Page 45 of A Deal with the Shadow King

A long, dark cloud condenses into a spear at One’s back, and he squints at the nightmare. “By the spindle…” he cocks his head to the side, “I know you,” he adds a little louder. “Asabikeshiinh!” That last word riles the spider up quite a bit, and it springs forward, its claws scratching along the ceiling.

One transfers the spear to his uninjured arm and throws it at the monster. It buries deep below its eyes, and the spider drops to the floor next to me with a thunderous thump. Its legs convulse for a moment before it bursts into smoke, but instead of heading toward One, it crumbles nefariously in the air.

Flakes of darkness float about the room as I croak, “What did you say to it?”

“I said its name.” He kneels next to me and huddles close. The heat of his body dissipates the fear in my belly, but he doesn’t look quite as relieved as I am. “Show me where the venom landed.”

I sit up and hike up my pants past the kink of my knee, and One inspects the venom burn with his bottom lip tucked between his teeth. The tips of his fingers graze the sensitive skin under my knee as he wraps his hand around my lower thigh to pull the small burn under the glow of electric lights.

He examines it from all sides like it matters more than the gigantic cut running down his shoulder to his chest. “You’re good. It didn’t sink past the first layer of skin.”

I raise a tentative hand to his shoulder. “What about you? You’re covered in blood.”

A warm chuckle pops out of his mouth. “I’m used to it. And there’s no venom in mine.” One stands and shrugs off his jacket, the fabric shredded to bits, his black undershirt sticky with clots. “That spider was a special breed of monster that shouldn’t exist. It’s a nightmare, but not one that grew naturally in the Dreaming. It was weaved by an enemy.”

I swallow the throng of questions swirling in my brain. Blood trickles down his arm on our way back to the kitchen, peppering the floor, and One pulls open the lid of a vertical metallic casket.

Light shines into a variety of receptacles, and I catch a glimpse of a plump tomato, so it must be a food storage unit.

He grips the hilt of an amber-tinted bottle and uncorks the top, tilting his head back to gulp down its content. “Want a beer—ale, I mean?” he offers.

I shake my head. “Let me see your wound.”

With a low grunt, he tears what’s left of his shirt off and inspects the damage. A nasty cut runs from the side of his left arm to the middle of his torso, and he skims the mangled flesh with the tips of his fingers. “What a mess.”

Sweat and blood stick to his skin, the grooves and ridges of his muscles new and fascinating. I’ve only glimpsed at these shapes in paintings, and a hot thrill suffocates me.

Biting my bottom lip, I inch closer. “I could try to heal you…”

His brows pull together. “Have you done that before?”

“Yes. Can I?” I gesture to the cut running diagonally across his pectoral muscle.

He gives me a small, almost imperceptible, nod. “Only if you want to.”

Mustering a confidence I didn’t know I had, I lay my palm flat over his wound. “Why wouldn’t I want to?”

“You look terrified, kitten. Your heart’s beating way too fast…”

Magic electrifies the air as the wound slowly heals, and warmth radiates in my chest. The boost of magic I’d received when I killed the small spider melts inside One’s injury.

“I thought I had to return the magic to the Hawthorn?” I ask, sad to relinquish the euphoria and strength that came with the power boost, but happy to put it to good use.

One grips the counter at his back, holding his breath. “In theory.”

Once the healing is complete, I caress the fresh patch of skin on the guise of inspecting it, and my gut twists up in knots.

“Nicely done. I haven’t been able to heal myself since—I wasn’t sure your powers would work on me,” One says.

“Why not?”

“Our magic is powerful, but sometimes I feel like it has forsaken me.”

Our magic…

Something about the way he breathes the words sets my teeth on edge, and a wild hypothesis forms in my brain. “Were you a seed once?”

With a dark chuckle, he peels my hand away from his chest, breaking the spell. “Would you be less scared of me if I said yes?”

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