Page 41 of His Darkest Desire
She picked up the wooden spoon. “Did you bring me breakfast?”
Again, Shade shook their head, floating to the other side of the tray.
Dipping the spoon into the porridge, she mixed in the sugar, honey, and nuts. “So Lord Asshole brought me breakfast then?”
Light laughter sounded from the wisp, who nodded.
“At least he remembered to feed the lowly human this time.” She took a bite, and her whole world quaked.
This…this was better than her grandmother’s porridge.
No way. Doesn’t count. He used magic, and that gives him an unfair advantage.
Heck, who’s to say if this even counts as food at all?
You’re tasting it, aren’t you?
Kinsley wrinkled her nose.
Nan’s is still the best.
“What’s the point of a kitchen if he can just magic food into existence?” Kinsley asked as she ate.
Shade simply watched, their silence confirming what she’d already known—if she wanted an answer to that, she’d have to ask him.
Kinsley sighed. She was torn in so many directions when it came to Vex. Though he’d been unkind and sometimes downright mean, he hadn’t been cruel. He’d manhandled her and bossed her around, but he hadn’t truly hurt her. And beneath that hard exterior, she’d sometimes glimpsed someone…good.
She understood what he wanted from her, but she didn’t understand why. Why did he want her to have his baby? Why did he want one so badly that he’d somehow bound Kinsley to himself and had nearly done the unforgivable to her?
Just as she didn’t understand his motivations, he didn’t seem to understand her reluctance. Kinsley didn’t believe he was some cold, inhuman creature, detached from emotion. No, there was a desperation underlying his interactions with her. She just didn’t know why.
Kinsley poured water into the cup and took a drink before looking at Shade. “Where is he?”
The wisp offered a shrug and an indecipherable whisper.
“Guess I should stick to yes or no questions, huh? I wish I understood you.”
Shade glided closer, brushing an arm over the back of her hand. They spoke again, the words so, so close to something she could figure out. Every time the wisps talked, it was like a tickle in her brain. A build-up on the cusp of understanding, on the edge of a payoff, but the payoff never came. It was the same feeling she had while looking at the writing in Vex’s books—a feeling that if she just concentrated hard enough, it would suddenly make sense.
“My parents live in a house next to the woods,” Kinsley said as she ate. “It was a giant, mysterious, magical forest to me as a little girl, right in our back garden. I’d venture out there almost every day thinking it was filled with little forest faeries and imps. I’d make homes for them out of milk cartons or boxes that I’d decorate with things I found in the woods, plant flowers for them, and bring them food. Every day when I went back, the food would be gone.”
Kinsley glanced up at Shade with a smirk. “I’m sure it was just animals eating it, but to a little girl, what else could it have been but faeries?”
Shade tilted their head, easing closer.
“As I got older, I stopped visiting the faeries, but I don’t think I ever stopped believing in them.” She stirred the remainder of the porridge. “Every time I hike through a forest, I always feel like there’s some kind of…magic around me. I’ve always felt more at home out in nature than I ever did in my house.”
She chuckled and sat up, letting go of the spoon. “If I were talking to anyone else, they’d think I was crazy. But here I am, talking to a will-o’-the-wisp and being held captive by a goblin sorcerer. How’s that for magic?”
The wisp swelled, their flame brightening as though in pride.
Kinsley moved the tray aside and slipped off the bed, catching the blanket and wrapping it around her body as she dragged it off the mattress. She looked to where she’d thrown the nightgown, but it was gone. Her eyes caught on something familiar atop the desk as she lifted her gaze toward the wardrobe.
No… Is that…?
She hurried to the desk and reached for her purse. To her surprise, it was really there, not an illusion or a figment of her imagination at all.
“Oh my God.”