Haunted by the King of Death (34 page)

Grave checked her with his senses, reassuring himself that she would be fine, and then launched his own attack, striking hard at the demon male. The male shook Snow off and blocked Grave with his forearm, so his blade struck the black metal gauntlet that protected it.

He pulled his sword back, shifted his feet to move his weight to his right leg and struck again, and this time he put all of his strength into it and actually aimed for the male’s raised forearm. The force of the blow drove the male to one knee on the roof and the demon snarled as he shoved upwards with that arm, knocking Grave’s sword away.

The demon beat his wings but Snow grabbed one, sinking claws deep into the membrane and puncturing it so he could grip the connecting spur of bone. The male tried to turn on him but Snow kept behind him and growled as the demon tried to batter him with his other wing. His cousin blocked each attempt with his arm, and between each one tried to grab hold of the wing.

“These are fucking annoying,” Snow growled as he finally got hold of the second wing. “I think they need to go.”

He pressed his knee into the demon’s back and heaved backwards, pulling on the male’s wings. The male roared and arched forwards, and for a moment it looked as if Snow was really going to tear the wings off a demon.

But then they disappeared, shrinking out of Snow’s grip, and the demon turned on him so quickly his cousin couldn’t evade him, his eyes blazing with gold fire and his horns flaring forwards as he brought his right hand up in a fast blur.

Snow roared in agony as the demon’s clawed fingers ripped into his left side, tearing through his flesh. The rich scent of his blood flooded the air and he staggered backwards, his hands quickly coming down to cover the wound as he pulled away from the demon. Blood pumped from between his fingers and Isla rushed over to him, catching him as his backside hit the roof.

Darkness poured through Grave’s veins, blacker than he had ever felt it, and he knew from the look on Isla’s face that the red in his eyes had been almost completely swallowed by that darkness, leaving only a ring of crimson around his elliptical pupils.

With a vicious roar, he ran at the demon’s back.

He dropped his sword along the way.

The only weapon he needed was his bloodlust. He harnessed it, stoked it and embraced it, let it flow through his body and soul and claim hold of him. His claws extended into sharp points and his fangs bit into his gums as he growled through his clenched teeth.

The demon slowly turned to face him.

Not fast enough.

Grave kicked off and launched at him, landed heavily on the male’s back and didn’t give the bastard a chance to react. He struck hard, sinking aching fangs into his neck, and snarled as he pulled on the male’s vein. Thick, rich blood burst into his mouth and, gods, it sent his bloodlust spiralling higher, consuming more of him, demanding more from him.

He dug his claws into the male’s shoulders as he tried to dislodge him, clawing and grappling with him. He didn’t feel the pain as his flesh tore open, couldn’t feel anything but the powerful need for more blood. More violence. More death.

He sank his fangs in deeper, barely bit back the moan that bubbled up his throat as he sated that hunger with the male’s blood. It flowed into him, gave him strength even as the demon took it with each blow he landed and every slash he cut into Grave’s body with his claws.

He needed more.

The bastard demon slipped through his hands as they turned ghostly and blood pumped from the wounds beneath his pale lips but refused to go down his throat.

His bloodlust roared for more, but he couldn’t feed it, not in this form.

Every instinct he possessed screamed that he could, and he obeyed it, couldn’t stop himself as the need to feed, and to destroy, overwhelmed him.

Grave swept around the demon, coming face to face with him, and the male snarled at him, flashing razor sharp teeth.

He planted his mouth on the demon’s bloodstained lips and the male bellowed as heat poured into Grave, dark and potent, making him hazy all over. His bloodlust purred in approval and he surrendered to it, feeding deeply from the male, pulling that power he possessed into him and claiming it for his own.

The male’s cry stuttered and then died as he dropped to the floor at Grave’s feet, his skin ashen and almost blue in the moonlight.

Grave stared down at him, feeling nothing as warmth consumed him, filled him up and made him feel alive.

Gods, he wanted more of that high.

