Haunted by the King of Death (2 page)

Although, it had been easier tonight. Was there a possibility that her hold over him was finally weakening as they approached a century apart?

Could he finally break free of her?

The part of him that always refused to be silent warned that it wasn’t going to happen.

Thousands of women since her and not a single one had gotten him hard. Not a single fuck since she had screwed him over.

He hated her. Loathed her.

Once he had loved her.

He took the steps on the curving white marble staircase in the black-walled grand entrance hall two at a time, ignoring the two men that he passed as they saluted him by pressing their left hands to the breasts of their black knee-length jackets and lowered their heads.

His boots were loud on the wooden floor of the first level, and then the next curving staircase that led up to the second, where his quarters were located. He banked left and the cream corridor passed in a blur as he lost himself to thought, nursing the anger that thundered in his blood.

He shoved the wooden door at the end of the corridor open, stepped into his apartments, and slammed it behind him. He pressed his back to it and exhaled slowly as he stared at his elegant red-walled drawing room and through the large arched doorway to the sumptuous four-poster king-size bed in his ice blue bedroom.

Calm flowed over him as he rested against the door, his heartrate finally slowing to a more leisurely and normal rhythm.

He pushed away from the door, feeling that calm collecting inside him, growing stronger as he meandered around his home in the bastion of the First Legion of the Preux Chevaliers. A legion he captained and a home that was his sanctuary.

A place he kept free of females.

Including the damned one in his head.

He closed his eyes and attempted to shut her out, but the buzzing persisted.

The calm he had fostered began to slip through his grasp. He walked into the left side of the drawing room and paced between the outside wall of his apartment and the wall of his bedroom, the heels of his riding boots marking the quickening rhythm of his steps on the dark wooden floor as he passed behind the black leather couch that faced the white marble mantelpiece. His pale blue eyes skimmed across the sash windows beside the unlit fire whenever he turned, alternating between the two that flanked the fireplace. The view beyond the panels of glass was sombre and dark, reflecting his mood.

Hell.

He had never felt the true effect of the dark realm before her.

He had fought in the ranks of the Preux Chevaliers, had elevated himself to the position of not only the captain of the First Legion but the sole leader of the entire army through blood and broken bones, and a little deception, and had gloried in war, solidifying his reputation and that of the corps under his command. Never had a vampire achieved the power he held in his hands, and gods, he had ruled this realm.

Until her.

Grave shoved her out of his thoughts and quickened his pacing, attempting to work off the energy that boiled inside him. Energy he would have expended in wild sex and quenching his thirst just decades ago. Now, only one female tasted sweet to him, only one could give him what he craved, so he only had one outlet for it.

War.

On the battlefield, he found the thrill he had been missing since falling into her trap. There, he could find release of a sort, was able to bite his foes in the heat of a fight for his life and experienced the pleasure of sating his bloodlust, feeding the beast within him.

Gods, he could bite any male he wanted any time, but he didn’t want men. He wanted to sink his aching fangs into female flesh, soft and supple, delicately laced with the scent of blood, and taste sweetness and life, not ashes and death.

Grave halted and looked down at his hands.

His palms tingled, not with the memory of the female blood host’s curves but the memory of
her
. They yearned to learn her curves again, to traverse paths he had found the deepest form of pleasure in, and feel her cool satin skin beneath his. Against his.

He snarled and stalked across the room, shoving his fingers through the longer lengths of his short dark brown hair and pulling it back until his scalp stung.

He had to free himself somehow.

A mirthless laugh escaped his lips.

How?

He had tried everything imaginable to achieve that freedom he desired. He had even left fresh from a war in the Third Realm of the demons to seek assistance in a fae town in the mortal world, searching for an answer from the witches there.

No one he spoke with, no amount of research he did, produced the cure he needed.

His heart hammered against his chest and he growled under his breath as he took agitated strides across his apartment. There had to be a way.

The buzzing in his mind grew stronger.

Bitch.

She was pushing, shoving the connection between them open.

He pivoted on his heel and his guard slipped.

An image of her fluttered into his head.

His body grew instantly hard.

Grave threw his head back and roared at the ceiling, darkness swelling through him like an oily tide, fed by the sudden surge of anger that filled his blood.

He harnessed the darkness, used it as he always did to give him strength, and slammed the connection between them shut.

The second it closed, the moment he felt the buzzing disappear and the mark on his back settle, his right hand dropped and he groaned as he palmed his hard length through his black trousers. Hot pleasure shot through his veins like the sweetest drug and he drowned in it, ignoring the shame that lurked in a dark corner of his mind as he undid his fly and stroked himself.

He hated thinking about her, about how beautiful she was, ethereal and breathtaking, but images of her filled his mind, remembered moments of bliss in her arms that had felt so real at the time.

He grunted as he grew harder, signalling an impending release.

Grave tore his hand away and roared again.

He shoved his cock back into his trousers and paced harder, cursing her name a thousand times over in his mind.

Cursing his own name with it.

The shame he constantly fought to hold back flooded him. Not only shame that he was reduced to touching himself to get any shred of pleasure and release, but the shame of being stripped of his strength and weakened by something that had happened close to a century ago.

He was a warrior, tested in battle and undefeated.

Yet she had defeated him.

She had used the softest part of him against himself, a part that never should have existed in the first place.

His heart.

He wouldn’t give up though. He hadn’t lived for millennia working his fingers to the bone to elevate himself to his current position in order for it to end here, now. There was so much more for him to do.

He stopped behind the black leather couch.

But it felt as if a clock was ticking as his heart slowly beat, a steady thump that sounded like a marching drum leading him towards his doom.

