What kind of bastard was he?
The worst sort, one who could sacrifice even the woman he loved in order to get what he wanted.
No. He hadn’t been able to do it, even when it had been her suggestion and she had looked ready to go through with it when they had met with the mage. He had gone mad trapped in his room in the tower, aware that male was with her.
Touching her.
Touching what was his and always would be.
He knew the moment his eyes transformed, blazing red with his fury, with his need to erase the mage’s scent from her and mark her with his own.
Isla’s eyes widened slightly, a ripple of shock running through their bond.
Grave went to lower his head so she didn’t have to see the hunger in his eyes, a reflection of the darker need rising inside him again, one he had been battling since dragging her from that castle.
Isla’s palms captured his cheeks.
He blinked at the sudden soft press of her against him and then her mouth was on his, cool but warm at the same time. His hands flexed at his sides, his breath coming quicker as he fought to convince himself this was real and to not push her away out of spite or bitterness.
He needed her too much to deny himself.
He seized her hips and drew her up against him, moaned low in his throat as she sank into him, her breasts squashed against his bare chest and leather corset cool against his flesh. Her hands skimmed along his jaw and she pulled him closer, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her sweet whimper almost did him in, pushing at his control, and he growled as he grabbed her backside and lifted her, bringing her mouth up level with his so he could kiss her harder.
He stepped back, kicked the door closed so hard she gasped, and pinned her against it.
Gods.
The hunger for her that had always simmered in his blood boiled to the surface, stripping away his control, and Isla only gave it a firmer hold over him as she wrapped her leather-clad legs around his waist. Her heat pressed against his hard cock through his black combat trousers, pinning it between them, and he grunted as he rubbed against her, breathing hard into her mouth as he kissed her.
She tasted too good.
Warm. Sweet. Wonderful.
He groaned and deepened the kiss, tangling his tongue with hers, driving her into submission. She went willingly, stoking his need for her. His little phantom. He loved the way she was with him when she was fire and ice to everyone else in this world. He loved the way she didn’t have to be strong around him, and he didn’t need to be strong around her either.
He clutched her closer to him and shuddered as she licked his fang, stroking it from root to tip, something she had always done to tease him and make him think about her doing that somewhere else. Somewhere that ached for her attention.
He leaned in to kiss her harder and show her just how crazy she made him.
His fang nicked her tongue.
The taste of blood flooded his senses.
Hunger roared to the fore and saliva pooled in his mouth, and he snarled as he grasped her jaw to hold her in place as he kissed her deeper, desperate for more.
He shoved away from her a second later and paced across the room, heart pounding and blood thundering, his strides clipped as he tried to work off some energy. Enough that he wouldn’t hurt her.
One look at her undid all his hard work, and his bloodlust boiled back to the surface.
“Out,” he snapped.
Her eyes widened.
When she didn’t move, he stormed across the room to her, roughly grabbed her by her arm and yanked her away from the grotty wooden door. He opened it, shoved her out into the corridor, and slammed it in her face.
His hands shook as he ran them over his short hair, his whole body trembling as he battled his bloodlust, struggling to get it back under control. He couldn’t remember the last time it had been this strong, too powerful for him to harness it.
He tunnelled his fingers into his dark hair and clawed it back, breathing hard and trying to settle his mind. Impossible with the taste of Isla on his tongue.
Where the hell was Snow?
His cousin had decided to go on a mission to find some blood for them the moment he had set eyes on Grave when he had arrived at the inn with Isla. He had tried to stop Snow, aware that it was dangerous for him to be around blood, but his cousin had been right about a few things.
He needed to feed, because the bloodlust was riding him too hard, stirred to a frenzy by the thought of Isla with another male and his growing hunger for her.
Gods, just one drop of her blood had sent him hurtling over the edge.
His fangs ached, saliva filling his mouth as he remembered its sweet taste of life. Of her. Everything he needed.
He looked over his shoulder at the door and then forced himself away from it. She would stay away from him. He knew that and was glad of it. Her pain radiated through the mark on his back. She probably thought he had rejected her to hurt her, to make her suffer in a new way for what she had done to him.
He had done it to protect her.
His bloodlust was growing stronger as he grew weaker, and she triggered it too easily, her scent too sweet and alluring for him to ignore. It roused the thirst he had always had for her, an endless need to drink of her blood in order to pull her down into him, to ensure she was always with him.
Grave breathed slowly and cleared his mind, focusing on his heartbeat and his blood, and the darkness swimming in it. Control came and went, slipping through his fingers each time he thought he had it.
He closed his eyes and focused harder, afraid Snow would return and witness how weak he really was.
His iron self-control was the crux of his pride and his reputation, an unbreakable will that had all vampires whispering his name in awe and fear because he used it to master his bloodlust, allowing him to use its savageness to his advantage.
But it was also his ultimate weakness.