“Grave?” Isla’s soft voice drew him back to the world and he frowned as he looked at the demon below him and his senses detected no heartbeat.

No sign of life.

The darkness pouring through his veins slowly began to ebb away and clarity rolled in to replace it, a sickening sort of awareness that sent a shiver through him.

“We do not tell anyone what I just did.” Because his reputation would be ruined if word spread about the fact he had killed a demon.

By kissing him.

He shuddered and ignored Snow’s deep chuckle. His cousin would keep this a secret, although Grave suspected he was going to tease him about it for centuries.

Isla drifted up beside him, her ghostly white corseted dress flowing around her ankles, and a mischievous smile curved her lips. “You are positively glowing.”

He scowled at her. “Not a word, Phantom. Not a word.”

She only smiled wider.

He huffed and looked back down at the demon. Dead. Not exactly the way he had planned on killing the bastard, but he would take it as a victory.

The demon was dead. His family were safe. Isla had carried out her revenge.

Everything was looking up.

He turned towards her and raised his hand, needing to feel her beneath his fingers and unable to curb the desire to touch her.

His hand disappeared.

His arm followed it.

“Grave!” Isla grabbed his cheeks, her panic lancing him too as weakness went through him, cold and startling in the wake of feeling so powerful. “Do not fade.”

His arm and hand slowly reappeared, ghostly but more translucent than before. They weren’t safe. He had thought they were now that he had become an ordinary phantom. The look in Isla’s eyes said she had thought the same thing, had truly believed they could exist as phantoms for however long it took to find a spell to make them corporeal again.

He raised both of his hands and held Isla’s cheeks as she clutched his, a desperate and wild edge to her eyes that begged him not to fade. He didn’t want to, but he wasn’t sure he had any say in it.

He clung to her as she clung to him, feeling normal again while she touched him, and whispered, “Never let go of me then.”

She smiled shakily and stepped into his arms, pressed her cheek to his chest and wrapped her arms around him. “I will not… I am never letting you go again.”

He looked at his right hand, fearing it would fade again and the rest of him would go with it, and he wouldn’t come back.

“Aurora.” Snow’s deep voice broke the quiet and Grave realised that the ex-angel had returned. He looked across at her and she rushed to Snow. Snow waved her away when she tried to fuss over him. “Get Elissa and Lilian… now.”

She nodded and disappeared.

When she reappeared a moment later, the two female witches were with her. Elissa’s silver hair sparkled under the moonlight as she hurried over to him and Isla, her eyes dark in the low light.

“What happened?” she said as Isla shifted between solid and phantom in his arms.

“I am fading… we are still fading.” Grave hated saying those words, because it felt as if by admitting it aloud he was condemning them to do exactly that.

He was making it real.

“But Isla is…” Elissa broke off as Isla switched forms again, going solid for a few seconds before returning to her ghostly body.

“We need that spell, Elissa,” Grave snapped as Isla trembled against him, her fear flowing through him. She didn’t want to fade. To die. He didn’t want that either. He hadn’t found her again only to lose her. He wanted a long life with her. Centuries at the very least. “We need it now.”

“Bossy boots… if you let me finish!” Elissa planted her hands against her jeans-clad hips and glared at him, sparks of lightning flashing in her eyes. “Why is she switching like that?”

“She cannot control it. The demon hit us with something…”

“What?” Elissa’s eyes lit up with a strange sort of excitement, as if he had said something wonderful not simply informed her of what had happened.

The reason for her excitement slowly dawned on him and a trickle of that emotion went through him too.

“A spell.” He set Isla aside and crouched beside the demon, grabbed his arm and raised it. “It is on his claws. It affects us… makes us unable to control our bodies. We keep turning solid against our will.”

Against their phantom instincts.

Elissa was beside him in a heartbeat, crouched and sniffing the demon’s claws. She closed her eyes, frowned and was silent for so long he wanted to shake her and make her say something.

Her eyes pinged open, sparkling with silver stars.

“I think I can save you both.”

