Haunted by the King of Death (16 page)

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 necessary 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.

He was kind and gentle, as brave as Valador had been, but with it he was intelligent and strong, able to make tough decisions and a skilled tactician. She had fought beside him in battle once, and the First Realm could wish for no better male to lead them now.

She nodded. “I will go with you, Frey.”

He managed a smile and turned his back on her, sitting on the edge of the bed facing the wall and the door to the corridor.

“Put some clothes on though. We do not wish to frighten the guards.” His rich baritone held a warm note, and she smiled for a moment at the sound of it and the promise of better days, but then what he had said sank in.

Isla looked down at herself and realised she was only wearing a small red satin nightgown.

She shot up in bed and quickly gathered the blue sheets over her. “Who undressed me?”

Frey chuckled.

Isla slapped him on his bare back, sending him jerking forwards, and he scowled over his shoulder at her. She pulled the sheets higher, covering more of herself even though he had already seen her in the ridiculous excuse for sleepwear.

“It was not me. I swear it. I only removed your boots and your holster.” He turned away again. “I last checked on you a day ago and you were wearing your leathers then. You must have woken at some point and been uncomfortable.”

She didn’t remember it. She looked around her white room and spotted her cerulean leather trousers and corset strewn across the floor, while her boots were set neatly near an armchair beside the fireplace and her holster with her two blades rested on the blue seat. Two of the three drawers in her white wooden dressing table to the right of the room were open, with clothes spilling out of them.

Isla peered down at herself under the covers, at the red satin slip she hadn’t worn in a very long time.

One Grave had given to her and she had meant to throw away, thought that she had but obviously she had failed in that task and had pretended to herself that it was gone.

Grave.

The mark on her back tingled and warmed. Did he know the reason she had hurt him?

Or was he oblivious and had spent close to a century bound to her, hurt by her, without ever knowing what he had done to deserve it?

Had it all been for nothing?

All of his pain. All of hers.

She didn’t want to think about it, couldn’t right now when her heart ached for Tarwyn and Melia and she was weak. She was afraid of what she might do. It would be too easy to fall into Grave’s arms and beg him to forgive her, and hope that he was unaware of why she had broken from him. It would be a foolish move. Even if he didn’t know, and he did forgive her, one day he would find out and then the hurt she would feel would be soul-destroying because she wouldn’t just love him, she would be in love with him again.

“Turn away,” she said and Frey’s powerful bare shoulders shifted in a deep sigh.

“As if I want to look at you naked. It is like looking at my sister.”

That was rich. Frey had looked upon her very differently from the way a brother would look at a sister when she had first arrived. His interest had quickly waned though, his love of war more powerful than any emotion he could feel for a female who wasn’t his fated one.

Isla slipped from the bed and gathered her clothes, and returned to the spot directly behind Frey where he couldn’t see her. She faced him as she dressed, pulling her blue worn leathers on under her slip and fastening them before she removed it. She quickly slipped her corset on over her head and yanked on the two laces dangling from the back of it, tugging them until the top tightened, hugging her torso. She tied the strings at the base of the corset and strapped on the holster so it fit snugly against her back.

“There.” She fastened the final silver buckle over her stomach.

Frey stood and came to face her, his blue eyes running down the length of her. “As formidable as ever.”

She shook her head at his teasing and scowled at him even while silently thanking him for trying to act normal in some vain attempt to lessen the aches in their hearts. They couldn’t pretend nothing had happened. Neither of them were capable of such a thing.

A hunger for vengeance burned in her heart like an eternal flame, and it shone in Frey’s eyes too, blazed in his soul.

He wanted the demon to pay for taking Melia and Tarwyn from them.

She wanted that too, with every drop of her phantom blood.

He preened his blond hair back and fastened it at the nape of his neck before extending his hand to her.

Isla looked at the long braided length of leather in it, gold and black twined together. She couldn’t wear a torc as the demon males who lost their mates did, but she could wear this smaller token of mourning for her sister and nephew. She took it from Frey, pulled her white hair up into a ponytail, and wrapped the leather thong around it and tied it tightly, allowing two long strands of it to fall down the back of her hair for all to see.

