I believed that you sought substance purely so you could be with me and Tarwyn when he was born,” Melia snapped and the air in the room chilled, the light sucking from it, turning it shades of grey instead of white. “Valador would not have wanted such a thing. If I had known your plan, I would have stopped you.”
It wasn’t the response Isla had expected and she staggered back a step, slipping from her sister’s grasp and shaking as she battled the surge of guilt and shame, and the pain that always came with it. It beat fiercely in her heart.
“I saw the vampire kill your husband… I wanted to avenge him.” As any phantom would have, but the look on her sister’s face said that it hadn’t been what she had wanted.
Being corporeal had affected Melia’s mind, had softened it and destroyed her phantom nature. It had made her weak.
“Vengeance, Sister. I wanted vengeance and I took it. I am a phantom,” Isla barked and regretted it when Melia only sighed, the sorrow remaining in her eyes, leaving her feeling that she was trying to justify what she had done when she didn’t honestly believe she had done the right thing.
It had felt like the right thing at the time, when she had been a phantom.
But then she had fallen in love with the vampire.
“All you have done is doom yourself and now I will lose both my husband and my beloved sister.” Melia’s words were softly spoken but they fell like lead around her, striking hard and shaking her.
“I can fix it,” she said.
Melia was silent for so long that Isla’s nerves kicked up a notch, her heart pounding erratically against her chest as she struggled to find a way to undo what she had done. Was it possible?
“You will need a mage,” Melia said at last and relief swept through Isla but lasted only as long as it took for her sister to speak again. “They are rare now, and you must try to find the one who performed the spell on you. He may be able to fix it… but…”
Isla swallowed hard. “But?”
Melia looked down at her feet. “It will be best you take the vampire with you.”
“No,” Isla snapped and sliced her hand through the air between them. “No.”
It wasn’t going to happen. Grave hated her, probably wanted nothing more than to kill her. His reputation before she had tricked him into becoming a phantom had been deadly enough, should have warned her away, but now he was second to the Devil in the list of most feared males in Hell.
Going anywhere near him would be a death sentence.
“You have done more than merely trick the vampire into becoming a phantom. You are bound to him. The mage’s spell would have made it happen. To make a phantom flesh and blood requires a powerful bond… and that bond must be periodically renewed. I had thought your bond to me was enough… but now I see how wrong I have been. It is your bond to the vampire that gives you substance.” Melia drifted closer again and fixed her with soft blue eyes filled with fear laced with love, and something else.
Something that chilled Isla’s blood and sent a shiver down her spine.
“I will bond with another man,” Isla blurted and Melia shook her head, causing her long white hair to sway across her bare shoulders.
“That is not possible, and you know it. You are bound to the vampire and the vampire to you. If he does not help you, you will both fade.”
That chill grew stronger, the shiver fiercer. “I do not wish to become incorporeal again.”
Her sister’s expression turned pained, flooded with sorrow. “You will not become incorporeal, Isla… you will fade.”
Fade.
Fade was the phantom way of saying die.
Isla swallowed to wet her suddenly dry throat and slowly shook her head as she looked at her sister and realised her sister knew first-hand that the danger was very real.
“How long do you have?” Isla whispered, unable to get her voice to work as her throat tightened and heart ached at the thought of losing her sister.
Melia smiled sadly and looked off to her right, at her son, a wealth of love in her eyes. “I will live long enough to see Tarwyn grow into a man and then I will join my love on the other side. I am only able to be here now because of my bond to Tarwyn. He has his father’s blood and that is keeping me corporeal. I am not sad, for I knew what was to come when I bound my life to my love’s.”
Her sister was going to choose to fade.
Isla’s knees weakened and she had to lock them to keep standing as that knowledge crashed over her, battering her and stealing her strength.
Her sister was going to choose death over life.
Isla wanted the opposite, and that desire flowed through her stronger than ever as she thought about what her sister was going to do. She refused to make such a choice for herself and she refused to condemn Grave to death too.
He was going to kill her the moment he set eyes on her rather than hearing her out, but Melia was right and she had to at least attempt to convince him to work with her to find a phantom mage. If she could just get him to listen to her, she was sure she could make him see reason.
She almost laughed out loud at that.
Grave had lost all reason when she had betrayed him. He had become a vampire bent on hunting her, hurting her, and she was proposing to walk right into his hands and place her life into them.
He was going to live up to his reputation, the name Hell had given him and one he justly deserved.
The King of Death.
