Haunted by the King of Death (30 page)

Sunshine.

A sudden flash of Isla teasing him about his ‘sunny disposition’ and the ‘sunny colour’ of his home in Hell popped into his head and he found himself smiling as he thought about all those times she had mocked him with that word.

And now he was standing in the sunlight.

He couldn’t quite believe it.

Even a vampire his age shouldn’t be able to withstand such strong sunlight, but here he was, basking in it without any negative consequences. Fascinating.

He drifted around, studying the hotchpotch rooftops around him and the landmarks of London that speared the blue sky. He had seen it all before, but it looked so different drenched in sunshine.

Just as he was.

It was strange, and a little frightening, but it was exhilarating too.

It still stung his eyes, but even they were adjusting to the brightness.

“Have you gone mad?” Isla snapped from behind him and he looked across at her, his smile holding as he caught the thunderous look on her face, a mixture of disbelief, fear and anger. “Go inside.”

“I am fine.” He turned his gaze back to the distant horizon, tracking the sun as it gradually descended towards it.

The golden light caught the side of the taller modern buildings across the Thames, reflecting off them and dazzling him. He shifted his focus away from them and took in the older buildings that surrounded the theatre. He could just glimpse part of Trafalgar Square. He drifted towards the corner of the rooftop nearest to it so he could get a better look.

In the small part he could see, hundreds of tourists milled around, mingled with the workers as they returned home from their jobs.

Fascinating.

The streets at night were nowhere near as busy as they were at the moment. It was a whole different London below him.

One that made his stomach growl and fangs itch with a need to hunt and feed.

“Go back inside now.” Isla came up beside him and pushed at his shoulder, shoving him towards the exit.

Shoving
him.

He frowned at her hands on him, and burned with a different sort of hunger as he realised she could touch him. Her phantom form felt solid against his.

She could touch him.

He growled low in his throat and she snatched her hands back, bringing them up to her chest, her heart drumming a wild rhythm in his ears. Not born of fear, but of desire.

Perhaps she had been telling the truth and she wasn’t interested in the one called Frey after all.

He wanted to puff his chest out at that, felt an undeniable urge to sweep her up into his arms and kiss her until she knew she belonged to him and him alone. He ached to lose himself in her, but that odd and unsettling look was back in her eyes and he didn’t have the heart to press her when she looked so afraid.

“I am pleased you are worried, Isla, but I am not going anywhere.” He meant that in two ways—that he wasn’t going to leave the roof and he wasn’t going to leave her.

If it was their new relationship she feared, he would do all in his power to make her see that it could work and it would be better this time.

He would make it perfect.

He would be the mate she deserved.

His beautiful phantom.

“Why not?” she whispered and her pale eyebrows furrowed, the worry in her blue eyes building to a point where he couldn’t resist reaching for her to comfort her.

She didn’t move away this time, allowing him to place his hand on her shoulder, and gods, it felt strange to be able to touch her when he had thought he couldn’t touch anyone as a phantom. It felt good.

“The sun is due to set soon, and I would like to see it. Just once… will you watch it with me? I would like that.” It seemed strange telling her what he wanted, letting her see that he needed her, when he had never shown that side of himself to anyone, not even her. He wasn’t accustomed to telling people what he wanted, asking them to do something for him.

He was accustomed to issuing orders and having them followed.

In the past, he would have demanded she stay with him.

Now he was giving her a choice.

She nodded, and a warmth rushed through him, a thrill that surprised him.

“I cannot deny you the pleasure of seeing a sunset, but you must promise that if you feel any sensation that you are in danger that you will go inside.”

Gods, that sent a deeper thrill through him. She cared about him. Truly cared.

“I will,” he said and then grinned at her. “I like being alive after all.”

Her face fell and she looked away from him, her arms coming up to wrap around her white corset. He frowned at her sudden change in demeanour and moved around her, so she was facing him again.

