“Fuck,” he muttered and Snow frowned at him. Grave pointed her out to his cousin. He knew the moment Snow had spotted her, because his cousin threw him a confused look. He sighed. “My mate.”
Snow jerked his chin towards the castle. “She will get herself killed.”
Grave’s eyes shot there and widened as they landed on a pack of three Hell beasts patrolling the perimeter of the wall, huge black hairless animals that were taller than he was, a cross between a bull and a big cat, complete with obsidian horns.
How the fuck hadn’t he scented them before?
He didn’t hesitate.
He kicked off, crossing the black lands with all the preternatural speed he could muster in his weakened state, little more than a blur in the darkness. Isla zoomed towards him, his single point of focus.
She stepped out from the cover of the forest.
Grave slammed into her and dragged her back into the gnarled black excuse for trees. She was still for a moment and then she began thrashing against him, kicking at his legs as he pinned her back against his chest and clawing at his arms. His skin chilled where she touched him, the warmth draining from it and leaving him ice cold, and his muscles stiffened as he tried to keep hold of her.
“Let me go,” she snarled in the demon tongue and he covered her mouth with his hand, his heart slamming against his chest as he focused to sharpen his hearing, afraid that the Hell beasts would have heard her.
Foolish female.
A hot sting shot through his palm and he grunted.
Isla stilled as warmth bloomed where she had bitten him.
“Grave.”
His hand muffled her, but not enough that the sound of his name whispered in her voice didn’t reach his ears and sink into his blood, heating him from the inside.
Blood that she had tasted, and recognised as his.
She settled against him, her back against his chest and her head on his shoulder, seemed to lean into him as she went limp in his arms.
She shoved out of them before he could hold her closer and whirled on him, her eyes glowing blue in the low light. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Grave couldn’t answer. He could only stare into her eyes as tears began to fill them.
“Leave me alone. Just go away.” Her voice faltered, losing its strength and growing increasingly quiet as her fight visibly left her.
She sank to her knees on the black ground and tears left glittering trails down her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” Snow said from beside him and she seemed surprised when she lifted her head and looked at him, as if she had only just realised Grave wasn’t alone. His cousin pulled the black scarf covering the bottom half of his face down and pushed his black skullcap back, so tufts of his white hair sprang free.
Isla blinked slowly, her eyes going wide as she gazed up at Snow.
The darkness that had been riding Grave for the past four days pushed for freedom and he slid his cousin a look meant to order him to back off, but Snow played a dangerous game by refusing to look at him, by keeping his eyes on Isla.
On his mate.
He tore his own hat and scarf away and took a step towards his cousin, unable to contain the black need to drive Snow away from her by force and make it clear that he wasn’t to look at her like that—as if he cared about her.
She was his.
He grasped the hilt of his blade.
Isla shook her head and swallowed hard.
The pain that had gone through him in Bastian’s mansion returned, arresting his steps as it blazed inside him like cold fire, burning away all of his anger towards his cousin and dragging every drop of his focus back to Isla.
She wrapped her arms around herself, pale fingers digging into her bare arms, and lowered her head. Her white ponytail fell forwards and for the first time he noticed the braids that hung from her temples, and the crystals at their ends. Blue. Red. For her?
For him?
Her lips peeled back off her teeth and her white eyebrows furrowed as she squeezed her eyes shut, and the pain that beat within his heart and across the mark on his back grew stronger, stealing his breath.
He was only feeling an echo of what she experienced. How fierce was her pain? What had happened to her to make her suffer so greatly?
He couldn’t bear it when more tears came, running freely down her ashen cheeks.
He crouched in front of her and reached for her shoulders, but hesitated and drew his hands back a few inches as his courage faltered, fear of what would happen if he gave in to his need to comfort her making him wary.
A sob broke free of her lips.
He placed his hands on her arms, uncaring about what might happen to him. She was hurting, and that was all that mattered.
Her hand came up fast and he grunted as it slammed into his chest, knocking him away from her and onto his backside. She scrambled backwards across the loose earth, until her back hit the rough trunk of one of the trees, and glared at him.
Denied him.
He picked himself up off the dirt and brushed his fatigues down, cursing himself in his head as his hands shook. Fool. He shouldn’t have tried to comfort her. He should have known she would reject him. Hurt him.
Grave looked at her and every drop of anger he had managed to muster evaporated again as he saw her backed against the tree, a wild look in her tear-filled blue eyes. His beautiful Isla. He needed to comfort her. A stupid need, but one that was both powerful and commanding, and impossible to deny even when he knew she would only lash out at him and he would provoke her phantom powers into manifesting again.
She stopped him in his tracks when he advanced a step towards her, willing to risk her wrath.
