The female lifted her head and Grave frowned as he saw her neck was unmarked.
Bastian hadn’t claimed her as his property yet.
He looked from the mortal to Night, who still hadn’t taken his eyes off her.
Perhaps he had been wrong and his younger brother was an idiot after all, because it looked as if he was on the verge of doing something foolish, something that might see his own flesh and blood killing him before the demon prince could even track him down.
“The room is ready,” she said in a quiet voice, one that trembled with nerves.
Not born of fear.
Grave slid his gaze back to her and caught the hint of colour on her cheeks before she turned away, leading them towards the room she had prepared. She was courting his brother’s attention and was enjoying it when she should have been aware of her position in the household and should have been acting accordingly, behaving like the servant she was.
Night obediently followed her. Grave lingered and looked to Snow.
“He will get himself into trouble,” Snow said, confirming he had seen what Grave had.
Grave huffed and stormed across the vestibule, following Night as he disappeared into the room beneath the twin wooden staircases opposite the entrance. He caught up with his younger brother just as he reached the trio of antique gilt-framed red chairs that formed a horseshoe around the black marble fireplace in the deep-red-walled reception room.
Night gestured to the couch that faced the fireplace as he took the armchair to the left of it, a position that would allow him to easily watch the mortal female. She had set up her tray of crystal goblets and steel canisters on the mahogany side table near the right corner of the room, beside one of the four tall French doors that lined the same wall as the fireplace, two on either side of it.
Grave shot his brother a warning look that Night failed to notice as he watched the female pouring blood for them.
Snow lingered at the door and his wariness was the only thing that stopped Grave from saying something to Night. He looked back at his cousin instead. Snow’s pale blue eyes were locked on the blood as it flowed into the glasses and red began to ring his irises.
“No blood,” Grave said and the female snapped her head up, looked directly at him and then swiftly dropped her eyes back to her feet.
Either Bastian had a long way to go in training her on the correct way to behave around an aristocrat vampire, or Night’s overfamiliarity with her had made her forget her place.
Grave waved her away.
She bowed her head, gathered her things and left.
Night’s gaze followed her but stopped when it reached him. It narrowed and Grave gave his younger sibling a look he hoped conveyed how little he cared that Night was threatening him over a mortal female of all things.
And how insane he thought his brother was.
He took a seat on the couch at the end nearest Night. Snow chose the other armchair and eased his big frame into it, but still looked uncomfortable and severely out of place. Grave wasn’t sure he could ever remember a time when Snow had looked to be in the right place for him.
Perhaps back where they had grown up, surrounded by a wild white mountainous world.
“I need you to leave this place,” Grave said and Night frowned at him. He spoke before his brother could dare to question him. “There is a demon, one who declares himself a prince of that kind… belonging to the Devil.”
Night’s eyes showed a flicker of fear for a moment, a brief second of weakness before his expression hardened again.
“A mission for the Preux Chevaliers that myself and Snow led should have eliminated all of his bloodline but somehow he survived, and now he is bent on killing us all in the name of revenge. So you have to leave.” Grave reached for Night’s hand and his brother didn’t move it, instead allowing him to place his hand over it and squeeze it.
How differently this night would have gone had Bastian been home.
Bastian had never allowed him to get this close, had always held him at a distance even when they were young. The bastard acted like the father they had lost, was bent on making him and Night live up to a standard that he deemed worthy of their family name, uncaring about how they felt or whether they killed themselves to reach the dizzying heights where Bastian believed they were meant to stand.
Grave didn’t give a damn about what Bastian thought he should or shouldn’t do, but over the years he had begun to realise that it had shaped him as a youth, had driven him to succeed and surpass him, to scrub out his brother’s hallowed name in the history of the Preux Chevaliers and carve his own in its place.
When he had succeeded in that, Bastian hadn’t been pleased, not as a male so bent on forcing his brothers to raise their family name to the highest it could go, so high that all other vampires had to look up to them, should have been.
No. Bastian had turned on him, had been angry and cold, and vicious.
Bastian had grown to despise him, not love him for his achievements as he had promised.
So Bastian didn’t give a damn about him now, and Grave didn’t give a damn what Bastian thought of him.
He really didn’t.
“Disappear, Night.” Grave tightened his grip on his younger brother’s hand and Night looked down at it and then up into his eyes.
Pale blue ones. Short dark hair. Looking at Night was often like looking at a reflection of himself.
But one thing was different.
His eyes dropped to the scar around Night’s throat, a silvery line that stretched from below one ear to the other.
Night snatched his hand away and lifted it, bringing it up towards his throat. He stopped before he touched it and looked away, cleared his throat and lowered his hand. Grave silently apologised. He knew Night hated it whenever someone looked at the reminder of the wound he had somehow survived.
“Listen to me,” Grave said and Night’s red-ringed blue eyes slid his way. “You must disappear.”
“I cannot. I have to remain here and keep my promise to Bastian.”
Grave frowned at that. “What promise?”
