Haunted by the King of Death (24 page)

Snow’s large hand snapped around her wrist before her blade could reach the intruder’s throat, staying her hand.

“This is Payne,” he said, voice a deep rumble that held a warning note as his near-crimson eyes locked with hers.

The one called Payne backed off a step, his eyes blazing with cerulean sparks as he glared at her. He folded his arms across his chest, the rolled up sleeves of his grey pinstripe shirt stretching tight over his muscles as he gripped his right biceps.

Isla frowned as markings caught her eye and she tracked the lines of elaborate patterns along the undersides of his forearms.

Her senses switched back and forth as she tried to detect what he was, flipping between labelling him a vampire and an incubus.

Perhaps he was both, although she had never heard of such a thing.

It would explain the fact he could teleport, and also the fangs she spotted as he curled his lip in her direction.

Isla realised she still held her blade in the air, aimed for his throat.

She lowered her arm and Snow released it. She slipped her blade back into the holster with the other one and backed off a step.

“Fucking phantoms,” Payne muttered, his accent as unmistakably English as Grave and Snow’s, and the look he gave her said he had met her kind before and he hadn’t enjoyed it. In fact, he looked as if he hated all of her kind because of it.

That didn’t surprise her, but the fact he could tell she was a phantom when she was flesh and blood did.

How acute were his senses?

Incubi were predators of the highest order. Did his heightened senses give him the ability to learn a species base scent or something about them that allowed him to easily distinguish them from others?

Most mistook her for a fae, sometimes a siren but often a succubus. Since becoming corporeal, she hadn’t met one person who had been able to tell just by looking at her what she was. Even Grave hadn’t realised she was a phantom until she had told him. Until it was too late to save himself.

Gods, he had been angry with her, but looking back she had the feeling that his fury hadn’t been because she was a phantom and had condemned him to an incorporeal fate, but because she had wounded him by turning on him.

The stolen glances he had given her during their past few meetings left her feeling that if she hadn’t been out for vengeance that night, if she had gone to him purely to confess she was a phantom and not to hurt him, he would have reacted in a way that would have melted her heart. She felt sure of it. He would have drawn her to him and kissed her instead of pushing her away, just as he had drawn her to him and kissed her last night.

She smiled to herself about that.

Payne and Snow arched eyebrows at her. Her smile fell and she scowled at them, and the amused looks fled their faces, scoring a victory for her. Or at least she had thought it her victory.

Grave stepped past her, his face a mask of darkness as he glared at his cousin and Payne, his eyes bright crimson and pupils stretched into thin vertical lines in their centres.

Now that she was aware of his anger on her behalf, she could feel it too, flowing through their mating mark. She lowered her gaze to his right hand, edged hers towards it and brushed her knuckles across his.

His frown instantly faltered and he looked down at their hands, and then up into her eyes, a beautiful lost look in his.

“He knows she’s a phantom, right?” Payne said and Snow grumbled something in response.

“Of course I know,” Grave snapped and his face darkened again, his eyes locking back on the newcomer. “I would warn you to keep your eyes off my mate, Incubus.”

So she had been right and he was part incubus at least. Grave’s words seemed to provoke the vampire in Payne though, turning his eyes crimson and his teeth sharp as he took a firm step towards her mate.

“I have a mate… and I am getting pretty fucking tired of everyone thinking I want their bird. I’m not interested. My incubus blood doesn’t make me a whore.”

“Payne,” Snow said and the male looked at him, some of the darkness fading from his eyes as they settled on him. Possibly because it couldn’t beat the darkness of Snow’s expression, a stormy look that warned of danger. “Did you come for a reason?”

Snow’s dark mood faltered, a glimmer of light breaking through the clouds as he searched Payne’s red eyes.

“Is Aurora well?”

Payne nodded and Isla bit back a sigh over the beautiful expression of relief that flitted across Snow’s face, a reflection of his love for the one called Aurora. She hadn’t heard of the female before, but it was clear the big vampire adored her. Was she another vampire?

