“Leave,” Snow bit out again and Grave forced himself to shake his head.
“Cannot,” he gritted and dug his emerging claws into his palms, grimaced at the hot sting of them cutting into his flesh, and snarled through his fangs. “I must speak with you.”
Snow folded his arms across his broad chest.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Another familiar male voice shattered the tense silence and Grave slid his black-to-red gaze towards the newcomer, a male with short dark brown hair and ice blue eyes that matched Snow’s and his own.
Antoine. His younger cousin and keeper of Snow, despite what Snow had done to him.
How was it Antoine and Snow could forgive each other, but neither would forgive him?
“I must speak with you both,” Grave ground out and advanced a step, his fury rising to stoke his bloodlust to startling new heights as he faced his cousins.
Both males blamed him for the things Snow had done during his service with the Preux Chevaliers, but Snow’s memories of his time in Hell were muddled, twisted by his bloodlust.
Grave hadn’t had the heart to tell him as much when they had last met and Snow had turned on him, thrown vicious barbs detailing everything he had apparently done while they had served together, essentially making out that he had been the one to awaken Snow’s bloodlust. The male was so desperate to weaken the hold his guilt had on him that he had fabricated events in order to lessen some of the weight on his heart.
He wasn’t sure what would happen if Snow realised what he had done, and he didn’t want to find out.
So he had taken the blame.
All to stop his cousin from slipping deeper into the hold of his bloodlust.
Grave looked over his shoulder at the lightening sky and then back at his cousins where they stood side by side in the dark entrance hall of the theatre, Snow standing at least two inches taller than his younger brother. If it wasn’t for their eyes, many wouldn’t believe they were siblings.
Snow’s white hair was wild, brushing the nape of his neck and his jaw, and his black t-shirt and jeans, and heavy soled black leather boots, made him look more like a biker or a goth than a respectable owner of a vampire theatre.
Antoine matched that image perfectly. Neatly clipped brown hair, clean shaven square jaw, and expensive dove grey tailored shirt tucked into an equally expensive pair of crisp black slacks, topped off with polished Italian leather shoes.
They couldn’t have looked more opposite to each other if they had tried.
The back of Grave’s neck prickled in warning.
“Let me in,” he said in a calm tone despite his desire to snap at his cousins as his nerves began to get the better of him again, entwining with his bloodlust to make him more dangerous than ever.
The sun was perilously close to rising now and he wasn’t sure whether the buildings around them would give him much cover. There were alleys between them all, and the road at his back was wide enough that the sun could easily hit him if it rose at either end of it. He looked around again, trying to chart the position of it.
“I would not be here if it was not important,” he barked and advanced another step. Antoine flashed fangs at him and Snow scowled and moved a step towards him, coming to block his path into the building. He flicked another glance at the sky. He was almost out of time. Time he might not have to find shelter if he didn’t convince his cousins to allow him inside right now. “It concerns all the family.”
Snow’s face shifted, softening as he frowned at him.
“Twelve-eighty-nine. A demon stronghold on the borders of the Devil’s domain and a mission to eradicate the threat contained in it,” Grave said and Snow’s arms fell to his sides, his frown melting away and his expression turning curious.
The crimson in his cousin’s eyes faded as conflicting emotions flickered in them, and he knew Snow was remembering the mission.
“I am listening.” Snow eased back a step, but didn’t clear the doorway.
It was a start, but Grave was damned if he was going to have this conversation on their doorstep when the sun had just broken the horizon and he was in danger of being exposed to it. He was old enough to withstand it for a short time, but he didn’t want to test how much immunity to it his two thousand years would give him.
Images of dreams he’d had of his sister screaming as the rays of the sun devoured her flesh burst across his mind and he snarled.
“Let me in.” He put some force behind those words, letting his cousins know it was a demand and not a request. “The sun…”
“No.” Antoine shook his head.
“You can come in,” Snow said over him and ignored the frown Antoine turned on him.
Grave was quick to take his eldest cousin up on his offer, stepping inside the double-height foyer of the theatre and ignoring the look of pity mixed with guilt that Snow tossed his way. His eyes rapidly adjusted to the dimly lit entrance, and he held back the sigh of relief that wanted to burst from his lips as the doors behind him slid shut, blocking out the toxic UV light.
In the quiet of the theatre, he could hear Aurora and Sable talking in the distance, their voices drifting from an open door to his right beyond the elegant staircase that curved upwards towards the first floor, giving access to the private boxes of the theatre.
Antoine huffed and walked towards the door, his shoes loud on the pale marble floor. Snow lingered in the middle of the red and gold foyer, the crystal chandelier directly above him and his back to the double doors beneath the balcony, watching Grave with ice blue eyes that hid whatever he was feeling.
As Snow stared at him, crimson began to ring his irises again, gaining ground against the blue as rapidly as it was losing it in Grave’s own eyes as they transformed back and his bloodlust eased enough that he could bring it back under control.
“Come, Snow,” Antoine said and whatever dark path Snow had been treading, causing his eyes to turn scarlet, he stopped walking it and looked across at his brother as his irises cleared. “If we must speak with him, we should do it somewhere a little less public.”
