Antoine hadn’t mated with a vampire born of a turned human parent. He had mated with a turned human.
What was the world coming to?
“Millennia of our family being born of pure blood and you dare to tarnish our name with such a mating?” Grave curled his fingers into fists to stop himself from grabbing Antoine and shaking an answer out of him.
Their family had been held aloft for generations, respected by all, even the other aristocrats.
He could feel it all crumbling around him as he stared at Antoine in disbelief.
“Pure blood that has given us nothing but grief, Grave. Remember that.” Snow stepped in front of Antoine, shielding his younger brother with his formidable build, and Grave looked up into his eyes.
Red ringed them, a reminder that he didn’t need.
He knew first-hand the terrible result of their family’s determination to keep the bloodline pure.
Bloodlust.
The fire that had set alight his blood dwindled and died as he looked at his cousins and thought about everything. His reaction to discovering the mother of Antoine’s child was a turned human was wrong to a degree, a knee-jerk response that was the result of everything his parents and relatives had bred into him during his upbringing, hammering it into his head that keeping the bloodline pure was the most important thing in the world.
His cousins were right.
It wasn’t.
His sister still might have been in his life if it wasn’t for bloodlust. His parents. His uncle. His aunt. Everything he had lost, he had lost it because of that terrible disease.
For the first time in his life, he felt it was a bad thing. Purity had brought them nothing but grief.
Gods, who was he to judge anyway?
He had mated with a phantom.
It was all the more reason to keep it from his family. If they knew… he didn’t want to think about it.
They’d all had the same ideas bred into them, all of them raised to believe that muddying their bloodline was tantamount to a sin.
How would Bastian react if he knew what Grave had done?
“If I do not go with you… it is too dangerous for you to go, Snow.” Antoine’s deep voice, softly laced with worry and affection, pulled Grave from his thoughts.
His younger cousin placed a hand on Snow’s shoulder and Snow turned his head towards him, looking down at him as he stepped out from behind him.
Antoine wasn’t talking about the dangers of the realms of Hell or those who lived within them. He was talking about it being dangerous for Snow’s state of mind, that entering Hell with Grave and assisting him in something related to the shared dark part of their past might send him deep into his bloodlust.
Snow should have sought to master it as Grave had, harnessing it instead of allowing it to rule him, using it rather than fearing it. If he had, perhaps then he wouldn’t have to worry about losing control.
He mentally chastised himself. He had no right to think poorly of Snow because of his inability to master his bloodlust, not when he was partly responsible for the hold it had over his cousin. An unfamiliar sensation squirmed in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t normally do guilt, but it was a feeling he couldn’t extinguish when it came to Snow and his predicament.
When Snow had been nearing the end of his term with the Preux Chevaliers, he had confided in Grave that he didn’t want Antoine to have to serve after him because he feared it would awaken bloodlust in his younger brother. Grave had taken advantage of Snow’s love for his brother, seeing it as a chance to gain something he desired—rulership of the Preux Chevaliers.
He had convinced Snow to help him take out all of the superior officers so he could take the first step in seizing control, promising that Antoine wouldn’t have to serve if he was in charge.
He couldn’t have known what would happen, that the battles they waged against the commanders and their loyal men would give Snow’s bloodlust such power over him, and eventually lead to him losing control and killing half of their family while lost to the darkness.
He held his tongue, aware that Snow was already struggling and he was only thinking about entering Hell again. Fire warred with ice in his eyes, a constant state of flux that had Grave on the verge of telling him Antoine was right and it wasn’t a wise idea.
The only thing that stopped him from refusing Snow’s help was a sudden tingling in his fingers that warned they were fading again.
The attacks were either getting closer together or it was the stress of the situation causing them to fade. Either way, it wasn’t good news. He focused on the mark on his back and felt it warm as he thought about Isla. Was she close to finding a mage?
He doubted it.
“Snow,” Antoine started but Snow shook his head.
“Remain with Sera and the babe. Your family needs your protection.”
Antoine scowled at him but it was short lived. His shoulders sagged beneath his grey shirt. “You are my family too, Snow.”
It chafed that Antoine didn’t mention Grave was his family. It seemed he had been right before and only Snow viewed him as kin now.
“I do not need your help,” Grave bit out and tipped his chin up, standing a little taller as both of his cousins looked his way. “I only came to warn you… but now I am not really sure why I came at all. I should have sent word through a messenger. I apologise for disturbing you.”
He tried to get past Snow but the male blocked the door, pressing his back to it again and refusing to budge even when Grave tugged on the handle near his hips.
“You came because we’re family.” Snow’s words made him falter, his anger fade a little, enough that he stilled with his hand on the doorknob, the heart that had been cold for longer than he could remember warming as his cousin’s words sank into it. “Deep inside you know that… we all do. No bullshit excuses now, Grave. You came because you knew I would help you… and I will.”
Snow’s right hand came down on his shoulder, and Grave stared at the doorframe beyond him, struggling to mask the sudden feelings that welled up inside him, softer ones he fought to banish before anyone saw them.
Was Snow right?