She sat on the edge of the bed, put her boots on and fastened them, and then stood again and pulled down a deep breath to settle her nerves. She had to pay her respects, even when she hated the tomb and its reminder of death, a shadow that felt as if it was looming over her as the seconds ticked by.

Frey opened the door and Isla followed him out of it.

She kept her eyes on her feet as she walked, unable to look at the corridors around her or the grand rooms they passed through. Everything reminded her of Melia. Everything brought her fresh pain.

Everything made the hunger for revenge burn hotter in her blood.

By the time they reached the tomb deep in the bowels of the castle, that hunger pounded fiercely inside her, driving back the cold, filling her with fire.

Frey entered the candlelit chamber before her. It was little more than a cave dug into the rock that the castle stood upon, but it was so much more than that at the same time.

The sound of metal striking stone filled the chamber, a song of sorrow that had her eyes lifting from the smooth white flagstones to the statue of noble Valador and the demon males dressed in black tunics and trousers beside it, working tirelessly on another block of white marble.

Already her sister’s face was emerging from the stone, her beauty captured perfectly by the skilled hands of the sculptors in a pose so like Melia. She gazed upon her demon love, and he looked down at her in a way Isla had never noticed before now. She had been to the tomb before, and at the time she had thought Melia had asked the demons to sculpt her fallen mate in a fashion that he would be looking at her when she visited, but now Isla realised Melia had asked them to sculpt him in a way that he would be looking at her statue when she joined him in eternity.

Isla lowered her eyes and closed them, sending hot tears rushing down her cheeks.

Frey placed his arm around her and she sank against him.

Sank
into
him.

He sharply turned towards her. “Leave us.”

The sculptors hurried from the room, leaving her alone in the silence with Frey. She lowered her eyes to the floor between them and waited for him to say something, aware that he had seen her fade, her shoulders shimmering for a moment before she had become solid again.

“I understand Melia’s words now,” he murmured and took a step towards her. “Seek the help you need, Isla… do it now.”

“I tried.” She looked up at him and then away, her eyes falling on the block of marble. Her sister’s words echoed in her mind. “I tried and look where it got me. Nowhere. Grave will not help me and when I tried to fix this alone by finding a mage… Tarwyn… Melia—”

She couldn’t bring herself to finish.

Frey placed his hands on her shoulders and hunkered down in front of her, bringing his face level with hers. “Try the vampire again.”

“It is hopeless. He will not help me, Frey.” She met his gaze and held it this time, needing him to see that Grave was a lost cause. He hated her too deeply and had made it clear he would sooner die than help her live.

Frey’s handsome face darkened and his pale horns curled, flaring forwards as his pointed ears flared back. Fangs flashed between his lips as he growled.

“Then find the mage… because you are the only family I have now and I will not lose you too.” His grip on her shoulders tightened. “I will send men. However many it takes.”

Isla pressed a finger to his lips. “Thank you, but I will go alone. I will not drag anyone else into this. The demon prince is looking for me and I cannot stomach the thought that more of your people might die.”

Frey closed his eyes and nodded, took her wrist gently in his hand and drew it away from his mouth.

His eyes opened again, meeting hers, determination flashing in them. “I will help you in any way I can then. Whatever you need. Supplies. Coin. Even me. I am not my people.”

“No. You are their king.”

He looked off to his left and sighed, and she lifted the hand he held and pressed it to his cheek, hoping to comfort him and reassure him at the same time that staying here in the castle was the right thing to do and that she would be fine.

She would do as Melia had asked. She would not fade. She would find a mage to make her solid once more, powerful again, and then she would hunt the demon who had taken everything from her and Frey and would bring vengeance down upon him.

For both of them.

“I appreciate your offer, brother dearest… and there is something I can use from you.”

His gaze sought hers. “Name it, Sister.”

“Teleport me somewhere.”

F
our days.

It had been four days since he had experienced what he was now certain had been Isla’s pain. Four days since his walls had crumbled, his hatred of her not strong enough to withstand the force of the love that still lived in his heart for her, and he had been driven to find a portal and go to her.