A frown flickered on Snow’s brow, drawing his white eyebrows together, as he glanced back at Grave, but then he nodded and joined his brother at the plain wooden door. Antoine watched him pass, and stepped into Grave’s path as he tried to follow and pressed his left hand to Grave’s chest. It was cool through the material of his black dress shirt and he looked down at it, and frowned at the delicate gold band around his ring finger.
Antoine was mated too?
“Upset him, and I will be the one to kill you,” Antoine hissed and Grave stared him down, using the scant inch difference in their height to his advantage.
He tipped his chin up, straightened his back and wanted to mention that Snow was the one who had done nothing in this world but upset him, and no one gave a damn about that. Everyone was always in Snow’s corner.
The fiend had destroyed their family, had torn Grave’s parents from him, but no one, not even Grave’s own damned brothers, despised Snow for it.
Not as he did.
Antoine’s hand fell from his chest and he turned away from Grave, disappearing into the gloom of the black corridor. Grave stood on the threshold, fighting with his feelings again, emotions he hadn’t experienced in centuries, born of a time that had finally been growing distant to him but now felt as if it had been only yesterday.
When Antoine’s footsteps grew as distant as he wished his memories were, Grave turned down the corridor and followed it as it gently sloped downwards. Light flooded it at the other end and he squinted as he entered a bright black-walled double-height room.
“This is private enough,” Antoine said and Grave looked around at the room.
On the far wall, a staircase led upwards, and below it was an area with four red couches surrounding a wooden coffee table.
On one of those red couches sat Aurora, Sable and Thorne, deep in conversation.
Grave frowned at them.
This area wasn’t private at all.
He turned a scowl on his youngest cousin, but Antoine countered it with a look that said he didn’t care and that he had chosen this place on purpose.
He knew how uncomfortable the presence of the females made him and was enjoying it.
Grave glared at Sable when she stopped talking and turned to look over her shoulder at him, her golden eyes dark with malice. She shot to her feet and came to face him.
“You’re quiet today. Cat got your tongue?” Sable taunted and he ignored her.
He had found her spirit amusing when he had been on her side in the war against the Fifth Realm, but that amusement had been tarnished by the fact that she was apparently powerful enough to paint the walls with his blood and entrails if they fought.
She might carry angelic blood in her veins, but she was still beneath him, a weak creature undeserving of his attention.
He turned his cheek to her and she huffed and muttered foul things beneath her breath about ‘kicking his arse’. Out of the corner of his eye, the demon king Thorne gently took hold of her arm and somehow convinced his hellion bride to settle back down on the couch and continue speaking with Aurora.
Grave’s gaze shifted to the ex-angel.
Snow snarled low in his throat beside him, a warning that shot through Grave and had his eyes instantly leaping away from Aurora to him. His cousin’s red eyes narrowed on him, elliptical pupils nothing more than thin slits in their centres, and then the larger male stalked away, heading towards the slender petite female.
Grave couldn’t bring himself to watch as Snow fussed over her, and she turned dazzling green-to-blue eyes on him, her rosy lips curving into an affectionate smile as she stroked his bare forearm and spoke with him.
A sudden, powerful urge went through Grave.
A need to leave.
He took a step back towards the corridor, his heart beginning to pound as he found his eyes caught on the two couples, his blood starting a slow burn as he saw the love play out between his cousin and Aurora.
He had never thought Snow capable of love, or that anyone could love him.
But it was there for him to see as Snow petted Aurora, and she lovingly caressed his cheek, luring him down for a reassuring kiss.
Grave took another step.
He had never thought himself capable of love either, or that anyone could dare to love him, but he had fallen in love and he had believed she had loved him too.
But he had been sorely mistaken.
Isla had played him for a fool.
She didn’t love him and now he believed she was incapable of such feelings where he was concerned.
He had felt her fear when she had come to him.
No one who feared someone that much could love that same person.
Grave went to turn away, but a hand locked around his left wrist, stopping him from escaping, and he looked down at it and then up at its owner.
“There’s something different about you,” Snow said in a hushed voice, one meant for his ears only, and Grave didn’t like the way his cousin’s eyes searched his, as if hunting for the difference he had sensed and determined to find it no matter how deeply Grave wanted to hide it. Snow’s now-blue eyes narrowed on his. “Four centuries I served with you in Hell, and you were merciless… constantly getting us into trouble… but you were not so cold and emotionless… not even after—”
Grave looked away, not wanting his cousin to speak about what he had done to their family, not when he was already feeling weak, liable to be overcome and ruled by his emotions. He stared at the dark floor of the backstage area, slowly pulling himself together, trying to shut out his cousins so he could find his balance again and master his feelings, locking them down again.
Snow didn’t give him a chance.
“You knew how to laugh,” his cousin whispered close to his face and Grave closed his eyes, hoped to the gods that Sable hadn’t heard that titbit because she would use it against him whenever their paths crossed. Damn. Almost anyone he knew would use it against him to shatter the image he had perfected, the illusion of a male born of darkness, emotionless and cold, a King of Death who ruled with an iron fist and had no weaknesses. Snow tugged him closer still. “You showed concern for your comrades.”