“It is your fault,” she whispered, the pain in her voice turning it dark and malicious, warning him to keep his distance from her. His senses issued a warning of their own, telling him that she meant to attack even when she looked so frail, a broken little thing as she shook and began to curl into a ball. “You are the reason I lost…”
Her demeanour changed in an instant and she flew at him, her eyes brightening again as she slammed into him and knocked him back. He placed his right foot behind him, bracing himself as she hurled punches at him, each blow that managed to strike him before he could block it leaving him cold where it had hit. Her skin paled further and her eyes glowed as she battered him with her fists, her anger flowing through him via their bond, together with her agony.
Grave refused to fight her.
If lashing out at him would help ease her pain, he wouldn’t try to stop her. He would take every blow, everything she needed to throw at him, if only it would make her feel better.
He probably deserved it.
That noble thought and desire shattered when she managed to knock him over and landed on top of him, pinning him to the earth, and struck him so hard across his left cheek that she knocked a molar loose and the taste of blood filled his mouth.
Blood.
His fangs punched long from his gums and he snarled through them as a black hunger rose, a terrible need to fight her. He wrestled with it, refusing to succumb to his bloodlust, but each blow Isla landed only stoked the fire hotter, until it burned away the cage he kept it in and began to seize hold of him.
“It is your fault,” Isla bit out and cocked her right fist.
Snow’s forearm banded around her stomach and his cousin hauled her off him. She tried to get back to him when Snow set her down but his cousin snagged her wrist, holding her back.
Grave breathed hard, pushing back against the darkness, determined to subdue it as he rose back onto his feet. He would not hurt Isla. He would not. He could not.
Isla didn’t seem to share the same feelings towards him.
She broke free of Snow’s grip and her palm struck Grave’s left cheek so hard his head snapped to his right and the sound of her slap echoed through the trees.
Grave closed his eyes and stood there in the thick silence that followed, breathi
ng to steady his bloodlust and bring it back under control, his cheek stinging fiercely. He had probably deserved the slap too, for countless reasons, but he wanted to know which one had her so bent on attacking him.
He could only think of one.
He slowly opened his eyes and turned to face her, determined to discover why she was so upset with him. “Is this because I would not help you?”
Her chest heaved against her blue corset as she struggled to breathe, heart hammering out a tempting rhythm on her neck, a neck that he had marked with his fangs more than once.
A neck she usually kept hidden for that reason, her long white hair down to conceal the scars.
He frowned at that and reached out without thinking, his eyes glued to one set of marks—the one from the first time he had bitten her.
Isla slapped his hand away and hot lightning zinged through his bones and up his arm from the force of the blow, even as his skin turned to ice where hers had touched.
Her bright blue eyes narrowed into glowing slits in the low light and her voice dropped to a deadly whisper that seemed to suck the warmth from the air around him. “They are dead… my sister… my nephew. They are gone because of you… because of me.”
“Because of me?” He didn’t understand.
What little light there had been disappeared, swallowed by an inky shadow that stretched outwards from Isla, and he shivered as the air around him grew colder, the temperature dropping rapidly.
Her eyes shone in the darkness, as cold but as beautiful as the moon and the stars. “A demon killed my nephew and my sister… my sister faded… went to join her love Valador in eternity.”
Grave’s blood grew colder, and not because of her power manifesting itself this time. “Valador?”
Isla snarled, the unholy sound sending an icy shiver down his spine, and he felt her malice wrap around him like sharp tendrils, cutting into his skin, freezing him but burning him at the same time.
Her voice gained an echo in his mind, a disjointed repeat of every word she said.
“The First King of the demons.”
He had killed her sister’s mate.
His ears rang as that sank in and he forced himself to believe it, to see her with new eyes, and everything began to make sense. A sick sort. One that had his strength draining from him as he pieced it all together and came to one terrible conclusion.
One that tore him apart inside.
Ripped him to shreds.
She advanced on him but Snow grabbed her arm again and she turned ice cold eyes on his cousin. She fought his hold, but Snow only tightened his grip, until his fingers burned white and Grave was on the verge of demanding he unhand her because it was clear he was hurting her.
A fool.
What did he care if Snow hurt her? She certainly didn’t extend the same feelings towards him. She didn’t care that she had hurt him.
It had all been a lie.
But it had been real for him.
She wrestled with his cousin, the darkness lifting and the air warming as her focus was diverted from him and the agony of losing her family, replaced with a more immediate pain.
“Settle down, because I will not let you harm my cousin,” Snow barked, his fangs flashing between his teeth and his eyes flaring crimson and pupils turning elliptical. “If the demon prince killed your nephew and sister, then I am as much responsible for that as Grave, because I was joint leader on that mission.”
Isla stilled.
Grave stared at her, numbness sweeping outwards from the centre of his chest, slowly engulfing him as he waited for her to attack his cousin, to turn her anger on Snow.
That numbness swallowed him entirely when she merely looked away from Snow and pinned her glare back on him, making it clear she blamed him alone for what had happened.
He tried to muster some anger of his own, some shred of feeling, even a drop of hatred or rage. When that failed, he called on his bloodlust that had been so eager to seize control just minutes ago, needing it so he could lash out at Isla in return. Now it was nowhere to be found. Gone.
