He was starting to like being a phantom, but he was damned if he was going to remain one.
His way of fixing this problem was above him, so close now that he could smell her sweet fragrance and his body ached to feel her pressed against it, his heart burning with a need to have her back in his arms. Safe again.
Grave pushed away from the wall and silently glided up the steps that curved and led him upwards. The chamber at the top came into view, the huge windows in the walls revealing a sunset he knew wasn’t real, and his right hand came to rest on the hilt of his blade. He slowly drew the katana as he neared the top step and his eyes settled on the male in the centre of the room, standing with his back to him, dressed in nothing more than black trousers.
Beyond him, Isla sat in the middle of the circular bed, her hands tucked against her chest, her fear a palpable thing that drummed in his veins and stirred the darker side of his nature.
Grave clutched his blade, stared at the bastard she feared, and drew down a deep breath, mentally and physically preparing for the battle ahead of him. His strength wavered and he eyed the green crystals that sprouted from the black walls between each window. No spell would stop him.
He gritted his teeth, narrowed his eyes on the mage’s back, and snarled.
The male’s shoulders tensed.
Grave was right behind him before he could turn, thrusting his sword forwards, aimed straight for the bastard’s heart.
It struck thin air and he growled as he pivoted on his heel, his phantom senses screaming the mage’s location to him. The mage threw his hand forwards as he came to face him and ribbons of black shot towards him, twisting and leaping through the air.
Magic.
Grave focused on a point on the other side of the bed in the huge circular room and white streamed past him, swallowing the world for a heartbeat before it came back again.
The mage let out a low snarl of frustration and hurled another blast of magic at him, this one holding twisted ribbons of green and white-blue light.
“No.” Isla was between them before the spell could reach him, her ghostly form turning solid just as the magic struck her.
She cried out, the sound echoing in his mind and setting his blood back on fire, and then slumped to the black floor. Grave shot to her side and crouched beside her as she breathed hard, pale fingers clutching the polished obsidian tiles and her knee.
“I am fine,” she whispered and pulled down one last breath, and slowly exhaled it. Her blue eyes sought his, filled with so much affection that the hollow space in his chest finally felt warm again. “Run.”
As if.
She knew him better than that, and the look that slowly crossed her beautiful ashen face confirmed that she did, that she had been a fool to hope he would listen to her.
He rose back to his feet and faced the mage.
“Leave her out of this.” He swept his blade down at his side.
The mage smirked. “I do not think so… is she not the reason we fight after all? How can we possibly leave her out of it?”
Grave should have killed the bastard the first time they had been here.
With a roar, he hurled himself directly at the mage. The male threw his right hand forwards, followed by his left, unleashing two blasts of magic this time. Grave dodged them both, the speed of his movements shocking him as he pirouetted around one twisting black and white-blue orb and then the other and they both smashed into the wall behind him.
He grinned at the mage’s startled expression, feeling for the first time that he had the upper hand, that he was no normal phantom in this form. He was faster. Stronger. His vampire abilities enhanced his phantom ones.
Including his bloodlust.
It rose within him, a dark and terrible power that he was quick to harness as it consumed him, pulling it back under his control. He felt his eyes shift, the room growing brighter, until the green crystals blazed white, and his fangs lengthened, and he snarled through them as he dodged another two blasts of magic and closed the distance between him and the mage.
He thrust his blade forwards as he kicked off.
The mage’s eyes widened and he ducked left, but not quickly enough.
Grave’s ghostly blade plunged deep into his side.
And straight through him without leaving a damned mark on the bastard.
It seemed he needed to be solid in order to harm him.
He rushed forwards, ghosting through the mage rather than going around, and shuddered as a sickly cold feeling spread over him, the sensation of his skin crawling growing to an unbearable degree.
He swept around behind the mage, resisting the temptation to make a gagging noise in his throat as he shook off the horrible sensation, and calculated his next move.
The male let out a low laugh unfitting of the occasion and stalked towards Isla.
As if his victory was assured simply because he was closest to her now.
A mighty roar shattered the silence and Grave grinned as Snow barrelled into the room and into the mage, sending him flying across the room and smashing into the wall. A satisfying pained grunt left the mage’s lips as he fell to the polished black floor.
The male lifted his head, his long black hair hanging in tangled threads around his slim face, and pinned him with a glare.
“I did not say I would fight alone.” Grave shrugged off the male’s anger and slowly drifted towards him, Snow falling into step beside him. “I am afraid vampires rarely fight solo.”
Snow drew Isla’s curved blade from his belt and tossed it onto the circular bed, nodding to her as she pulled herself onto her feet and looked his way. When she reached the blade, his cousin drew the sword sheathed at his waist and together they advanced on the mage.
Dark menace rolled through the room, a sense of danger that jangled warning bells in Grave’s head that he didn’t bother to heed. His cousin was no threat to him.