What on Earth could possibly keep Night here when he had just told him that a demon from the Devil’s ranks was after his head?
The scar around his neck should have been enough to remind Night just how easily a vampire could die and have him leaving right that moment.
Something was making him stay, and Grave had the feeling it was more than just a promise to Bastian. It was something to do with the female.
“I told Bastian I would take care of the house while he was away on business.” Night refused to look at him, even when he growled a warning at him.
“This is not a game, Night.”
His younger brother rolled his shoulders beneath his black suit jacket. “I can see that from your escort. How is business, Snow?”
Snow leaned back in his armchair and eyed Night, his voice as cold as the lands they all hailed from. “Going well. You should listen to your brother. This is no time to joke and be foolish.”
Where Grave had failed, Snow succeeded in pulling a reaction from Night, another brief flash of worry that his younger brother didn’t mask this time.
“When Bastian returns, we will all head north.”
Grave’s eyebrows dipped low. “All?”
“Myself and Bastian.” Night said it a little too quickly and Grave sensed a hint of fear in him, worry that his instincts said wasn’t for himself or Bastian.
He meant to take the mortal female with them.
Grave opened his mouth to protest and drive some sense into his younger brother’s thick skull.
Another blast of pain came, blazing like an inferno across the mark on his back, and he grimaced and growled as he breathed through it. When the sensation eased, he looked down at his right hand.
It pressed against his chest, clutching the pendant hidden beneath his black shirt.
“What’s wrong?” Snow and Night said in unison.
<
br /> Grave continued to stare down at his hand.
He didn’t have an answer to that question. He wasn’t sure. It was the same sensation as he’d had outside the house, a sharp burst of pain and then the feeling that something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Pain pulsed across his mating mark.
Was it Isla’s pain?
How strong must it be for him to feel it?
He had never felt pain from her before, even though she must have hurt herself sometimes. Was it even possible he could feel it in the first place? He sensed when she was watching him through the mark, but he never felt her feelings. He knew other bonds between species, between mates, allowed one to feel the emotions of the other. The ancestors of the vampire race, the elves, included.
He gritted his teeth as the burning came again, so fierce it felt as if his heart was on fire.
The second he closed his eyes, he saw Isla.
Saw her reaching for him, tears staining her ashen face.
And then she was gone.
He launched to his feet. “Where is the nearest portal?”
Snow stared at him through wide eyes. Night looked equally as astonished by his outburst, but recovered quickly, concern filling his ice blue eyes as he looked up at Grave.
“Brother… what is wrong?”
Grave answered without considering the consequences, without giving a damn about what Night would make of what he was about to reveal.
All that mattered was Isla.
“I think the demon prince might have my mate.”
CHAPTER 11
Light filtered in. Slowly at first, but then it gained speed, driving back the darkness and the dream, memories of a world filled with warmth. With love.
Isla clung to it and the feel of Grave’s arms around her, holding her tucked close to his bare chest. She clung to the sound of his heart beating steadily against her ear, powerful and strong.
A heart that was hers.
He slipped from her arms into the light no matter how fiercely she tried to hold on to him though and she blinked rapidly as the world she had left behind faded, replaced with one that seemed cold and desolate to her, the source of nothing but pain and suffering.
She stared at the ceiling of her white room, the four carved white posts of her bed the only other thing in her field of vision. White. Never had that colourless shade seemed so cold to her before, but now it made her think of snow and ice. Desolation. Loneliness.
Death.
Death was white.
Not black.
Silence was white. It stretched around her. Shrouded her. Death was white. It stole all colour from the world. All life. It left everything in its wake as pale as snow, as cold as ice.
Light danced across the ceiling, and she was vaguely aware a fire was burning in the grate beyond the foot of her bed, but she saw no beauty in it today and felt no warmth.
She wasn’t sure she could see beauty in anything anymore.
Her sister was gone.
Her nephew with her.
Because of her.
Because she had hunted a vampire and bonded with him, and now that vampire’s enemies had become her own. She was paying for what she had done to Grave, and she deserved it.
The door to her left opened but she didn’t take her eyes from the ceiling as the demon male entered, his scent telling her who it was. She wasn’t sure she could look at him and see the pain in his eyes.
He had lost his sister-in-law because of her.
His nephew.
Isla rolled onto her side, facing away from him, and curled up into a ball on the covers of her bed.
His deep sigh spoke volumes. He was still hurting her even now.
“Do not push me away.” The warm baritone of his voice didn’t soothe her today. It only brought fresh pain with it as she heard the fatigue in it, mingled with hurt and hope. With affection she didn’t deserve. “We are still family.”
Isla screwed her eyes shut.
“If you know what is good for you, you would not say such a thing. You heard what Melia said… because of the things I have done, a demon prince killed Tarwyn when he could not find me.” Her throat tightened and she had to squeeze the rest of what she needed to say out. “I should have been here.”