Faded from existence.
He looked down at himself and then up into Isla’s eyes, the numbness becoming a cold that sank deep into his bones, and his voice was distant to his ears as he whispered the words he had wanted to scream at her.
“Are Valador and your sister the reason you did this to me?”
He held his hands out between them.
The air shimmered where they should have been.
CHAPTER 13
Isla stared at Grave’s hands as they shimmered in and out of existence between them, able to see the dirt through them one moment and then his strong fingers the next. When they finally became solid again and stayed that way, he curled them into fists and lowered them to his sides, his gaze boring into her, demanding an answer to his question.
The male at her back seemed equally as intent on knowing it.
She closed her eyes and then forced them open again, made herself look into Grave’s pale blue ones and see what she had done to him, and witness his reaction when she answered him.
“It was.”
Those two words fell hard between them and the feeling that had been growing within her from the moment she had left him reached a new pinnacle as his eyes narrowed on her, red ringing his pale irises, and he ground his teeth.
Anger sparked in the depths of his eyes and skittered across the mark on her back, and she wanted to look away but held his gaze instead. She had lashed out at him, blaming him for what had happened to her family, and he deserved to do the same to her in return, taking out his pain on her, the suffering she had put him through.
His hands went slack beside his black-clad thighs and the anger she had anticipated, the rage she had expected, didn’t come.
Grave stared at her, red battling blue in his eyes.
“I did not know,” he whispered.
She cursed him in her mind, begged him to rail at her and be furious about what she had done, anything to alleviate the guilt that was crushing her inside. She deserved his wrath. She needed it to make the hollow feeling that squirmed inside her go away, because she couldn’t bear it.
She couldn’t bear knowing that he had suffered for almost a century without knowing why.
She could see in his eyes that he was telling the truth. He hadn’t known, which meant that he had spent the past decades believing that she had left him for no reason, and that made something else hit home.
He hadn’t lashed out at her through their connection, making her witness things he did to spite her, to hurt her, because he knew she had used him and had tricked him into becoming a phantom as an act of revenge.
He had done it because she had wounded him.
Gods, he had loved her.
“I am sorry your family was dragged into this.”
Isla turned her cheek to him and closed her eyes, but she couldn’t shut out what he had said as easily. It rang in her mind, resonated in her heart, touched that deepest part of herself that she tried to keep hidden and protected, shielded from him even when he was already on the inside, buried so deep inside her heart that it was impossible to keep him out.
He went to walk past her and she shot her hand out and grabbed his left wrist, stopping him. She felt his eyes on her hand, and then on her face, and she pulled down a breath to find some courage in her weak timid heart and turned her face towards him.
“Why are you here?” Because it was the last place she had expected to cross paths with him again, but at the same time she was glad he was standing before her, here when she needed him most.
“Why are you?” he countered and shirked free of her grip, and her hand fell to her side as the red in his eyes began to win against the blue, and his pupils stretched in their centres, turning elliptical.
He didn’t need to show his rage to her like that, not when she could feel it burning on her back, blazing in their bond.
“It took me a long time to track down t
his mage. Too long.” She looked over her shoulder, through the trees at the black tower. The key to her vengeance was in there, locked away but finally within her reach. She could feel it like insects crawling under her skin, the same sensation she’d had when she had found the phantom mage who had cast the spell on her in the first place. Once she had a stable form again, she would turn all of her focus towards the demon and hunting him down. “Do you know how rare they are now?”
She wished she hadn’t looked back at Grave when she saw the darkness in his eyes as he stared at her, the cold that she had created in him, one that she feared would never leave his heart.
“I know,” he said, his tone dangerously casual and calm. “Because I killed most of them. In fact, I thought I had killed them all.”
A hot rush of anger went through her and she grabbed his shoulder before she could consider what she was doing and spun him to face her. “What possessed you to do such a thing?”
She knew the answer to that question as he glared at her, malice and fury beyond what she could ever muster even in her true phantom form burning in his eyes, and her hand shook against his muscular shoulder.
“I was a little upset.” He rolled his shoulder free of her grip and turned his focus back to the mage’s fortress.
Isla wasn’t sure what to say.
It was obvious he had been more than a little upset.
In the wake of her leaving him, he had gone to war. He had blamed the phantom mages for what had happened to him and had gone after them with all the fires of Hell burning in his heart, bent on revenge.
His bloodlust must have seized him.
Isla covered her mouth with her hand and tried not to imagine what he had been like as he had hunted down every mage he could find, obsessed with destroying them. There had been a period when he had held the connection between them closed, years in which he had shut her out.
Was this what he had been doing?
The mages had been spread far and wide across Hell.
But he had hunted them down.
She studied his noble profile as he stared at the tower, assessing it with red eyes that seemed to burn in the low light.
Haunted by the King of Death Page 14