He looked back at the door and focused on the mark on his back and the female linked to him through it, needing to feel her.
He was beginning to believe his self-control was the reason he had lost her. His iron grip on his emotions, keeping them in check so no one knew what he was thinking and therefore no one had any power over him because he revealed no weaknesses to them, might have been his undoing after all.
If he had shown her how he really felt about her, how deeply he loved her, she might not have shattered the heart that beat for her alone.
She might not have left him.
She had confessed that a need for revenge had brought her to him, and he had been furious with her and crushed at the same time when he had heard that, but during the long hours he had been alone in his room in the tower, he’d had time to contemplate it and the things she had told him without words, through her eyes and their bond.
Revenge had brought her to him, but something else had made her stay.
If she had wanted to merely curse him to life as a phantom, a single kiss would have sufficed, and she had managed that victory bare minutes after they had met.
No. Isla had wanted more than that. She had cursed him, but she had stayed with him. Not for days, nor weeks. She had stayed months with him, rarely apart from him, and she had been happy. The woman she was now was a sharp contrast to the one he had held in his arms, had spent long lazy days with in his apartment. Something inside him had broken when she had left him, and now he believed that same something had broken inside her too.
She had loved him.
They were alike in so many respects.
More than just their feelings.
In that tower, shut away in that room, he had paced himself into an epiphany and that dawning of realisation had given him the strength to go to her, to show her that he wasn’t as cruel as this world thought he was and there were softer feelings inside him, ones that made him burn for her.
He had put himself in Isla’s place.
If someone had killed Aurora,
leaving Snow alone in the world with their offspring, a constant reminder of the love he had lost, and Grave had witnessed her death, he would have done the same thing.
He would have hunted down the one responsible and taken revenge on them.
While his method would have been swift and brutal justice befitting of a vampire, Isla had chosen a phantom way. She had wanted him to suffer as her sister did, drawing out his pain.
But what she had wanted had changed when she had met him, when she had grown to love him. He truly believed that.
So as much as he wanted to hate her for what she had done, he couldn’t because he knew that if he had been a phantom in her position, he probably would have done the same thing.
For almost a century he had taken out his pain on her, and on everyone else in this world, and he had believed he hated her, that anything he had felt for her had died that night she had left him, but his love for her had never died.
It never would.
He would love her forever.
Did she regret the things she had done as fiercely as he regretted his actions?
The part of his heart that he normally tried to ignore answered that question and he listened to it this time.
Of course she did.
She had shown it to him countless ways since walking back into his life.
Just as she had shown him that she still had feelings for him.
So what the hell did they do now?
The decisiveness he relied on as a leader, the ability to form a plan of action that was both perfect and infallible, was nowhere to be found when it came to Isla. He wasn’t sure how to proceed with her.
No matter how fiercely he wanted that knowledge.
He turned towards the door and sank onto the foot of the bed, the musty grey bedclothes creasing as the soft mattress depressed beneath his weight.
The mark on his back tingled.
Grave reached for her too, aching to have her here with him, no longer strong enough to deny her or his feelings for her. He wanted her back with him, craved the feel of her in his arms and the taste of her on his tongue, and her sweet cries of pleasure in his ears, but he couldn’t risk it.
He wasn’t strong enough to control his hunger for her blood, not as he was now.
He needed to feed, and then maybe he would find the courage to speak with her.
His body refused to get the message that they had to wait though. That single taste of her had him primed, rock hard in his black trousers despite his mind being elsewhere, aching for her. He palmed his length, groaned low in his throat as pleasure shot through him, and imagined it was Isla touching him.
She would see it through their connection, but this time he didn’t care.
He might be a cruel bastard, but he wasn’t that evil. He wanted her to know that he did still desire her, even after everything that had happened.
The door burst open.
His hand shot away from his cock and his eyes darted to the person standing there, expecting to find his cousin with a canister of blood.
Isla.
She slammed the door behind her and strode towards him, resolve etched on her beautiful face.
“Get out,” he barked but she paid him no heed as she stopped in front of him, a steely look in her blue eyes.
Gods, he had forgotten how breathtaking she was when she was determined.
“Leave.” He pushed her blue leather-clad hip, a weak attempt at turning her away when all he really wanted to do was gather her to him and drown in her.
Isla shoved him in return, with a little more force than he had managed, sending him slamming flat onto his back on the bed.
She pressed one knee onto the mattress beside his hip and then the other, so she kneeled astride him, and he swallowed hard as she leaned over him, her palms hitting the bed above his shoulders and her long white hair falling down to brush across his bare chest.
“Isla,” he whispered, voice thick with the emotions he still wanted to hide from her, afraid she would use them against him again.
“Grave,” she murmured. “Quit fighting me, Idiot.”
Her mouth was on his, her kiss blinding him as she sent him soaring, and all of the fight she had spoken of left him and he sagged against the bed beneath her, at her mercy.