“Isla,” he whispered and cupped her cheek with his palm, drew her eyes back up to him. She closed them and he sighed. “Do not shut me out. Something is wrong. I’ve felt it since the tower… maybe even before then. Speak to me.”

“You will not be mad at me?” she murmured but still refused to look at him.

He frowned at her. “Why would I be mad?”

“Just promise you will not be mad at me and I will tell you. Please, Grave?” Her eyes sought his at last and the fear in them hit him hard, had him nodding in agreement because there was hurt in her eyes too, pain that she was holding inside and he wanted to draw it out of her and give her relief.

She sighed, looked away from him and then back up into his eyes.

Gods, she was beautiful. Ethereal. Sunlight made her ghostly form shimmer, almost sparkle, and she stole his breath away just as she had the first time she had walked into his life.

Everything that had happened since she had shown up at the Preux Chevaliers stronghold weeks ago rolled into one fierce barrage of emotion, an onslaught that culminated in the moment she had left him at the mansion. It overwhelmed him and he couldn’t stop himself from speaking.

“I thought I had lost you,” he whispered, his voice breaking as his throat tightened and he pressed his palm harder against her cheek, filled with a desperate need to reassure himself that she was here with him.

Tears lined her eyes, but she didn’t look away this time, and the pain that went through her echoed in him, fainter than it should have been.

The words that fell from her lips answered all the questions that had been building inside him since the mansion.

“The mage… he…” She lowered her eyes to his chest. “He broke the bond between us.”

Grave’s world felt as if it was crumbling around him as he struggled to take that in and make sense of it. Hurt went through her again, but his own pain eclipsed it as he tried to breathe, tried to hold back the tide of emotions that surged inside him.

His hand shook against her cheek and he let it drop away from her, could only stare at her as he weathered the storm and tried to find solid ground.

She had broken their bond.

He had spent decades wanting to be free of her, and now that he was, all he could think about was that he wanted her back. He needed her back. He didn’t want to live without her.

Whatever amount of time he had left in this world, he wanted to spend every second with her. Nothing would give him greater pleasure. Nothing would make him happier.

Gods, he should have listened when his body, heart and soul had screamed at him that something was different, that his sudden shift into the phantom world had been the product of something more than just their bond fading.

He stared at her, unsure what to say.

The reason they were both incorporeal was that their bond was gone, shattered by the mage. Elissa was working on fixing their ghostly state and giving them solid forms again, but the look in Isla’s eyes said that she hadn’t told the witch what she had done, that this was the first time she had confessed the bond was gone and she had chosen to tell him.

He appreciated that, because for a moment he had thought their problem had turned him incorporeal and he was going to fade, but that wasn’t the case at all.

“With the bond broken, I’m simply a phantom, correct?”

She nodded. “I do not think you will fade now, and neither will I. I feel stronger than when we were bound.”

That offered some relief.

“I am sorry, Grave.” She looked away from him and sighed. “Once we are corporeal again, I will leave.”

“No you won’t,” he snapped and took hold of her wrist and pulled her back to face him. She lifted startled eyes to meet his, her fear a palpable thing as her veins ticked quickly beneath his fingers. “You’re not going anywhere. I let you go once, and I do not intend to let you go again. I have spent decades trying to live without you, Isla… I don’t intend to spend another second like that.”

“But…” she started and he shook his head, silencing her and the doubts filling her eyes.

“I mean every damn word, Isla. You broke our bond, but I want it back.”

Her blue eyes widened, beautiful shock flittering across her pretty face, and her lips parted as she searched his eyes. “You really mean that?”

Grave huffed. “I just said that I meant every word. You know I’m not the sort of man to give a damn about pandering to people or lying to appease them. I have always said things straight, haven’t I?”

She hesitated and then nodded, and he lifted his hand from her wrist and settled it back against her cheek, and looked deep into her eyes, wanting her to see in his that he did mean every word. He was a man who said things straight, but he was also a man who kept his feelings to himself and it was time he changed that part of himself, because Isla needed to know the love he hid in his heart.