“She wanted to come, but… well… we all know Hell is no place for an angel… so here I am… a devil in disguise.” Payne casually lifted his shoulders, but there was nothing casual about his eyes. He honestly thought himself a devil. Poor soul.

He was no more evil than she was.

Isla frowned.

Aurora was an angel?

Before she could pursue an answer to that question, Grave moved a step closer to Payne, capturing all of their attentions.

“Why did you come?” The cold note to his voice echoed in their bond as a strange sort of emptiness.

Fear.

Isla blinked and looked to Payne, suddenly desperate for an answer to her mate’s question, because she feared she knew it.

Payne looked down at his boots, hesitated and then lifted his gaze back to meet Grave’s. “We had word from your brother… Night. He apparently returned to his home in London to grab some shit before he went into hiding and found his flat torn apart.”

“But he is safe?” Grave surged another step forwards and his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, and she could feel his need to take hold of Payne and rattle the answer out of him.

Payne nodded. “He went back to the mansion and said they would leave it tonight, but he asked me to tell you about what happened in case you went looking for him at his apartment and found it wrecked.”

Grave blew out his breath, his relief palpable, but it soon faded, replaced by a rising cold that flowed through her, chilling her blood too.

“The mansion,” Grave muttered and slowly shifted his gaze to Snow, and she looked there too, found his cousin wearing the same mask of fear that he did.

“We have to go now.” Snow grabbed Payne’s arm and jerked the male to face him, earning a black look. “Can you teleport three?”

“Four,” Isla interjected.

Grave shook his head. “No. It is too dangerous. Wait here.”

She planted her hands on her hips.

“I do not do as you say, obeying orders like your men.” She ignored the scowl that drew his dark eyebrows down over blazing red eyes and pushed on, and his demeanour changed as she spoke, his look softening again and warmth filling his eyes. “This demon took my family from me and I will not stand idly by while he attempts to take yours. Vengeance burns in my blood… and I must answer its call.”

“Isla.” He lifted his hand and sighed as he carefully brushed a strand of her white hair behind her left ear. He caught the braid that hung from her temple on that side and raised it towards him, his eyes on it as it slipped over his fingers. When the bead at the end reached them, he brushed his thumb across it. His eyes lingered on it, their crimson colour matching it. Another sigh escaped him and he let the braid fall, raised his eyes to hers and nodded. “Very well. I cannot deny you your vengeance. We will make sure the demon pays for what he did to your family… to you.”

The fight she had been mustering inside her, everything she had been practicing in her head in order to convince him to listen to her, faded away and she wanted to frown at him. She had been expecting more resistance. In the past, he had fought her whenever she had wanted to participate in a battle, and had usually won.

But that was the past.

She could see in his eyes that he wanted a different future for them, and he was trying to make it happen.

Starting with allowing her to fight at his side, where she felt she belonged. She had hated it whenever he had gone to war alone, even when he had promised to only be gone a day or two. She had hated not knowing whether he would return and spending the long hours monitoring their mating mark, convinced that every tiny twinge that skittered across it was a sign someone had taken him from her.

This time, she wouldn’t have to worry. She would be there to protect him and keep him safe from harm.

“So four to teleport. Should be able to do it,” Payne muttered but he didn’t look confident. “I don’t know where the mansion is.”

“I will tell you everything nearby and we can see if you know any of them.” Snow pulled the vampire away from them and Isla made a mental note to thank him later, because she needed to speak with Grave before they left.

He needed to know everything, but honesty wasn’t the only reason she was going to tell him about their bond and her plan. She wanted to ease the fear building steadily in his eyes, hidden from most but clearly visible to her. She wanted him to be confident again, certain that he was strong enough to fight the demon.

“Grave,” she whispered and then cleared her throat as his eyes landed on her, burning into her face, heating her right down to her bones.

