Page 7 of His Darkest Desire

“You spoke true,” someone said from just outside the vehicle in a deep, velvety, masculine voice. Something warm touched her cheek, firmly but gently, and turned her face toward the window.

That voice wound around Kinsley, halting her descent, and that touch instilled her with just enough warmth to fight.

“This cannot be,” the stranger rasped. “She cannot be.”

“Please,” Kinsley begged, struggling to open her eyes. “Help me.”

Her plea was answered by a chorus of whispers that blended with the rustling of leaves and pattering of rain.

“Silence,” the man commanded, and the whispers ceased.

Her eyelids finally fluttered open. A large, dark figure stood outside the SUV, silhouetted by the glow of not one but three orbs of light hovering behind him. Her eyes battled to find something to focus upon, but she could discern none of the man’s features—he was blacker than the nothingness threatening to devour her.

“I can heal this mortal flesh.” The man’s hold on Kinsley’s cheeks tightened as he leaned closer, his form blotting out more of the light. “But my aid comes at a price.”

Kinsley’s next inhalation was colored by a new scent, nuanced, layered, and alluring. It was earthy and spicy, masculine but warm. Oakmoss and amber.

A shiver stole through her, renewing her pain and deepening the chill. “Anything.”

“What is your name?”

“Kinsley.”

“Your true name,” he demanded.

It was growing harder and harder for her to focus, to think, to breathe, to keep her eyes open. Everything felt numb, and she was tired. So, so tired. The way he spoke, the way he’d worded that, it was wrong, but she couldn’t understand why.

And right now, she didn’t care.

“Kinsley…Wynter…Delaney,” she whispered as her eyelids fell shut.

“In exchange for your life, Kinsley Wynter Delaney, you will be bound to me. You will be my mate, and you will take my seed into your body until it bears fruit. Do you swear it?”

She nodded, though she wasn’t sure whether her head moved at all.

The man grasped her wrist and lifted it, holding it securely. He growled. “Do you swear it upon your true name, mortal?”

“Yes,” she breathed as the endless, insatiable void yawned around her.

The warmth of his grip intensified, coalescing into a searing heat around her wrist that made the ice in the rest of her body even more terrible in contrast.

Just before she slipped away, his voice flowed into her, resonating right to her heart, where it embedded itself.

“You are mine.”

CHAPTER THREE

Kinsley’s eyes snapped open, and she bolted upright with a gasp. Bending over her raised knees with her hair falling to the sides of her face, she drew in one deep, ragged breath after another, but she couldn’t fill her lungs with enough air. Her chest felt constricted, and her heart raced.

She pressed a hand to her belly. There was no branch impaling her, no blood, no pain. Only soft, unbroken flesh, the hard press of her navel piercing, and the haunting memory.

It was a dream. Just a dream.

Kinsley squeezed her eyes shut, slowed her breathing, and willed herself to calm.

More like a nightmare, but not real all the same. You’re okay, Kinsley.

What she’d experienced had been no different than a dream of falling from a high place and jolting awake just before striking the ground. Except this had felt so real.

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