“I want to be your mate, Isla,” he whispered and skimmed his hand down to her jaw, shifted it under her chin and kept her head tipped up and her eyes fixed on him. Even in her ghostly form, a touch of colour darkened her cheeks, and she tried to look away but he held her firm. “I feel… empty without our bond.”

“Maybe you just want to be whole again,” she said, a little too quickly for his liking. She was trying to push him away to protect herself, but it wouldn’t work. He had set his sights on her heart and he was a male who always got what he wanted. She sighed. “I want that too.”

“I don’t give a fuck whether I’m solid or a damned ghost, as long as I have you.”

Her eyes widened again, and tears lined them as she stared up at him, her lips parted and a ripple of shock going through her.

He lifted his hand and swept the pad of his thumb under her eyes, brushing away her tears, and whispered, “I really mean that, Isla. I just want you… as my mate… forever.”

Gods, he stood on a precipice, a terrifying sort where the land below him plummeted sharply, making him feel dizzy and stirring a need to turn back before it was too late and he got himself hurt.

He sucked down a breath, and rather than stepping backwards, he took the leap, opened himself to someone for the first time in a long time, making himself vulnerable and trusting she wouldn’t use it against him, would treat the heart he was placing into her hands more gently this time.

“I loved you back then,” he whispered and her eyes went even wider, her heart beating faster in his ears, and she trembled beneath his palm as he caressed her cheek and smiled down at her, thoughts of how he had felt back then and how he felt now warming him and chasing away his fear. “That love never faded. I fooled myself into thinking that it had. I was bitter and angry, but it never faded… because it isn’t the sort of love that wanes over time… Isla… it is the sort that lasts forever.”

She swallowed hard, her eyes searched his, and then shaky words tumbled from her lips and poured life into his heart. “I never stopped loving you either, Grave. I am sorry for what I did… it started out as a game, a way of getting revenge, but in the end it was real. I fell for you… gods, I really fell for you… there isn’t a part of you I did not love… do not love… I love you with all of my heart.”

He stepped into her, tipped her head back and pressed his forehead to hers. “Then make things right and mate with me again.”

“When Elissa finds the spell—”

He pressed his lips to hers and she tensed and then moaned, leaning into him, tiptoeing and seeking more from him. He broke away from her and breathed hard against her lips.

“Now… Isla. I will not wait another second for you… I need you to be mine again now… or I fear I will go crazy.” He kissed her again, deeper this time, and she melted so beautifully in his arms, desperately tangling her tongue with his and trembling against him. He forced himself to pull back.

“But we are phantoms.”

“I don’t care. I can touch you, Isla… I can feel you.” He smiled, held her face in both of his palms, and looked into her eyes so she could see how serious he was. “Mate with me. Be mine.”

She blinked and then a slow smile spread across her face and she stole his breath away all over again as she threw her arms around his neck and breathed against his lips.

“Gods, yes.”

I
sla couldn’t hold back the moan that burst from her lips as Grave delved between her thighs, his skilled tongue making her legs quiver and belly flutter. She tipped her head back into the pillow on the double bed in the room she had been given in Vampirerotique, her fingers twined tightly in Grave’s dark hair, holding him in place as he drove her wild, teased and tortured her until she felt as if she was going to burst.

She writhed her legs, unable to keep still, and he growled, the rumbling sound sending a tremor through her as it vibrated against her tight bundle of nerves. Another moan escaped her, louder this time, pulling a deep groan of male satisfaction from her vampire.

Phantom.

Whatever he was now.

She didn’t care which it was, he was still Grave, could still drive her mad with little effort on his part, knew exactly the right place to lick or breathe upon, or tease with his fangs.

A shudder wracked her as he delved lower, tongue probing her core, and her legs tensed, pressed against the sides of his head. He loosed another growl, hooked his hands over her thighs, and pulled them apart. He used them as leverage at the same time, a way of anchoring himself in place as he pushed her closer to the edge, making it impossible to shove him away.