He groaned as she sank into him, her leather corset cool against his bare chest but soon absorbing his heat and warming. Her mouth mastered his, tongue teasing and stroking, sending him up to new heights where he could barely breathe. He groaned and surrendered to her and the need running thick in his blood.
She came down onto her elbows and ran her fingers through his hair, and gods, now he couldn’t breathe. Her touch felt too good, overloading him with sensations he couldn’t handle after so many long years alone.
Her sweet murmur of pleasure rolled through him, heating his blood as she kissed him, the tip of her tongue teasing his fangs, playing a dangerous game with him when he was hungry. He fought to master his bloodlust, letting her do as she pleased with him as his focus locked onto it.
He hadn’t even noticed she had broken away from his mouth until he felt the electric jolt of her tongue stroking a hard line up his neck from the notch between his collarbones. Another moan escaped him and he couldn’t stop himself from tipping his head back, allowing her to trace her tongue over his Adam’s apple and up the underside of his chin. He shuddered when she nipped his jaw with her blunt teeth.
Too much.
He wanted to tell her that, to warn her that he was barely retaining control, but the sweet hazy pleasure ebbing and flowing through him stole his voice and all he could do was wrap his arms around her and hold her to him, determined to never let her go again.
He skimmed his hands down the back of her corset and she breathed harder against his jaw as she kissed along it, her soft breath cool against his damp skin, sending shivers tripping along his nerves.
When he reached her backside, he pulled her down into contact with him. She groaned in unison with him, and he had never heard a sweeter sound. It drove him on, giving his hunger more control until the roar of it drowned out the quiet voice of reason that warned him to be gentle with her.
He wasn’t sure that was possible even if he somehow kept his wits about him enough to retain control.
He needed her too much.
He had gone too long without her, had been half-mad with need of her for a century already and had lost his mind completely in the last few days.
He raised his hips and ground against her, shuddered and moaned as the feel of her pressing against him threatened to undo him. He needed to be inside her. Not because he needed release at last, but because of the mage.
The sight of that vile bastard touching her had given birth to a deep and consuming need, a powerful urge to stake his claim on Isla. He needed her to know that she was his.
He needed to know it too.
She rocked against him and her mouth found his again, tongue plunging between his lips to tease and torture him as she worked him into a frenzy. Her hands pressed against his shoulders when he tried to get closer to her, pinning him to the bed beneath her, her touch chilling his skin in a way that he had missed.
One that felt like Heaven to him.
He kissed her back, fought her for control and seized it, and she trembled in his arms as he surged between her thighs, imagining taking her body as he took her mouth.
Took her neck between his fangs.
He wanted that. Needed it. Would have it.
He growled low in his throat as that powerful need overwhelmed him again and his fangs lengthened, his mind already leaping ahead to picture the exact place he would sink them into her flesh.
He broke away from her mouth and grasped her shoulders when she tried to kiss him again.
“Leave.” He pushed against her.
She didn’t budge. Her eyes softened as she looked down into his.
“Do not do that,” she whispered and he closed his eyes and turned his f
ace away from her. She gently caught his right cheek and smoothed her palm over it, her touch soft and tender, unravelling more of his control. Her thumb brushed his cheekbone and she slowly drew him back to face her. He refused to open his eyes. She sighed. “Do not push me away… I can handle your hunger. I can help you with it.”
His eyes snapped open, locking with hers, and he couldn’t hide the disbelief that ran through him, forcing him to seek the truth in her eyes.
Isla reached her right hand behind her head, caught her fall of white hair and drew it away from the left side of her neck, revealing it to him. The braid that hung from her left temple swayed against her throat and his eyes followed it down to the silver wire and the red crystal.
Red for him. He knew that now.
His gaze drifted across to the pale scars on the curve of her throat. The only set she bore on that side, made the first time he had bitten her, when they had sealed their bond.
He groaned and wanted to be the better male, a gentleman, and reject her offer in order to protect her, but he wasn’t that male. He never would be.
When faced with her neck, the only thing he could do was obey his hunger for her.
His fangs ached and he edged towards her, head coming up off the bed, but then sank back against it.
It turned out he was more of a gentleman than he had thought possible.
The thought of biting her after everything he had done to her and all he had done in their time apart. He couldn’t sully her like that.
“I’m not worth it,” he whispered and he had never wished so hard that he was worthy of someone. Gods, he had always thought himself above everyone and that they weren’t worthy of him, but looking into Isla’s eyes he realised he couldn’t have been more wrong. He wasn’t worthy of her and he wasn’t sure he ever had been. He had done nothing in his life to deserve someone like her, someone to truly love him. “I’ve bitten so many females… all to—”
Isla pressed two fingers to his lips, squashing them against his throbbing fangs, her touch too much for him to bear. He frowned up at her, torn between two hungers—one for her blood and one for her body.
No.
Haunted by the King of Death Page 17