Page 171 of His Darkest Desire

That force had been fate.

Sitting back on his heels, Vex inhaled again. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d breathed so deeply. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt so…unrestrained, unshackled. So…free.

His eyes widened, and fresh tears rolled down his cheeks. “Ah, Kinsley. My moonlight.”

“Magus…” Wonder and disbelief filled Flare’s voice as the wisps floated in front of Vex.

Echo spread their arms. “Are these ones…”

“Free,” said Shade with an uncharacteristic twirl. “These ones are free.”

Vex had dreamed of this moment countless times over the centuries, had imagined it over and over in countless ways. Never once had he pictured it happening like this—quiet, subdued, profound.

Yet he had no desire to relish this here and now. The curse was broken, which meant…

Our child has been born.

Vex’s heart stuttered.

That did not mean Kinsley had survived.

“We must away,” Vex said hurriedly, cupping his hands around the wisps and drawing them against his chest. They pressed against him as he drew upon the ley lines.

The runes blazed with green magic, the air thrummed, and the earth sang. For the first time in so long, power flowed through him freely, uninterrupted by the curse. He shut his eyes and focused it all on one thing.

Getting to his family.

“Open the way.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Stillness and silence enveloped Vex, so complete that he was certain he’d been erased from existence. There was only…nothingness.

And then there was her.

His heartbeat broke the silence, kindled by his Kinsley. He sensed her presence, her lifeforce, so, so close. She lived.

But that was not enough. He needed to know she and their child were hale, needed to hold them in his arms, needed to never, never let go again.

He opened his eyes to a night-shrouded forest illuminated by silver shafts of moonlight. Though naught looked familiar, it felt familiar. He’d been here before, long, long ago. Magic swirled inside him, no longer restrained by the curse, no longer cut off from this land that had once been so familiar, the land from which he’d drawn so much power.

But this was not his home.

Vex released the wisps. They darted around him excitedly, their ghostfire blazing with renewed vitality, as he braced his hands on the ground, shifted onto one knee, and spread his wings. He launched himself into the air, hardly feeling the branches and leaves as he crashed through the canopy.

Countless stars twinkled in the night sky, and the moon, round and full, cast its glow on the glen and the loch below. The treetops shimmered in the moonlight, and the water sparkled. He knew this was his realm of old. All this had been his.

He cared not for any of it now.

His eyes snapped toward a source of light on the ground. A tiny cottage, standing at the edge of a meadow with its back to the forest.

There.

Wind whipped around him, blowing back his hair, as he raced toward the cottage with mighty pumps of his wings. He saw nothing else but that building and the yellowish light spilling from its windows.

An arcane wave preceded him just before he landed on the hard dirt path in front of the cottage, blasting open the door. The interior lights flickered and went dark. From somewhere within, a female shrieked.

As Vex crossed the threshold, the wisps fell into place behind him, casting their blue glow on a room where all the furnishings had been pushed against the walls. The air was perfumed by Kinsley’s scent, but it was tinged with more.

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