He glanced across at Snow. Crimson eyes blazed with a hunger for violence and bloodshed, a powerful need that surged through Grave too, even more so than usual because he couldn’t satisfy it as he was.
A fucking ghost.
But he hadn’t been one back on the mountainside. For a brief moment, he had been solid, and it had been glorious.
He would be solid again.
“Nulla Misericordia,” Snow muttered, the two words raising Grave’s spirits and filling him with a fierce need, a pounding desire to live up to those words, to pay them the respect they deserved and carry them out in the name of the Preux Chevaliers.
“Never did have any.” Grave tossed a toothy grin at his cousin and then roared as he hurled himself at the mage.
Snow was close on his heels, tearing the mage’s focus between the both of them. Weakening him. It would be harder for him to effectively fight against two foes, giving them the advantage now.
The mage raised his hands and a spiralling whirlwind of black formed between them, laced with ribbons of green and white-blue.
As that green and white-blue appeared, the haziness Grave had felt on entering the tower returned and grew stronger, and a swift glance at Isla revealed it affected her too.
“Bad magic,” she whispered to him and he nodded to show her that he understood.
While the black magic would probably hurt, it was the white and the green that were the most dangerous to him, and to Isla. Phantom spells?
The mage lowered his hands, his eyes narrowing on Grave. Target acquired.
Snow was beside the male in the blink of an eye and the mage’s garbled bellow of agony echoed around the room a split second before Grave saw the male’s right hand drop to the floor with a wet thud. Blood sprayed from the severed limb and burst from the stump his cousin’s blade had left behind.
Gods, Grave had never admired Snow as much as he did in that moment, as the mage screamed and the spell that had been aimed at him shot towards the wall instead, blasting a hole in it. The warm air of Hell rushed into the room, carrying a slight note of
sulphur, and the magic that changed the view in all the windows stuttered, flickering between the real world and the fantasy the mage had created.
Snow snarled and raised his blade again, his eyes locked like a demon on the bastard’s neck.
The mage lashed out with his left hand and Snow couldn’t dodge the black orb of magic that shot from his palm. It struck him in the stomach, hurling him through the air. Snow grunted as he hit the wall and fell to the floor. Isla rushed over to him and Grave roared and kicked off towards the mage.
He was wide open.
Grave focused all of his will on his body, on his need to fulfil the black desire to cut the bastard down with his blade, and grinned as his hands tingled.
His katana went from white and ghostly to silver and solid before his eyes.
The mage’s head slowly turned his way, green eyes widening as they spotted him.
Grave unleashed all of his fury in a feral roar and swung his blade, focusing hard on it and his hands, willing them to remain solid for just a few more seconds.
His hands began to fade.
His sword went straight through the mage’s neck.
The bastard’s head toppled onto his knees and rolled across the black polished floor towards Grave.
Grave watched it rock to a halt close to his feet where they hovered a foot above the floor. He gritted his teeth, willing himself to become solid again, had to fulfil the desire running rampant through him, a childish but irresistible urge.
His black boots hit the floor.
Grave twisted at the waist and kicked the mage’s severed head, sending it flying through the hole in the wall, watching it as it shot through the air until the darkness of Hell swallowed it.
He felt eyes on him.
Isla.
He knew it without looking, because no one’s gaze warmed him the way hers did.
He shifted to face her only to find her glaring at him, her hands planted firmly on her hips and her lips a thin mulish line that screamed of disappointment. Because he had kicked the mage’s head out of the hole in the wall?
“We needed him,” she snapped, the words echoing in his head, and drifted towards him, a decidedly angry edge to her movements that made him want to ask her how she did that because he was a little bit envious.
He clearly had a lot to learn about being a phantom. The look on Isla’s pale face said now wasn’t the time to ask for pointers. She huffed and threw her hands up, and he noticed for the first time that she was wearing a dress in her phantom form. He had never seen her in a dress. It probably wasn’t the time to mention that either, or how beautiful she looked in one.
Sure, he loved the leather look, the way it hugged her wicked curves and long legs, but the sight of her in a corseted dress had him aching for her, filled with a desperate need to draw her into his arms and make love with her again.
She stopped in front of him, barely an inch away, and glared up into his eyes, her blue ones blazing brightly.
“We needed him to make you solid again.”
Grave looked past her at the headless mage, slowly realising that she had a point. The bastard had probably been the only phantom mage left in existence thanks to him, and now he was dead, and the look on Isla’s face said that his current form of a phantom wasn’t temporary this time.
Was he fading?
He felt strong, but what did he know? He would be a fool to assume he was safe now, when Isla had warned he would fade and so would she, and he had been steadily growing less and less solid over the past few months.
He searched Isla’s eyes for an explanation but she looked away from him, and he frowned at the way she did that and the sensation that ran through him in response. She was hiding something. What?
She knew something that he didn’t, and he hated it when people tried to keep him in the dark.