CHAPTER 3
Grave kicked off hard, his left boot skidding on the loose black earth as he propelled himself to his right. He rolled across the ground, evading the meaty fist that had been aimed at his head and came up on his feet. Behind him, the demon male turned on a snarl and Grave dipped his body low and swept his left leg out in a swift arc, catching the male across the back of his knees as he launched another attack.
The large demon hit the earth with a thud and a growl, and Grave sprang to his feet, scooped up his fallen blade and brought it down in a fast arc, little more than a blur of silver cutting
through the low evening light of the Seventh Realm.
It sliced through the demon’s neck just as easily.
Blood sprayed in a burst of crimson and then dwindled to a steady trickle that pumped in time with the male’s heart as it slowed to a halt.
Grave breathed hard, the scent of blood overwhelming as it drenched the churned earth and the bodies strewn across it. Several of his men had fallen, their corpses resting in tangled heaps beside those of their allies, the demons of the Seventh Realm, and their enemies, the demons of the Sixth.
He licked his bloodied fangs, savouring the rich tang of his victims. The darkness within him pushed harder and he embraced it, savoured it as he savoured the blood. Nurtured it.
Asher, his second in command, a male with ice blond hair stained crimson in places, halted beside him for a heartbeat, long enough to check on him and give a brief nod before he kicked off, a blur in the falling darkness.
The male knew better than to coddle him in battle, or question him, although it had been clear he had wanted to do both.
With a low snarl, Grave stalked forwards, prowling through the fallen demons and vampires, his scarlet eyes locked ahead of him on the battle where it had moved back towards the border.
They were winning, driving out the demons of the Sixth Realm who had dared to invade the Seventh.
The battle still raged, hundreds of demons of the Sixth Realm, marked by their golden-brown horns, chestnut hair and golden eyes, clashed against his men and the demons of the Seventh. The sound of war filled his ears, and his heart, the constant din of battle axes and swords striking and agonised bellows as warriors fell mingled with shouts of victory.
Gods, he loved war.
Courted it almost as fervently as he courted his bloodlust.
Foolish were the vampires who feared it.
He licked his fangs and bit back a moan as he thought about sinking them into demon flesh together with his claws, tearing apart his foes to sate the dark hunger riding him.
A dark hunger that gave him strength, power to defeat any foe he met in battle. Bloodlust that had given him the reputation he had fought for and deserved. A reputation that meant more to him than anything else.
Two large demons of the Sixth Realm cut down one from the Seventh and turned his way, slow smiles curving their lips as they saw he was alone. Fools. They thought they could end him?
He laughed as he flexed his fingers around the black and red hilt of his katana, the sound so out of place in the midst of battle that it gave the demons pause.
Grave used it to his advantage.
With all the preternatural speed of his kind, he closed the gap between them and had his blade buried hilt-deep in the gut of the demon on the right before the male had even seen him. The male let out a garbled cry and the other one turned on him, raising his double-axe to cut Grave down.
He left his blade in the stomach of the first demon and spun to face the second. The axe came down fast and he grunted as he raised his right arm above his head and the thick black handle struck his forearm. Pain splintered in a ring where it had hit, warning of a fracture. Grave paid his body no heed and snarled as he shoved upwards, knocking the axe and the male’s arm up with it.
The demon staggered backwards and Grave sprung forwards, sank the claws of his right hand deep into the demon’s fleshy left shoulder and bit down hard on the right side of his throat. The male roared and grabbed him, and Grave’s fangs tore through his neck as he was ripped away.
He flew through the air and landed hard on a corpse with a grunt.
Bastard.
He licked his fangs and pushed onto his feet, coming to face his foe again.
One of his men was there already, battling the demon male, and Grave growled low in his throat at the sight, the darkness that flowed through his veins growing blacker as his mind whispered dangerous words, taunting him with the fact someone had stolen his prey.
He had been weak again, and now someone had taken what was his.
He hunched forwards and roared out his fury, and both the demon and the vampire stopped with their axe and sword in mid swing.
He would kill both of them. The demon for the fun of it and the vampire because the impudent bastard had stolen his prey.
No one took what was his.
No one.
He ran at both males and the vampire was gone in a flash, disappearing from the fray like the pathetic creature he was. He would deal with him later. He snarled as the demon swung the axe at him and threw himself feet first under the blow, skidding across the ground and ending up next to the first demon.
Grave grinned.
He wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sword and slowly pulled it free of the corpse as he rose onto his feet.
His senses warned of the demon behind him.
He took his time wiping the blade clean on the corpse’s leathers.
