Page 164 of His Darkest Desire

“So you really can see something?” Emily asked.

Cecelia nodded. “I can. They’re real. And they’re so…beautiful.” She reached out again, and she didn’t pull back when Flare touched her. “I saw one of you as a little girl once. It helped me find my way back to my family, and I was just so relieved that I never got to thank them. It was gone when I looked for it, but I knew I hadn’t imagined it.”

“These ones are drawn to the lost,” Shade said as they and Echo joined Flare. “These ones guide them to wherever they must be.”

Kinsley’s thoughts turned back to that long-ago night when she’d been traveling to a remote cottage in the Highlands. She hadn’t been lost in the physical sense, but emotionally, spiritually…

And then she’d seen a blue light in the darkness.

She would’ve welcomed a less extreme means of following that light, but in the end, she’d been led to the exact place she needed to be.

“I can’t understand them,” Cecelia said. “Their words are just…”

“Niggling at the back of your mind?” Kinsley suggested with a soft smile.

Her aunt chuckled. “Yes.”

Though Kinsley’s parents could neither see nor hear the wisps, they remained with Kinsley, asking hesitant questions about what she and Cecelia were witnessing.

Somehow, Kinsley knew their hesitance wasn’t due to disbelief but uncertainty. They were unsure of how to engage with a phenomenon that was outside their perception and understanding. But their efforts warmed her heart.

Soon enough, Emily declared it was time to allow Kinsley some privacy. She and Aiden headed back for the car, which they’d parked along the dirt road, very nearly having to drag Aunt Cece along with them.

Kinsley understood her aunt’s reluctance to leave. She understood the allure of the fantastic, of the magical, and wondered if Cecelia had been denying that call for most of her life. To finally have her experience validated after so long must’ve felt amazing.

But Kinsley was glad to have some time alone with the wisps, because she was finally able to blurt out the question that had been burning inside her the entire time.

“How is he?”

“Solemn,” Shade replied. “Still pained, but the light has rekindled in his eyes.”

Kinsley smiled and slipped her hands into her coat pockets. “When you go back, remind him that we may be apart, but we’re not alone. I’m carrying part him with me even now.”

The wisps sketched little bows, and Echo said, “These ones shall.”

“Is he over there now? In the circle?”

The wisps nodded.

Kinsely drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs with crisp Highland air. “I love you, Vex!”

Her voice echoed faintly between the trees, across the gray winter sky, and over the deep, dark waters of the loch. And in those echoes, she thought she heard Vex’s voice calling from beyond this world.

Winter crawled on, strengthening its grasp on the glen day by day, but Kinsley did not break her routine. Rain, snow, sleet, and biting winds would not stop her daily visits to the fairy ring.

Two weeks after she’d returned to this world, Kinsley’s father and aunt had to go. Both had been months away from their lives. The tears Aiden Delaney shed while saying goodbye nearly broke Kinsley. He gave her the biggest, tightest hug before he and Aunt Cece climbed into their car and began their long drive down to London.

Kinsley’s mother did not accompany them. Magic or not, Emily Delaney was not about to leave her pregnant daughter alone in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, her company allowed her to resume her graphic design work remotely, even with the time difference between the United Kingdom and the Pacific Northwest.

Every day, the wisps exchanged messages between Vex and Kinsley. They told her of his worry, his excitement, his determination, his love. She spoke to him, wanting him to hear her voice even if he couldn’t understand. But she never admitted her own worry. It had dwelt at the back of her mind as nine weeks of pregnancy had turned to ten, then eleven, and now twelve.

She could not cast off that worry, but she wouldn’t allow it to take control. One simple, powerful thought—one unshakeable belief—held any doubts at bay.

Our child will live.

Twelve weeks, and many more to go. Twelve weeks, each taken one day at a time; twenty-eight more to take one day at a time.

That was when she received an unexpected call. Her mother saw the caller ID on Kinsley’s phone and was about to reject the call before Kinsley stopped her.

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