Page 110 of His Darkest Desire

The waves of magic fizzled as the fire and ice inside Vex collided. His throat closed, and his heart quickened. The shadows around him swirled and changed. A clear, star-sprinkled night sky bled across his vision overhead, and Vex’s glen sprawled below, bathed in sweet, silvery moonlight. He looked out over his loch, his forest, his hills.

Kinsley would never witness this herself. She would never be able to gaze upon the realm he’d made his home, his sanctuary. Her only glimpse would be through hollow illusions drawn from his memory.

He would never see it again. Not this place, not anywhere. He would never see the world from which his mate had hailed, would never watch the moon rise over the ocean, would never walk lands foreign to both him and his mate.

The landscape receded to darkness, but a figure emerged from it, sculpted from scorching radiance. The queen.

Vex stared into her cold, alluring eyes. In them, he saw his contempt amplified, saw his rage echoed, saw his guilt and grief reflected. He saw all that could’ve been. All that had been taken.

“It was not enough to take from me and my people,” he said, stepping closer to the queen. “Now you’ve taken from her. From my mate.”

The fae queen did not reply. She simply maintained the expression he’d seen her wear all too often—like she was gazing upon a mildly interesting but ultimately intrusive insect.

With a snarl, Vex hurled the book at her. It passed through her face, making her arcane visage waver, before vanishing in the shadows behind her.

Ancient, impotent rage quaked with him. Again, the library shook, and more books, now masked by darkness, hit the floor with heavy thumps.

Claws hooked, he swung his arms outward. The queen’s flesh cracked like porcelain and tore open. Light poured from the widening wounds. Breathing raggedly through clenched teeth, Vex watched as she slowly came apart, watched embers spark and devour her skin, burning the pieces to char.

But her expression did not change. Even after all this time, and despite all his fury, he could not imagine fear in her eyes, could not imagine her face contorted in pain. And he’d never have the satisfaction of witnessing either firsthand.

“Damn you,” he rasped. “Were you to die a thousand deaths each day until the end of time, it would be a mercy compared to the suffering you deserve. Would that everyone had seen through that stony mask to the venomous monster lurking beneath.”

He growled and closed his fists. The queen shattered, and each tiny piece blazed to ash, which faded into nothingness as the glowing embers cooled.

Vex lowered his arms and squeezed his eyes shut. The darkness behind his eyelids was no different from that enveloping the library.

My mate cannot bear my child.

A memory—fresh, vivid, and heart wrenching—banished the darkness. In his mind’s eye, Kinsley flinched away from him. Fear and hurt glimmered in her eyes.

She hadn’t been reacting to the queen’s curse or the revelation that she was trapped here forever. She’d reacted to him. To his harsh manner, his foul temper.

She fears me.

Bile and brimstone churned in his gut.

Vex turned and staggered, blindly throwing out an arm to catch hold of an empty shelf and steady himself. His wings drooped to either side of him.

Kinsley’s voice echoed in his head.

And I-I thought if I told you…

He clutched the shelf, gouging the wood with his claws. “Sunlight take me, I am a fool. It was not the queen who doomed Kinsley.” His throat constricted, but he forced his next words out regardless. “It was me.”

Vex pressed his free hand over his chest. It did naught to relieve the pressure, the pervasive ache, the crushing weight. His fingers flexed, and his claws pricked his skin. “And if not for this curse, would ever I have found her? If not for me dragging her into my damnation, would ever I have had her?”

A gentle, tingling sensation spread across his back—a hint of warmth, phantasmal and familiar. He opened his eyes to find the shadows gone. The wisps’ gentle light danced upon the bookshelves, emphasizing their emptiness.

His wings shuddered; he drew them in tight and clenched his jaw. “I am sorry, my friends. When I brought you here, I never intended for it to be forever. I sought not to entrap but protect.”

“Without the magus, these ones would have been extinguished long ago,” said Flare. “These ones yet burn only because of you.”

“And these ones are content here,” added Shade. “In this forest, with the magus and Kinsley, these ones are home.”

The two wisps drifted to Vex’s front. Compared to the queen’s light, theirs was dim, weak, underwhelming. But to Vex, it had always been purer, more beautiful. It had always been warmer and more welcoming. It had always been more real.

“Would that these ones could wander afar, could soar amidst clouds and stars with you,” Shade continued, their ghostfire core burning darker. “Yet these ones want for naught.”

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