Page 14 of His Darkest Desire

Her breath sawed in and out of her, her arms pumped hard and fast, and her feet pounded the ground. She barely registered the pain of sharp pebbles and sticks digging into her soles. She was driven by the need to run, to escape. To survive.

It didn’t matter that she had no idea where she was or where she was going. Anywhere was better than…than this fucked up scenario.

She rounded trees and boulders and climbed over twisted, moss-covered roots and fallen logs. Branches caught at her long hair and nightgown. Her thighs burned, her breasts bounced painfully, and her side ached with exertion, but she kept going. If she continued downhill, she’d eventually reach either the loch or the river connected to it. From there, she could follow the water until she spotted a road, or another house, or any sign of civilization besides the nightmare cottage.

Kinsley darted between a pair of wide trees.

“No,” she rasped, her knees nearly giving out as she came to a halt. Her chest heaved with her desperate, ragged breaths. “No, this can’t be right. I… No.”

The cottage stood before her.

Kinsley shook her head and looked at the forest around her. She hadn’t veered off her path; she’d been going straight. And yet the trees she’d just passed, those huge, side-by-side trunks, were gone. How was that possible? Trees didn’t just…disappear!

No, not going to think about it.

Turning, she ran back into the forest.

Her chest constricted, the twinge in her side sharpened, and sweat trickled between her breasts and down her back and temples. Still, she forced her legs to keep moving.

For all her endurance while hiking, she wasn’t a runner—especially not across such uneven terrain, and especially not barefoot. Exhaustion set in quickly, making her limbs heavy and her movements increasingly sluggish. So when she didn’t lift her foot quite high enough to clear a raised root, it snagged, and she found herself rushing to meet the ground.

Kinsley cried out and threw her hands forward to catch herself. They took the brunt of the impact before she rolled to her back. Rocks, roots, and sticks dug into her body, and her palms and knees stung.

“Damn it!” she bit out, squeezing her eyes shut and clutching her hands to her chest.

Get up, Kinsley. Keep going.

Opening her eyes, she stared at the canopy overhead. Teases of the dreary gray sky were visible through the leaves, which swayed in a gentle breeze that did not reach the forest floor.

She groaned as she sat up. Every part of her body hurt, but she turned her attention to her hands first. Her palms were red and dirty, and her skin had been broken by a twig in one place, but they were otherwise fine. She could feel leaves and debris caught in her hair, and her feet, arms, legs, and nightgown were smeared with mud. She wiped her hands on a clean bit of fabric, adding a smear of crimson to it.

Kinsley turned onto her hands and knees to push herself to her feet but froze.

The cottage stood before her once again.

“No!” she screamed, slamming her fist on the ground. “No, no, no! Fuck!”

Panting, she dug her fingers into the earth and glared at the cottage. What the hell was happening? Had she…had she somehow ingested hallucinogenic mushrooms? Was she losing her damn mind?

Haunting whispers reminiscent of leaves falling in the autumn drifted to Kinsley on the wind, tickling her ears. She snapped her face toward the sound. Her breath caught, and her eyes widened.

An ethereal orb of blue light, perhaps eight inches in diameter, hovered in the air beside her. Though it was diminished by the daylight, it was the same orb she’d seen the night of the accident. The reason Kinsley had veered off the road.

Only then did the old legends occur to her—this was a will-o’-the-wisp. A ghost light. Said to mislead travelers at night, drawing them on chases into the wilds that left them hopelessly lost.

She narrowed her eyes. “You… This is your fault!”

The wisp flickered and shrank back even as more of those indecipherable whispers sounded. Those whispers were coming from the wisp; it was struggling to communicate with her.

Kinsley’s anger swiftly faded. She sat back, drew her knees up in front of her, and propped her elbows on them. With a sigh, she combed her fingers into her hair and grasped her head, closing her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. Not…not really. I just don’t know where I am or what’s going on.” Tears stung her eyes. “I just feel so lost and scared.”

Something brushed her forearm. It was a strange sensation—feathery and airy, somehow both solid and insubstantial, so gentle that she wondered if she’d imagined it. She opened her eyes to find the wisp directly before her, and only this close did she realize it wasn’t really an orb at all.

It flickered like a flame, though there was a quality to its light more reminiscent of the aurora borealis than fire. Despite the malleability of its form, it bore a distinct little head and body, with two tendrils trailing off like tiny arms, one of which was touching Kinsley.

The wisp was comforting her.

“So you are real,” Kinsley said softly.

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