Page 169 of His Darkest Desire

Kinsley carried his lifeforce. They were bound. No distance could break that bond, no magic could sever it. He would have known.

But he could draw no comfort from that. The storm inside Vex was one not of wind and rain, nor of thunder and lightning, but fear and anxiety, helplessness and guilt. She was alive, but was she safe? Was their child safe?

Vex thrust his hands into his hair, tugged it back roughly, and rasped, “Where is she?”

The unknown had burrowed deep into his heart, and he could not cast it out. He could not stop it from touching his every thought, from corrupting his every emotion, could not stop it from growing larger and larger with his every step.

Those emotions were too big and potent for him. They were too much for his mind, for his body, for his soul. They were a beast outgrowing its tiny cage, pushing against the bars with increasing force.

And those bars were already bending. They were dangerously close to breaking.

The fabric of Vex’s reality rippled. For a fleeting, torturous moment, he felt Kinsley’s world. He did not feel her.

He knew what the wisps would report even before Shade said, “No sign, magus.”

“These ones’ calls go unanswered,” Echo added.

“And night has fallen,” Flare said.

The pressure within Vex swelled. The seams of his very being were tearing. His mate, his child, out of reach, out of sight and hearing, lost.

No. They are not lost. Cannot be.

Vex turned his head toward the wisps. All three were dim, their ghostfire diminished. Depleted.

They’d crossed over countless times since the prior evening, and he had no doubt that they’d repeatedly journeyed as far as they could from the heart of this realm in their searches. He’d never seen them so small and weak.

Yet to his shame, that desperate part of Vex demanded he send them back. Nothing was more important than Kinsley and his child. He could not look for her, but the wisps could, so they needed to go back and resume their search. He needed to command them to do so, needed to beg them to do so.

“Rest, magus,” Echo said softly as the wisps floated closer to Vex. “These ones will hold vigil here should she call.”

As the wisps hovered before Vex and he beheld them, as he felt their dwindled essences, his shame grew into a lumbering monster. That he’d even entertained the thought of putting them at risk was unforgivable.

No one else would pay for his choices. No one else would suffer for his foolishness. He would never again endanger those he loved.

“No. It is well past time you three rest.” Vex brushed a finger against each wisp, frowning at the faintness of the tingling against his skin. Somehow, his voice remained steady and calm, though his heart was thumping and there was not a shred of steadiness or calmness within him. “I would not have you burn out your fires, my friends.”

“Magus?” Shade tilted their head.

Vex gently brushed the wisps aside and stepped past them, ducking beneath an archway formed by a pair of large roots to enter the circle of standing stones. The ley lines’ power hummed beneath his feet, mirroring the restlessness inside him.

“Magus, what are you doing?” asked Echo.

In the center of the circle, Vex stopped. He lifted his hands and reached out to the stones, willing his magic to mingle with theirs, to blend with it. The runes flared, their green light casting the rest of the chamber in shadow.

Overwhelming energy flowed into Vex. It buzzed in his bones, crackled through his veins, roiled under his skin.

“Magus, please,” Echo pleaded. “You know it will not work.”

“It must,” Vex replied through clenched teeth as he struggled to focus that magic. It was a flood, a surging tide, and he had naught save his will to shape it, but there was no other choice.

It mattered not that he’d tried this dozens of times over the months, nor that he’d never once succeeded.

He had to find his mate. He had to be with her.

“You cannot cross,” Shade called, but their voice sounded far off now, drowned out by the roaring song of the magic.

The stones were already attuned to Kinsley’s world. Vex felt it, a connection so real and solid it almost seemed as though he could reach through and pluck something from the other side. But he didn’t need to bring anything here. He needed to send himself there.

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