Page 72 of Hexed, Vexed, & Undersexed

Bellamy groans at the same time it clicks with me.

“Why can I hear your thoughts, Princess?” he sneers, and I glare at him.

“I don’t know! Don’t look at me!”

“Then who should I loo—”

He stops and we both turn to Mother Shipton who is wearing a serene smile.

“To outsmart the network, you’ll need to communicate telepathically, correct?”

“Huh, guess you have a point. . . although, I’m not overjoyed at having him inside my head,” I mutter.

“Ditto, Princess,” Bellamy snarls.

“Well, you two better get used to it if you're going to make this magical marriage work,” Mother Shipton announces.

There are several beats of silence while Bellamy and I stare in horror.

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?” I screech.

“Don’t yell, child. I’m two feet from you. And, you heard me. Congratulations on your second magic mating bond. Now, go make me proud.”

With that proclamation, she walks away into the fires of future-if-we-don’t-fix-it Boston. Bellamy and I watch without speaking—but mentally, we’re both losing our shit.

“Come on, we have to get back to the network,” Bellamy finally says.

“I think Mother Shipton reincarnated as my Gram. . .” I whisper mostly to myself.

I can’t believe I just got fucked—figuratively—by my dead relative.

Bellamy snorts.

“Well, believe it, Princess, because it happened. Now, pony up. You have a competition to win.”

“Me? Why me all of a sudden?”

“Because I’m magnanimous like that,” he counters, making me roll my eyes.

“No, you’re not. You’re a dick who’ll remind me for the rest of our ‘magical marriage’ as leverage.”

Bellamy just smirks, not refuting my words.

“Time to ‘wake up,’” he says instead, and I groan.

I dread whatever fresh hell is waiting for me back in reality at the studio, but all I have to do is win, lie about the location of the prophecies, destroy my family’s grimoire, and reconcile the Putnams and the Porters.

Hopefully, when it’s all said and done, I can get a magical divorce.

When I come back to myself from the hellhole Mother Shipton brought us to, I’m afraid to peek, but I know I need to. Barely peeling open one eyelid, I find that thankfully other than the water that seems to be draining slowly, there’s nothing new that has been thrown into the challenge.

The timer though, shows only two minutes left.

Fuck me.

"I'd love to, Princess, but we're a bit preoccupied,"Bellamy's thought filters into my mind.

"Yeah, well, your hard cock pressing into my ass is distracting,"I snap.