Haunted by the King of Death (22 page)

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 face 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.

He was torn between two cravings—one for her blood and one for her love.

He needed this soft touch and that look in her blue eyes that warmed even the coldest reaches of his heart.

He needed it more than blood.

Now he understood why Snow loved Aurora so damned much.

He thought he had loved others, but Isla had made him see that he had never loved someone, not the way he loved her. He loved her like crazy, a man gone mad when he was with her and insane when they were apart for even a second. She was everything to him, filling his world with light that had given way to a terrible darkness when she had left him, a black void that had given his bloodlust a fiercer hold over him, for one reason.

She was the only one he had ever given enough of himself to, who had ever had enough of him to break his heart.

“I know,” she murmured softly. “You do not need to say anything… but I know you also showed me those things to punish me… and I deserved it.”

He caught her wrist and drew her hand away from his mouth, and whispered, “Isla.”

She shook her head. “Let me finish. I deserved it. I never should have turned my back on you… and I do not expect you to forgive me… but I need you to know it hurt me as much as it hurt you… I wish…”

She lowered her eyes to his chest and he hovered on the brink of demanding to know what she wished, because he wasn’t sure he could bear her silence and not knowing.

Her eyes slipped shut.

“I wish I had not done it… I wish I had not left you, Grave.”

The moment her blue eyes opened, seeking his, he tugged her back down to him and kissed her, unable to deny the need for her that had always burned so brightly in his heart but now blazed like an inferno, given new life by her words and the feelings that had been in her eyes, emotions that flowed through their mating mark too and echoed his own.

He couldn’t play their vicious game anymore either.

Life seemed too short to waste it taking pot shots at each other’s heart when all they really wanted was to erase the years they had been apart and forget they had ever happened.

She moaned and sank against him, and he kissed along her jaw, teased her left earlobe with the tip of his tongue and shivered as her breath skated over his neck and her hands shook against his shoulders.

“Grave,” she whispered, the tremble in her voice his undoing, shattering his control.

He would take them back to the start, to where it had all began, and this time they would do it right.

He brushed his lips across her neck.

Opened his mouth.

Sank his fangs in deep.

S
weet gods.

Isla’s cry of pleasure was almost too much for Grave. Combined with the way she trembled in his arms, the bliss he could feel in her through their bond and the taste of her on his tongue, he was on the verge of release already and they were only just getting started. He was damned if his first time with her in close to a century was going to end with him climaxing in his trousers.

But the taste of her.

Sweet gods, the taste of her.

He thought he had remembered it clearly, but the reality was far more intoxicating than his memory of it. Her blood had a taste like the fragrance of honeysuckle and night dew, with a rich undernote of smokiness like morning mist that curled through his senses as he fed from her vein. He couldn’t get enough of her or the way she writhed against him, rubbing his aching cock through his trousers. It strained against his fly, even the slightest brush too much for him to bear, sending hot shivers tripping through his entire body.

Isla moaned into his ear.

Too much.

He tore his fangs from her throat and kissed her, pouring the need coursing through him into it, needing her to feel what she did to him. What only she did to him. No other female had made him feel the way she did, had made him lose control with only a press of her body against his or even a single sultry bloody glance in his direction.

Isla had total power over him, and he was a willing slave to her, a male who couldn’t get enough of her.

Would never get enough of her.

They could have a thousand years and he would still crave a thousand more with her.

He swallowed her gasp as he rolled her over, ending up wedged between her leather-clad thighs. The material was soft and smooth beneath his fingers as he palmed her backside with his left hand, his thoughts leaping ahead to touching her in the same place when she was naked and he was inside her, holding her backside off the bed so he could drive deep into her just the way she loved it.