Gods. She had forgotten the feel of his eyes on her, the intensity of his gaze and the way it stirred fire in her veins, her body seeming to come alive in response to just an innocent glance from him. She drew down a deep breath to calm herself and claw back some control, because if all went to plan she could have more of Grave later, when they were alone again.

“There is something I must tell you.” She resisted the temptation to fidget and held her chin up when it wanted to dip. She couldn’t stop her cheeks from heating under his scrutiny though, and she didn’t like the dark edge his eyes had gained. “It is nothing bad… in fact… it is something good. I think.”

He arched his right eyebrow. “You think?”

She scowled at him. “You always fluster me.”

A slow smile curved his lips, a wicked spark lighting his eyes as they faded from crimson to pale blue. She held her frown, refusing to give in to him even when she wanted to melt into his arms and kiss him. Damned vampire. He always had exuded an alluring sort of confidence. Not cockiness. Just a quiet confidence that radiated from everything he did, from his body language to his way of speaking. It added a whole new level of masculinity to him, one that tugged at her feminine side and made it difficult to resist him, especially when he turned on the charm as he was now.

“I like to fluster you,” he whispered as he edged closer, one slow step that made him look like a predator, a powerful male and one who took what he wanted, and gods, she wanted him to take her.

She cleared her throat again, gathered all her strength and shored up her defences. She should have considered how dangerous it was for her to seduce him, should have factored in that she would unleash the same irresistible male he had been a century ago, when he had stolen her heart.

Gods, he was stealing it all over again.

“Since you enjoy it so, you may perhaps not be averse to what I intend to suggest as a way of slowing the effect our bond is having on us… it might even go some way towards reversing it.” Now he looked rather interested in more than just getting her back into bed, his eyes shining with a strange light, curiosity mingled with hope. She had never seen that look in his eyes before and she took it as a good sign, one that gave her the courage to continue. “Melia believed our fading was because our bond was weakening… she said it required a periodic renewal… so if we strengthen our bond, there is a chance it will stop us from fading.”

The right corner of his mouth curled and the light in his eyes turned wicked again. “If you want to sleep with me again, you only have to ask, Isla.”

She was tempted to punch him in the chest, but his expression turned serious, saving him from a beating.

“You really believe that our being close will stop us from fading… it will make us stronger?”

She nodded. “I do.”

He lifted his right hand and cupped her cheek in his palm. It was cool but warm against her, and she fought the urge to lean into it and seek more from him.

Gods, he made her weak.

Had Melia felt like this when Valador had touched her? Had her strength been stripped from her? It was frightening when she was used to being strong, one of the most powerful creatures to roam the Earth.

Frightening but exciting.

Exhilarating.

“Then I will not leave your side,” he whispered and she pressed her hands to his chest as he leaned towards her, felt his heart drumming strong and steady against her palms, and the pendant he still wore.

A token of her love for him. A love that had never died. A love that would never die.

She closed her eyes and tipped her chin up, aching for his kiss.

“So, we ready?” Payne’s voice shattered the intense silence.

Followed closely by Grave’s growl of frustration.

Isla silently echoed him as he pulled away from her.

The sudden rise in nerves she could feel through her bond with Grave stopped her from cutting down Payne where he stood, serving as a reminder that now wasn’t the time to lose herself in her mate. Anger swiftly followed on the heels of his nerves, and she knew it was partly directed at himself, with a slice reserved for her. He was upset that he had so easily forgotten that his family were in danger, had been caught up in her again, and she echoed those feelings.

She had vowed to avenge her family.

Nothing could stand between her and achieving that.

She stepped back, intending to distance herself to gain some control over herself in order to focus on her mission.

Grave’s fingers closed over her right hand, obliterating what little focus she had mustered, so all of it fell to his large hand were it encompassed hers. She could only stare at their joined hands as he led her towards Payne and Snow, at the way he shifted his and laced his fingers with hers. Another first. He had taken her hand before, but never like this.

Never in a way that looked so unbreakable.