Could almost feel the fetid breath of the second demon on the back of his neck and hear the whisper of death as the axe sliced through the air aimed for his head.
Fool.
Grave dropped to his knees and the demon’s axe cut through the air above him. He twisted as he shoved onto his feet and arced his blade upwards, cutting across the demon’s broad chest. The male bellowed and stumbled back two steps before recovering and swinging the axe again. Grave dodged right but the blade nicked his shoulder, cutting through his black shirt, and the scent of his own blood laced the air, strong on his senses.
He saw red.
In a blur of speed, he came around behind the demon and drove his sword forwards, piercing deep into the male’s side, a wound meant to slow rather than kill.
This one had cut him, and that meant this one died by his fangs.
The male staggered forwards and tried to turn, but Grave leaped on his back and tipped him off balance. The demon landed face first on the bloodied black earth and Grave slammed into his bare back. He grabbed the demon’s left horn and yanked his head back as he struck hard, sinking his fangs into the right side of his throat. The male struggled, bucking wildly, and Grave bit deeper and raked his fangs through the male’s flesh, cutting long grooves into his skin. Blood poured from the wound, flowing so quickly he almost choked on it as he tried to swallow it all, his bloodlust demanding he didn’t waste a drop.
He gulped it down and groaned as the demon’s struggles weakened and his heart began to falter. There was no sweeter thrill than this for him, not anymore. War. Gods how he craved it.
Each blow that bruised his flesh, shattered bone and tore muscle.
Each dance with death.
He would wage war for free, but the Preux Chevaliers traditionally worked for the highest bidder, and who was he to turn down a tidy sum of gold?
He had been raised an aristocrat, born to one of the most powerful pureblood vampire families, and as an aristocrat he had grown accustomed to a certain level of comfort and convenience, and that required money.
He wasn’t an elite, those born to a family with lowly turned humans in their ranks or sired by such a creature.
He was an aristocrat.
A pureblood.
As all in the Preux Chevaliers were.
They were the most powerful of their kind. Faster, stronger, superior in every way to an elite. Bred from the purest blood, able to trace their ancestry back to the elves.
But with pure blood came what many in the vampire world viewed as a terrible curse—bloodlust.
He released the demon when his heart gave out and sat back on him, breathing hard and grinning as his blood thundered in his veins, pleasure rolling hot and sweet through him.
Pleasure his bloodlust gave to him.
Pleasure that had become his everything.
Only a fool would deny themselves the ecstasy of sating their bloodlust. With every step closer to the edge that he took, that ecstasy only grew more intense, more satisfying, until he was chasing the next high, aching for it to be better than the last.
His crimson eyes scanned the battle that had moved further from him, nearing the black mountains that formed the border between the Seventh Realm and the Devil’s domain, the path the demons of the Sixth had taken to avoid entering the Fifth to reach the Seventh.
He gave himself another minute to savour the high of his kill and then lumbered onto his feet, pulled his blade free and cleaned it on the dead male’s dark gold leathers. He could feel his bloodlust fading again, satisfied for now, but it would soon rise again, returning to embrace him and deliver him another high, and another victory.
Grave prowled through the corpses towards the battle, itching with the need to hurl himself into another fight, to feel fists striking his flesh and cracking his bones. The darkness that had been ebbing away began to flow back again, slowly filling his veins as he stalked towards his next victim, hungry for more.
Itching for another fix.
He singled out the male he had decided led the Sixth Realm demons, one who stood at least three inches taller than the rest and he had caught barking orders at the others. He wielded his broadsword with devastating skill, cutting down a demon of the Seventh and injuring one of Grave’s men in the process. The demon commander whirled to face three vampires who had come up behind him, and Grave snarled as he spotted his second in command among them.
“Asher,” Grave barked and the blond looked in his direction. Grave shifted his gaze from him to the demon and snarled, “Mine.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Asher bowed his head and signalled to his two men, and together they backed away from the demon as he turned to face Grave.
The male shoved bloodstained fingers through his wild chestnut hair, preening it back from his face, and smirked at him. Crimson coated every inch of his broad bare chest and had soaked into his deep gold leathers, forming dark veins across the material. The demon flexed the fingers of his other hand around the hilt of his broadsword, a blade that matched Grave in height, and stared him down, his golden eyes glowing brightly in the darkness.
“Come, Little Vampire.” The warrior crooked a clawed finger, his English sounding rough with his demonic accent, and grinned again, flashing fangs as his horns curled from behind his pointed ears, twisting around like a ram’s. “Let us see who is the true King of Death.”
Haunted by the King of Death Page 3