Page 34 of His Darkest Desire
The wisps flickered and spoke quickly, their voices swirling through the air like phantom calls carried upon the breeze.
Kinsley glared at Vex. “You’re an asshole.”
His fingers bent, pressing his claws into the chair’s arms. He must’ve heard the wisps, must’ve seen them, but he spared them not a shred of attention. “Is the food to your liking, human? Has my bed been comfortable?”
Tossing the fork onto the plate, Kinsley stood and faced him, waving at the table. “Do you think food and a soft bed makes it all okay? You are my captor. My jailer. You can decorate the cell however you like, but that doesn’t change what it is or what you are.”
He leaned back in his chair, and the tension that had been in his posture shifted into something more aloof. “You are but a means to an end, Kinsley Wynter Delaney, and you are bound by your word to serve that role.”
She threw her hands out. “And that justifies everything? That justifies what you were about to do to me? That you were about to—”
His fist came down on the table hard enough to rattle everything atop it, startling Kinsley, and he shoved himself to his feet.
“It does not,” he growled, shadows coalescing around his face and turning his eyes into a pair of glowing, hellish coals. “The depravity I nearly visited upon you is inexcusable. Yet neither my mistake nor my admission of it can change our reality. I’ve no desire to play keeper to a human, no more than you desire to be kept. But we are bound.”
The room darkened around them, shadows swallowing even the light of the wisps.
“You need not spend your time here in suffering, Kinsley,” he continued as those eyes—all she could see of him—drew nearer. His strong, hard fingers caught her chin, tipping her head back. “I have eternity, human. How many years are you willing to spend trapped in this place?”
Kinsley pressed her lips firmly together to keep them from trembling as anger roiled within her and tears of frustration filled her eyes. “People are looking for me.”
He brushed his thumb along her jaw. His voice was low and not without a hint of sorrow when he said, “They will not find you, Kinsley.”
As she searched his gaze, tears trickled down her cheeks. She knew he was right. Kinsley had heard those voices in the forest, but they had all been like ghosts calling from another realm, always out of sight, always far away.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” she said quietly. “I’d like to go back to the room.”
“Escort her,” Vex said to the wisps, though he did not break eye contact with Kinsley. “Let her not stray from your sight.”
His red gaze lingered on her before his eyes faded into the darkness. He withdrew his hand, the pads of his fingers stroking her skin, the tips of his claws grazing it, and then the shadows dissipated.
And he was gone.
Kinsley’s chin dipped, and she wiped the moisture from her cheeks. Anger, helplessness, regret, and pain whirled in a maelstrom inside her, looking for a way out, but she held it all in. Just as she had for so many years.
Without waiting for the wisps, she stepped out of the kitchen and made her way back to the bedchamber. They lit her way all the same, whispering amongst themselves behind her.
When she entered the bedroom, it was clean. The books and papers were stacked on the desk much more neatly than before, the bed was made with a different blanket, and Vex’s clothes had been returned to the wardrobe, which stood open. His garments had been shifted to one side, making space for several colorful dresses.
The wisps flitted into the room, but Kinsley paid them no attention. Her gaze was caught on the new white nightgown lying atop the bed.
Pushing the door closed behind her, she approached the bed. She ran her fingers over the soft, unblemished fabric before clenching it in her fist. Kinsley threw the garment across the room and screamed, crumpling to the floor as she let out all her anguish, pain, and loneliness, all those emotions she’d thought she had put to rest. Eyes closed, head down, and fingers clawing at the floorboards, she let that raw scream continue, let the tears that accompanied it spill freely.
The scream faded, leaving a pulsing ache in her throat exasperated by her sobs.
Soothing whispers caressed her ears, accompanied by gentle, barely perceptible touches—ghostly limbs stroking her hair, her back, her cheek.
Her sobs faded as time passed. She didn’t open her eyes, didn’t get up, didn’t move at all as her breath slowly evened and the tears finally ceased.
Kinsley couldn’t know if it was real or imagined, but the comforting touches of the wisps had a subtle warmth to them. And that was enough for now.
It had to be.
Because the truth of this place, of her situation—that she would never escape—was simply too much to bear.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Beneath moon and stars, the mist looked every bit like the impenetrable barrier it was. It greedily drank all the silvery light, leaving nothing for the dark swath of woodland it encircled.