I
sla drifted up through the quiet theatre, smiling as she passed Kristina and Callum, and their twins on the stairs. The female werewolf returned the smile with one of her own, but the male vampire had his hands full with a boisterous youngling, wrestling to keep the boy still in his arms and stop him from falling.

The sight of the child drew tears to her eyes and thoughts of Tarwyn to her heart, and she lowered her head, using her fall of white hair to conceal her face as she struggled with the sorrow building inside her. Tarwyn and Melia were gone, but they would always live on in her heart. She would carry them wherever she went, and she would never forget them.

She had avenged them, and as soon as she was able, she would relay that to Frey, setting his mind at ease.

Her focus shifted from that male to another as she neared the roof, seeking the only one who had the power to chase the cold from her heart and ease her hurt.

Grave appeared in the doorway to the roof as she rounded the corner in the staircase, frowning down at her. “What is wrong?”

He went to step down towards her, but she shook her head and drifted up to him, not wanting him to leave the quiet of the roof just yet. She found it peaceful up there, just as he did, scanning the mortal world and soaking it all in, all the life and the colour.

“I was just thinking about my family.” It wasn’t hard to admit that to him, to let him beyond the barriers and reveal her pain to him, not anymore.

He held his hand out to her and she slipped hers into it, even though she couldn’t truly hold it right now. They were out of sync again, Grave enjoying a temporary solidity while she was a phantom. She moved her hand in such a way that it looked as if they were holding hands and followed him onto the roof, careful not to ruin the illusion.

When he stopped near the southern edge of the roof, she halted there with him and watched the quiet streets. Even this late in the night, buses and taxis were moving around the city, ferrying mortals home or to their next location.

Isla looked from the street to Grave’s hand, and then up at his noble profile. His eyes remained fixed on the world stretching before him, moonlight turning his skin milky white but his eyes an incredible shade of blue that almost glowed.

She moved closer to him and he looked down at her, smiled and placed his arm around her shoulder, and she smiled at the gesture. He couldn’t touch her, and it was probably a pain to hold his arm out at his side without being able to rest it on anything, but she appreciated it, and his comfort and support. It was strange to have him like this again, so attentive to her, not fighting or hating her.

Strange in the best way imaginable.

As if all her dreams had come true.

All except one.

She was about to make that dream happen.

“Elissa is almost ready.” She sensed Grave tense as he heard those words and felt the relief that went through him, laced with happiness.

The witch had managed to locate the spell after she had analysed the liquid that had been on the demon’s claws, and had been rushing between fae towns hunting for the ingredients since then. One of those ingredients, the one that should have been the hardest to source but had in the end been the easiest, was strong demon blood.

She hated the idea of using the demon prince’s blood in their spell, but in a way she supposed it was fitting. He had brought her and Grave together again, united them in a common cause, and now he would be pivotal in keeping them together.

Forever.

“You promise not to annoy her?” She looked up at Grave and he glared down at her, but she knew he didn’t mean it.

He had gone to the roof after he had tried helping Elissa find the spell and had kept getting under the witch’s feet and on her nerves. Elissa had banished him from the room. He hadn’t been happy about it, had pointed out rather brusquely that it was their lives on the line and they had a right to be part of finding the solution.

Isla had convinced him to take in some fresh air and had promised to tell him whenever there was a breakthrough.

She had come to him and told him when Elissa had found the spell, and part of her had expected him to come back down and help, but he had been quiet and contemplative, and she hadn’t had the heart to force him back into the theatre. She had left him to his thoughts, and that had plagued her during the hours that had passed since then.

She wanted to know.

Needed to know.

“You have been thinking a lot.” She studied his profile and he sighed, his shoulders heaving with it beneath his black shirt. “About us?”

He nodded, glanced at her and then up at the faint stars. “Do you have big plans after this?”

“Yes.” She schooled her features when his head snapped down, eyes locking on her.

“What plans?” There was demand in his voice, an order, but also nerves, and she wanted to laugh at how foolish her vampire was, fearing things that were never going to happen.