Page 95 of A Deal with the Shadow King

I was researching the next great hunt, when I…fell asleep?

What the actual fuck? I dreamed that I was kissing Nell—only I haven’t dreamed in decades, and the threads of the Dreaming don’t allow sleepers in from Faerie. The fog lifts, and a second, life-altering hypothesis forms in my brain.

I race to the hallway leading to Three’s chamber through the closest mirror, blood pulsing at my temples…and in my cock. Is this really happening? Because if this is really happening…

Two’s got his ear to the door, listening to Three’s room like a horny teenager. He smirks at my arrival. “Well, look who’s here. Your precious seed is in there with Three. I wonder what they’re doing?—”

I grip his collar. “Shut your big mouth and listen. I merged with Three.”

“That’s impossible,” he huffs.

“Just for a minute, but I did.”

The quasi-continuous, sarcastic line of his mouth falls. “How?”

“He was with Nell, and suddenly I was with Nell, too, and I spoke to her, but it was really his body.”

“That hasn’t happened since?—”

“The curse, I know,” I seethe.

“Wow…sounds like your little pet’s got a magical vagina after all.”

I shove his chest hard, but he just laughs.

“Cheer up, comrade. A glitch in the curse is exactly what we need. Let’s see what’s going on in there.” He raises a hand to the door, but I stop him with an iron-clad grip.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“She’s about to fuck Three, isn’t she? I bet she’s more ready than you think. What if it’s a sign? What if all we have to do is drain her magic to break the curse?” he says with enough confidence to shake me.

“You’re dreaming.”

He paces the length of the corridor back and forth. “We should at least try. What’s the worst that could happen?”

I glower in response, not in the mood for thick and completely unnecessary allusions. “We could destroy our only viable lead to a cure.”

His face wrinkles in a pout. “I hate how you think.”

“Ditto.”

He plays with his hands in a series of nervous movements that signals exactly how indecisive he’s feeling. “If Nell fails the next trial, we’ll have to take her magic. Merge or not, if she doesn’t sprout, we can’t keep her.”

“Agreed.”

He finally stops jittering long enough to look me up and down. “Aren’t you angry that she’s cheating on you in there?”

“Are we really going to argue about the semantics of the curse again?” I bark, my patience for his cruel musings growing thinner and thinner with each passing second.

His previous hesitation is blown away by an asinine smile. “I know all about your little note. And the necklace. Did you really think you could get away with it?”

“You’re the one who said I had to make it clear to her that she was here for the king.”

He tilts his head back in a snort. “Well, he’s not about to get on one knee, is he?” The words reek of cynicism, but I disagree.

“It’s not the craziest idea,” I say.

“Are you?—”

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