One look into his cousin’s eyes, one glimpse of the warmth in them, gave him the answer to that question. He had come here personally because he had secretly hoped Snow would help him. Snow was powerful, his strength and skill as a warrior matching Grave’s own, and with his body unpredictable he needed his cousin’s assistance.
He just hadn’t quite believed Snow would offer it.
Part of him wanted to keep refusing, afraid that if Snow entered Hell again and fought beside him it might give the bloodlust a stronger hold over him again and he might end up hurting Antoine and his family.
“Snow,” he started but his cousin shook his head, determination flashing in his icy eyes.
“I’ve made up my mind. You’re stuck with me whether you like it or not.” Snow held his hand up when he tried to speak again. “I mean it, Grave. Whatever you have in your head, it isn’t going to happen… I swear it. I’m stronger now I have Aurora. She can soothe my bloodlust and calm me. I won’t hurt my family if I go to Hell with you, but I might if I don’t. I’m not the sort of guy who can stand by and do nothing when the people I love are in danger and you know that. If I don’t do this… if I don’t go with you to stop this bastard before he can leave Hell… and he shows up here and hurts my family, then I will lose my fucking mind and gods fucking help anyone near me if that happens.”
Snow did have a point. He was liable to go on a bloody rampage if the demon attacked Vampirerotique and he hadn’t attempted to stop him in order to protect those he loved, more so than if he was back in Hell, reliving his past in that dark place as he helped Grave track the male down. Maybe it was better they killed the demon before he could find this theatre and their family.
Better for everyone.
“At least press your brothers for help.” Antoine’s hard voice cut into his thoughts
like a shard of ice this time, destroying any warmth that had been flowing through him.
Not a chance. While Night would help him, Bastian would laugh if he discovered the only thing to drag Grave out of Hell and back to the family was an enemy made in service to the Preux Chevaliers, a legion he had captained before Grave, and a woman.
There was a soft knock at the door.
Snow stepped away from it and it opened a crack to reveal Aurora. Her stunning green-to-blue eyes warmed as she spotted her mate and pushed the door open all the way. Grave noted that Sable and Thorne were gone, and hoped they hadn’t heard too much of his conversation with his cousins.
“What is happening?” Aurora’s soft melodic voice sent a shiver down Grave’s spine and he edged away from her.
“There is a demon threatening the family and Snow has decided to help Grave with it by going to Hell.” The dark edge to Antoine’s expression as he looked directly at Aurora, and ignored Snow’s warning growl, told Grave that the male was attempting to get his brother into trouble with his mate.
The dark-haired female turned sorrowful and concerned eyes on Snow. “Is this important to you?”
He nodded. “Grave needs my help and I must give it. I am partly responsible for this demon targeting us.”
Aurora looked from Snow to him, and another shiver went down his spine. Her green-to-blue eyes were eerily bright, almost glowing as she studied him. He didn’t like it. He backed away another step and tried to drag his gaze away from hers, but it was impossible. It was as if she had cast a spell on him, had power over his body and could command it against his will.
He cursed her in his mind. No female had power over him.
Yet he couldn’t tear his eyes away from hers.
He wasn’t sure how Snow could bear being around her. It pained Grave as he looked into her eyes, seeing nothing but purity and goodness. He could feel it seeping into him, burning him, and he itched to scrub his hands over himself. Such a pure being shouldn’t look at him. Wretched. Despicable. He was darkness made flesh. Her gaze bore into him and he gritted his teeth as he fought to look away from her. The extent of his sins pressed down on him for the first time, a weight his body couldn’t bear, and he hated it.
Just as he was close to shoving past her to escape her steady gaze, she shifted it back to Snow.
Grave exhaled hard and slowly pulled himself together as all eyes in the room turned away from him.
“I will go with you,” Aurora said and all Hell broke loose.
Snow and Antoine’s voices merged into one as they argued with her and Grave had to admire the way she fought back, refusing to let the males coddle her, even when he agreed with his cousins. Hell was no place for a former angel, especially one who hadn’t fallen entirely from grace to become like the fiendish fallen angels who called Hell home. When the argument grew heated, and Snow looked close to losing control to his bloodlust, visibly torn apart by the idea of his precious angel going somewhere so dangerous for her, Grave stepped forward and shocked the room, and himself at the same time.
“I promise I will not allow anything to happen to him.”
He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to make him promise such a thing, whether it was the thought of Snow being overwhelmed by his bloodlust or Aurora risking everything to be with her mate, or something he didn’t want to consider.
All three of them stared at him in silence for what felt like hours, and then Aurora smiled at him. Positively beamed. His skin crawled. She was too good. Too damn pure. He wanted to rip that smile off her face so she couldn’t turn it on him again.
Grave tamped down that vile hunger and managed to wrestle it back under control. He wouldn’t harm her. He could see that she meant the world to Snow and that she was good for him, and he was glad.
One of them deserved a shot at sanity and kicking their bloodlust, and Snow definitely deserved it more than he did.
Maybe he would just fade gracefully from existence.
No one would miss him.
The three realms would be a better place for it too.
Snow lifted his head and looked over the top of Aurora’s right at him, his blue eyes narrowing as his white eyebrows pinched hard above them. Grave had the oddest sensation that Snow had heard his thoughts and that look was meant to warn him that there was no way in Hell he was going to allow Grave to fade away.