He raised his hands before him, turning them palms upwards, and stared at them, gritting his teeth and causing his fangs to cut into his gums as the tingling in his hands grew fiercer. He shook his head, silently pleading them not to do it, not when he had convinced himself he had been seeing things on that battlefield in the Third Realm.

They shimmered and turned ghostly, so he was able to see the floorboards through them.

He curled his fading fingers into fists and snarled a vicious curse as they became solid again, damning the female who had done this to him.

The phantom who had crushed his heart.

I
sla was in trouble. She had been in the midst of a battle between the elf kingdom and a dragon shifter’s army when her curved blades had fallen from her hands and she had collapsed. It had only been for a moment, but it had left her cold.

She was turning incorporeal again.

Part of her had known this day would come, and she had thought she would accept it, but now that it was here, she wanted to fight it. She had grown used to having flesh and blood, substance like her dearest sister.

Her hands shook as she raced up the white stone steps from the town at the base of the spire of rock upon which her sister’s castle stood, her eyes fixed on the towering fortress above her that glittered like snow in the waning light from the elf kingdom. Her long white hair bounced against her back as she lengthened her strides, taking two steps at a time now as she pushed herself to go faster. The demon soldiers of the First Realm moved aside for her as she rushed from her meeting in the garrison, driven to seek Melia.

Afraid.

She needed her sister, needed to speak with someone about what had happened. If anyone had an answer to her problem, it was Melia. She had been foolish to keep quiet about what had happened to her in the battle, had been stupid to believe it would be a one-time occurrence and that she would be fine. She should have spoken to Melia after the battle, but she had been too afraid to tell her, was still too afraid of what she might say. She needed to cling to hope, needed it with a ferocity that astounded her.

She had never realised just how much she had grown to love her life, had grown to love everything about it.

Except perhaps one thing—the reason she had sought the mage and subjected herself to the spell that had given her a solid form.

She reached the plateau where the castle stood and hurried across the courtyard, passing the beautiful white fountain that was the centre of so many happy memories of better days, long peaceful ones where she had spent all the hours with Melia, walking with her while she rocked her son to get him to settle.

The demons guarding the curved courtyard stood to attention, rising from the stone benches that surrounded the fountain and bowing their heads as they pressed their hands to the chest of their black uniform jackets. She nodded at each of them and slowed her pace, trying to collect herself as she approached the grand arched entrance of the white castle.

A few of the large demon males lifted their heads, their blue gazes inquisitive as they followed her. She knew she wasn’t acting normally. When she passed through the courtyard, she often spoke with the guards, seeing how they were and inquiring about the families of those who had one, and carefully avoiding mentioning mates around the males who wore thick torcs. The heavy twisted bands of pale gold and black, closed tightly around their necks, signalled they were widowers and had lost their mate.

Just as Melia had lost hers, the First King, Valador, in a battle close to a century ago.

A battle Isla had witnessed, a death she had seen, and shortly afterwards had forsaken her life as a true phantom, turning her back on her incorporeal form and the power it gave to her, in order to become flesh and blood.

In the name of revenge.

She had stepped into her corporeal life for that purpose, but she had come to love touching things, and the sensation of wind in her white hair or sun warming her bones through her blue leather clothes, and she didn’t want to return to an empty existence so desperate for the feel of another beneath her hands, pressing against her body, that she would lure them to their doom.

Isla entered the arched hallway of the castle, her pace quickening again as the feel of eyes on her faded. Her steps made no sound as she flowed along the corridor, her blue eyes fixed on the arched white double doors at the other end of it, beyond the hallways and staircases that branched off from it.

She pushed one of the doors open as she reached them and scanned the enormous grand room on the other side. The spiky white throne on the dais at the far end of the aisle and the white stone pews that formed two columns down the length of the middle of the square room were empty.

Where was Melia?

As acting king of the First Realm of the demons, Melia was normally in the grand hall during the day hours, receiving many from the kingdom and hearing what they had come to say. Of course, there were slow days, when few showed up to discuss anything from their neighbours and other demon realms, to new crops from the mortal world they wanted to attempt to grow in their fields of black earth.

Perhaps this was a slow day.

Isla had been too preoccupied with her current problem and her business advising on the movements of the legions around the realm to pay attention to her sister’s schedule today.

She backed out of the room, closing the door behind her, and turned back along the corridor, heading for the closest white stone staircase that would take her up into the castle to where those of higher ranks had their quarters.

She was close to the top of the staircase on the first floor when a male stepped into her path, the impressive breadth of his bare chest blocking her view of the corridor beyond him and thick legs like tree trunks encased in rich blue leather stopping her from passing him.

Isla looked up into pale blue eyes ringed with cerulean, set in a rough but handsome enough face. Pale golden horns curled from behind his pointed ears, showcased by the way he had drawn his long blond hair back into a thong at the nape of his neck. His firm mouth flattened and then the right corner twitched into a half-smile.

“Always in a rush, Isla. Do you never slow down?” His deep baritone was warm with his teasing, a familiar and playful note that she had always enjoyed hearing.

He had been her first real friend in this world, a male who had become like a brother to her, as close as Melia and just as beloved by Isla.

“Frey,” she said, a little out of breath which didn’t help. His smile became a smirk, as if he had heard it and had won their round of teasing. “Do you know where Melia is?”

He nodded. “With Tarwyn in his chambers. I have just been there, but now I must leave.”

“Leave?” Isla frowned and he sighed, the sound speaking of the weariness she could see in his blue eyes now she was looking for it. “You must rest.”

He shook his head. “I am afraid I cannot. The borders with the Fourth Realm are being tested and I must lead my men there.”