He still did, but only those who looked closely enough would see it.
He tried to break away from his cousin, but Snow crowded him and Antoine closed in too, hemming him in against the black wall near the exit.
“Bloodlust hasn’t robbed you of your feelings or driven you to rage and kill,” Snow husked in a pain-filled whisper that tore at the softer emotions his cousin believed didn’t exist in him anymore. “You are driven by a stronger force now… what happened to you?”
Grave slid a wary look towards the red couches visible in the narrow gap between his two cousins. Sable appeared to be listening to Aurora, but Grave knew better. She was listening to his conversation with his cousins.
So no matter how fiercely he wanted to tell Snow what had happened, he wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t expose a vulnerability around so many who might seek to exploit it and use it against him.
Something in the region of his heart ached, because he knew that Snow was going to take this the wrong way and would be less inclined to listen to him, and more liable to go into a rage.
Grave braced himself for the latter.
“Nothing happened.”
CHAPTER 7
“Nothing happened.”
And exactly that did happen.
Grave waited, sure his cousin was just building up to tearing into him, but Snow remained quiet and thoughtful, watching him with knowing ice blue eyes that left Grave feeling he couldn’t hide anything from him, as if he was stripping back his heart layer by layer to reach the diseased part and expose it.
“I don’t buy it.” Snow shook his head, causing the long silver-white lengths of his hair to sway, and released Grave. “Sell me another line. Something happened to you and now you’re here.”
His cousin eased back and folded his arms across his chest, causing his biceps to bulge beneath his tight black t-shirt. Intimidation tactics. Snow was only an inch taller than Grave, but he was bigger in build, something he had always used to silently threaten Grave ever since they were youths. It might have worked back then, but it didn’t work now. They were the same age, as powerful as each other despite the difference in their builds. If they clashed, it would be bloody, and beautiful, but neither would emerge the victor.
Grave glanced at Antoine where he stood sentinel beside his older brother, his arms crossed too and a dark edge to his expression as he glared at Grave that warned if Snow fought, he wouldn’t be alone. Antoine would fight beside him.
An unfair advantage.
No bastard would fight on his side.
He drew down a deep breath, held it and then released it slowly as he reminded himself that he hadn’t come here to fight. Gods, standing before his cousins made something painfully clear. Snow was right. He had changed.
He viewed everyone as a threat now. A potential fight. A potential death. Was he that eager for the sweet oblivion of pain and his bloodlust that he would fight his own family?
He cursed Isla’s name for what felt like the millionth time, blaming everything on her. She had been the one to change him. That smile and laugh Snow remembered wasn’t a figment of his warped imagination, a twisted memory that had never happened. They had existed once. He had been capable of good as well as bad.
Isla had ripped out the heart that had housed those softer emotions though and replaced it with a damaged shadow of that organ, one that didn’t know how to do or feel such things.
Snow’s steady gaze held him, demanding an answer.
Grave would give him one.
“A demon from the Devil’s domain attacked me during a battle between two other demon realms,” he said and Thorne perked up, turning his head slightly towards him, so Grave could see his left horn and the cri
mson eye that slid his way. It wasn’t unexpected. King Thorne had a realm to defend and protect, and had only recently won a war. It was natural for him to be concerned about wars in the other realms. Normally when one demon realm lost a war, they turned their anger on a different one. “He intervened and delivered a message to me.”
Snow poked him in the right shoulder and Grave grimaced as it burned, clenching his teeth against the lingering pain.
“More than a message,” his cousin said with a frown. “As if I wouldn’t notice you were injured.”
Grave had hoped he wouldn’t, but he had underestimated his cousin. They had served together for four centuries, had been assigned to the same legion, and he should have known Snow would have uncovered all his tells in that time together, learning to detect when he was trying to hide things. Vulnerabilities. Perhaps he could make it work to his advantage.
“The night we attacked that castle on the border, we did not kill every demon.” Grave rolled his shoulder, easing the tightness that had been building in it. His cousins knew of his injury now so there was no point in hiding it anymore. He pressed his left hand to it and rubbed it. “An infant survived.”
Snow’s face darkened again. “A babe?”
He nodded. “No longer a babe now though. He is strong, and he wants revenge, Snow… on those who led the charge… and their families.”
Antoine bit out a curse. Snow’s glacial blue eyes began to blaze like fire. His brother noticed it and placed a hand on his left shoulder. Snow looked down at him, some of the red clearing from his irises but not enough to erase the murderous edge from them. Grave knew the thoughts pinging around his head, the hunger to hunt and destroy, all in the name of protecting his kin.
Snow would help him, he knew it.
“If this demon comes for Snow and our family, we will handle it.” Antoine’s deep voice echoed around the room with authority that dared anyone to challenge him.
Grave took him up on it.
“This demon—”
A loud crash from above cut him off and had everyone turning towards the stairs against the far wall of the double-height room. Sable, Aurora and Thorne came to their feet. Antoine broke away from them and Snow let out a low growl that sounded more animal than vampire.
Haunted by the King of Death Page 7