He wished he had that much fight left in him, but coming here to the theatre had made him realise some things. He was tired, and he had never felt so cold and alone as he did now. No, that wasn’t true. He had felt cold and alone for decades.
Since Isla had betrayed him.
“Who is she?”
Grave snapped back to the room and stared at Snow. “Who is who?”
His cousin’s gaze was unflinching and merciless. “The female who did this to you.”
His first instinct was to dance around things and ask ‘did what to me?’ but he didn’t see the point when Snow crossed his arms over his broad chest and set his jaw, making it clear that he wasn’t going to give up. Dog with a damned bone. Typical of his cousin.
Grave sighed and gave a pointed look at Aurora.
Snow shook his head. “She’s staying.”
He huffed again. Stubborn bastard.
The weight of their gazes pressed down on him and he struggled with the words, with his feelings, all of his usual confidence draining away as he considered what he was about to do. He wanted it, but he feared it at the same time. No one knew about what had happened to him, and he hadn’t realised how much he needed to confide in someone until he had set eyes on Snow again.
Gods, he felt pathetic.
He blamed Isla for this weakness and then immediately took it back, and that only made his mood worsen to the point where he was close to snapping at his cousin to leave him alone and turning his back on his family.
Again.
He shut out Antoine and Aurora, focusing solely on Snow, and swallowed his pride.
“She is my mate.”
Antoine chuckled, the sound out of place in the thick silence. “You are a fated mate for someone? Poor bastard.”
Grave shrugged. “Thank you.”
Antoine shook his head. “I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about the female. What did she do to deserve you as her mate?”
“Brother,” Snow warned but Antoine ignored him and kept grinning at Grave.
Grave considered punching it off his face but settled for glaring at him as he thought about Isla and what she had done to him, and fury kindled in his black heart, slowly spread inky tendrils through him and tugged at his bloodlust.
“Maybe it is because she is a callous bitch?” he barked and felt nothing when Aurora flinched and backed towards Snow, and the male growled at him in warning. He pinned red eyes on Antoine and advanced on him, his breaths coming harder as everything Isla had done to him swam in his mind, stoking his rage to new heights. “She pulled me into a bond, spinning lies and false feelings, making me believe that she was in love with me too, and then she betrayed me. Fucking phantoms.”
He knew he had said too much when Antoine’s smile disappeared, his expression turning sombre and deadly serious.
“A phantom?” Antoine pushed him in his left shoulder, and the bastard was lucky he had chosen wisely and hadn’t touched his healing right one or he would have ripped his throat open with his fangs. “But you are solid. A male who mates with a phantom becomes incorporeal like them.”
Grave growled. “Not if she is corporeal at the time. She had some mage do a spell on her to make her solid… apparently it is wearing off.”
Snow raked blue eyes over him. “You are becoming a wraith.”
“What happens when you become one?” Antoine had moved through serious to concerned, and Grave wasn’t sure how to process that. He couldn’t remember the last time his younger cousin had looked as if he gave a damn about him. “Something tells me you’re not just becoming a phantom, Grave.”
Grave looked away from him and blew out his breath. There was little use in lying now. He had started and he would finish telling his cousins everything, because it was lifting some of the weight from his shoulders and some of the black clouds from the horizon ahead of him.
Even when it gave fear a hold over him too.
He had thought about what was going to happen, but talking about it to someone made it feel more real, and more unavoidable, and his need to escape the future that seemed set out for him was so strong that he could barely breathe.
Gods, that part he kept denying kicked off again, wishing Isla would find the mage, and this time it pushed him to find her and help her, to place this problem before his other one.
He looked at his family, torn between hunting the demon and hunting down a mage. Saving them or saving himself.
Either way it would be saving Isla.
Her name was poison in his mind, but a balm to his heart, and he didn’t understand how he could both hate and love her at the same time.
She hadn’t only betrayed him.
She had condemned him.
“I will not become a phantom,” Grave said, little more than a whisper but his voice seemed loud in the silent room. “I am fading.”
“Dying,” Snow snapped. “Say it straight, Cousin. You are dying.”
Grave nodded, and damn, it felt as if he had just taken a step closer to that fate, had made it real by accepting it.
“I will not let that happen,” Snow echoed his thoughts and Grave had to admire his cousin’s tenacity. Dog with a bone. “We will find someone to fix this first and then we will tackle the demon.”
Grave wanted to refuse, but he didn’t have the heart, and sense said that it was the right course of action. The demon hadn’t attacked anyone yet, and attempting to fight him when he was weakened by his condition was a death sentence, and he preferred to remain alive.
“I know some places we can begin looking for a mage.” As he said those words, fear slowly tightened its hold on him, sinking claws deep into his heart.
Isla was looking for a mage too.
He didn’t want to think about what might happen if they crossed paths again, not because Snow would be with him and was liable to attack her, and that would trigger an episode of bloodlust in Grave that he knew he wouldn’t be able to control, but because he wasn’t sure whether he was strong enough to see her again.
Haunted by the King of Death Page 9
