Page 150 of His Darkest Desire

“Come,” Flare commanded.

The wisps faded from sight. The faint tingling of their magical essences ceased, leaving only the overwhelming thrum of the ley lines amidst the chamber’s silence.

There was no question of what the wisps were doing. Yet as much as Vex wanted to know that Kinsley had made it safely, he didn’t want the wisps to succeed. What could they accomplish by finding her? What could come of it but for the wounds both she and Vex carried—still raw, still bleeding—being torn even wider?

Lowering his hands to his sides, Vex stood in the silence, in the solitude, forcing himself to feel every moment of it. It could not fill the void either, because it was the void, consuming him from within and devouring him from without.

Only here, now, with the wisps and Kinsley gone, did he truly understand loneliness. Only now did he understand the real depth and weight of isolation.

Anguish, anger, bitterness, grief, and a dozen other emotions raged within him, swirling around and within that chasm, akin to it but always separate, always lesser.

He closed his eyes. Images of Kinsley danced through the darkness behind his eyelids. Her alluring, sensual body. Her full, expressive lips. Her dazzling smile and mesmerizing periwinkle eyes. Her soft, honey brown tresses. Her warm laughter.

The hurt and desperation that had been on her face when she’d realized he was sending her away.

Her pleas echoed in his memory, each word drawing tighter the thorny vines constricting his heart. The way she’d looked at him…

Vex had betrayed her. His mate, his love, his moonlight. His Kinsley. Whatever his intentions, he’d betrayed her. She would carry that pain—the pain he’d caused—forever.

Faint magic rippled through the air. Vex’s heart lurched. For an instant, he sensed the veil between worlds, sensed its thinness, its fragility. For an instant, he felt Kinsley’s world, which he’d once called home.

And it only made him more aware of her absence.

“These ones could not find her.” Echo’s soft, whispery voice had a brittleness to it like Vex had never heard.

“She has journeyed too far beyond the borders of this realm,” said Shade.

Squeezing his eyes more tightly shut and clenching his fists, Vex asked, “You’ve searched everywhere within your reach?”

“Tracks lie around the circle on the other side. Human tracks,” added Echo.

Flare said, “And human blood lies at its center.”

Vex’s heart quickened, its beat reminiscent of pounding war drums.

“No more than a few drops,” said Shade. “Yet these ones found no other direct signs of Kinsley.”

“Just as the magus said,” Flare rasped, their tone fiery and harsh. “She is gone.”

“Leave me,” Vex grated through bared teeth.

“Magus…”

“Now!” Vex’s eyes snapped open. His wings burst out, and magic surged inside him, amplified by the ley lines to make the whole chamber quake.

The surrounding light—including that of the wisps—dimmed as shadows coalesced around Vex. Fury thrummed at the heart of his power.

The wisps shrank back, their ghostfire flickering. Their hurt and confusion pierced Vex’s heart, yet what could those emotions do but settle atop the heap? When his hurt was already inconceivably wide and deep, how could anything make it feel vaster than infinity?

“Please,” he begged, voice broken.

Silently, sorrowfully, and hesitantly, the wisps exited the chamber. Once their light was out of sight, Vex again closed his eyes. He called upon memory, willed images of Kinsley back into his mind’s eye. But those images, those memories, refused to come.

Brow furrowing, he strained for cooperation from his mind. It did not comply. Emptiness lingered behind his eyelids. Nothingness reigned. All his mind produced was a voice, cold and humorless. His own voice.

She is gone. Now you gaze upon all that remains for you.

Everything welling inside Vex erupted. Pain and rage, grief and guilt, heartbreak and agony, and there was no one to blame but himself.

---