He moved closer to her, a tactic that normally worked and made her look at him, but this time she remained with her gaze averted, her focus locked on the floor.
“We might have another way.” Snow’s deep voice rumbled through the room as he crossed it to them, his boots loud on the stone flags.
Grave looked over Isla’s head at his cousin and she lifted hers, looking in his direction too. Her curiosity flowed through him, weaker than it usually felt whenever he picked up her feelings.
Because he was a phantom, or because of the something she wouldn’t tell him?
He wanted to ask, but Snow caught the whole of his attention when he spoke, his words sounding like the sweetest of promises to Grave, and to Isla too judging by the way her heart leaped in his ears and beat faster.
“I know a witch who can probably help.”
CHAPTER 21
It turned out the witch resided at Vampirerotique and was actually the mate of the mixed-blooded vampire Payne.
It also turned out she wasn’t the only witch on the premises of the theatre when they finally reached it, exhausted from their long journey from Hell carrying every book they could find in the mage’s tower, which was a lot.
Grave stared at the female standing opposite him, her dark chocolate hair tumbling around her shoulders in long glossy waves that blended into her drab black ankle-length dress and her large warm caramel-coloured eyes fixed on him, a nervous edge to them as she struggled to hold his gaze.
Unsurprising considering the male she stood beside.
Night shot him a sheepish smile.
Gods, Grave wanted to roll his eyes and sigh in a way that would let his younger brother know exactly what he thought of what he had done.
It turned out that he had been right to worry about Night and the mortal female, because here they were, and the smooth pale column of her throat bore an unmistakable set of marks on it now.
Not Bastian’s, but Night’s.
“Does Bastian know?” he bit out and Night dropped his pale gaze to his polished Italian leather shoes before courageously lifting it back to hold his, which was a far better way of dealing with Grave when he was in a mood.
Night turning into a pathetic, spineless and limp male was only going to make him more angry.
It was better he stood his ground, faced him head on and didn’t flinch.
“He knows.” Night’s deep voice was a comfort that caught Grave off guard, but he didn’t let his brother see how relieved he was to be standing before him, able to see with his own eyes that he was safe and unharmed. “After the fact.”
Grave shook his head and huffed, and then sighed as he admitted, “I probably would have done it the same way.”
Taking something from Bastian was dangerous enough, but asking for his forgiveness was always better than asking for his permission. Bastian acted tough and merciless, but he had never refused to forgive him or Night whenever they had done something wrong. He had refused countless times when they had asked for permission first though.
Night shoved his fingers through his dark hair, drawing Grave’s gaze to his appearance, and the sense of comfort that had washed through him faded as he noticed how pale he looked, and that his grey shirt and black slacks had clearly been borrowed from someone. Antoine probably. The two were similar in height and build.
What had happened to Night while he had been away?
The growing fearful edge to his brother’s pale blue gaze told him not to ask.
He could hardly press Night about it when his brother was being kind enough not to mention that he was standing in front of him looking like a fucking ghost.
He also couldn’t tease his brother about the way he glanced at the brunette, Lilian, beside him, looking like a lovesick fool as he gazed down at her and she up at him.
Grave slid a secret glance at Isla and his blood ran a little hotter as he found her watching him, her striking blue eyes warm with what looked like affection. No. He definitely couldn’t chastise Night about falling in love, not when he had been in love with Isla for a century, completely bewitched by her.
Her gaze fell to the ghostly white p
iece of material tied at a diagonal across her chest and her fingers where they gripped it. He studied her a few seconds more, drinking in the sight of her, growing slowly aware of everyone in the room with him as they turned their attention his way.
He dragged his eyes away from Isla and focused on his body, ignoring the way everyone was staring at him and Isla now, their curiosity reaching a crescendo. It wouldn’t be long before someone asked what had happened to him.
Snow broke the silence for him. “We have books from a phantom mage… and we need one spell in particular. One that will turn Isla corporeal, and hitting Grave with the same spell probably wouldn’t hurt.”
He ignored the obvious pleasure Snow took in saying that, slanting him a warning glare, but his cousin just smiled and shrugged his broad black-t-shirt-clad shoulders.
“We’ll take a look.” The silver-haired female that had been introduced as Elissa, Payne’s mate, stepped forwards and took the sack of books from Snow.
She jerked forwards when he released them and the sack hit the floor with a boom that echoed around the double-height room.
Payne chuckled until she shot him a black look. He schooled his features and rushed to help her, easily lifting the heavy sack and swinging it over his right shoulder, flashing the line of markings that tracked down the underside of his forearm.
Grave willed himself to become solid. Isla had explained during the journey that items often became solid before their physical form did, which saved on energy and meant phantoms had to feed less often in order to keep up their strength. The sack of books he carried across his back shot through his body and hit the floor beneath his feet with a thud, and he ground his teeth to suppress the shudder that wracked him in response to the feel of something weighty suddenly going through him.
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