The Uncrossing by Melissa Eastlake

Author:Melissa Eastlake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Entangled, Teen, Teen romance, YA, YA romance, romance, Melissa Eastlake, m/m, gay, queer, diverse, lgbt, lgbtq, lgbtq+, romeo and juliet, retelling, fairy tale, fantasy, urban fantasy, witches, paranormal, boss, employee, coming of age, boy next door, magic
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC (Teen)
Published: 2017-09-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Luke brought dumplings to the next summit, too.

“Yum!” Marta whisked the container away to warm them up.

Alexei was there, at Sergei’s house. Jeremy lurked behind his elbow. He was barely dressed, still wearing his sleep clothes, including a Sergei-like white muscle tank that showed the sharp lines of his collarbone and shoulders. Luke almost forgot why they were there—but unless they figured this out, Jeremy wasn’t his to look at that way.

Jeremy had dressed enough to pull on his green cap, angled and pulled low over his face, and the one eye it revealed was hidden behind Alexei.

Camille propped herself in front of Luke the same way, obscuring his view with her hair. She smelled soapy and herbal, like SheaMoisture and home, and cultivated her ferocity like a model, hand on her hip.

Alexei smiled with genuine, crinkling eyes. “Come in and look at our secrets.”

Sergei’s dining room held three of the biggest pieces of furniture Luke had ever seen—a gleaming redwood table, a matching sideboard covered with plants and knick-knacks, and a looming cabinet full of enough plates to serve an army—under a high ceiling. Afternoon sunlight fell in warped squares through the window on one of the narrower walls, but it only made the rest of the room gloomier.

There were two folders on the table, Jeremy - 1, which Luke pushed to Camille so she could look at the contract, and another labeled Jeremy - 3. Luke started flipping through that. It was documentation of attempts to break or work around the crossing, and Luke had to admit it was thorough: fire, blood, water, herbs. All the notes ended with variations on the same nasty theme: he screamed, he passed out, it hurt him. Nothing happened.

Alexei sat down across from them, elbows on the table, and Jeremy slumped next to him.

“I have to ask,” Luke said. “What’s in Jeremy - 2?”

“Adoption papers and copies of my homeschool letters.” Jeremy spoke through a clenched jaw. “Do you need to see my dental records, too?”

This was a new voice, flat and horrible. Wait—

Camille was already done. “You didn’t tell me it said ‘only.’” She looked up at Alexei. “This is all in the original, the ‘only’ and the ‘first’?”

Alexei laughed mirthlessly and nodded. “The little witch is good.”

“Sure,” Camille replied. “Good enough to see it’s impossible.”

“What?” Luke asked. “Tell me.”

“‘The contract is void only when.’ Don’t you see? It’s a, what do you call it, to get rid of the pressure?” Camille snatched her fingers in front of her face, taking the word out of the air. “A release valve. It’s not meant to be a way out. It’s just meant to close off any other way out.” She paused. “I still don’t think this true love thing is real mojo.”

“How?” Luke asked. “It’s in the contract, and the contract is real.”

Camille waved that away. “I could make you sign a contract that said you’d do the dishes every day until you got me a micro-elephant. But you’d be doing the dishes for a long time.

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