“I should have been here too.” Frey closed the door and she heard him step closer, felt him more clearly on her senses, and a flicker of light pierced the darkness clouding her heart. “We can both blame ourselves as much as we want, but in the end there is only one responsible for our shared pain and that is the demon who took Melia and Tarwyn from us.”
She hated that he was so understanding. She wanted him to be angry with her, needed someone to blame her as she blamed herself. Even Melia had forgiven her in the end, hadn’t gone to her death hating her for what she had done. In her final words, her sister had spoken only of her being happy, of forgiving and living.
Loving.
Isla clenched her jaw and refused to think of Grave.
The bed behind her depressed and she rolled back towards Frey. He placed a hand on her left arm.
“You have been sleeping for three days now,” he said in a low soft voice.
Her eyes opened. Wide. Three days? It surprised her but it didn’t at the same time. She had been so tired, had worn herself out hunting for the phantom mage.
Trying to save herself.
Trying to live.
She couldn’t give up on that desire now.
Melia had wanted her to live too. She had wanted her to love and be happy.
Isla wasn’t sure the last two things were possible. Her heart hurt so much, felt cold and black inside her chest, dying without the light her sister and nephew had brought into her world.
She dashed away the tears that wanted to fall and shuddered as she drew in a breath, and vowed that she would try.
“I heard Melia’s words to you.”
Isla tensed.
Frey had heard them?
He smoothed his hand along her bare arm, his voice calm and low, gentle. “I will not push to know… but is it true you did something to the vampire as payment for what he did to Valador?”
“I did,” she whispered, expecting him to be happy about it.
He sighed again.
“I know of the Preux Chevaliers… they fought for us once, and they fought against us more times than that.” He lifted his hand from her arm and cold went through her, as if he had taken away his affection rather than merely his comforting touch. “I fought beside Valador in the battle that claimed his life. The vampire you entwined yourself with is one of noble stature, a male with dark hair and eyes like frozen seas, yes?”
She considered not doing it, but then she nodded, and rolled towards him, needing to see his face to see if he really knew Grave. The solemn edge to his pale blue eyes had her rolling away again and casting her gaze down to the cerulean sheets of her bed.
“They are mercenaries, Isla.” He leaned over and tenderly brushed away a strand of hair that had fallen down across her face and tucked it behind her ear. “They fight for coin. Valador might have hired them for himself if he had been willing to pay more than the other side… but he was always tight with his coin and he paid for it.”
“And I made the vampire pay for it too,” she snapped.
Frey caught her arm and tugged her to face him, pinning her left shoulder to the bed when she tried to roll away again. “Did you tell the vampire he is paying for killing Valador?”
She slowly shook her head and tried to move again, but Frey held her firm, his blue eyes glowing with fire as he leaned over her, golden horns beginning to curl forwards through his long blond hair. That hair swayed away from his bare chest as he leaned over her more, bringing their faces closer together.
“So how would the vampire know?”
She blinked.
“Grave Van der Garde is a mercenary, Isla. He was paid to kill a demon king and that is what he did. He receives only necessar
y information.” His tone softened, some of the hardness leaving it as he eased back and lifted some of the weight off her shoulder. “It is unlikely he even knew he would leave a widow behind or would hurt your sister as he did.”
The cold in Isla’s veins became ice as she thought about that. Grave might not even know why she had done what she had to him.
She had never thought to spell it out for him, had presumed that he would know that Melia had been Valador’s wife and that his actions would have wounded her sister deeply.
What if he didn’t know?
What if all these decades he hadn’t known why she had gone to him, why she had tricked him into becoming a phantom, and why she had left him?
She stared up into Frey’s blue eyes, lost in a sea of thoughts, an ocean of pain.
“Will you come with me to the tomb?” Frey softly said, his words barely piercing the buzzing in her mind.
But they did pierce it and thoughts of Grave became ones of Tarwyn and what Frey wouldn’t say.
They had buried him while she had been asleep.
She didn’t want to go there. It was too soon, but she could see in Frey’s eyes that he wouldn’t take no as an answer and she couldn’t bring herself to refuse him when she also saw that he needed company.
He needed comfort and support too.
The kingdom rested on his shoulders now.
He had never spoken of ruling, seemed content with life as a warrior, and now he was the king and she couldn’t imagine how he felt, knowing he would rule when the kingdom should have been Tarwyn’s.
Frey had to bear that for centuries or longer, until death released him.
He had joked once that he lived in fear of becoming like the Second King, hurled into a role he had no interest in playing because of the death of an elder brother, and that Tarwyn had saved him from that life.
Now that fear had become all too real for him.
Isla took hold of his hand, rubbed her thumb across the calluses on his palm and stared at his rough battle-worn fingers. The hands of a warrior. She looked up into his eyes. He would make a good king, even though the circumstances of his ascension would always pain him. He would harness that pain, would strive to remember how he had come to be king, and from it he would become a leader who would ensure those in his land didn’t have to go through what he had endured. He would keep them safe and lead them well.
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